A few of the roofing crew were here before 7 a.m., but it was raining on and off so the boss decided they would start at noon. One guy had no way home and was not very happy about the prospect of hanging around the house for five hours until work started, so I offered him a ride home. Amazing what you can learn about a person from a five minute ride. He lives about 2 1/2 miles outside of town and walks to work every day. That means he's up at 4:30 in order to make it to the site on time. He and his wife rent from an elderly farmer who lives in the same place where he grew up. It's all fairly run down now, but he has three trailer houses right by the old school that he went to as a youth. The roofer, Bill, was born in Mexico City and traveled all over since his dad was in the military. He got married at 15 - met his wife in Louisiana - and has been married ever since (nearly 30 years now). They have six girls and a dog, and the best part is that we think his dog and Lucy were litter mates. We each got our dogs five years ago from an ad in the paper, and they're both lab/chow mixes and look almost exactly alike (I saw his dog when I dropped him off). Of course there could have been a bunch of other litters of chocolate labs who are good hunters and chows, but who knows?

This morning we went grocery shopping. Cole pooped just as we pulled up to Hy-Vee and I didn't have any diapers along, so it was a fairly quick trip. This afternoon we went to an exotic petting zoo that's in town for a few days. Accalia loved it but was afraid to hold out her hand to feed any of the animals. We saw a baby zebra, a kangaroo, a couple camels, an emu, a water buffalo and a zebu (very funny if you're familiar with Veggie Tales songs), and a bunch of other animals. We might go back after Cory is home from work so Accalia can ride a camel named Nathan.

I should try to do some of my CLA work while Cole is napping.