Backyard Bummin'

This summer has been damn near perfect, weather-wise. It's been a bit dry, but the temperatures have been ideal for someone like me who doesn't really like that whole sweaty humidity thing that's been Minnesota summers of late. We've been spending a lot of time in our own backyard and bumming around to our friends' backyards. This is a picture of Mason (and Tika, dog,) in the backyard of our friends Steve, Shari, Berren, and brand new girl addition (whose name I don't know how to spell.)

We spent much of yesterday either splashing around at our friends' house or just laying under a tree watching clouds roll by. It was a very Calvin & Hobbes kind of day where we spent a lot of quality time doing absolutely nothing.

An Open Letter to Barack Obama

Dear Mr. Obama,

I am writing to you on behalf of my five year old son, Mason. Yesterday, at the dinner table I read him the article about how you've decided lift bans on off-shore drilling. He started to cry. My son loves the ocean so much. It's his favorite thing. We watch the BBC Blue Planet series: Ocean World, Frozen Seas, Open Ocean, The Deep, Tidal Seas, Coasts and the rest over and over and over again. Mason has said that he wants to be a marine biologist since he could talk.

Many months ago, during the nomination process, when we started hearing your name on the radio, Mason asked me why we vote Democratic and why we wanted you for president. I told him you were from Hawaii (one of his favorite states), and I told him that Democrats are more likily to support the environment rather than big business interests. He liked that. After that he started repeating that he wanted Barack Obama to be our next president. Not now. He would really like you to change your position "by next Saturday" please.

Thank you very much.

Yours truly,

Mason Rounds and Mason's parents

It's Monday...

...so I'm over at Something Wicked, talking about how I stopped worrying and learned to love the... outline.