An outing

Well, we did it. 

I had a little panic attack on the driveway (seriously, I came *this close* to throwing up) when I could not figure out how to reverse into our little turn-around area. I think I just need to park on the other side of the garage. Andrew thought it would be easier for me to back out from the far side of the garage, but I think it will actually be easier from the close side. But maybe not. 

Our driveway is so steep I felt like we were going to tip over, but naturally we didn't.

People have been driving up and down this horrendous driveway for decades and no one has tipped over yet. So I'm sure I won't be the first to do so. Hopefully.

All my little passengers cheered when we made it to the top. 

I'm so glad that I can show them that it's possible to do hard things that scare you almost to death. 

Next step was driving to the library. It's really a pretty straight shoot from our house. Rachel would like to try biking it one day (we'll see about that). 

The kids were excited to get to feed our books to Hiccups the Hippo.

When we went through the front door the librarian asked us if we had picked up our summer reading prizes. I told her that we hadn't been very good about recording our reading minutes. She smiled and said, "Come on over here and pick out a book to take home, kids! I'm sure you've been doing your reading."

"Oh, they have," I assured her. "I just haven't been logging it. We've been so busy!"

"I get that," she said.

"I'm the same way with their school reading logs. Reading isn't a problem. Remembering to fill out all their logs is."

"I am the very same way," she said.

I know that recording things is good. It helps you see progress, or at least gives you motivation to not break your cycle. But...it's also time consuming (and often requires that you know exactly where a pen and paper is, or logging onto a system five different times to log minutes for five different people (I realize that my older kids are probably perfectly capable of this but we haven't quite set up a family computer yet)).

Anyway, the kids were excited to pick out a book to keep as well as a billion books to borrow. I can tell the older kids that they can checkout whatever they can carry and they're pretty good at knowing their limits. But Zoë and Alexander always go hog wild! They pull books off the shelf left and right and give them to me and two minutes into our trip down the aisle I'm crying uncle.

"No more books!" I say. "I can't carry any more books!"

But then Alexander will see one about "owl birdies" and Zoë will see one about dinosaurs in tutus and they will need those books, too.

"Now absolutely no more, guys! This bag is bursting! It can't possibly hold any more!"

But then another book or two catches their eye and I can't even stop them from grabbing them because my arms are too full. So we always end up with a billion books in no time flat. 

We checked out our billion books and then sat on the couches to read a few before heading home.

On our way out of the parking lot, a car turned left into the entrance and very nearly creamed into us. For real. The driver gave us an apologetic wave, but...

"This! This is why I hate driving!" I said to Rachel, who is officially old enough to sit in the front seat now. I've been burned by negligent lefthand turners before.

We made it our neighbourhood without further incident and then decided that instead of going home we'd head to the nearby playground instead. We can walk there, but it would take about a half hour.

And now we're home.

I parked on the left side of the driveway to see if backing up was easier from there and I think that it was. And then I realized that I'd never get the car back in the right side of the garage (we can't park in the left side yet) without going all the way up the driveway again (or, perhaps, ever).