liralen: Finch Painting (yarn)
[personal profile] liralen
I got up before Jet, which is very unusual. I was all dressed and off to the restrooms to put myself together, when I got back, Jet was just up and getting into his clothing. We had a cold cereal breakfast, and gradually put more and more stuff into the van and ended up with nothing in the camp site and everything packed up and ready to go.

We went out the south entrance, through the Grand Tetons, and then headed on a diagonal down to 80. Somewhere in the middle of somewhere, we found a Dairyland burger and ice cream joint with "cheesewheels", which, amazingly enough, were cheeseburger patties that were breaded and deep fried! Ee! We just had hamburgers, fries, and milkshakes, which were very good. It's been a long time since I had a hot fudge milk shake small enough to not make me feel like I was killing myself to drink it all. Jet enjoyed his lemonade and grilled cheese sandwich.

I did some of the driving, and had no more two-lane road adventures, though I did pass a few folks. I did, however, see one example of an insane Californian who passed everyone and everything even on double yellows who nearly head-on'ed into someone and then kept up the insanity. I was glad they were well away from me so quickly.

When I wasn't driving I worked on John's sun/moon sweater. I actually worked on the dark sleeve and finished it and started the cuff of the yellow sleeve while John drove. I-80 proved smooth enough, and I-25 was insanely congested, but straight and smooth, so it was easy for me to knit while Jet watched Finding Nemo and the extras for it and for The Incredibles. We got into some thunderstorms in Montana and then in Colorado, again.

Much of our route was through the Painted Valleys which were beautiful, all the colors I normally associate with the Southwest or with Utah were all here, which was a very different view of Montana than I normally got when driving through it. It was a wonderful alternative to the wasteland approach by I-25 and I-90.

We got home late, around 7:30, and stopped at the Souper Salad for dinner, and closed the place down at 8. We had a good dinner, though, as we knew there was nothing at home. When we got home, John turned on the water heater, and the house was so hot it was crazy. It wasn't much cooler outside, but we opened up all the windows, turned on the attic fan and let it go. Everyone had a shower and cooled off by drying off and running around in our underwear as we gradually unpacked the stuff we were using the most.

It was good to be home. So good that Jet was exploring the mountain of mail, his room, the basement, and everything else. He was so happy just sitting and poking at His Stuff. He got a Lego catalog and wanted, immediately, to buy something out of it, but after counting his money, he needed four more stamps, so he thought of all the ways he could get them. I was happy, too. Happy to finally be where things were ours and just to be still again. The garden had survived and thrived quite nicely, on the most part, and there was a spillage of the Green Zebra plants onto a bench, which I was sad to see; but everything seemed remarkably alive and happy, though. I was impressed by that. The hanging cherry tomato seemed a bit thin; but all the dead stuff had been pulled out of it, which was really nice, and there were ripe cherry tomatoes all over it. Some had been, clearly, picked, which was great. The zucchini plant had one medium sized squash on it, but, clearly, folks had been eating off it, too, which was cool. I love supplying the neighbors when they were doing a lot of the work.

I'm so glad we're home. I'll see if I can sleep tonight, as it's just so hot. Whoof. I'm also completely amazed at the Sheer Amount of stuff we bought home with us. Lots of great food from the Northwest, and I'm going to have fun enjoying it.

"earning"

Date: 2006-07-25 12:45 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] anitar.livejournal.com
What are some ways that Jet currently earns stamps? My grandson is past the stage of getting a new little car for pooping. But now he's got a medium-size fire truck that needs batteries for the lights and siren to work. When the first set of C batteries was used up in a week, we asked him to help load the dishwasher and help Jack by taking clothes out of the dryer (less bending for Jack is a real help!) to get more batteries. He got the concept right away! He'd bought some hot wheels track at a garage sale for a quarter, but understood that batteries cost "lots of quarters!"

Probably rechargeable batteries would be a good notion.

Re: "earning"

Date: 2006-07-26 01:46 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] liralen.livejournal.com
Rechargeable batteries are a great notion. Jet knows that he can put batteries in the charger, but has to wait for them, and that works out well.

At the moment, Jet's getting stamps for setting the table, helping to cook breakfast or dinner, and for doing something to help someone. And it's been fairly broad, and we try to discuss it with him before he does it. He's helped with the yard work, pulling up weeds in areas we tell him to pull up (he loved doing that in a way that was 'safe' for him and for the plants we cared about, as in the rules were very clear about what he could pull and what he couldn't), and with picking raspberries at Granny's. So he's doing lots of different chores to earn things.

He's doing really well with it. The local library had a reading summer program and he got that right away, every time we read a book together, he'd carefully mark a "pawprint" and when they were to a certain number, we went to the library and he got his prizes. So the concept has carried well to other things.

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