Just When It Couldn't Get Any Worse...

Last Monday, the day after returning to find Funny Bunny had to be put to sleep, we were playing with the new guinea pig for Daniel and our recently crowned grand champion guinea, Snowball, and noticed Snowball seemed to be moving very little and was not as animated as she had been previously. She wasn't eating much either, which made me think to myself that we were in for another loss thanks to the heat at the fair. About noon on Monday, Daniel commented that Snowball's eyes were changing color and the boys asked if I was going to take it to the vet and when I looked down on the living room floor, she was gasping for air and moments from death, so I explained to the boys she wasn't going to make it and a few minutes after noon, she was gone. I called Dawn at the Humane Society and brought her out there to be cremated and Dawn assured the boys her ashes would be spread on the garden out there at the Humane Society and that was all she wrote. It was thankfully not as tragic for the boys as Funny Bunny's loss and that evening, we stopped at Ben Franklin after Aaron's baseball game and picked up a new guinea pig that Aaron named "Spike" with mostly brown and black coloring. So having gone to the fair with two pets, we essentially came home with four pets. The bright side of all the recent loss is the boys have taken a much greater interest in the pets and have assumed much of the responsibility for caring for the new pets. Aaron takes the guineas out just about daily to play with together and ensures they are fed and watered.

This past week has been a busier week than most with bsaeball. On Thursday, Daniel had his T-ball game and in the afternoon when I arrived for Aaron's game, I found out it was a doubleheader with the first game against the Reds and the second against the Brewers. Aaron's team made great improvements over the prior game and came close, but unfortunately it wasn't enough, dropping both games by only one point. I believe he has two more games before the end of the season and tournament week. Next Wednesday is an end of season party the Parks & Rec Department is throwing for the baseball and soccer kids at Oakland Park so we'll probably go to that to celebrate the end of a lot of practices and games this summer and start looking forward to returning to school.

On Friday, I ended up volunteering again to drive the church bus back up to Baudette to pick up the kids from Lake of the Woods Bible Camp and the boys and I enjoyed a nice sunny drive. I taught them the phenomena of getting a train to blow its horn by honking the bus horn. Daniel was tickled pink at the result. We got two trains to do it on the way up to Baudette.

As for other TRF news, Pamida is to close its doors this week and I'm wondering how long it will be for K-Mart. We went to K-Mart and I picked up a "Zip-N-Hit," a rather simple contraption that helps kids learn how to swing a bat faster and with more accuracy. It "pitches" a baseball down a straight line of rope at up to 65 mph and the line acts as a guide for the bat in swinging. Aaron loved it today and was contantly asking me to come out and "pitch" to him, though he gets as much enjoyment out of pitching than he does hitting. Speaking of pitching, he's actually very accurate at pitching the old-fashioned way (without the Zip-N-Hit). I'm already thinking ahead to the winter and realizing this new contraption will make a good winter recreational tool as well, as it doesn't matter if there's snow on the ground when you use it and it can keep Aaron and Daniel warmed up for next year's baseball season. Aaron just asked tonight, "Can I be in baseball EVERY year??" Crazy Days has become Crazy DAY this year with only one day of activity. I may bring the boys out to get facepainted and/or check out the prices.

I saw my old friend from elementary school, Leland Mott, and his mom, Carol, at Wal-Mart last night. They were getting ready for a pretty sizable feast with a beef brisket about two feet long. The only thing I thought was missing was flowers for Carol's table, which they laughed about, but when they went off to the register, I enlisted the boy's help. We grabbed two bouquets of carnations and ran over to a checkstand a couple down from theirs and raced to get through it before they could so they'd get the flowers before leaving. They ended up finishing first, though, so we had to race out of the store and managed to catch them in the parking lot. The impromptu contribution to their feast was well received and the boys had some fun in the process (running in the store authorized by dad).

It's now 3 a.m. and I think about time to hit the sack. The thunderstorm that was to be this evening/tonight failed to materialize, so I guess we'll have to go a few more days wtihout rainfall. I've only mowed my front lawn twice the entire summer, so I guess it's not a bad thing, though the farmers probably disagree. For their sake, I hope the remainder of the summer is a little more wet.