"Hey Lydia, they have McDonalds here"

Things are settling down, jet lag quite wonderfully is being managed far better by the kids than by me when I make similar trips.  (Well, I do not cry quite as loudly as Luke, but I whine more according to Patt.)  Really the kids are sleeping well if at the wrong hours of the day.  of course we are having ample opportunity to expose them to sunlight and heavy outside activity which I think is helping.

And we are actually starting to do real things like run errands.   Yesterday for example, when I learned …"Hey Lydia, they have McDonalds here",  I heard Isaac say.  (No truer observation ever made.)  Isaac, Lydia and I were on the way to Lowe's on an errand in the convertible with the top down and stopped at a stop light (I know surprise surprise surprise being in Raleigh and all) and at said intersection there was a McDonalds which afforded the statement. I supported his observation with the comment that "actually we have a lot of them".

As could be expected, we are enjoying the basement and the kids do like their Mom to read to them.

We did spend an afternoon raking leaves and sweeping the deck.  Regular workhorses these kids were too, staying hard at the task at hand.

The yard only looks big due to perspective of the photo but to a small child I reckon it is.

and there were enough leaves at the end of the task to cover small children and allow for jumping into the pile as Julianna is mid flight.

Another afternoon was a trip to the library.  John Paul is only stationary as he is preparing for his next move.  He was not reading nor considering whether or not to read the book.  He did not consider long.

Lydia signing up for a library card. Patt arranged for the kids to get cards and my goodness but whoa boy are we now special with our own card — even a key fob thingee too.  

 And Julianna signing up for hers.  The librarian there has the patience of several saints.

And Laura can wrestle kids while finding books about tigers — There apparently and obviously are times when only Mom will do with the little ones and the library happened to be one of them. 

Lydia and Isaac were ready for some serious reading with Grandmama and she was ready to read.

--which Patt also does in the basement — 

We have also done some bicycle riding in the cul-de-sac.  Not the fleet of bikes, three of the five bikes belong to Mark who has loaned them to me, we got two more from a church yard sale.  I have forgotten which were which so lucky Mark will one day have even more.