Day in the Life of an Idiot

I've been letting pictures do the talking lately partly because my life has not been terribly exciting at the moment. Mason is off school for "summer" (though he goes "year round," which means, while he gets three months off, they're not all in the summer. We only have the month of August off before he starts third grade in September.) We kicked off vacation by going up to our friends' cabin, and now we're settling into days spent at the library.

Mason has really been taking advantage of the library this year. From some friends at school, he'd heard the Roseville Library had the "good prizes" for "Bookawocky," the libraries' promotion to encourage kids to read 20 hours. We'd been meaning to go check it out for months, but we finally made it there early last week. We registered ourselves in their system (since they're officially Ramsey County and our card is only good for St. Paul,) and got ourselves a "Bookawocky" form. Mason dilligently set out to read for 20 hours. It took him three days.

He won a day pass to the Waterpark of America, a ticket to the State Fair, a free book, and a lovely, red water bottle.

During "Bookawocky" madness, we must have also checked out over 20 books, though he's a fast enough reader that he supplimented with some books of his own. He checked out a whole bunch of chapter book sized ones, particularly the Beast Quest series and Bionicles. And, he discovered the joys of putting books on HOLD. He's now become a HOLD expert --and kind of a hoarder. I think the thrill of "request it!" went straight to his head.

Even now that "Bookawocky" is over for him (the rest of you have until the 21st!), he's been starting the day asking when we can go to the library. Routinely, we've driven between both the Roseville one and our own Mirrim Park Branch. Still, it's been fun.

We also went to the Children's Museum on Monday, as it is one of the few museums open on Mondays. Consequentally, it was really quiet at 9:00 am, and Mason nearly had the run of the place. Also, kudos to the kid for checking out the "Passport to Play" from the library, so our trip was free.

I think, however, that Mason might be starting to outgrow the Children's Museum. It's really keyed for kids much younger and I noticed that places that used to entrance him, like the faux restaurant/grocery store just don't hold his interest as long. We still love the Art Park's sandbox, and managed to spend the majority of our time there building sandcastles in the sun.

Luckily, there's still the zoo...

Otherwise, I found some time to finish up Tate's copyedited manuscript for ALMOST EVERYTHING the third Ana book, and I had a very painless experience with the copyeditor. In fact, I probably got the best copy-edit everywhere when s/he informed me that the proper usage of "nom" is "nom nom nom."

Awesome.

Otherwise, I've been kind of low-energy emotionally, and I'm not sure why. Sorting LEGOs on the floor with Mason today helped some. Though I'm still distressed how many minifigs we have that are missing their legs!

Also, I have to confess that we have not been to kuk sool wan in some time because, *cough*, we've been staying home to watch "Master Chef" on Monday and Tuesdays. Probably my mood will lift when we're back on a regular schedule with them... I feel kind of puffy and out of shape. As far as "Master Chef" goes, I'm beginning to be irritated by what clearly seem to be ratings choices. The villian was spared elimination last night, I think unfairly, because he makes a good villian. I'm also really worried that they're going to go with the perky blonde simply because she makes good cover copy for the cookbook. Jaded, I know.