April What?!
I have spent most of the weekend in a state of disbelief that not only was there no snow on the ground, but the weather was warm and mild enough to allow us to entertain around our fire pit not one, but both days.
We had originally planned to host the inaugural wiener roast for our fire pit (at least, the first one with guests) on Saturday, inviting the Stanleys, whom we see often, and the Joes, whom we do not see often enough. When it came down to the day, only the Joes were able to attend, and we had a wonderful afternoon visiting with them and learning more about them, getting a start on our base tans and trying not to show concern about all of our children's perfectly normal but somewhat dangerous antics--climbing up on top of the Sea Can, rolling our big inner tube (the kids use to jump on) all over the yard, playing in our piles of clay, sand, and dirt. It was great.
Since they hadn't been able to come on Saturday, we invited the Stanleys over on Sunday afternoon, and also another family that are soon to be our neighbours (they are moving into a house two miles away) that we have been wanting to get to know better--Scott and Krista. They have three kids, including a son who is pretty good friends with Jude, so we are glad to have them living so close to us now. It was another afternoon of getting sun and fresh air and fellowship--wonderful. The kids got even dirtier--so dirty that Scott joked that his kids had to walk behind the truck when they left, because they were too dirty to even ride in the box! (Don't worry, they were in the cab as they pulled out.) I was a little sleepy and dopey, as I had been up early to lead worship team at church that morning, and too much iced tea on Saturday afternoon meant I didn't get to sleep particularly early. That's okay, though--it was good to have a restful, uplifting time with friends.
The bad news from the weekend is that my dinosaur of a camera--a Kodak Easyshare that my mom bought me in 2002--finally died this weekend. The light metre went whacko, and every photo I take is a field of white with hints of shadow here and there. I wouldn't be too upset, if I weren't going on holiday in only two weeks! I was really hoping that my next camera would be a nice SLR, but for now, I'm going to have to go buy some cheapo point-and-shoot. Fortunately, the cost for equal technology to what I had is about and eighth of the cost now! Funny how that happens. (The model was a pretty nice mid-range model for point-and-shoots when I got it. Now, I'm not even sure I would be able buy something as low-mega-pixel as that, even in the kids' camera section!)
So, that's my blurb. I'm really hoping to get into my garden today and start playing in the dirt. (On April what?!) This is something most people do not do around here until the end of May, usually. My chicks are doing fine, growing strong. Jude is on his last week of Phonics, and after this, he will only have to finish up math, plus we will do some review of stuff from our year, but we will essentially be finished school. Now, I'm just working on getting my taxes done (on time!) before I leave on holidays. Even close to on time would be good.
How was your weekend, friends?
We had originally planned to host the inaugural wiener roast for our fire pit (at least, the first one with guests) on Saturday, inviting the Stanleys, whom we see often, and the Joes, whom we do not see often enough. When it came down to the day, only the Joes were able to attend, and we had a wonderful afternoon visiting with them and learning more about them, getting a start on our base tans and trying not to show concern about all of our children's perfectly normal but somewhat dangerous antics--climbing up on top of the Sea Can, rolling our big inner tube (the kids use to jump on) all over the yard, playing in our piles of clay, sand, and dirt. It was great.
Since they hadn't been able to come on Saturday, we invited the Stanleys over on Sunday afternoon, and also another family that are soon to be our neighbours (they are moving into a house two miles away) that we have been wanting to get to know better--Scott and Krista. They have three kids, including a son who is pretty good friends with Jude, so we are glad to have them living so close to us now. It was another afternoon of getting sun and fresh air and fellowship--wonderful. The kids got even dirtier--so dirty that Scott joked that his kids had to walk behind the truck when they left, because they were too dirty to even ride in the box! (Don't worry, they were in the cab as they pulled out.) I was a little sleepy and dopey, as I had been up early to lead worship team at church that morning, and too much iced tea on Saturday afternoon meant I didn't get to sleep particularly early. That's okay, though--it was good to have a restful, uplifting time with friends.
The bad news from the weekend is that my dinosaur of a camera--a Kodak Easyshare that my mom bought me in 2002--finally died this weekend. The light metre went whacko, and every photo I take is a field of white with hints of shadow here and there. I wouldn't be too upset, if I weren't going on holiday in only two weeks! I was really hoping that my next camera would be a nice SLR, but for now, I'm going to have to go buy some cheapo point-and-shoot. Fortunately, the cost for equal technology to what I had is about and eighth of the cost now! Funny how that happens. (The model was a pretty nice mid-range model for point-and-shoots when I got it. Now, I'm not even sure I would be able buy something as low-mega-pixel as that, even in the kids' camera section!)
So, that's my blurb. I'm really hoping to get into my garden today and start playing in the dirt. (On April what?!) This is something most people do not do around here until the end of May, usually. My chicks are doing fine, growing strong. Jude is on his last week of Phonics, and after this, he will only have to finish up math, plus we will do some review of stuff from our year, but we will essentially be finished school. Now, I'm just working on getting my taxes done (on time!) before I leave on holidays. Even close to on time would be good.
How was your weekend, friends?