once upon a thursday e'en

we had plans last night. grand plans: a picnic at the "spiderweb park" we recently found. the girls and i headed to pick grant up from rice just before 5. i went the usual way at first but once i saw the traffic on the 610 loop, i stayed on the back streets. as i got closer to the university, the car started giving me problems.

back story: about a month ago we took the car in because of a strange clicking noise and locking brakes. the mechanics fixed the clicking noise by putting the hood prop back in its holders (we is smart) and then changed the front brake pads to stop the locking. since then once or twice we'd had issues with the brakes sticking, not enough to really affect driving but enough to burn through tanks of gas with depressing speed. 

and then last night happened. about half way to grant the brakes were beginning to stick bad. the traffic was start and stop along main street and it was all i could do to get the car to move. by the time i turned onto campus i could no longer switch from first to second gear, the car would jerk to a stop almost as soon as i took my foot off the gas. a big problem. 

i managed to pull into the usual pick-up spot in a cloud of burning brake smell and called grant to tersely (and with very few expletives) let him know we were there and that the car was having issues. grant came and the car wouldn't move at all. we called the mechanic and looked into having the car towed. miraculously,  when grant gave it another go before calling a tow, the car was able to make it to the repair shop (that unfortunately is closed today [good friday] meaning our car won't be fixed until sometime tomorrow. but that's a whole other can of worms).

then we had to decide what to do next: catch the bus or call someone? we walked about half a block before trying to figure out what would be best and since i had the camera, i couldn't let the moment go undocumented (no matter how stressed or frustrated i was):

at this point we realized that we might need the car seats, so grant ran back to grab them:

and we continued our walk, heading towards a restaurant for dinner and decision making. the girls had fun for the first 100 feet holding my hands and spotting butterflies and lizards:

but then they cottoned on to the heat and declared my hands too sweaty to hold and just wanted to stop walking and "we're so tired" and "why aren't we going to the park??" etc, etc. three quarters of a mile later, we made it to ruggles:

while we ate, we came to the conclusion that we'd ride the bus and give the kids a night to remember. grant had his bus card on him and the girls would be free, so all we needed was my fare: $1.25. i looked through my wallet and discovered the dollar bill that hazel had found this past weekend, a dime and 12 pennies. so close. 

we started walking towards the bus stop (1.3 miles away), hoping to find loose change on the ground. how hard could it be? plus, we had hazel and lucy with us, who have no greater joy then that of finding money on the ground. off we went into the moon rise:

as we crossed the parking lot we studiously searched the asphalt. at one point we spotted an old bottle cap that we thought for a moment was a quarter. hazel, after discovering its treachery, said, "we were tricked by that d@mn piece of junk!" she is listening closely to someone's angry tirades, methinks. 

we continued with little luck (i found a penny in some dirt), wondering if we should start panhandling. grant, in a spark of brilliance, searched around some outdoor tables and struck gold, kind of:

that, my friends, was a quarter and my ticket onto the bus. with our finances in order, we picked up the pace and made it to the bus stop just as #8 was pulling up. oh, the relief!

hazel and lucy were so excited to finally be riding "daddy's school bus"! thirty minutes later, we had reached our stop. the girls were less excited to find they had another half mile to walk to get home. but we made it. 

i'm a little under the weather today so i don't mind not having the car so much. tomorrow we'll all ride the bus back to rice for a 5k and kids dash for me and the girls (lucy's first race [awwww!]). after which, grant and i are hoping the car will be fixed and ready for us to pick up . . . fingers crossed.

our wiggity-wiggity-wiggity weekend

friday was a blustery, cold day. so we spent it outside at the:

for zoo boo. it has become our yearly halloween tradition (well, i thought we had gone every year but either we didn't go last year or i didn't blog about it...). hazel found her wings:

and used the map to herd us in the right direction for the scavenger hunt:

lucy ran around like the crazy kid she is and took a spill:

check out that lower-lip action. once we ascertained her injuries were non-life threatening, we checked out the new elephant enclosure:

it's big. we found more booths, furthering our goal of scavenger hunt completion. i took this great picture of grant:

he took this great picture of the kids and me:

we bumped into the guy on a buffalo:

the girls posed by a web-y tree:

and finished up the hunt, earning themselves spider rings:

hazel felt a little jipped that this was the "big surprise" for completing. lucy was upset for another reason:

having to leave. we let them dig into their candy in the car, effectively cheering them up:

saturday was field trip day:

if you'll remember, last month's field trip did not work out quite as planned. there was a slight hiccup on saturday as well but we recovered quickly and ended up at the nature discovery center:

we wandered around looking at the flowers and grasses. lucy found a stick to carry:

we watched a beautiful monarch butterfly flit around:

and then, while playing in a sandbox, hazel and cameron found a dead one:

it was in pristine condition (and hopefully just died of old age) so we examined it closely:

and then layed it to rest in some nice soft leaves:

finally, we made like a tree:

and got outta there.

finally, halloween came and with it the scorned trunk-or-treat:

notice an addition?? grant spent all of his free time on saturday and sunday making lucy a "mean helmet" to go with her batmangirl costume. lucy whipped out her patented mean face to go with it:

we chatted with weird people:

played games:

had our faces painted:

(hazel still likes cats, even though she has asked several times to "return oliver and trade him for a dog.")

played with friends:

gave hugs:

and went home to sleep off the sugar.

surprises, good & bad

i've mentioned before that hazel and lucy are part of a preschool group. this month they have been learning about forms of trasportation: automobiles, trains, planes, and boats. on saturday, we went on our first fieldtrip:

the girls were excited. we packed lunches and headed to our friends house, where we parked our car and loaded up in the stroller to walk to: 

the nearby metro station. the kids were all excited to ride a train to the park (the same park that grant and i have unsuccessfully tried to go to several times): 

and as luck would have it:

so sad. we walked back to our cars and met up at another nearby park:

this is a tried and true park that we all enjoy:

that was the best picture i took. we all had a good time despite the heat.

hazel and lucy's newest extracurricular activity started monday afternoon:

swimming lessons!! the girls were pretty psyched to go. grant and i, on the other hand, weren't 100% possitive this was a good idea. hazel is kind of a wimp (i don't know where she gets that *cough*). i was sure she'd freak out as soon as she realized she'd have to get in "deep" water. i was not worried about lucy. i purposely waited until she was old enough to take lessons with hazel in hopes that her dare-deviledness would rub off. while we waited for the teacher to show up, lucy kept exclaiming, "i want to dive! i don't want to swim! just dive!" we convinced her that diving comes later and once the lessons started she was all smiles:

she had a hard time sitting still between turns. she'd stand up, run in an excited circle and sit back down. repeatedly. it was kind of hilarious. hazel surprised us by doing awesome. she raised her hand when the teacher asked questions, listened attentively and bravely jumped right in: 

the only hiccup came when lucy, who kept doing this:

fell in. luckily the teacher was right there and yanked her out immediately. lucy didn't seem upset, just surprised as she wiped the water out of her eyes. it did effectively calm her down for a little bit:

this next picture cracks me up:

the last activity was jumping in:

and the lesson was over:

someone didn't want to leave. 

both had a great time.