Our Weekend

Jake has been out of town playing with his brother and his parents on the lake.

We had a nice weekend. I kept the kids busy. Saturday, we did some grocery shopping and then we went and looked at the small red door. The kids spent the rest of the day contemplating the secrets of the red door. Maybe it is magic. Maybe it only opens at night. Maybe they need to find the key that will make it open. We drew some pictures of the red door and what it might look like inside the door.

Then we went to the park, then we had the neighbor kids over for a couple of hours while their mom and I hung out. Her husband was out of town too. After nap we went to a new park adjacent to a lake, and then went for a walk along the lakeshore. Then we came back home and had dinner, and after dinner we took the 5-minute walk down to the local frozen custard place. (Kids and cones - bad combination. We concluded the evening with showers.)

Sunday morning we went to the plant store and got some mums for the front porch. Then our next door neighbor girl, who is 14, came over and babysat the kids for an hour while I went for a run. (Best $5 spent ever.) This was her first time watching the kids and I thought a quick little hour-long experience would be a good way to try it out. They played games and went to the park and it seemed to go well. 

In the afternoon the twin whisperer came over and watched the kids for a bit while I went to a small party to welcome several of our new faculty members. It was soooooooooo awesome. We are welcoming 6, I think, new faculty into the department and 4 of them were there tonight and every single one of them is fabulous! I am so psyched! Also, one of them has bought a farmette in a small rural town about 45 minutes away from here. He and his partner have 7 goats, 5 dogs, and 3 horses. He studies early childhood (focusing on preschoolers) and invited me to take the kids down for a visit because one of the goats is still being bottle fed for the next couple of weeks. How cool is that?!?

Words cannot adequately describe how psyched I am about the infusion of new blood into the department. These folks actually do empirical work. They get grants. This is huge...they are not Theorists who write about Foucault and never step foot within a mile of an actual kid. What I'm trying to say is that their inclusion in the department will aid in a slow shift in culture and values over time. I am hopeful that we can ultimately shift to a culture that acknowledges the value of empirical research rather than dismissing it as trivial. But not only that, they are personally awesome as well, so hooray!