Busy Tuesday

My parents came back up yesterday morning, and we've been reading books, going for walks, and watching movies with them. The kids are really enjoying all the attention -- four adults to two children is just about right, in their opinion.

Today was kind of hectic. Daddy and I went over to the beachside to inspect a condo this morning, which was time consuming. Then I dropped my dad off at home, picked up T. and K., and we went to home school book group. Book group was fun. We usually meet at the library or a park, but today was at a home, and the hostess had made a variety of "Australian" foods for their family's "Australia" project. She had a meringue dessert with whipped cream and strawberries, pumpkin soup, little cakes with coconut, and toast with peanut butter. I'm not sure that peanut butter is Australian, but it was fine. The only food that wasn't good was Vegamite, which we were all supposed to taste, but which was so dreadful that I didn't make the kids do more than smell it (which was almost as awful). The kids each made a little presentation of their projects. T.'s presentation was very short, since he had made a nice cardboard boomerang, but didn't really have anything to say about it. After his first presentation, however, he told the mom who was organizing the kids that he wanted to make a second presentation. He stood up and told everyone about the dead opposum we had seen behind the library last week, with special emphasis on how it had been dead, and there had been lots of blood, and how the baby possums were crawling out of the mother's pouch. It actually had been sort of interesting, in a sad, gross sort of way, since the babies had fur on them, and some of the library staff were guarding the possums against the circling buzzards, and the animal control man showed up while we were there to rescue the babies and give them a proper upbringing. Anyway, T. told the story in a nice, clear way, which heartened me, since he tends to mumble through his poetry recitations, and the other kids were really interested.

After book group, we picked up my parents and we all went to the library. K. found a nice baby to play with in the children's room, and she did not want to leave when it was time to go, but the baby's mommy said they might be there again next week. After the library, Ed and the kids and I went to the pancake supper at church, and my parents went out somewhere else (my dad doesn't like waiting in line for food, or pancakes for supper, or crowds, or church, but otherwise he would have loved it).

*P.S. The opossum ties in with Australia because possums are marsupials, and there are lots of marsupials in Australia. This is probably really obvious, but I just wanted to be sure that no one reading my blog would think that T. was just presenting a gratuitous dead animal story.