life chugs on...

This is the game our kids play if we're working out front. This is our driveway. It's even steeper in person than this makes it look, so if we're cleaning vans or weeding or working in the garage, all the kids grab toy cars, and race them down. We join them if we need a break - it's actually really fun. This morning, we were fishing out the old tires for the Vanangon, and did the same thing, unintentionally. Mike pushed them out, and I caught them, so he could move them into the van. Well, I kinda missed the first one. It managed to right itself on its side, roll right down the driveway, through the cedar bushes and down the cliff beyond. Thankfully, it got caught by a ditch, and flopped by the side of the road. otherwise, we'd be fishing it out of Lake Okanogan right now. (As an aside, you can see the cinder blocks Mike plowed into at the bottom of the driveway, to the left. Grrr. Actually, I shouldn't be too hard on him. He got a $40 tip from a customer yesterday. Instead of making me make a second dinner (he got home at 9 - the kids had already eaten, and were just waiting up to say goodnight) he used it to order us a pizza and we had an in-home date of pizza and TV. He has his good moments.)

Speaking of good moments, we got John to do a little charity work a few days ago. There's a new tech at Mike's work who just immigrated from the UK (apparently British Telecom techs are very well-trained, so there's several of them working here.) Anyway, he came here with his wife and 2-year-old daughter, with just two suitcases. No beds, no car. Nothing. The manager has been lending them his personal car until they get settled in - he's been riding his bike to work most days. But because they were only able to bring a couple toys for their daughter, Mike thought it'd be nice for the kids to assemble a box of things for her, and drop it off. (Their stuff is currently on a freighter, so they have stuff coming, but have to live out of just a couple suitcases for two months until it arrives.) It was like pulling teeth to get John to help assemble this box! he fought hard to have every single toy stay in this house. But eventually, empathy won out, and by the time it came to dropping it off a couple days later, he had come full circle. He was pretty proud of himself for being nice to this little girl, who was in a strange new place with none of her things and so little to play with. We've been trying to build a little empathy in him lately. I don't know if it's because he's the oldest, or if it's just a phase, but he really sets himself very far apart from his siblings now, and can be very short and unfeeling. One day, they were all out playing with the garden hose, spraying each other with the nozzle. John got cold, so came in, but left the nozzle running, and set it near the door, so the little kids had no choice but to walk through it to get in. Then he closed the door behind him and turned on the TV. They wanted to follow, of course, but couldn't open the sliding glass patio doors themselves. I could hear them yelling, so went to investigate, and found John watching TV, completely oblivious to the two blue prunes screaming and banging to be let in. Joan was trying to escape the spray by hiding under a patio chair. Dave was just a sorry site - face smushed against the glass, with a torrential downpour of garden hose water washing over him. John and I had a long, hard talk about that one, as they dripped and shivered in the doorway. But after a few minutes, he realized his mistake, and actually offered on his own to bring them dry towels. As he wrapped each kid up himself, he gave them a big hug and an apology. So there's hope for him, yet, I guess.