Monday, April 9, 2007

April Showers? How about Snow?

OK, so if April Showers Bring May Flowers, what does an inch of snow on April 2nd bring! We've never had snow this late that I can remember! But by the end of the week we hit over 70 degrees! I though maybe we had been transplanted to Monatana or something!

I remember on the way home from college, we got snowed in with 3 feet of snow near the end of May while we were touring Montana! And the day before it had been over 90 degrees!

Anyway, Thursday we got the yard cleaned up and mowed and took a load of recycling to the dump - yeah! That felt good! We also set up a fire pit so we could have our evening camp fires nearer the house and yet not mess up the yard! Part of the grass had died so there was this perfect bare patch for it too!



As you can see, we had to help the fire a bit - green and wet wood doesn't burn well, so Daryl hauled out his forge blower and we had a rip roaring fire! We roasted weanies and marshmellows - great way to start a three day weekend!

Here's Daniel - notice the left over marshmellows on his happy face?



But beware - with the dark comes the Boogie Man (or girl in this case!)



And then on Friday we worked on it some more on the yard, cleaning up the old garden area that had turned into a temporary garbage dump for old toys, and other broken items that needed to go to the dump, and trees that had been blown down during out huge windstorm/snow storm last November!

Here are a few photos of that event - first a windstorm that blew over our 14 foot trampoline, and then the next weekend, we got dumped with 17 inches of snow in less than 24 hours!





Now that was a lot of snow - our mailman had to walk down our driveway to delivery/pickup that first day - now that's commitment! So those trees bent over our driveway are the ones burning in the fire pit last weekend!

Friday's clean up was tiring but it looks so much better! That meant another trip to the dump!

Then on Saturday we finished up what was left and had another bonfire - what a great weekend! We tried so hard to do the BBQ thing Saturday, but the grill was not cooperating (we need a new one) - first it wouldn't light, then it started dripping liquid propane! So we gave up on it, pulled the grates out and put them on the fire and BBQd the burger the old fashioned way - right on the bonfire! They turned out great!
Ressurection Sunday we enjoyed a wonderful service and an inspiring sermon on how much Christ suffered for us and the great price He paid to secure our salvation! We had Hot Crossed Buns with dinner - most of the kids hadn't had this before so that was fun!

I had picked up some fancy cupcakes. In order to get one of the cupcakes, each of the kids had to answer a question about God or the sermon if you were older. I asked Dayton if God loved him and he said "uh-huh" enthusiastically, so he earned his. I asked Daniel if God loved us even when we were asleep (I asked him this as he sleeps more than anyone else in this family and we often find him sleeping in the most unusual places!) and he answere "Yes!", so he got his cupcake too!

We tried fake camp (game on the picnic table, bonfire, noys playing catch etc) on Sunday afternoon but at 6 pm we got rained out - everyone diving for cover and grabbing everything we had out! That made for a fun memory! So then we settled for a game of Phase 10 in the house - even Daryl joined in!

So that was our busy but fun weekend!