Passive/aggressive old women, ASL videos, and walks in the woods

I've been trying to get to the post office in the past few days to send back a leather jacket we had bought for Kole(it was a bit too small), but haven't been able to get there while it was open. Despite being kept up until 1AM last night with a very restless baby girl, we made it out on time, and shipped it off. Easy enough, right? Well, as I was waiting my turn to pull out of the parking lot, an elderly woman backed into the side of my car. We both got out to assess the damage, noting only cosmetic damage, she had the nerve to say "it was kind of both our fault", since I was just sitting behind her. I replied, "no, thats not it at all. I was behind two other cars waiting to leave." We agreed that insurance information should be exchanged, in case a claim had to be filed. As I was writing down her info, she asks again why and how I got behind her in the first place. I told her, again, I was unable to move forward because I was blocked by CARS. She shakes her head, and says "well, it was kind of stupid to just be sitting there." WHAT?!

It's just a little dent, the paint is still intact, and it isn't causing the wheel to rub on the body, so I'm not going to be vindictive and file a claim. If my car wasn't 11 years old with 165,000mi on it, I might care...but it is, so I don't. There was a nice couple there who gave me their phone number and said they witnessed the whole thing and would tell the police, or whomever, that I was not to blame.

When Elliette and I got home from the post office, we found that her two new "Signing Time" videos had arrived. Nancy and I have been teaching the kids ASL (American Sign Language)for a few months now, with the help of "Signing Time" Volume 1. Kole caught on VERY quickly, memorizing about 15-20 signs and figuring out how to string them together into short sentences. Elliette, being only one year old, is learning considerably slower, but catching on at her own pace. She knows "milk", "more", "eat", "sleep", and a few others that make communicating with a baby far, far easier. When we thought they were ready to go to the next level we ordered the next two in the series. These ones deal with "playtime signs", and "everyday signs", like "play", "friend", "please", "thank you", and a variety of common courtesy words. I'm very excited to learn more myself!

After Nancy got home from work we quickly emptied out our van, a 1995 Nissan Quest with 190,000mi, so we could donate it to NPR. It's so old and has so much work that needs to be done to register it I can't imagine it being worth it to any potential buyers.

After we did that I popped out to a local state park, Sleeping Giant. It's an old haunt of mine, and know every trail on the mountain very well. Today I made it out to the old quarry, and had a little impromptu rock climbing session.

I made it almost 3/4 of the way up the face, but the rocks got real loose up there, and figured it wasn't the most prudent idea to continue since no one knew where I was, and it was close to dusk.

It was my second hike/trail run with my new Vibram FiveFingers "shoes". The point of them is to mimic being barefoot, strengthening the foot and surrounding muscles and ligaments, therefore improving posture and reducing injury. I'm still getting used to them, but it's really neat learning to walk and run with a proper posture that won't thrash my knees. They also made GREAT climbing shoes.

The rest are pictures of some of the area surrounding the quarry. I'm not quite sure what the structures are, but when I was a child I imagined they were ruins from an ancient civilization. It's still fun to pretend when you're alone in the woods running like an animal.