Dick's birthday week

 Here we go - another week with below average temps.  We'll survive, I guess.  At least last week we had a few really warm days to make up for the cold ones.  The ten-day forecast has us staying in the fifties right into the first week of May.  I hope it's wrong.  

Last Wednesday was Dick's 73rd birthday.  I made a little slide show of highlights from this past year.  It was fun to remember the good times we've had. 

We used a gift card from Sam and Steph and went to Texas Roadhouse for dinner.  I enjoyed steak and salad, he got ribs, a sweet potato, and broccoli.  

And of course he got a Cactus Blossom!

Afterward we went to Sweet Frog and had dessert with Anthony and Lori and the boys - their treat.  Destiny joined us too.  It was a wonderful time!

In the process of figuring out the making of Dick's slide show, I somehow came across a whole bunch of videos in my computer that I didn't even know I had!  They were not in my picture files.  There were quite a few videos from my very last Spring program at Manheim Christian Day School in May 2009!  Oh.  My.  Goodness!!  I was like a kid in a candy store watching the videos.  So far I got just one of them on YouTube and here it is.  My Middle School Chorus!  Grades 6, 7, and 8.  They were SO good with their three and four-part harmony.  I just couldn't stop listening to this!

I had programmed my piano accompaniment into the digital piano so I could conduct, and I had one of my co-workers start each song for us.  There was a bit of a problem getting the first song's accompaniment started, but no problems after that. I do really miss those days. 

On Thursday Hunter had a sore throat and did not go to school, so he was my boy for the day.  He's so easy.  

He felt well enough to play outside in the morning, but in the afternoon he didn't feel as well and ended up taking a nap.

Dick and I had choir practice that evening.  

On Friday I had a very unusual day of being all by myself all day until Dick finished mowing at Anthony's place after work.  I got a lot of laundry folded, both ours and Destiny's, while I watched episodes of "Call the Midwife."  I love it so much!

On Saturday I attended a CPR training at church.  They covered both adult and infant, as well as choking.  It never occurred to me until I took my turn to do compressions on the adult dummy that my right wrist is still too painful from surgery to be able to put that much pressure on it.  So I did not get my certification updated after all.  But we had a lot of fun and got a lot of good, easy-to-remember instruction.  

I was delighted to find these multi-colored tulips in one of my flower beds Saturday afternoon!

On Sunday morning we had a nearly full house again at church.  Till we get into the new building we might need to get out the folding chairs or have two services. A wonderful problem!

Right after church we left for the Lancaster area to attend a Myers family reunion. That is my mother’s family. As I probably said after my Uncle Lloyd’s funeral a few weeks ago, we have just one uncle still living. One out ten!   This is a picture of the cousins who were there. Many more were not there. 

 

Then we took pictures of individual families. You'll recognize my mother’s family in the middle left photo of this collage.  Our only living uncle, Earl Myers, is in the bottom right photo. Isn’t he a handsome 87-year-old?

This is an old photo of the fourteen oldest cousins, probably taken in 1947 before I was born. I checked out the birthdates in our Myers family directory and pretty much figured out who each child is. Except my sister Mary Ellen. She should be the youngest one on this picture, but neither of the two babies look like her. 

After we left the reunion we picked up Elizer then headed toward home.  It was fun to sit in the middle seat beside him. 

 

As we neared Duncannon we decided to check with Sam and Steph about my white coat that I had left at Bianca’s softball practice about a month ago. I have really been missing it!  They said it is in their coat closet, and they had just left Sammy’s flag football game and were on their way home. We told them we would stop by for my coat.  Would you believe we all got to their house at exactly the same time?  It was so funny!

They were glad to see Elizer. The first thing they did was show him a new toy - a money gun!  He LOVED it!  He wanted to do it over and over again, but what a mess every time, picking up all those bills, haha!

The kids wanted to show us their bedrooms. Here’s Sammy at his desk. He’s SO studious - a straight A student.  I think he was looking back at Elizer getting into something when I snapped the picture. 

How about his mathematical bed sheets?

And here’s Bianca in her bedroom. She has the coolest chair!  Of course Elizer found all her stuffed animals irresistible!  

She is very proud of this collection of artificial plants on her chest of drawers. 

It was so fun to see them, even for so short a time!

On our way home I told Elizer that Grandpa had a birthday last week. So we sang Happy Birthday to him. Elizer sang with great gusto. I gotta work on his pitch, lol!!

