A Good Weekend for Rain

 What a weekend!  I took the above photo on Friday afternoon.  Saturday began beautifully.  It was sunny and bright and warm.  It changed, though.  It rained, as my father might say, like a "Cow peeing on a flat rock."  Which, I THINK means it was raining hard.

Chloe is not picky about the weather, she enjoys being outside anytime.  And since I guess I haven't had enough pictures of her lately, here are a few more!

 I grew up with iris flowers blooming around our house in the spring.  I found one today.  I took a picture.

 And...Cora said we needed to paint some canvasses today that have been sitting around looking ugly...I admit, I did the majority of the painting, but...Chloe and Cora DID help a little!!  The mountains below were supposed to be brighter, but turned out rather dull...I did it.  Sorry.

 
 Here you can see the Mother/Daughter Duo working together to create art the likes this world has never seen!

I took this photo of our bleedinghearts during the rain.

We went to a potluck for local adoptive families.  It was fun seeing new people with similar tales!  It was great meeting new kids and it was good to eat some food that someone else cooked.  I don't know the others well enough to post their pictures here, but I can post Chloe!  I am pretty sure she won everyone over with her squeaky shoes and her awesome sweetness!

 She seems to be a little irritated...probably that someone let the chickens free...

I think it was a good weekend!  I have the week filled up for teaching...well, except Tuesday, but that too shall be filled.

Rain Stomp!

 We had a nice day yesterday.  We began the day slowly and ended up going to town for some plants.  However, when we got home neither of us felt like digging in the dirt to plant them, so we put Chloe down to nap and then we relaxed in the backyard reading our kindles and drinking cold refreshments and snacking.  We relaxed, that is, until the battery in the baby monitor died, then I scrambled to get the one with a good battery.  Then we relaxed for awhile longer.  That is, until the rain clouds got really threatening...then we retired inside and actually did some cleaning...Well, Cora did.

Cora and Chloe went to see Molly when she dropped into town and it was raining horribly, but they braved the wet...in fact Chloe seemed to enjoy it.

I got several good pictures of my darling Chloe in the rain...she is so stinking cute.

On the way home Friday I had stopped to take a picture of something and then returned to the truck only to see an airplane and have to pull over to take pictures of it...it was an F-18...the Electronic Warfare variant that has taken over for the EA-6s that used to operate from Whidbey....they are cool.

Ah, life is good!

Back With a Smile and Some Drool.

Now that Blogger is back up, I can post again.  I was seriously wondering if they would get it up again.  They did.  Wonderful work guys!  Whoever you are.

I had a good, if wearying week.  I subbed for an elementary PE teacher for the entire week.  It was a good week.  The kids played tag and for some reason, seated in my third grade mind probably, I felt the need to participate.  That would have been fine, the kids loved it and it was fun.  However, I am...a less than active individual during the rest of my life.  Yeah, I can walk for miles, but that does not generally include running, stopping, leaping, sprinting and all those other things you have to do in tag...so, I am REALLY sore.  Mostly muscles in my legs.

I am glad it is the weekend!  In the middle of the night we awoke to lightning...oh, and lightning's little brother, thunder.  A short time before that, we had awoken to Chloe's calls for a 230AM bottle...I took care of that in a drowsy haze.

Last night I discovered that I can approximate the effects of what are called selective focus lenses.  They are fun little lenses, or seem like they would be fun if I could afford them.  I found that if you use the right parts of my photo program I can manage a fair imitation.  It makes real world photos look like miniature models.  I think it is a cool little trick, though I am unsure how often I'd use it.  Have a look.  I know it isn't high quality workmanship, but you get the idea.

 For four of those five days, