This and That

My desire to blog has been waning lately. I've been more engrossed in books and TV shows. I've been dealing with some body pain and I've been worried about my dad and some life changes he's making. My mind has been elsewhere so I've enjoyed getting lost in books and television, but I'm not ready to give up on blogging yet. I've been sitting on this post for awhile and slowing adding to it. I still want to document life somewhere, even if it's just for me. Nothing exciting, but just some of the things that have happened lately that aren't documented in other posts....

~Recently, Riley told me how her friend Bentley has a hamster. Apparently, he calls it 'Chubbers' since it has a chubby butt.

Fast forward a few hours when I was changing into my PJ's. Riley came up to me and started slapping my butt and announced "you have a chubby butt. Maybe we should call you Chubbers".

Nothing like a kid to keep it real...

Also, I almost titled this post "chubbers", but worried that doing so would bring too many creeps to this post. Eh, maybe it still will. Gross.

~So the school library was selling books for a quarter each. Riley picked out an animal tooth book initially, and I encouraged her to look for more. We settled on getting 4 books so I could just pay a solid dollar. Her second book was about being a clown. I momentarily tried to talk her out of it, but realized it was a quarter and I wanted her to have her say in the matter. I encouraged her to get some chapter books and we came across The Babysitter's Club series. I didn't read these as a kid, but have heard they are a formative part of many young girl's lives. I was tempted to buy them all, but let her choose one. She topped it off with another smaller chapter book. Then, she told me I should give her a dollar everyday so she can buy more books since she's sure they will be changing the selection. Lol. I hope she always begs me for money to buy books. Also, we're almost done with the one Babysitter's Club book we got and I'm kicking myself that I didn't get them all as she's really into this one. #nowIknow

~I finally got around to video taping Riley's 6th birthday interview a week after her birthday. I probably should have waited even longer as she and I totally butted heads earlier this day, she broke down, and while she came around, I think it caused her to be extra goofy in this video.

She then insisted on video taping me. She's been wanting to do this for awhile. Nothing exciting, of course and her questions were pretty standard (what I ask her), but I like how she came up with asking me about work.

~We recently went to the science museum to watch the National Parks Adventure movie. Riley loved it, but then became quickly bored, which we expected. Certainly more exciting when your kid has been so some of the locations shown. Luckily, they featured Devil's Tower in Wyoming so Riley was very excited for those few minutes.

Other than that, this was a lot of fun. Riley's at that age where she really enjoyed a lot of what this place has to offer and yet it feels like she could grow into it yet. So many more years of fun at the science museum I imagine.

This space man was a favorite for sure. Basically, there is a camera off to the side that video tapes you for 15 seconds, you enter your name and then it shows your face on the large spaceman above. Plus, your name is listed in the name tag area. We didn't know what we were doing at first, but once Jesse realized what was happening, he was all about trying it himself.

After the Science Museum, we tried a new (to us) Thai restaurant in St Paul called Mango Thai. It's super small, but really, really good. I'd totally recommend it. We really don't get to St. Paul much, but we've had a lot of luck with food there lately.

~Let's see, I should also mention some of the books I've been reading...

• The Other Queen, The Boleyn Inheritance, and The Taming of the Queen all by Philippa Gregory - I would recommend all her books (I've also read The Kingmaker's Daughters and The Constant Princess)
• A Million Little Pieces by James Frey - Meh. I know there's a lot of controversy about how embellished this book is, but it came highly recommended by a friend who I think has good taste in books. I was less than impressed with the writing style and almost gave up, but I will admit that the writing fit the topic.
• Pray, Eat, Love  by Elizabeth Gilbert. I'm not sure this is what I thought it would be, but in the end I really liked it. More than expected. I'm not one to keep books, but this is one I can't quite get rid of.
• Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. This is supposed to be a classic, but this 'dystopian' future was written in 1951 so I'm not sure it held up for me. Jesse gave up on this one, but I have a hard time doing that. Luckily, it was a short book and I was grateful when it was complete. 
• I'm currently reading Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. I'm just getting into it, but so far it's good.

~Turkeys. Oh turkeys... Not sure if you remember me mentioning the 6 turkeys I found in our yard last fall?

So throughout the winter I'd see them hanging out in a variety of spots near our house. One day, I only saw 5 and worried that something happened to the 6th, but then saw them all together another day. Apparently, I was worrying about the wrong thing as it appears that at least two of these turkeys are aggressively attacking cars. They are actually blocking traffic on a somewhat busy road and then attacking car tires. I'm not sure where they came from, and just when I think they've gone away, they show up stopping traffic again.

~And that's about it. I'll end this post with a picture of Riley with Ellie and Olivia. I'm friends with Josie (Ellie and Olivia's mom) and we finally got together recently. We were going to check out the wall of happiness at Southdale. Apparently, March 20th was the international day of happiness, but when we got there the wall of happiness was shut down early. No worries, we made our own happy in the play park area.