HerdingChaos

Last night we were late getting started with our nightly family walk around the neighborhood. I worked a bit late and the kids all needed baths, so we didn’t leave the house until close to 9pm.

The walk we take is around 1.7 miles and is just a big loop through the not-very-busy neighborhood streets. Normally we take a double stroller and Loren rides most of the way and the other two kids sometimes ride and sometimes walk.

Last night it was already starting to get dark when we left. Loren wanted to walk as soon as we left the house and we let her. Loren is a pretty slow walker but she did a great job and ended up walking around 1.5 miles. By this time it was quite dark since 1.5 miles took her around 50 min. Around the time we put Loren into the stroller I almost ran over a toad with the stroller.

Andrew picked up said toad and it pooped on him. Then both he and Tracy pet the toad and in general had a good time. Becky wanted to show Loren the toad so she picked it up and the toad peed on her. After yelling “Ewwwwwww” Bec put the toad in the second seat of the double stroller and let Loren touch it. Everytime Loren touched the top of the toad she would scream-giggle-shake. The scream-giggle-shake is difficult to describe without a video, but needless to say she really had a fun time playing with her first toad. Loren’s reaction was then providing entertainment for the rest of the family.

This whole time the dog was not sure what to do with the toad. There was a close call. We had finished playing with the toad and placed him in the grass on the side of the road to which he was headed. We were securing the kids back in the stroller and did not realize that the dog’s leash gave him enough distance for him to get to the toad. I shined the flashlight on the toad and the dog was standing very still with his nose on the toad and he looked like he might eat the poor thing at any second. But we were lucky and he decided to leave it alone.

While I was out on vacation the scooter dealer called and said they could not reproduce the problem I had. Once I got back from vacation I went a picked it up. It rained the next few days, and then I flew out to San Jose for work. Yesterday was the first time I was able to ride it since I got it back from the dealer. The dealer was right and the problem is not there anymore. However, I think the top speed dropped 2 mph. I am not sure if the speed will come back up after I ride a few times and the batteries get a few cycles on them, but I rode to work and back on Friday and everything was fine. I guess it could be I gained enough weight on vacation that it dropped the top speed 2 mph…

I am not sure how long it has been but I am sure it is well over a year since we moved the office to the front room and left the downstairs master bedroom open for the kids playroom. When I moved all my computers I had this grand plan of everything having a place and everything looking neat (the wires mostly). I bought a spool of Velcro to tie up the wires and installed some new shelves in the new office. Well, tonight I finally cleaned the stack of crap that I never really found a place in the new office. I threw most of it out. I found the spool of Velcro and I am contemplating actually cleaning up the wires now that I can see them again.

I feel a nice sense of accomplishment for getting all the crap cleaned up. It only took me a few hours and now I wish I had spent the time to do it a year or more ago.

We have seats at the local AAA ball club along the third base line for all of the Friday night home games. My parents have the same package and they are one row in front of us.
Two weeks ago Andrew and Tracy and my dad went to the rock climbing wall. Andrew climbed a few feet up and came back down. Tracy was not allowed to go because she was wearing a dress. Dad told her to make sure and have shorts on for the next game.

All this week Tracy kept telling us that she had to wear shorts to the game. We dressed her in shorts and around the 7th inning dad took the kids over to the wall. Tracy started climbing and from our seats we could see her going up. She went all the way to the top and rang the bell!! She’s only 4! Dad has a picture from his phone, I will try and get a copy of it and post it here.

So tonight on the way to a friend’s house the scooter started acting flaky. It would only go 14 mph and the throttle control was acting strange. I have loaded it in a truck for a trip to the dealer tomorrow but I am really bummed. It only has 130 miles on it.