See how happy Annalie is in the above photo? She’s excited because she’s about to get her very own balloon animal, at long last.

A couple of years ago, we were at Spaghetti Works, one of our favorite restaurants in Omaha, and there was a balloon lady there. Annalie saw her while we were waiting to be seated, and asked if she would come to our table. We told her that she probably would, and that she could get a balloon animal if she did. Annalie spent that whole meal waiting and waiting for the balloon lady to come around. We finally asked about her, and were told that she had to leave. Annalie was heartbroken. We assured her that the next time we were there, if the balloon lady was back, we’d be sure to ask her to stop at our table. Since then, we’ve been to that same restaurant a half-dozen times but the balloon lady has never been back.

So when the balloon man stopped at our table as we were having lunch with friends in San Diego yesterday and asked if anyone would like a balloon, I watched Annalie’s eyes light up and knew I had to say yes. She chose a zebra, and all the kids watched with fascination as a zebra with a blue mane and stripes was deftly fashioned out of several long, thin balloons and a few strokes of black Sharpie. Annalie declared her balloon zebra was named Coyote, and that she loved him and would keep him forever.

“Remember that he’s made out of balloons, and balloons tend to pop after a while,” I cautioned her. “Enjoy him and have fun playing with him while he lasts, but know that he won’t last forever.”

Annalie looked stricken for a moment and said, “But I don’t want him to pop! I love him, and I’ll take him everywhere and take really good care of him!” I told her that I knew she’d be a good mother to her balloon zebra, but I just wanted her to keep in mind that balloons don’t last, so she wouldn’t be too sad when he was gone.

Before the meal was even over, one of the balloons that made up his hind legs popped. The balloon guy happened to be passing by when it happened, and he quickly repaired the damage with another balloon, cheerfully waving off my attempt to tip him for the repair.

After lunch, we set off towards the park so the kids could run around. We’d been walking maybe five minutes when Annalie tried to hand Coyote to me, saying she was tired of carrying him. I told her that she could carry him a while longer. She shrugged and walked on ahead of me.

Five or ten minutes later, Annalie decided she was really tired of carrying Coyote. She gave him to her friend E, who carried him for a minute before deciding he didn’t really want a balloon zebra. Next Annalie tried giving the zebra to E’s sister M, who politely declined. Bug didn’t want the balloon animal either. Noah wanted him, but with the enthusiasm for life that is typical of two-year-olds, he probably would have popped the balloons within a few minutes, so his mom said no thank you for him. Annalie pressed Coyote on me again, and since I had a shopping bag by that time, I took him and placed him in the bag with my purchases.

Later, on the 90-minute drive from San Diego back to Brenda’s house, Annalie spent a half-hour or so carefully untwisting the balloons until she had a long white snake marked with black stripes and a deflated blue balloon. Then she lost interest and abandoned the whole thing in the backseat of the car, where it slowly deflated overnight.

RIP, Coyote. You were loved briefly but fiercely, and you entertained my daughter well.

Bug lost a shoe at the beach the other day. We had walked a couple of blocks uphill away from the beach by the time we realized it was missing (she was sitting in the jog stroller), so I waited with the kids while Brenda went back down to look for the shoe. Annalie and Bug were having a fantastic talk about their wishes, mainly involving wanting the world to be made of delicious foods, so I scrambled for my camera and took a couple of short videos. They’re upside-down because I was trying not to interrupt the flow of their hilarious conversation.

Sadly, I missed taping the part where Bug was wishing the whole world were made of candy. Annalie informed her that if the world were made of candy, then she’d have to go to the dentist a lot. “Why?” Bug wanted to know.

“Because if you ate all that candy, then you’d get lots of cavities,” Annalie informed her.

Bug thought about that for a minute. “But I wouldn’t eat a LOT of candy every day, I would just eat ONE piece.”

“Then you should just wish for one special piece of candy every day,” Annalie advised her. “That way you’d enjoy it more.”

“Yeah,” Bug immediately agreed. “You’re right. I would just wish for one special piece every day.”

*Pah is Bug’s word for pacifier. She has pretty much stopped using pahs, but she remembers them fondly.

“Our flight from DCA-LAX leaves in just over 12 hours. Am I all packed? No. Am I mostly organized? Sort of. What am I doing right now, other than blogging? Oh, messy crafts with Annalie, contemplating baking cookies—the usual, in other words.”

I wrote those lines last night when I should have been busily packing and preparing for our trip which starts today. I’m actually writing this at the airport, sitting at our gate, while Annalie plays with play-dough. I did make cookies around 11pm, because when I said something about how I’d wanted to make cookies, Troy said, “You still can!” So I did.

I was planning to finish this blog post last night, too, but instead I crocheted while Troy and I watched the last two episodes of Season 1 of Veronica Mars on Netflix Instant. (Have I mentioned how much I love Netflix Instant?) So I’ll write my catch-up post this morning instead.

Troy was on leave for a week, just because he had the chance to take some time off before things get busy again this fall. The week started out auspiciously, when the goldfinches came back. We saw a goldfinch in our neighbor’s yard a week or so before, and that day we saw a dozen goldfinches! A whole charm of goldfinches. I’ve seen them several times since then, too.

Out hostas, about the only flower we have in front of our house, have been blooming like crazy. I always forget that hosta blossoms actually smell good until they’re blooming again. And they’ve been hosting a million bees and butterflies, which has been fun to observe.

Since Troy was on leave, we took that road trip to North Carolina and Virginia Beach last weekend, but other than that we just hung out at home, enjoying having Troy around for a few days. We ran errands, we went to the park, we goofed off, Troy let me sleep in whenever he could. It was really nice.

One day last week, when it was rainy and considerably cooler than it had been, we had a fire in the fireplace. Annalie has been begging all summer to for a fire, so she was thrilled.

Then we toasted marshmallows, because why not? Might as well, if you’re sitting in front of a fire anyway.

The day it rained, I also took advantage of the cooler weather to enjoy some of the tea that Lauren Hewings bought me from England. I drank my PG Tips (England’s No 1 Tea) from the mug I painted with Lauren Carter when she visited me in San Diego last January. The internet has blessed me richly with so many good friends!

We hit the Museum of Natural History one day. Annalie could go there everyday and not get bored, I think. So could I.

On Troy’s last day of leave we went back to the splash park. We had originally been planning to go miniature golfing at that same park and then cool off in the water, but the day we had planned to do that was the day it rained. The next day was sunny and warmer, but because of appointments in the morning we didn’t have time to do both.

Annalie had been really excited about what was going to be her first time miniature golfing, and she was disappointed that we couldn’t do both. But she handled it really well. She decided that since the splash park closes at the beginning of September and we wouldn’t have another chance to go there this summer, we should go do that, and we could mini-golf another time.

And we did have a lot of fun at the splash park! Annalie had a fantastic time playing in the water with her dad. Troy was properly impressed with the coolness of this particular splash park.

Annalie especially had fun ordering Troy to stand underneath the buckets, where he pretended over and over again that he didn’t know he was going to get dumped on, much to her amusement. Ditto for the mushroom shower thingy. Troy was a very good sport.

Even though none of us wanted Troy’s leave period to end, this was a good way to end it.

Now, I think I’m all caught up! Except for the pottery photos I need to share. But I’ll do that another day. Because now we’re on the plane (thank you, gogo in-flight wifi, for making my first blog post from 30,000 feet possible—the future is now!) and on our way to California.