Just kidding. But, wow, that is one orange shirt.

Anyway, the day was perfect for the maiden voyage of the as-yet-unnamed Subaru. The sun was actually out for once, and since Wright State University’s women’s basketball games are, apparently, poorly attended, we had access to an almost empty parking lot.

This is the Nutter Center. That’s right, Nutter. That name has always made me laugh.

Kory shows great promise, and I’m certain he will be an excellent driver. I hope he will have a better sense of direction than his mother. Fingers crossed.

We also visited Tara and her lovely daughter Addison last weekend. Addison is growing SO fast, and she’s utterly adorable. She was fascinated with Kory’s hair, and really, who wouldn’t be? I love her face. And she loves her lamb.

Tara is expecting another daughter in June, to be named Molly. I am expecting Molly to be just as cute as her big sister.

Stay safe and warm, everyone!

Fair warning – don’t click around on those photos unless you want to see a little more of me than I normally care to show. Just trust me on this one.

Anyway, I love the new piece. The last few times I’ve gotten tattoos I’ve said each one would be my last, so I’m not going to say that this time. Many people don’t “get” tattoos, or shudder at the thought of putting something on their body permanently for fear they will regret it later in life. Others worry that when they’re older the art will wrinkle and fade. My take on it is this: I don’t regret any of my tattoos because they are bookmarks for my life … places where I have stopped to mark something forever, and each mark has it’s own story. As to the wrinkled and faded part, I figure all of me will be wrinkled and faded at some point, and I’ll enjoy telling my grandkids about each of my bodily bookmarks.

A note to all three of my readers: I can’t BELIEVE none of you pointed out I spelled “among” wrong in this post. I’m an ENGLISH MAJOR for crying out loud, and that embarrassing mistake was up for months! Kory pointed it out, rather gleefully, last night. My defense is that I have always had a mental block on that word and I consistently put a “u” in where none is needed. Also, Wordpress doesn’t spell check post titles. And among doesn’t look like a real word. Among among among. See?

Isn’t that a cute book?

Kory forgot about it for a while, but he recently picked it up while looking for some new things to teach Riley. Hello, Riley.

Kory was a little taken aback, and highly amused, when he reached the chapter on How to Teach Your Dog to Detect Marijuana. Go ahead. Enlarge the photo and read a little.

The reference to the “friendly neighborhood drug dealer” and the claim that “everyone knows someone who smokes grass” were my personal favorites. And not just a little grass, either:

And then there’s the actual training:

I can’t help but laugh every time I imagine Kory out in the yard with Riley and a bag of pot, calling “Where’s the grass? Find the grass!” I’m sure the police station up the road would be enthralled. Either that or the neighbors would think my brain damaged son was trying to get the dog to identify the lawn.

I honestly thought the book would have been published some time in the sixties, but it came out a little later:

Lucky for us, Riley is not interested in becoming a drug dog.

She thought the book made a pretty good pillow, though.

My point is, I had a very uneventful trip to Louisville last weekend.  It was lovely, don’t get me wrong.  I spent some much needed and much appreciated time with my mother, my father, my sister, my niece, and my brother.  But we didn’t do anything special, other than hang out at my parents’ house.  And yet … I took sixty-three pictures.  Sixty-three!

I’m obviously not going to curb my photo-taking habit, but I feel as though it bears mentioning … sometimes it might be better to enjoy the moment, rather than take a picture of it.

That being said, my niece is as cute as ever, and I did come away from the weekend with a few lovely photos.  Thank goodness I wasn’t shooting film – I got roughly five good ones out of sixty-three.

To celebrate, we met the Koch family at the Cincinnati Zoo. It was hot out, but we had some cloud cover that made it bearable. The Cincy Zoo is really cool if you haven’t been, although it’s HUGE compared to Louisville’s. And the bird show was lots of fun.

It was not a good photo day for the niecii. They really just weren’t having it, even though they obviously had a great time.

I think the girls have been over-photographed. You bust out a camera and ask them to smile, and they just look at you as if to say “Again? Really? We’re tired of that.” And then they look away like this:

I had to have a monkey do a stand in.

Speaking of monkeys, I love this guy. He’s The Thinker of the animal kingdom.

I also love this guy. He’s a bad mo’fo monkey.

Now, I think my mother is beautiful. However, I can’t help but draw similarities between these two photos:

And it goes without saying that Kory is right at home in the zoo …

As is Vicki

As is Karen

As is Michael

Really, my family just consists of monkeys who fool you into thinking they’re people.

Dawn is less monkey-like, but she’s very well hydrated. Seriously, it’s hard to get a photo of her without a bottle in her face hiding that great smile.

Kory actually held Emily for once and I got that on film, rare occasion that it is:

Chip managed to get this lovely shot of Katie and the seal fountain, since she had no idea there was a camera in the vicinity:

All in all, we had a lovely time celebrating the fact that my only baby is one year closer to heading into the big bad world on his own. Can you imagine how I’m going to be when he hits sixteen?

This is how the ‘fro looks on an average day.  Kind of frizzy, a little out of control, and rarely symmetrical.  You would think that’d drive an OCD-affected person like Kory insane, but apparently his disorder only extends to alphabetizing the contents of my grocery cart and making sure the volume on the car stereo is always an odd number.

However, when you add water … strange things begin to happen.

It absorbs the water and repels it at the same time.  It’s fascinating.

While swimming, his hair never gets completely wet.  I’ve never seen anything like it.

This is Caesar’s Creek Lake, by the way.  It’s a lovely spot we discovered recently – I would spend much more time there if I could.

They have seagulls.  If I squint just right, it’s like being in Florida.

The lake is lovely, even if it reinforces my futile desire to own a boat.

Kory is turning fifteen next month (!) so I will, at the very least, have photos of that blessed event.  Until then, continue to be bemused and amazed by the ‘fro.

I’m committed to taking some fabulous photos this summer, though, so stay tuned!

Chip and Kory ran the Sugar Maple 5k … Chip went on to run the mini, so this is kind of anticlimactic, but it was still an accomplishment.

Right after this shot, Kory turned to me and said “Oh dear God, this hurts.” He hadn’t run in a while.

I took the smart route and walked. That hurt too.

Later that day, Chip enlisted the help of my friend Anna to give him a new ‘do, and let me tell you, she enjoyed it.

If you can’t tell, my friend Anna is kind of a badass. She’s a three time cancer survivor and she’s committed to helping cancer patients, so Chip’s tail went to make hair for someone else.

The beard went too, and here’s the new Chip!

I’m only guessing that enough people have seen him now that I’m allowed to post these. If not … sorry Chip!