9 Reasons The Last Couple Weeks Were a BLAST!!

Where do we even begin? So much to tell you about. Definitely an eventful past couple weeks. Summary format seems to work well. Here goes...

1. Free Wood. John and I went and gathered about a cord and half of awesomely fragrant Christmas tree wood--spruce, pine, nice smelling stuff. There was a 20 cord pile, all delimbed and cut in 16" lengths--gratis. We loaded up as much as we could and are now trying to find a really good pine sap remover. We just tell all our neighbors we are building an ark.

2. Pinewood Derby. Nate and John had awesome cars. John's (the MX 250 a.k.a. "The Viper") took 4th place out of 30 cars and Nate's #80 (Landspeeder a.k.a. "Black Vulcan")took 12th because of a critical nonconformity with axel alignment.

3. Nate Turns 8. His favorite cake (carrot with cream cheese frosting) happens to be one that our sweet Julia makes so very very well. That mondo cake fed the masses and there was still 1/4 of it left. Then there were the traditional birthday pancakes on "the morning of" an ice cream cake from Grammie later, and a load of treats. We haven't had this much sugar in our home...well, ever.

4. Cub Scouts. Nate is psyched about Cubs. Finished his collection presentation for his Bobcat (lego guys)and is into it full speed.

5. Grammie. If I could have the "It's always fun when Grandma comes ..." music cued up please. Let's just say we painted the town red--with full fervor and animo. You're going to have to check out the Recent Photos link to the right (I've got space limitations so I delete the older ones)if you want the full story. For the short run down, a variety of us visited...(these are mostly links)

The Jelly Belly Factory
Johnny's Donuts
Fortune Cookie Factory
Japanese Tea Gardens in Golden Gate Park
The Dutch Windmill
The Asian Market
Fort Funston & Hang Gliders
Oakland Temple Session
Shaklee
Memorial Park BMX Track & Rope Swing

6. Heidi & Kids. Heidi made the Herculean effort of packing up her passel of kids and Dorothy and came to Nate's Baptism. We had a blast and went to many of the fun things mentioned in Grammie's section. It was great to have Heidi and the kids here--so energetic and fun.

7. Dorothy. Dorothy and I went on a super fun bike ride on my daily hill route (interval hills--steep) and then into the rough up a little hilly canyon heading over to Debbie and Rob's old house. We gingerly walked through a small herd of cows, climbed a few steep hills, biked next to streams, climbed backwoods hillsides, threw bikes over barbed wired fences and crawled through an opening--all the fun stuff. Thanks to assertive Dorothy, we were able to get permission to go through some dude's backyard and get back into civilization via the famed Derby Drive (click on this). Soooo fun to have Dorothy here. She and Julia also made California Rolls--very scrumptious and fun. If we could only find a place that sells pickled Ginger by the gallon.

8. Nate's Baptism. Nate was baptized on March 1st in our Danville Stake Center. We had a big family celebration at Tom & Hilary's home afterward. Nate had a wonderful time, as did we. It was so nice to have family there. Tom and John were witnesses, Nate loved all the attention, notoriety, umpteen cards and letters, presents and fame.


9. Junk Food ... GALORE. Let me just try to summarize: 150 lbs. of candy from the Jelly Belly Factory, 5 half gallons of ice cream, 5 Costco Pizzas, 15 half gallon bins of cookies and sugary confections, the aforementioned plethora of birthday cakes, Girl Scout cookies, cupcakes from neighbors, maybe this picture can tell the rest.

All in all, hearts were gladdened. Spirits were lifted. Arterial wall tallow was replenished and fortified. Biochemically, I wouldn't even want to think about it...even at the molecular level, even if I could. Let's just say it's a good thing Grammie is diabetic.