After we had been home from our trip for a few days, Paulie, Jeremy’s parakeet died. We buried him in the front flower garden and Jeremy made him a tombstone.

It reads:

(Polly is under this)
R.I.P.
Here lies Polly
the dead bird.
Please do not
disturb.

We have since gotten a pair of finches. They are very nice birds and have a sweet chirp.

Bubba's Single-Wide on a Stick

Sam is SUCH a meanie!! When I visited last year, I refused on principle to go to the Clinton Presidential Library. (click on title for link) On this trip, we all loaded up into the cars because he was going to show us all around Little Rock. Somehow we all arrived at the Clinton Library. Sigh.

At least it wasn’t a complete waste. They had a replica of the Oval Office and another of the Cabinet Room. That was really interesting.

I still preferred the neighborhood tours of Crepe Myrtles and the game "Guess what the neighbors are like". ;^)

The Big Bang

Mom had a few odds and ends of fire works that she let the boys shoot off, or did for them. The fun really began when Ray arrived. Then the smoke bombs came out. Ray also let the boys get creative when it came to setting off firecrackers – in cans, under rocks, even trying to shoot them with the BB gun!

The boys had a blast in Iowa. Not only did they sleep in the tent, they also got to shoot Rays old BB gun. They spent three hours on that the first day. They started out either standing or lying on the ground to shoot the target. After a while Mom and I went into the house for a while. When we came back out, Larry, Mike and the boys had lined up the lawn chairs and were passing the gun back and forth, not even bothering to get up to shoot! ;^)

Jeremy had a blast terrorizing the cows across the road. When the cows came up to eat, he crossed the road and started mooing at them. The poor things were so frightened of him that they wouldn’t go near the food. Jeremy thought this was great and tried to repeat the process every day.

Jeremy also spent a great deal of the time in Iowa trying to catch a rabbit. This is turning out to be a tradition for him. When we were home last time, he asked Mom to leave the trap up – until Easter. He was worried the Easter Bunny wouldn’t visit if he tried to catch rabbits.

Joshua enjoyed catching fireflies. He had a jar, but was not happy to discover that they generally don’t last the night in a jar.
Larry let the boys drive the riding lawn mower. They had a blast doing that!

Sleeping Under the Stars

(Photo by Jeremy)
Mom thought it would be fun to set up the tent for the boys to mess around in during the day. Then she decided to offer Jeremy $5 if he would spend the night in it. Of course Joshua had to get in on this great deal.
We sent them outside for the night knowing they would last about half an hour, tops. They actually lasted the night! (My boys are serious about earning money if there is no work involved!!)