Empty Nesters

Our birds have flown. I didn't get a picture of them just before they left - but they really looked like birds! They were having a tough time fitting in the nest! I went to water the basket some days ago, and startled them - and they flew away - and didn't come back. So we hope they are well. Here are the last pictures I took of them a couple of weeks ago:

The Summer BBQ!

For those of you who know us well, you know we have two annual events that we invite a lot of friends to. The summer event is just known as the BBQ. We had it on Saturday, the weather was spectacular. David smoked a bunch of beef (sirloin tips in a mole marinade - that's mole the Mexican word (Mo-leh) and not the small creature that lives underground) that was YUMMY! Here he is after the meat came out from its 8 hour time in the smoker:

The meat:

We also had some games, and just before dark some fireworks! Here is a moment in the waterballoon toss, which David and Terry (holding the meat) claim to have won, but as it was supposed to have been a children's game, we are considering disqualifying them.

Happy Birthday Tim!

Where does the time go? Our Tim is 6 now! He loves turtles, so that was the theme of his party, Auntie came down to help make him a nifty turtle cake:

Nifty, yes, but not so nifty that he couldn't blow out the candles and dig in with his friends!

Marineland

This past Tuesday 350 local homeschoolers convirged on MarineLand! We were among them! The weather was great, and no one was sick, got sunburned or heat exhaustion. All in all, it was a fantastic day. Here is a subset of the 350:

We saw a show

and enjoyed the rides of course!

Hey - we're starving!

Our baby birds are growing! They're starting to look more like birds and less like, well, blobs! The parent robins are getting used to us too, and will come and feed them while we're sitting on the porch. Emily is tall enough to see in the nest if she stands up on a chair. The boys just have to look at the picture I take, and occasionally they get a glimpse of a little beak reaching up into the air!


Hey - where're our worms??


Mother Robin pausing between feeding runs.


Time for a rest!

Happy Anniversary!

David and I celebrated eleven years of marriage on Friday! Wow! Time goes fast! God has been so faithful to us - we are still very much in love!!

The traditional gift for the eleventh anniverary is steel. I gave him a carving knife, and he gave me a stainless steel teapot - engraved on the bottom is this quote from Henry Fielding:

Love is the best sweetener of tea.

and the date. The teapot is double walled - so it keeps the tea hot for a long time! No need for a cozy! We had a babysitter come and we went out for a very nice supper to a local winery!

Hatching Day!

I noticed that the birds were behaving a little differently around the nest this afternoon, instead of sitting on the eggs, they were both flying to and fro, sitting on the edge of the nest and reaching down into it. When they were off on a worm-run, I took a photo:
Later, we took another peak:

They are pretty small and ugly right now, and only make little cheeping sounds. But already Mother and Father Robin are working pretty hard!

Poxy Pip

We had official confirmation today that Pip did indeed have a recent bout of chicken pox. When he woke up Friday morning, I thought a mosquito had come into his room and had a good Pip snack. Then, Saturday morning, there were many more of the "bites", under the diaper, up the back and on the tummy, and the marks from the day before were fading and starting to get a little crusty on top. Hmmm...

So far we've had all four children vaccinated against chickenpox and two of them have now had it. The doctor told me 10% of children who are vaccinated will develop the chickenpox anyway - we're challenging those numbers! (I know! Small sample size!) Pip's case was pretty mild, he's pretty well over them now, just has the little scabby marks.