30,000 miles and counting

• listening to: 'take me there' by rascal flatts, interrupted here & there by today's episode of 'the backyardigans'
• reading: 'the good earth' by pearl buck
• drinking: dunkin donuts french vanilla with a shot of hazlenut biscotti creamer. yum.

i just finished reading my book. i stayed up til almost 1am reading, and only went to bed when my eyes started blurring and i had to stop and think about who wang lung was. (he's the main character, by the way.)

excellent book. i see why oprah chose it as one of her book club selections. oh, and of course why it won the pulitzer prize in 1935. i think i'll be looking for more of her work when we go to the library today. i'm going to get the kids a few more books, whether they like it or not. reese and i read her junie b. jones book together a few days ago and i'm thinking we're not going to get anymore of them. there's a lot of name-calling in her stories, which i really don't think is an OK thing to model to beginning readers.

yesterday i took the car in and finally got the oil changed. and miraculously, the odometer read 30071, which meant it was a perfect time to get my 30K service (i got a laugh that about 40 of those miles i drove to GET to the dealership in the first place, but whatever). at first i was annoyed i would have to pay an extra $160 for the extra services as well as spend an extra hour or two with all 3 kids as the minutes ticked by toward lunchtime. but then i realized it was actually excellent timing, better than making an extra trip anyway. there were 2 other children in the kid's area at the dealership and they played with my kids and before i knew it, the car was done. we were out of there by 12:30pm.

we would have to drive past the zoo to get home from the dealership and it had been ages since we had been so we made a short detour. we have an annual membership to the zoo that expires in august so we might as well use it as much as we can. we ate lunch near the jaguars and we headed straight for the snake house as it started to sprinkle. for the next half hour we hung out in there as the rain came down. it was air conditioned and all the critters were behind glass, so i felt pretty fortunate.

when we ventured out after the worst of it, there were some monstrous puddles here and there
so i think the zoo must have gotten at least an inch or more in that short time. i was wearing my leather reef sandals though, and those got soaked. i still have orange feet from the dye/oils from wearing them when they were wet.

we finished our short tour of the zoo (it was getting close to 3pm and elisha had barely had a nap in the car earlier and cade was starting to lag behind), hit the gift shop, and headed home.

it was pretty fun, rain or not, and i think most of the fun came from the spontaneity of our zoo visit. the kids were wonderfully behaved and were more than happy to have cereal for dinner. now THAT'S a good day.