Every year, on this day, we celebrate my grandmother's birthday in the graveyard where she is buried. This year, we added in some games and party favors!

In an effort to be efficient, we loaded up all the trash and recycling into the car before we went for brunch at the Foothills. The car was packed. It had been... a while... since we'd last been to the dump!

Brunch was delicious as usual, except for some serious grumpiness from Lilah. But that is to be expected... Not only is tomorrow the first day of school (First Grade!), but her dad moved to a new house this weekend and it will be her first night there. And she has a loose tooth.

We loaded ourselves back into the car and the kids started screaming about... maggots. Yes, the squirmy white things... ew!! I guess they had gotten tired of waiting inside the trash bags and had set out to explore the minivan! Those critters move FAST! Forget racing snails, maggots would be the better entertainment at the local bar. The drive to the dump seemed longer than usual with the accompanying "There's one on your seat!" and "It's gonna get Gramma Kay!"

We unloaded all the recyclables and trash and then the fun REALLY started! It was like Whack-a-mole but on a miniature scale. My mom thought it would be a good idea to just shake the bed liner onto the pavement... but the maggots started crawling back! So Lilah started tap dancing on them... I climbed into the back of the minivan and started scooping the rest of them into a shoebox. Did you know - when you poke 'em, they curl into a ball? Yeah, they are so sweet. Lilah took the shoebox from me and declared she wanted to keep them as pets... uh... no?

Sorry - I didn't think to take a picture, although, now I wish I had.

Onward to the grave yard!

Alex dug a hole to plant the phlox I had brought (Candy Stripe). And, of course, the hole was swarming with all kinds of large and small bugs. Even a cricket and a nasty beetle-thingy. He dug another hole. We planted and watered and Lilah played some music.

We planted the Whoopie Pie we had brought for Gramma Magda too. After sampling a little bit, of course.

Lilah had written her a note and brought some flowers.
The bear on the stone, in case you don't know, is my grandmother. She always said she'd come back as a bear - and that's one reason we always leave her something chocolatey on her birthday. I imagine her watching from the woods... waiting for us to leave so she can have her snack. :-)

And just to prove that I have perfectly normal kids... Alex teased Lilah about who-knows-what and she proceeded to pelt him with the bag of dirt. Alex enjoyed it immensely. Ok, maybe they aren't normal.

And one more bug - I hope it's the last one... well, there was that really large spider in the garage too, but I think it was dead. So the last one was also dead, but it was a huge dragonfly that had gotten caught in the grill of my car. Lilah and I washed the minivan (remember the maggots?) and found the dragonfly. It was crispy and it's wings were huge and rainbow sparkley. Lilah put it somewhere in Stonehenge (our front garden looks like a mini Stonehenge) for the fairies.

Another lovely, ordinary, summer day.
Tomorrow, it's back to school.

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