Little friends

A friend of mine brought her daughter over last week to play while she did some shopping. She and Ezra get along well. But then, everyone and Ezra get along well.

Here are some recent quotes:

Elsie: Elliot, come quick! Ezra has his penis on!

Elliot: (knowing a friend from school is coming over to play later) Mama, once it's 7am, can we start cleaning my room?

Elliot: Mama, which is healthier, chicken nuggets, or chicken strips? Because I want to be healthy.

Elsie: Mama, I love you all the way up to the moon and back.

Elliot: Mama, have you seen the movie Homeward Bound? It was soooo good. A tear even came out of one of my eyes!

Skidaway Island

Today we convinced ourselves that we could indeed be a bicycling family. So Elsie and Ezra got strapped into the bike trailer and hooked onto Michael, while Elliot rode his own bike (still with training wheels). About 1/4 mile in we discovered that Ezra was using Elsie as a chew toy. Not good. So we put Elsie in the bike seat behind me, into which her feet almost wouldn't fit anymore, and left Ezra with the entire trailer to himself.

We had lunch at the observation tower, from which Michael took the picture of the marsh. It was about 73 degrees - perfect. You see Elliot here with the map, acting as navigator for the family. Of course we had another adjustment when we discovered that Ezra was eating dirt in the bike trailer. He was promoted to bike seat with me - hence the pink helmet. There were lots of roots in the trails, big enough to kick off one of Elliot's training wheels. Not the ideal for our first trail riding day as a family. But we think the kids had fun...

Snow cone day 2011

Tuesday was snow cone day for RUF SCAD. Michael rents a snow cone machine, makes a BUNCH of syrup, and takes a group of students to camp out in the middle of a 800 person freshman dorm. They put out signs and give out free snow cones to 5 or 600 students, talking to whomever they can, telling them about RUF. The kids and I caught the tail end of the giveaway this year. Elsie and Elliot both had 2. Ezra even tasted one. The older kids loved running around the courtyard, dripping with syrup, yelling, "free snow cones, free snow cones!" Ah, the life of a campus minister.

Chocolate candy cane, and happy