It’s been a quiet middle of August so far as the dog says of summer wind down into fall. Our garden has been blooming just enough to give us fresh tomatoes and basil for bruschetta. Grammy and Pop-Pop have been on a road trip to California and back, which means we’ve been bird-sitting Diggy and leaning even more on my own parents than usual for babysitting-related issues (and appreciating them more than ever!)

On the fifteenth, Mrs. B retired after twenty years with the Bellevue Public Library, so Vivian and I took the kids down to say goodbye. I first discovered Mrs. B’s weekday morning story time way back in 2013, when I brought one-year-old Hannah by during the week for a visit.

I got to spend a little more quality time with the kids down at Stinson Park as Mommy had an appointment at the Institute. Both the kids and daddy got to run through the fountains a bit over the noon hour, which was particularly fun. I’d also been making use of the rain-free weather to ride by bike to work, which worked out nicely as long as the tires don’t go flat (which one did at least once).

On Saturday the 20th, Vivian went on a camping retreat with her girls from WAG, which gave me a whole weekend alone with the kids. They got to have a little quality time both with daddy and grandma and grandpa Johnson, as I took them to Swanson Park to play and then spent the afternoon mowing the lawn and having dinner with the folks. My parents found a surprise squash in their garden, which we had for dinner with penne pasta.

Then on Sunday morning, we all got to go to Chandler Acres Baptist Church with my parents. Our own church no longer has Children’s Church available, so without that or Vivian or her parents to help corral both our kids in the service (during which time I’m handling the video), I chose to find another option for Sunday morning. Chandler Acres had some Sunday School for the kids, and I got to say hello to several of the people my parents meet with every Sunday. We went by Burger King afterward to get some lunch together before heading home. Vivian came home later that afternoon with stories of shooting bows and arrows at Platte River State Park. I suppose if she still updates her blog, we would get to hear more about that (but she won’t, so we won’t).