Elena 
1. A week ago I got notification that a certified letter awaited me at the post office. In my experience, either something very good, or something very bad comes by certified mail! It was a Wednesday and I wasn’t able to get down to the post office. By Thursday I figured it was too close to the weekend, and by Friday I thought I didn’t want to ruin my weekend. But by Monday I went down to get the letter because curiosty got the better of me. I had to sign four different things before they gave me the mail. This had to be something really bad. Or really good. Then when I saw it was from the city treasury department I thought, “crap – I must not have paid enough city tax!” But that wasn’t it at all. It turns out that my street is scheduled to be repaved soon and it will be all torn up and then repaved. This will take a number of days and will cost me $311. Apparently there is nothing I can do about this.
2. Yesterday my pre-ordred copy of A Stolen Life
3. One of the things about Mr. Pete I have noticed over the years is that he is becoming more and more like my grandfather. I’ve heard it say that women tend to marry men like their fathers, and since my grandfather was my “father figure” maybe that is true. Anyway, when I was growing up on the farm, my grandpa had a field where he lined up all of the old cars that he was done driving. I remember when Mr. Pete and I first started dating, he was amazed at all the really “neat” old cars that were back there rusting away all in a row. I used to go into one of those old cars and keep my diary or even take a nap. They were also great hiding places. Well flash forward 40 years or so and Mr. Pete has an old car in the garage that he intends to refurbish someday (it’s been there for over 21 years – I know this because we had the car before we had Calvin!) He has also parked the old Road Master stationwagon against the garage – claiming that he wants to take some parts off of it – but I definitely am starting to see a pattern here! I’ve also seen the kids in there playing and I think Gabe took a nap in it! So history is repeating itself.
3. Next month, I want to have Gabe’s Sweet 16 birthday party and I intend to have it in the backyard. This gives me a reason to either get Mr. Pete to get the parts he needs off of that Roadmaster and get rid of it… or have it towed away myself!
4. One of the obligatory things I felt I had to do this summer was get the kids down to our local zoo. My trips to this zoo before have been kind of disappointing because the zoo opens at 10 and by the time visitors can get in the animals are already taking their first nap! But this time we went in the early afternoon and we saw quite a good variety of animals and I think the kids had a good time.
5. On Wednesday, I took Izzy, Noah and Gabe to the Harry Potter Party at the library. It was open for 11 to 18 year olds, so you never quite know what you are going to get. In this case, Gabe at almost 16, was the tallest and the oldest one there. They had some crafts. All three of them made a wand and Izzy made a snitch!
Now my kids have listened to all of the Harry Potter books on tape and CD, several times in fact. But there were kids there that REALLY knew their HP Trivia! There was a “wizard’s duel” where the kids had to line up, spelling bee style, and the library asked them trivia questions in fine detail! Izzy and Gabe were quickly defeated. Noah was able to make at least one round though!
6. The release of the last movie is bringing about a lot of the old controversy in Christian circles about whether it is proper to expose Christian children to Harry Potter becasue of the references to magic. (Never heard complaints about other magical stories like Lord of the Rings, Mary Poppins or the Wizard of Oz!). Anyway, I have found that the people who usually complain the loudest about the Harry Potter books have never read them! There are many Christian themes in the books and the main them is sacrifice and laying down ones life for another.
7. Scenes from the zoo.
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