Visiting Brian and Deb in Chautauqua

The grounds

The hall, where I got to see them play.

Their land. I have land, but now I want more.

"Daddy jump!"

Cool rain storm.

Epic Parenting

The wife, back there in third place.

And after, happy.

With C's bike race taking up a little under two hours on a tough course under thundering clouds today, we both thought that it might qualify as an "epic" ride. But just as epic, I realized, would be my parenting assignment: to keep two kids who'd been up until 11:00 the night before happy in the rain. Fortunately for me, kid saviors in the form of our friends the Floyd children (B refers to them as "my friend Floyd") showed up and made my job a simple thing.

C had that special kind of happy vibes you only get after two hours of racing your bike around. You can see it in her eyes here. I was jealous all the way home.

Some early summer scenes

Chamomile

Coreopsis

Dog, bath.

New book store cat

New raised bed.

Like Abe Lincoln

We had, like, no power from six until well after midnight last night. It gets dark. How are you supposed to read? Cath started Cormac McCarthy's The Orchard Keeper by flashlight, but I switched to the iPod and then switched to putting J back in bed when she got up and walked down a pitch-dark hallway and stairs to tell us she was "scared."

Final Moments

2:33

2:34

2:35, and it's all over.

Here are most of my student assistants from this year. Zan and Pavan are missing. I'd never agreed to having an assistant before Nathan and Erin (not pictured) convinced me last spring. Thanks to all of you for teaching me that there are more important things to do during my prep period than actual prepping:

watching The Office on Hulu
Pitchfork.tv
coloring
practicing the cursive "z"
Slushee wagers
brainstorming ideas for AP Comp papers
waltz lessons along to Gillian Welch's Revival
getting ideas for funny things to say and do to students from Teri
trying not to tell you I knew Teri won the writing contest
getting Joe and Nathan into Collins LLC
deciding which days to go to the P4K Festival
Wii
trying to get Teri to go to IU
trying to make you all want to be English majors
and so much more.