A Week with Grandma & Grandpa -- and the Night We Had Some Tea.

It rained like, the first half of their stay. Lots of board games were played...
Olivia showed off her whistling. (She's already loads better than the rest of us combined!)
... they watched cartoons with Grandpa on his computer.
Of course, Grandma read lots of books... (Some were even to her grandchildren!)

And Grandpa was finally able to finish reading "Black Beauty" out loud to Conner -- two years after they first started it! (I missed that photo op.)

Mmmm, Graeter's Ice Cream!
Toward the end of their stay mom and I finally got some antiquing in, starting with some stores in Lebanon. (Well, one antique store, but it was a good one. We kind of got a late start.)

We also made it to the open-air flea market off of I-75. HUGE! It's a bit rough around the edges, but you can certainly find some good deals. We didn't even go through half of it. We had to leave before I spent any more money...

Then we went to our Happy Place: A bookstore with a coffee shop. You know you're with me on that one.

When the rain let up a bit, Grandma helped Olivia and Peter develop their batting technique.
Conner wasn't about to be left out of the fun.

The day they left, Grandma and Grandpa stayed long enough to watch Olivia's first T-ball practice before starting the long (14-hour) drive back to their home in Kansas. Aren't they champs? That's devotion for you.

Yes, it was raining again. But it didn't dampen Olivia's spirits at all. She was sooo excited to start her newest sport.

The Dayton Tea Party

These photos are mainly for my sister, who I know was quite interested in the Tea Parties being held around the nation on Tax Day. We attended the one in Dayton! Along with 6,000 8,000 other people, according to the local news.


I took pictures of as many signs as I could, as best as I could with two little munchkins wondering, "Where is the party?" and not at all impressed with where we ended up.

A good number of the signs were denigrating Obama specifically and his policies. But I ignored those: that was not at all the point of these demonstrations, despite what the mainstream media's headlines may have told you.

Besides, the more I listen to the news and fail try to keep up with the political issues, the more I realize that no one in Washington seems to be speaking for me. I do believe I may have to start registering as an Independent.

Speaking of feeling disenfranchised, the guy in the photo below kind of looks like Sayeed from Lost, don't you think?


"Get your filthy hands off my money!!" Too funny.

And my personal favorite...

"The Stimulus bites." The only thing funnier would be if the sign had been put on a yapper.

We were all excited to be there, really. Especially Conner. "Why do I have to go?" He had no desire to understand what all the fuss was about. He changed his colors a little bit when everyone was talking about it in school the next day and they thought it was cool that he'd been there.
Considering the number of people who showed up, the whole scenario was rather calm. The speakers were very difficult, if not downright impossible, to understand from the back of the main crowd. Plus, we couldn't see them. Not that it would have done any good to sit at the front of the crowd with kids in tow. We really went just to experience it all first-hand, and I am glad we did.

Now, there was the occasional brouhaha going on, but of course the second I decided to record some video it all died down. The lady in the video with the sign, "Honk if I pay ur mortgage" was cracking us up, along with the guy going around selling "Obamacards". That's capitalism at work, baby.



The crowd had just been chanting before I started the video. We weren't going out of our way to brainwash Sean-Peter, honest.

We didn't even try to stay for the whole thing. "We came, we saw, now let's go get coffee."
Besides, everyone knows...
Maybe we should send some more to the people in charge of our tax dollars.