Today was a conference and Avengers. Another Lehmann day. I got called at the last minute. I had written it off since I was wait listed and then quickly penciled it back in on Tuesday. My neurons are satisfied now. It was a lively rehab discussion. The horticultural center is always calming. It rids me of my nature deficit disorder .

Then rush, rush, rush. Grab pizza, grab girls, grab date, drive fast to a second viewing of the Avengers. It was great the second time. The priceless moment was having 6 Christians laughing and cheering at the best line of the movie:

The female assassin Black Widow makes a comment about the battle between Thor and Loki, though depicted as aliens in the Marvel films, revered as “gods” in Norse mythology.

“There’s only one God, ma’am,” Captain America responds, “and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t dress like that.”

How much to you change your day? This day had tons of unexpected events. I think it worked out.

I got an itch to take the girls to pet Norwegian Fjord horses when I got the schedule of the day a few weeks ago. Additionally, the Nordic Heritage Museum was free with kids activities. The issue was Sara being in school. Audra had told me long before that parents can take kids out for educational activities without difficulty. Last year, SPS got more strict with vacation policy. I’m not sure how that impacts a day trip.

Oddly enough, Sara provides me an excuse. She has started coughing more in the past day or so. She’s had a leftover cough from a cold that hasn’t completely gone away. As her cough as crescendoed, I took her to her appointment. It corresponded to fest time. Unfortunately, the doctor handed me the sample for pertussis and told me I’d be taking a quick trip to Children’s to drop off the sample. He reassured me that all coughs have to be sampled and Sara could return to the world. Yet, he was asking me to make a 2 hrs trip (no trip to the hospital is quick).

I dove into the day and took the girls to Webster. The horses were there. Sara innocently took along an apple she was eating. We got to the horses and wondered what to do with it. Meeka, our first client, had ideas about that. We got a joyful episode of Meeka dropping the apple. The apple halved. Both girls got to help Meeka with her apple. Meeka drooled long, viscous streams of yellow saliva after this. The owner brought in carrots to let kids feed Meeka and mine were the first volunteers. We decided Meeka was our favorite and her name would be a good one for a dog. We moved on to Liv, Sibje, and Hansey feeding hay to all.

We moved onto the museum. We walked back to the cafe and trialed an almond cake while the girls colored window decoration. Sara took us through the immigration exhibit on the first floor remembering her social studies project from last year. She taught me and Laura the coolest features. I was amazed how much stuff get blocked by the Xmas stuff that I don’t see when I visit during that time.

Sara back to school. Me and Laura to Children’s. We walked in. I got badged, registered, and donated my first born. Let’s just say it took an awful long time for a “drop off”. Laura slept on the way home. Home for only 40 min. I prepped dinner.

Then off to pick up Sara from art. She’s having fun working on lizards right now. We waited for Wayne to get off the bus. We got to pet dwarf goats named Calvin and Hobbs. We were not bored to my husband’s surprise.

Quick eating and packing and then…parade time!

We didn’t plan to meet anyone. I’ve tried that in past years with poor success. God provided this year. We settled in front of the Bike Shop. There was more room for late arrivers like us (5pm?). It was near Aster which had a bathroom. I got rocking lemonade.

We settled in and the friends came to us. Kjrsten et al and Claire et al added up to 8 girls and 4 adults. Our friends had been at a fun BBQ with face painting of the nordic flag on their face and homemade flags.

We cheered Whittier unicyclists. We cheered Meeka and her mates. The marching bands had us dancing. The Nordic costumes were lovely. The cooling made them more tolerable.

Complex, but fun.