I also wanted to make a video to send to Destiny at work, but he was so puzzled.  He's used to video calls where you can see the other person, and he couldn't figure out why he saw himself in my phone instead of Mommy.

Here's a beautiful view of the sun shining on the mountains on the way home.  I love that we can get home in the daylight with these longer days.

That's where I'll end this post.  Have a good rest of your week!

Middle of April - from winter to summer and back again!

 Okay, catch up time again here!  On this cold, blustery day I'll start this post with some Spring pictures I took in the last week.  As is normal in April, our temps have gone way up and way down.

Last Monday morning, April 10th, Destiny met Alex to pick up Elizer and I met her at her house when she got back.  She had to soon leave for work, so I was taking him home with me. (She starts at 2:30 on Mondays.)  He had slept the whole time in the car and was so confused when he woke up and I was taking him over to my van.  He wanted to go into his house and he wanted his mommy.  He cried and cried and got really angry.  I felt so bad for him.  When we got to my house I decided we would go to the playground behind our house first.  And then the best thing happened!  We spied an Easter egg under the rose bush that had been missed on Saturday!  And it had jelly beans in it!  So that changed his mood in a hurry!  We sat at the table at the playground and he ate those jelly beans and I took this picture for Destiny.  

Later, after he had taken another short nap, we took the spaghetti and meatballs I had made for Anthony and Lori over to their place, which he always likes.   Destiny worked till 11:00 and came here to sleep.

Tuesday morning was sunny when I took him to daycare and he wanted his sunglasses.  For whatever reason, he preferred wearing them upside down that morning!

That evening he was begging to play with this plastic marble set.  I've never gotten it out for him, because it has a lot of missing and broken pieces.  But I decided to satisfy his curiosity and see what I could do with it.  I found a way to configure some of the pieces so the marbles would flow from place to place, and it kept him engaged for a very long time.  I was kind of pleased with my self, since that kind of thing is not in my line of gifting, haha!

Wednesday was a warm day, and I was making several batches of air fried chicken.  I always like to keep my windows open when I do that to keep my smoke alarm from going off.  So by the time I was finished with that and with roasting some yams and veggies in a 400 degree oven, it was up to 80 degrees in the house!!  Needless to say, time for the AC!!  I left to pick up Elizer from daycare and then took some of the food over to Anthony and Lori's.  By the time we got home the house felt wonderful.  Dick was mowing the grass, and we watched him from the porch till he was finished, then Dick took him for a ride around the neighborhood.  He loves to wave at everyone!

Thursday was just downright hot!!  When I got Elizer home from daycare I changed him into this adorable shorts outfit Destiny had gotten him.  When Dick and I were in the kitchen getting ready to eat dinner we throught he was too quiet.  That usually means he might be up to no good.  But this is what I found.  So cute!

Destiny picked him up right after work, and we had choir practice that evening. 

Our daffodils loved the weather last week.  They have been through every temperature extreme this spring and they aren't very tall, but they are red and they cheer me up every time I come home.

Here's a cool picture I took from my sink window on Friday morning.  We live very near to University Park Airport and have many contrails in the sky. 

Friday was Destiny's day off work, so we went grocery shopping together and then ate lunch at Panera.  I got a delicious salad that had strawberries, blueberries, pineapples, and clementines in it.  But guess who ate every last piece of my fruit??  A certain little boy, haha!  I had the lettuce and chicken and maybe some pecans.  Still good.

He took a nap here that afternoon - for three hours!  

And finally that evening we had our first cookout of the year!  It had been a hot day, but cooled off just perfectly by evening.  

Is this not the cutest picture????  He loves his rain boots!

We had such a good time!  

This sign was up all last week advertising our church's groundbreaking ceremony.  

But all that sunny weather was gone by Saturday!  It was still pretty warm, but raining.  But we were not deterred!  We had it anyway and we had a great time!

There were little shovels for the kids and they got to dig first.  Pastor Jim told them that someday when they bring their kids to this church they can tell them that they helped to dig the ground when it was built!  Elizer was so excited about using that shovel!  He didn't want to stop.  

Other people, representing church, district, and builder responsibilities shoveled as well.   We had a short service, prayer, and a song.  The group in the bottom photo were the ones who planned and prepared for the service.

After-bath snuggles with Grandpa Saturday evening. 

