See these monkeys? They totally got married on our field trip to the zoo before summer vacation. This reminds me of a story. Remember when my 2nd graders were trapped indoors for recess over a long New England winter?

After a long New England winter of indoor recess, a few of my kids began to play this make-believe soap opera (for lack of a better term). There was a husband, a wife, and a slew of naughty children. There was also a wizard. He struck one of the children with his magic wand and turned her into a cat. The next day, as I was working at my desk, the soap opera continued around me. I heard strange noises that sounded like a sick, deranged animal. Turns out, the cat child was having kittens in the corner. From that day on, the naughty children were kittens and the husband/wife team took them for walks using the chain links from the math tubs.


Benjy was not a kitten nor a cat. He was not even the wizard. He was just Benjy. May he always just be Benjy. And plus also, too, how will I teach without him next year? I had to promote him to 3rd grade. He's smart and all that. But, what about ME??????????

Here's my latest obsession. I. Must. Get. Myself. An. Alpaca.

I leave you with this. Proof that inanimate objects can breed.

We have friends. Real couple friends. As in they are a couple, and we are a couple. They have two boys. We have two boys. We're friends. We are BFFs and all that.

The BFFs have a house in Vermont. They've been building it gradually. It's a lovely home that resembles a farm house. One day it will have a toilet and running water and a real refrigerator. For now it has a pond with a huge splashy fountain. It has a fort for the boys and adirondack chairs for the adults. It also has a bunch of land and access to some amazing trails to take the ATVs on. No, we don't have ATVs. The BFFs have ATVs. We mooch off the BFFs. We also have our camper set up on their land. Not only are we moochers. We're squatters.

We took Viv the camper up to the property Memorial Day weekend. We also took Emma. The Lima Bean may be deaf. She may see the world through cloudy eyes. She may be 15 or 15-and-a-half or 16. But she's most def beautiful.

pet me. luv me. feed me soft food cuz my teef don't feel too gud anymore.

So this pond is quite the habitat. I personally can account for 534,113 mosquitoes. It also offers a delectable assortment of tadpoles and frogs, ants the size of my nose, and hovering bug flies that could be mammals for all I know.

We did not bring pet this home (the green one).
On account of the deaths of Fin and Rowley (the Shad Derby goldfish).
RIP Fin and Rowley.



See that raft? It had one hole in it by the time we left, a tiny hole to be true, so it was still pond-worthy. It's hard to tell how it happened. What with four boys between 7 and 11 doing pile drives and half-Nelsons and stone cold stunners. Yes, I know my WWE moves.

pet me. luv me. feed me and my friend chips and cookies with chocolate stwipes.

See that machine with four wheels? It's an ATV. Otherwise called a quad. It's loud. These are not allowed to run till 9 a.m. We woke up to the quad alarm in Vermont. Polywog Benjy learned to drive this one by himself on this trip.

The Wimpy Kid graduated to the big quad. Not that he gets to keep it. Though he told me, "I could ride that quad All. Day. Long." He didn't tip it once. This time.


We love our new BFFs and can't wait to go back to their quad farm. Of course, the camper's there, so we sort of kind of have to. Still. We can't wait.