A gosling, a birthday, journaling & the story of Bee

We had a baby gosling hatch on the little guy's birthday. It was the only one of her many eggs to make it.  The gosling is absolutely adorable and all three adult geese are acting like fussing aunts over it. So far the adults have also stayed well-mannered and their behavior has actually improved now that they have a "job" to occupy themselves with.

Here's a video of mom and baby the day it hatched. The area had to be quickly "baby-proofed" with a tiny step to get in and out of the area, bricks in all of the water dishes and a shallow baking pan set out for the baby to drink out of.

For the little guy's birthday we spent a fun morning at the lake. There was a ton of swimming and sandcastle building.

He's adorable. And two already! Later that evening we had a little cake but the the "big" party came Friday. My niece turns 6 next week so the 2 of them had a joint party here with just family. Social distancing precautions are really starting to get old.

Here are the cakes.

The kids had so much fun together. They were all so glad to see each other. There was also a tiny baby in attendance which our two just cannnot get enough of. The birthday boy mostly just wanted to be with her saying things like "Where bebe go?" any time she was out of his sight.

The town usually has a big to-do for the 4th of July weekend with fireworks and a huge car show. Of course all of that was canceled this year and I was really sad about it. Even more so coming home from my dad's last night with the kids in the car and they could see the random small fireworks people were putting off in town. They were so interested and I felt terrible. HOWEVER.  Our neighbor across the street saved the day. This guy put on a fireworks show for over half an hour with professional grade fireworks. It was nicer than what the town puts on. I don't care if it was legal or that we haven't had rain in a week and everything is bone dry. 

It was such a gift to see the kids just beside themselves with excitement. The youngest did not fall asleep until midnight. 

I've been keeping up with my bullet journal and it's become a big part of my day.

Here is my tracking page for June. Just holding myself accountable in this way has completely changed some of my behaviors.  For the first time I'm doing things like consistently taking my medications and eating enough fruits and vegetables.  Before this I could go days without taking my zoloft or eating a vegetable.  The good side it's totally changed my diet and I've actually lost 3 lbs. The bad side is that the better I treat myself and my diet, the more disgusted I am with how overweight I am. Which would be a good motivator but 6 months pregnant I'm not sure what I can do about it.  So, there's that. I also need to really step it up with reading to the kids apparently. 

Tracking my activities is a good motivator for fitting in activities not normally given time. I read a book this month! In bits and pieces, late at night, but still.

This is a good summer read.

Here is the back.

This holiday weekend was our Bee anniversary. It was 10 (I think?) years ago that we found her as a tiny kitten while we were canoeing in a swamp in the middle of nowhere. The nearest house was over a mile away. We have no idea how she ended up where she did and it was a million tiny choices that led us to her that day. But she found us, crying from the bank of the swamp and following the canoe.  Bee was so little I could fit her in one hand. We took her home and fed her cat food and tuna. We already had enough animals so we tried to find her another home.

 Then she spiked a fever of 107, which I didn't know was possible.  It turned out she had a really disgusting parasite from being at the swamp. It had burrowed into her neck and she almost died from it. They removed it at the vet and gave her antibiotics. For a week she was so weak she needed to be held up to eat, drink and use the litterbox. Then tucked back into bed. After that I wouldn't hear of her leaving. And here she is all these years later.

She makes our lives better every single day.

This week is going to be very hot, mid 90's, so I'm not sure what our plans are. Not much of anything probably.