Now I can live in America

Today, I discovered that Safeway stocks Okra Pickles from Texas. These pickles taste just like pickles should and go a long way towards helping me feel at home in America. Finally, I have something to eat with cheese. By contrast, the bottled onions I bought turned out to be just bottled onions, no pickle at all! It was a sad moment. The only pickled onions I can find are cippolino's in the pickle bar (aka Olive Bar in US supermarkets). I have also found Lindemans SOUTH AFRICA Cab Sav at $6 a bottle! It is a delicious drink-now South African red at a great price.

When I bought the wine, Wren embarrassed me by saying "'ine, dada" very loudly and pointing at the bottle. Everyone must think we are regular alcoholics for our little baby to have wine among his first words.

Wren has decided to walk face first down stairs. Until now, he has been crawling backwards in the recommended "feet first" stance. Walking down stairs is much more dangerous and he has already fallen twice today. I am having to escort him down all steps. I should have expected this. For the past few weeks he has been "practicing" stepping up and down any change in grade saying "up-down" as he does it. Honestly, he has done it hundreds of times. Now I see that he was really working on something and feels he has passed the test. Josh says "he had to learn it sometime" but I wish he had waited until he was a bit more able to judge the implications of a fall.

This evening, Frost had his last Husky Soccer Team practice. I had failed to bring snack along so Frost was fake weeping about "how you should ALWAYS bring snack" and Wren was saying "num nums" and crying when I would not share the stick of gum I gave Frost.

I decided to stop at Dicks for burgers.

Dicks has very cheap, relatively good quality beef burgers. They are a bit of a local institution. Frost complained when I said he should share his shake with Wren so I decided to buy them both basic burgers - patty, bun, mayo and pickle. Frost said he didn't want pickle and he wanted strawberry shake instead of the normal vanilla so off I went. Five dollars later I had 2 burgers and a shake. Wren grabbed the burger from me and tried to eat the foil wrap saying "num nums" in a muffled shriek. I guess he was really hungry. I unwrapped it for him.

By the time we reached home he had eaten 3/4 of the burger.

In a weird coincidence we ended up driving home directly behind Joshua in the Subaru. What are the odds of that?

Josh was sad we hadn't bought him a burger but with groceries so expensive I feel compelled to eat what we have whenever possible. Today, I filled the minivan with gas and spent $72. Yes, seventy two dollars. Ouch.

We are going to be hiking in the wild bushes of local parks this summer, not in the wilderness 2 hours drive from here.

We are interviewing decking contractors. THe one we saw tonight said the deck could be made within 2 weeks. I like that thought. We would have to hold a deck warming BBQ ASAP.