Last Day of School Water Fight

Around 3:30 this afternoon I heard a lot of noise and suddenly Joey was at the back door asking if they could use my hose to fill water balloons.

"Sure, do whatever you want," I said. "Just watch out for La Chismosa's car."

"Yeah."

A few minutes later, Sarah and her niece were at the back door. "Could we look at the bug book?" It must be summer. I had to go fish it out of the basement. Sarah showed me a bunch of pictures of bugs she and Brady Bughunter have seen around the block.

After we looked at the bug pictures for a while, it occurred to me that they might be good helpers for a long overdue project. "Hey, would you like to help me with my garden? I need to pull all the weeds growing in the boxes," I said.

"Sure," Sarah said.

I went and got gloves and a trowel. Sarah's niece used the trowel and Sarah and I mostly used our hands to pull the weeds out of the boxes. A little bit of cilantro and some other greens from last year are back again, so we left those alone.

The water fighters were mostly using Joey's spigot next door, not mine. The mostly boys (there was one girl on that team) would jump over the fence and run around to the other side of my house to scope out the opposing team's position. I held a lot of water balloons while Joey and his pals jumped the fence. One of Peter Pan's brothers got interested in what we were doing and helped us pull a weed or two. He also liked using me as base so he wouldn't get thrown at.

The girls and I were a little bubble of calm as the horde of water fighters ran in and out. Eventually, all the kids were at my hose dunking people, first Oldest Brady Boy and then Joey. The girls and I went up on my back porch to get out of the way. We were all laughing at the very soggy people--squealing girls and boys whose sneakers would squish when they walked. My significant other even came out with his camera, but I'm not sure whether he got there in time to get good pictures.

They got a little out of hand here and there--somebody threw a rock and hit one of the girls in the water fight, who she said she was OK--but basically they were fine and enjoying the first sunshine we've seen in a while. Not to mention celebrating the end of the school year--today was the last day.