monkeyshines

We have been graced as of late by many assorted and sundry visitors. Saturday brought Grandma and Grandpa S. and Aunt Hannah. While the rest of the crew took a stroll around the 'hood, Grandpa helped (and by helped I mean he did 100% of the work) us with the installation of a number of seeds and wee plants into the soil outside. Umm, what am I talking about? I am obviously a little sleepy. I mean, he planted us a summertime addition to our spring garden: tomatoes, zukes, peppers, etc. Right after the departure of the Farmville crew, a new group arrived, this one all the way from Florida! Mercer's aunt, cousin and said cousin's husband and baby drove up from Charlotte (where they were staying for the weekend). Their baby, Mason, was adorable and quite intrigued when faced with a creature tinier than he, as evidenced below. He reminded Mercer and me that we need to start thinking about transforming our house into a more baby-friendly place, and by baby-friendly I mean a place that will attempt to preclude major baby bodily injury.
Today we woke up and decided to go to the zoo. We fortified ourselves with some nourishing light fare (Mercer got chicken fried steak, hash browns, eggs, and toast, and I got the Southern Smother, which sounds like a wrestling move but actually entails drenching two biscuits in hash browns, gravy, bacon, and cheese, thus providing an only slightly slower death than an actual smothering). Everyone else in the Huddle House was headed to the Harley Museum, which is also in Asheboro. Also, I periodically forget you can smoke indoors in NC. Anyhoo, the zoo trip marked the inaugural voyage of Ro's stroller. We have heretofore been using only slings and such, but I wasn't sure if my back could take 5 hours. He took to it pretty well, but seemed shocked by all the space it afforded. We saw:

Nicolas Sarkozy and Tinkerbell (j/k, that's just le flash, because apparently I forgot how to take pictures), Tony Blair,
and Mahmoud Abbas and a few of his cabinet members.
Above is a picture of us leaving. You can't tell we're leaving, but that's what we're doing. Ro is chomping. On the drive back, we got to initiate the first of no doubt many end of a family excursion-type conversations: what was your favorite part of the trip?
Peace out!