Sunday drive

I told Adam and Mark I needed more unstructured time with them.

After church we were sitting around and eating nuts and talking.  I brought up the subject of girls with Mark and I said, "No one ever said unstructured time wasn't going to include awkward conversations."

Mark said, "This isn't unstructured time.  This is nut time."

He took pictures of the three of us, but I'll just post him.

Mark at nut time.  Notice the broken rocking chair in the background.  It may have finally given up.  It was broken by that same redhead when he was a toddler and scaled the back of it.  We've tried to repair it and it has mostly worked but maybe not anymore.

Sunday afternoon found us with a little time.  A lot of our kids were busy elsewhere so we canceled Sunday dinner and went for a drive.

It was exactly what I needed.

We packed a lunch and drove west.  We went to Fairfield where there was once a fort and there is now a pretty little park.  We sat at a picnic table under a pavilion and ate and chatted and saw two of the biggest cats I've ever seen.

I thought maybe like there are mini horses, one was a mini puma and the other was a mini panther (puma is my favorite out of mountain lion/cougar/puma).  Mark said it was a puma pro or puma air (like MacBook Pro and MacBook Air).  It was just the kind of dumb relaxed conversation you have on a beautiful Sunday afternoon when the temperature is perfect and the sun is shining and you don't have a care.

Adam snapped a picture of us throwing back Diet Grapefruit Shasta like the fancy people we are.  I made Rice Krispie treats out of pumpkin spice Cheerios which seemed like a festive September picnic sort of thing to do.  I want my mom to notice that there are yellow peppers in that bag.  I don't just eat candy.  (She told me not to just eat candy.)

I was telling Mark a little about my family history in nearby Cedar Fort and how my grandparents had lived there before my dad was born.

I decided to call my parents and ask my dad if he knew where they'd lived.

My clever mom used technology to its advantage and called my aunt Claudia (my dad's older sister) on her cell phone.  She put her on speaker so we could hear.

Claudia described how to get to the house and we found it!

(We found it and a second choice but by texting the pictures, we found the real one.)

We took an alternative route home because Adam.  We saw the biggest antelope I've ever seen.  (Between the cats and antelope, you get the feeling that life is good in Fairfield.)

I made up my first ever joke and texted it to Fam-a-lam and Emma's the only one who reacted so she's my favorite.

Q:  What do you call an antelope that is too fat to jump a fence?

A: A cantaloupe.

See?  That's funny.

Maybe I spend too much time with 8 year olds.