Water Wars

I made a double batch of the famous sourdough pancakes this morning for all our houseguests. No one was disappointed. We hustled off to church to catch the second service, leaving Dani and Chris behind. What we didn’t know (because we haven’t been there for a few months), was that they changed the start time of church for the summer, so we were a good 45 minutes late. We just headed home and skipped the embarrassment. I had plenty to do anyway trying to get the yard in good shape before our next wave of company arrives. I got so hot spreading beauty bark and pulling weeds that I offered to be the target for some water gun shooting. That’s when things got out of hand. Tobias didn’t know when it was “enough,” so that started the war. It was them against me, then Kaleb and I against him. Kaleb and I were drenched. Tobias, not so much. He’s a clever guy, that Tobias. But I got him good a few times with a pitcher of water when he least expected it. He retreated to his room upstairs for a good long time. Seems he decided to take a nap. Kaleb and I snuck upstairs and dumped a glass of water on his face, just for revenge. He didn’t even scream or react in any way. He just wiped his face dry then went back to sleep without giving us any sense of satisfaction whatsoever. The water wars ended there, at least for now. I’m locking our bedroom door tonight, though, just in case.



Kaleb was actually on very good behavior today. He cleaned out the inside of our Honda van, vacuuming the inside, washing the floor mats and the inside of the windows. He was nearly a dream child for several hours straight. He didn’t whine, whimper, complain or cause trouble. It was an answer to prayer, as I needed to see some goodness in that boy or I might have had to take some drastic measures soon.



Dani and Chris were here all day, doing laundry and cleaning their travel trailer. I managed to get some yard work today as well. Chris and Kory took our rubber raft out on the Skagit River for a little test run to see how it is to float downstream (see photo). They were gone much longer than expected, but had a good time just the same. It was some kind of male bonding, I’m sure. Kory wanted to take the boys out, but I insisted he do it without them first, just to be sure is was safe. They came home alive, so I guess all went well.



We had a big bonfire tonight, burning up some tree branches and yard waste. It was like summer camp, sitting around the fire, avoiding the smoke. The boys managed to NOT fight much today and they even acted like friends and played together a bit, so I hope we are through the worst of it. Tobias’ parents come in a few days so that will change the dynamic between them quite a bit. I’m looking forward to it.