LABOR DAY PICNIC IN THE PARK

When Mimi and dad were done with their hike, they came home just in time for our neighborhood Labor Day picnic in the park. Of course Mimi had to play with her boys Blake and Shad till they decided to go for a bike ride with Patrick (Shad's dad).

Then Mimi was left to play with Noah (pictured here with Mimi on the slide), while her girlfriends Halli and Erin played together.

In kindergarten there was a boy who would bully Mimi at times but somehow she has the knack to turn things around and this particular boy became her friend. Same thing happened with Noah here. Mimi would tell me from time to time how Noah would bully her at school and we would talk about it and now Noah is her friend and they played all afternoon together till it was time to go home.

I found out from Erin that the girls gave McCallister a new name. They all now call him "The Calli-nator". Where that came from I have no clue.

Even ole' Butch got to have a playdate with Reno at Reno's house.

HIKING WITH DAD

Since dad doesn't get to spend much time with Mimi during the week as his job keeps him busy and the project is so far away, I try to make sure he spends his Saturdays with her as their special father/daughter day. Today was not as nice as last Friday but still nice enough to go hiking and we have so many nice places to go hiking, that is exactly what they did. Butch even got to tag along much to his delight.

SLEEPOVER WITH HALLIWELL AND SARA

We are trying to get in as much summer fun as we can. So after lunch with dad we headed for home just in time for me to get our house in order and dinner cooked before our overnight guests were too arrive.

The three of them had loads of fun. I think that Sara who is the younger sister at her home really enjoys being like the older sister when she gets together with Mimi and her friends.

Pictured here the girls are having a movie marathon watching "The Pink Panther" cartoons and laughing themselves silly.

AT THE OFFICE

After lunch we brought dad back to his office. Mimi got a real kick out of that. She loved seeing how dad could have two monitors hooked up to one computer and how the items on the left screen with the help of the mouse could shift over to the right screen.

CALIFORNIA DREAM'IN

Last Friday was like any other day in Southern California except we are up here in Washington. It was clear blue skies, 85 degrees outside, traffic jam on the 405. The only two things that California has that we don't have is the aggressive drivers where they flip you the bird and honk their horns the nano second the light turns green. Don't miss that about California.

I thought that since it was such a nice day and nearing the end of Mimi so-called summer vacation, we would make a surprise visit to dad's office and go have lunch with him. Before she hit first grade we were able to do it quite often but now it's a whole new chapter in our lives.

Dad took us to a place called Anthony's down by the water. It was sooooo good to be out in the sun again for once.

TOTEM POLE

While up in Everett the other day, I spied this totem pole in someone's front lawn. As I got a closer look at it, I saw that it is a Jewish totem pole and thought "How cool is that?" If you blow the picture up you can see the menorah and the star of David. Just not sure what the three people represent though.

ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST