Shortly after posting the last entry, I got the bright idea that the dc could come out to the garden with me and help me finish things off! So that is what we did! We did a bit of weeding. We got the 3 bags of mulch laid out around the veggies and rest of the garden. We set up the cages around the flopped over tomato plants. We laid out the final 3 soaker hoses on the hillside garden. Done! Whew! It was shortly after 10am and we were dirty and hot but I was thrilled to finally have an item checked of my to do list!
After we cleaned up we did some school. That evening dh had an Awanas planning meeting. So I took the dc to SeaWorld. Since we have season passes, we have seen all the shows and don't care if we miss one. We were hoping to see the Sea Lion show for the evening but had just missed it. So we settled on getting ice cream all the way out by Shamu stadium. It is great to do the park in the evening. The sun is slowly setting so we have lots of daylight but lots of shade as well. Then we walked all the way to the dolphin pool and watched them swim round and round. I considered rounding up the dc to head home so I could get some work done, since the park was closing in 20 minutes. But I decided to just enjoy the quiet evening with the dolphins swimming. While watching them, I thought about all the neat little things we get tos see at the park since we have season passes. There is never time to cram everything into one day. But coming and going and hanging out for a while in one spot offers fresh and surprising opportunities...like that night. Shortly after I was thinking about this, one of the trainers came up to the shallow end where we were. She had a bucket full of fish! It was official feeding time. This was nothing like the itty bitty fish snacks we pay $5 a tray for in the middle of the day. These were huge! This was no snack. This was dinner! All the dolphins knew it too! We were suddenly facing a group of excited dolphins, anxiously awaiting their opportunity to pig out! Amazingly, most of them swam off after they got their one fish. One dolphin was making clicking noises and the trainer would not feed him because of that. We don't know why. She just told the kids that she's not allowed to feed the ones that make noises. Later I told the dc maybe he was whining, "Gimme, gimme, gimme!" Another dolphin was piggish...he nearly tried to leap out of the pool to get at that bucket and have the rest to himself! DD had her camera but had trouble taking pictures, so I took some for her. We haven't had time to download them. I don't even think the photo program has been installed on her pc yet. Now we know to bring out cameras and hang out at the shallow end close to closing time!
Yesterday afternoon we were done with all of our weekly TOG work...reading, discussion, writing. yea! Two weeks of study to go and then our unit celebration! Today we did our literature analysis review and covered a few new items we didn't have time for the rest of the year. I was excited at how quickly the dc picked up the new concepts!
Then this afternoon we drove about an hour away to visit a dear friend and her family. The kids, all 9, played in the pool while we sat on the patio and talked about different new plants for her garden! She showed me the costumes she has been sewing for her dc for their end of year celebration for TOG. Her children showed me their projects and they are incredibly creative! We had a delightful time sharing and laughing at the dinner table.
On the way home, dd rode with me and she was amazingly chatty about some great things. We were able to talk about something that really confused her and now she understands. And we got to see fireworks at another of the theme parks in the area.
I feel exhausted, yet my spirit feels refreshed. Tomorrow I hope to finally have time to sew the costumes! Tomorrow night we go to the nursing home to sing. | 
