A promise

Lately I've enjoyed reading about the creation of everything at the beginning of Genesis, and I've also appreciated the last verse of the 8th chapter: While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.

It's great to be 3!

The youngest of our wonder nephews had a birthday at the beginning of the month. We'd missed his previous two because we were down south, so being a part of the distinguished guest list was a great treat. There was a particular theme to his celebration; I'll give you three guesses as to what.. ;)

This party was fun for all ages, as you can plainly see :) 

And here is something that makes me smile and smile: G has quite a few uncles (Uncle Jan, Uncle Ryan, Uncle Adam & Uncle Josh) and just two aunts, which means the word uncle is used more often in his little world than the word aunt, which means the word aunt has never really become a part of his vocabulary, which means...he also has an Uncle Bri and an Uncle Hilary :) And so I am auntie to our two older nephews and uncle to our youngest, and I love being both very, very much :)

And something else I love: A group of grown-ups who will gather in their superhero finery just because they know it will make the birthday boy happy. It's great to be 3 indeed :)

Pinkies up

Two Saturdays ago our mom and I toured an English garden. We met a very handsome cat and a proud peacock, ate currant scones with strawberry jam and enormous pieces of layer cake - chocolate for her, peanut butter for me :), drank strong tea in pretty teacups, and admired all of the wild, growing things. It was all quite ladylike and civilized and I told Gayle I felt like Anne of Green Gables :)

And this has nothing to do with English gardens, but last month we celebrated our 18th anniversary. So, here is our formal portrait of the old married couple :)

Summer deck series

Our parents have a deck that overlooks the backyard and provides a lovely view of the trees and hills and mountain beyond, and I plan to take a bazillion pictures of what I see as the summer rolls on.

A road trip

In this case, it was a road trip at the speed of light: we left Texas on May 17th and rolled into Washington on the 19th, which is 2100 miles in 2.5 days, which equals two 12-hour days and one 8-hour day and three sore rear ends. Jan did the vast majority of the driving in the moving truck and Brent did all of the driving in our very vintage Honda; they are both troopers to the nth degree. We spent the first night just outside of Denver and the second in the middle of Boise; on our last day of driving we decided to be really luxurious and sleep in until 5:15. We zipped through three previously unseen states (Oklahoma, Colorado & Wyoming) and Jan & I are now well-versed in the best truck stops thanks to Brent :)

A birthday selfie! The middle-aged woman flanked by two youngins ;)