Elizer went to church with us Sunday morning, and in the afternoon we met Alex to give Elizer to him.  Sadly, his daycare class has had to downsize for a month due to staff shortage.  They can have only five kids until they hire and train a new person.  They chose the five based on those who have siblings in other classes.  So for the next month Elizer will be spending a week at a time with Alex, then with Destiny and us, then with Alex, etc.  He's always happy to go either place, thankfully.  We miss him, but I'm trying to get some things done this week that I don't usually have time to do.  I've made a long list!

Today was just absolutely cold and blustery!!  I hated it!!

But I've got yellow and pink tulips, and the knockout rose bush is coming back to life.  Apparently we're going up to 80 degrees again on Friday, and then next week will be cold again.  Spring flowers really do need to be hardy!

Tomorrow is this guy's 73rd birthday!  Still working full time!  

Sam and Steph gave us a gift card for Texas Roadhouse for Christmas, and we've been saving it for Dick's birthday.  So you know where we'll be eating!  Our favorite place!

Our Easter week

 I’m having so much trouble finding time to keep up here!!

First I'll post this picture of my Spring front door hanger.  Found it on Amazon.  

My last post ended with Sunday, April 2.  So I'll catch up now on last week.  On Tuesday Dick mowed the grass for the first time and then absolutely delighted Elizer with his first tractor ride of the season around the neighborhood.  His face says it all!!

Here are pictures from daycare last week.  As you can see, we had temps all the way from winter coats to sweating!  In the carseat picture he was looking at a book his teacher's gave him for Easter, a Thomas the Train book.  He loved it!

Something really exciting happened!  The digging began at the site where our new church will be built! They broke ground before we even had our official ground breaking ceremony!  That will be this coming Saturday.

Here are some sky pics I took last week.  Have you ever seen a cloud like this?  Some thought it looked like smoke from a chimney.  I thought it looked like a funnel cloud.  But it was just a very unique cloud formation at sunrise.  

We had really heavy rain one night last week, and the next morning I took this misty sunrise pic. 

On Friday Destiny and I met for lunch at Rey Azteca, a Mexican restaurant we really like.  Elizer was kind of a handful, but for a bit he cooperated for these adorable pictures. 

He's definitely displaying some "terrible two" behaviors lately.  On top of that, daycare is having hiring issues and after this week he will not be going back again for a whole month till they have time to train a new worker.  I hate it, mostly because I think daycare is such a positive experience for him - the structure and interaction with peers and learning opportunities.  But it is what it is.  Sorry for using that worn out phrase.  

On Friday evening we had our Good Friday service at church, and afterward there was a glorious sunset.  I took this picture from the church parking lot.  

We had an overnight guest that night.  Our nephew Eric Stauffer, Fred and Deb's son.  He and his wife and two children live in Virginia.  Eric is a die-hard fisherman and came to our area to fish for a few days.  He's an elementary PE teacher and an absolute natural with kids.  It did not take Elizer long to figure that out!

On Saturday we did our Easter egg decorating, first of all with Destiny and Elizer, then later with Lori and Hunter.  

Hunting for them was more fun that decorating them.

Then it was time for the handsome boy pictures!

I snapped lots of pictures, ready or not!

Also that day I was keeping track of a meet in Bradenton, Florida.  I got to watch live the two relays that Sophie and her team were in.  They came in first in both races.  This picture was taken by a meet photographer and shows the awesomeness of the perfect handoff in a relay.  Sophie is already taking off, her left hand is back as she grabs the baton from the previous runner.  Perfection!

I often see videos of her lifting at the track club, and I am astonished at her strength!

Sunday was Easter!!  Our church had a full house!!  

We ended up having Elizer with us that morning, and I wasn't sure how he would do, but he was pretty good. You can see him sitting on the floor in the plaid shirt during children's time with the pastor.  

There was a two-year-old girl that he really liked, and after church he hugged her goodbye!  They were adorable together!

After church we met Alex near Duncannon to give him Elizer, then we went to Jenn's parents to see Sammy and Bianca for a little bit.  I'm pretty sure Sammy grew two inches in past two weeks!  They were leaving with Sam and Steph to go to Steph's mom for another Easter dinner, so it was just a quick sidewalk visit.  Better than nothing!

We took time afterward to sit by the lovely Susquehanna River.  It was such a beautiful day.

On the way back home we took a side detour and went to the Stauffer hunting cabin.  We sat on the porch and just enjoyed the wonderful sunny Spring day.

I'm having another very busy week, which hopefully I'll have time to write about this weekend.    

I'll end with this picture I took this afternoon from my porch steps.  WELCOME, you beautiful red tulips!!