Got up early this morning and went to Josie's last regular season volleyball game.  They played well, but lost. One of our best players decided to go deer hunting with her Dad instead.  KeAnna, we could've used you!

Twice this week, Josie knocked my socks off.  Both times, she was telling me about her social studies class.  The talk got around to Russia and Georgia and whether or not we should intervene.  Most of the kids thought it was none of our business.  Josie piped up with her two cents.

"I said 'We're members of NATO'." She told me.  "Georgia wants to be in NATO.  That makes it our business; when our friends need help, we have to help them."  Then she made some noise that sounded like "duuuh."

I had no idea she had ever heard of NATO, much less knew what it meant.

Then, a few days later in class they were talking about whether or not teachers should be allowed to have guns in school.

"I'm against the idea," she told me "But not  for the reason everyone else was.  They all said 'What if a teacher gets mad and shoots you?'  I think if a teacher is crazy enough to shoot a student, they're crazy enough to bring a gun to school illegally.  I'm against it because I'm afraid someone might take the gun away from the teacher."

This is the sort of thing I get from Katie and Zack all the time.  I'm not used to it from Josie.

Tyler's take on the exact same situation would've been; "I scored three touchdowns at recess today."  Tyler has different interests from his siblings.

When the games were over we called everyone and planned on meeting for the arboretum.

Every fall we take the kids out there to walk the circuit and look at the colors, which are scrumptious.  We usually take them out of school for it and today was proof of why hooky is the way to go.

I've never seen the place so crowded as it was today. It was almost like being at the Fair! Only no freaks, no stench and beauty everywhere you look.  So nothing like the Fair.  Never mind.

 There was a line of cars all the way out to hi way 5.  We had to park in a field out west of the park.  Mom and I got lost in the woods just trying to find our way back to the first parking lot.  We had three cars full of people.  Andy, Katie, MJ and an assortment of our kids were waiting for me and Mom to find our way out of the wilderness to the main building. Josie called me three times before we finally arrived.  Mom tried to buy a bottle of water inside, but the line was 200 deep.  It's a darned good thing we didn't plan on eating lunch there, as we often do.  We'd still be in line.

Having never been there before on a weekend, I have no idea if it's always that crowded.  Maybe it is when it's a hot sunny gorgeous day in October, maybe it is all the time.  I was glad!  There'd be something seriously wrong if you could have a day as beautiful as this one was and not have 10,000 people at the arboretum.  I hope it was wall to wall people at all the lakes today as well.

We split into two groups; Josie and Meg went one way and the grown ups and little kids went another.  We had about six cell phones between us so we could all keep in touch.  Since we all wound up parking miles away from each other, it's a good thing.

Mom, MJ, Andy, Katie and I took two little girls and two strollers with a three year old and the baby.  We strolled through the gardens, took pictures of the waterfalls, the fountains, the ponds, the trees, flowers and the red barn on the hill beyond the bog.  We walked to the maze.  Normally, you can walk the three mile drive around and through the place without worrying too much about cars.  Today the parade of cars was bumper to bumper all the way from the entrance, through the woods back to the exit.  At one point, Andy looked at the endless line of cars going two miles an hour through the gardens and said "no wonder the rest of the world mocks us for our fuel consumption."  I yelled "Gas is under $3.00 a gallon!  Burn it up!"

I can understand old people driving through the woods really slow, but what's with all the healthy youngsters not bothering to walk?  Maybe they were looking for parking spots.

Out there, every where you look  is one heavenly vista after another.  It's beautiful all year round, but when the colors peak, it's...breathtaking doesn't begin to describe it.  You think you're looking at the prettiest view in the place and around the next corner is another one even more vibrant and next thing you know you've taken 112 pictures of which Jay will say "A tree...another tree...another tree...some trees by water..."

I know none of my photos will do it justice but I just kept snapping away.

I wasn't the only thing snapping.

As if to remind us that this is not heaven, the Asian lady beetles are out in full force.  These are the horrid abominations that pretend they're lady bugs, but they're not.  They're bigger than lady bugs, they're fatter and orange instead of red.  The air was thick with them.  They swarm all over you, fly at your face and bite wherever they can find skin. When you squish them, they stink. It wasn't too bad out in the open, but a few times we took trails through the woods and it was beetlejuice hell.  I saw a burnt out tree stump that was covered in thousands of them.  We tried to make our way through the woods as quickly as possible.  At one point, Andy had to go back through a particularly bad stretch to bring his toddler to the biff.  They got stuck behind a slow moving bunch of tourists, the lady beetles swarmed and Johnny began to scream "GO FASTER!! GO FASTER!!"  The slow pokes may have thought the kid was having a potty emergency, but Andy assured us he just wanted to get away from the bugs.  We could hear the screaming all the way to the wild rose garden, where I couldn't keep the little girls out of the pond.  Could someone please call China and tell them to come and get their stupid bugs?

Some park worker was putting up signs all around the garden that said "Wedding Today".  I have no idea where those wedding guests are going to park.  I just hope no one's wearing heels.

We tramped through the woods, up and down hills, through gardens and mazes.  By the time we hooked back up with Josie and Meg at the cabin in the woods (not to be confused with the tree house, the tower, the little houses or the maze tower), we were all hungry, thirsty and exhausted.  The line at the snack bar was reasonable by then, so we grabbed a few little things to tide us over for the long hard trek through the woods to the cars.  Once we found our car, we joined the long line  trying to get out. 

"How long do you think it'll take us to get back out to the hi way?"  I asked MJ and Josie.  The line of cars was bumper to bumper and not moving.  It was 4:18.

"Forever." MJ grumped.

"No, I mean lets guess and see who's closest."

"Five O'clock." MJ said.

"Well, maybe." I said.  We had gone ten feet in a minute.  "If we keep up this pace we won't hit the hi way till 8:00.  I'm going to guess 4:35.  What's your guess, Josie?"

"Ummm...4:33." she said.  "And now we wait?  Fun game, Mom."

I love it when my kids use sarcasm properly.

After we got past the second stop sign and most of the pedestrians, the pace picked up a little.  The line of cars coming into the place was still unbroken!

We turned onto the hi way as the clock turned to 4:33.

I don't know how she does that.

 

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