Bountiful Blessings

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Almost a trendsetter

Late yesterday afternoon, I found in my inbox one of those cutesy, forward type e-mails from my sister-in-law. The subject line read "One Word", and within the body was a list of questions which the recipient was to answer with only one word. Upon completion, it was to be sent to seven other people, including the person from whom it had been received. I liked it, and gamely played along, passing it on to the usual suspects in my address book (including Darren and my brothers...helllooo!!! Brothers! Do you check your e-mail?!)

So anyway, imagine my surprise this morning when I wake up, check my blogroll, and find that half of the entire population of blogland (or at least my small neighborhood, anyway) has posted a "One Word Meme"!

D'oh! I knew I should have just posted it to my blog last night!

Oh, and for what it's worth, here were my responses (but now I feel totally self conscious and unoriginal):

1. Where is your cell phone? kitchen
2. Where is your significant other? outside
3. Your hair? unruly
4. Your mother? unconditional
5. Your father? changed
6. Your favorite thing? family
7. Your dream last night? home
8. Your dream/goal? Heaven
9. The room you're in? bedroom
10. Your hobby? blogging
11. Your fear? tragedy
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? RV'ing
13. Where were you last night? work
14. What you're not? spontaneous
15. One of your wish list items? wealth
16. Where you grew up? here
17. The last thing you did? e-mail
18. What are you wearing? clothes
19. Your TV? off
20. Your Pet? Mikey
21. Your computer? newish
22. Your mood? irrational
23. Missing someone? yes
24. Your car? Odyssey
25. Something you're not wearing? make-up
26. Favorite store? Lowe's
27. Your summer? uneventful
28. Love someone? absolutely
29. Your favorite color? blue
30. When is the last time you laughed? yesterday
31. Last time you cried? today
32. Who will resend this? nobody
33. How many sisters? none

Saturday, July 12, 2008

Rain

We've been welcoming big, beautiful, and much needed rain storms every day for the past few days, receiving on Thursday three times the amount of this year's rainfall to date. Exhilarating to me are the gray skies, the steady rumble of distant thunder, the tantalizing scent of fresh, cool precipitation, and the damp chill, all vividly reminiscent of the summer storms I so fondly recall from my youth. They were, particularly during my adolescence, one of my favorite aspects of the season. Disrupting the seemingly endless span of oppressively hot, dry days, they provided the perfect interlude in which to cozy up indoors with a good book or rousing board game competitions between my brother and me. My children and I have been enjoying plenty of our own idle pastimes over the course of the week, but I just couldn't resist dashing out into the rain to capture a few photographs last Thursday. These are my favorites (some of which were taken after the storm had subsided).

Tuesday, July 08, 2008

Fourth of July Weekend 2008

I think I'm still in recovery mode following the wonderful holiday weekend enjoyed with my family. Where to even begin describing what we kept calling "The best fourth of July ever!"? (Okay, so I have to admit that the day did get off to a rather rocky start, but that was only due to my own petty selfishness and perfectionist tendencies. Once I got over myself, so to speak, the day was incredible!) We had purchased a big inflatable pool with an attachable sprinkler to set up along side our existing small kiddie pool, transforming our backyard into a water park of sorts, with water balloon games completing the theme! We let our children splash and play while waiting for my brother's family to arrive from Albuquerque, and they had a blast!

We ate lunch at our picnic table to give the children a chance to dry off and warm up, then went inside to work on some fun crafts. I didn't think to take a picture of our work, but you can see some of our finished products on the cabinet behind Dylan in this next picture. He's busy assembling some appetizers for which he had asked us to purchase ingredients. He had sampled some ham and cheese cubes on sticks at one of our favorite stores the day before, and really wanted to make some of his own for our party. Yum! :)

It began storming soon after my brother arrived, so we postponed any further water play in favor of smoke bombs and snappers. My dad joined us a little while later, and surprised all of his grandchildren by letting each of them have a turn churning the home made ice cream!

We grilled hot dogs and hamburgers, served with beans and pasta salad and chips and dips, and then, since the skies had cleared considerably, let the kids play some more in the pools. The water was much cooler by that point, so they didn't stay in long, but they didn't mind when we called them out to dry off...because we were distributing the ice cream they had made earlier with the beautiful cake my sister-in-law had made!

Kristen was wearing red, white, and blue, but I forgot to take any pictures of her until she was already dressed for bed! She actually stayed indoors for most of the day, but did very much enjoy being outside with us as daylight gave way to dusk. She is always such a happy baby!

Once darkness fell, we moved out to the street to light the small arsenal of fireworks my brother and Darren had purchased earlier. These were just little ground displays that we all really enjoyed watching. It was late, though, and to my surprise, Meghan actually fell asleep on my dad's lap! She didn't even stir when he carefully transferred her to her bed! As I was rocking Kristen that night, I was thinking to myself that it had been such an excellent day. I was so happy, and so looking forward to the next two days, which I knew would also be packed full of fun and joy. I was not disappointed!

Saturday was just another low key, no stress day of family fun. The cousins came over in the afternoon to join my children in the continuing backyard games, and that evening Darren prepared a home cooked meal for us. I stayed up pretty late that night in anticipation of the breakfast we were hosting the next morning in honor of Kristen's presentation at Mass, assembling in advance as much as I could. My brother's family and my dad came over early Sunday morning and we enjoyed a feast of Crustless Bacon and Cheese Quiche, French Toast Casserole, Champagne Salad, and Dessert Pizza. Oh, my goodness. We ate. And ate. And ate. It was all sooo good!

Mass was lovely. We had reserved seating up front with the other infants being anointed that day. (At our parish, infants are first anointed with chrism oil and then baptized at a later date, generally after another three weeks or so. Kristen, however, has already been baptized.) I was a little worried about how my children might behave with their cousins in attendance, but they all did great! We said our good-bye's in the parking lot after Mass, then came home to laze away the rest of our day. It was perfect, the perfect conclusion to a perfect weekend. I want to do it all again next year!

Gray Fox

I was telling my mom a few days ago about the adorable antics of our little Gray Fox family, lamenting the fact that I just couldn't seem to get a clear photograph of them, and she suggested that I try to video record them, instead. These nightly visitors to our backyard include (as far as we can tell) a mama and at least three young pups. They are SO cute! Darren and I have even been letting Dylan stay up later than usual so that he, too, can enjoy watching them romp around our backyard. We were delighted to capture on video one of the pups coming all the way up to our back door! The quality isn't great, but you can see here that he (or she) is not at all shy about venturing right up onto our patio!