I spent a good part of the afternoon in a pond. It proved to be a pretty decent way to cool off. Of course, then you have to walk around smelling like a pond afterwards, but that doesn't bother me too much. I saw lots of crayfish and bullfrog tadpoles while I was sloshing around, but the turtles all made themselves scarce pretty quickly. Later, I was discussing with one of my coworkers whether or not we should remove some of the bullfrog tadpoles, since they are non-native and damage local animal populations. The problem is what to do with the tadpoles. Anybody out there have a backyard pond or know of a place where bullfrog impact would be minimal?

This week I have slightly older kids than last week. They seem calmer too. Time will tell. A couple of the girls said they'd been hoping that they would end up in my group. It's kind of funny how kids make snap decisions about us. Or maybe they just said that to be nice. Who knows?

Over the weekend, M, G, and I started trying to piece together the music for an upcoming show in September. A lot of rehearsal is needed, but everything is down on paper at least. That's a start, anyway. While up in Berkeley we came across an itinerant tarka salesman, but I didn't buy one because of a lack of funds. First time I've ever seen tarkas for sale on the street too.

I did a party on Sunday. Most of the kids were dressed up as Harry Potter. With the tip I got I went out and bought the new Harry Potter book. I started reading it to the boys last night. When I talked to my mom, she was about 250 pages into it as well. At work today, several people were reading it. Several others were already done reading it. When I got home, Jen was reading it. No, don't tell me what happens. I'll find out soon enough. That's the one problem with a book as popular is this. I feel compelled to read it quickly before some blabbermouth can ruin it for me. I wonder how long my voice will hold out tonight?