Busy Day

Busy weekend's more like it. The church choir had a retreat this weekend. Friday night was a covered dish supper in Montreat. Saturday was singing 9 AM until 3 PM. The guest clinician was Ginger Wyrick from Queen's College, Charlotte (with whom Libby attended elementary school in Eden). Eli had a birthday party for his friend John Paul. Today was church with excellent music at both services. Then this afternoon we were at Camp Rockmont for a youth outing. The lake facilities were open and it was warm (it wasn't the last time we were here in May). Briggs managed to escape naps both Saturday and Sunday; that coupled with a busy couple of hours at the lake led to this at 7 PM!

Expecting

Save the corny jokes; we know what causes it! We're expecting; due sometime in late-February or early-March 2008. Libby's pretty nauseous these days. The pic is from last month at about 13 weeks. To the right is the head; to the left is everything else. The baby's about 2 inches long. Eli's excited; Briggs doesn't know.

Briggs found the tomatoes

This is all that's left of the bowl of loose ones...a matter of minutes later!

I hate tomatoes

Go figure: I hate these things, but we've got scads of them this week. Briggs will wolf them down; Eli and Libby will eat a few sparingly. There are a couple of varieties of the small tomatoes (orange and red) in addition to the big purple variety. We wound up with two ears of corn.

Beach trip

We had a nice time at Kitty Hawk. Very relaxing, if not all that conducive to taking pictures. We did manage to remember to take a couple of shots at the Wright Brothers' Memorial in KDH. Otherwise it was sit at the beach; eat; sit at the pool; eat; nap; eat; sit at the beach; eat; nap...

Boys and water definitely mix

The valley seems to have gotten over its drought. We've had 3 inches of rain in three days. Most of the week there were afternoon storms, the kind you associate with summer. But each day they've been increasingly consistent and insistent. Wednesday I made the mistake of biking back to church after lunch: it was pouring by 4 PM and showed no signs of letting up. I had to bum a ride with Jennifer R. (thanks again!). Thursday it rained most of the evening. Friday it rained in the afternoon and evening, and then started up again in the middle of the night. And today (Saturday) it's rained pretty much all day. Our two little Power Rangers have enjoyed trudging up and down the gully at the edge of the lot near Kerlee Heights Road; water gushes through there. Some construction up the street turns the water a nifty shade of orange as it washes through! At some point Briggs apparently tried sitting in it! Tuesday evening Libby got this shot of the sky, with clouds and moon. Pretty cool.

This-n-that

Not too much happening this month. We did find this whopper of a tomato; God-only knows what it tastes like. It's more purple than red at the moment. We picked it green and it stayed that way for the longest time! There's a single corn stalk in the garden; not sure where it came from. But it has fertilized, and there are baby ears developing! There is a lot of Rose-of-Sharon around the lot. I've grown to detest it, but it does have a pretty flower. Here are two varieties: no color in the center of the bloom, and a red center in each bloom. That's a shot of how it spreads: there are shoots like this all over. This is why I detest it! Lastly, there used to be a rusting aluminum shed on that slab. We're taking suggestions on what should go here now. It's about 20 feet from the back porch and deck, nicely sheltered by trees.