His garage and work room are full of tools, saws, lathes, wood, you name it. Like my mom said, "You can't have too many hammers." (He had two more hooks of them). Recently he purchased a lathe at a garage sale for $40. He let Misha try it out, and she was in heaven and so totally focused on her project. We were content to hang out and let her keep on working.
Later in the afternoon as the girls became a little antsy, Misha and Amy jumped on Grandma and Grandpa's bikes and explored around town. There is such a different feeling growing up in a small town. I felt comfortable letting them roam, whereas I would never let them go too far here at home. Kristen went for a walk with Chris and I and was content to play at the school park. There are times like this when I feel badly that she doesn't have a brother or sister closer in age. She is good about making friends, but more often than not she is left out of the Amy and Misha experience.
Before dinner, Chris came up with the brilliant idea of letting Amy drive. She was pretty nervous to begin with (and there was a moment or two when I might have been a little nervous myself), but she did pretty well. The drawback was that she wanted to keep on practicing again that night and every day after. I can wait a little longer.
After dinner, my dad took us to the Wetland Conservation Park at Stirling Lake. Good thing we had the Pilot. Bad thing that we had just washed it on Monday. The ruts of mud were a foot deep in places. Chris had fun using the four-wheel drive. We walked a couple of miles along the pathway of ruts. We saw lots of birds, an egg, and white-tailed deer.
My girls stepped in a lot of mud, and by the time we returned to the car, their shoes were totally caked in it. And it didn't want to come off easily. The Pilot was a "whole lot" dirty this time.
We noticed that the sunset had the potential for greatness. We dropped all but Misha off at home and drove to the nearby town of Raymond (about seven miles away). We still had some extra time before the actual sunset around 9:30 pm and drove around. The sunset did not disappoint. Misha never noticed. She had her nose in a book the whole time.
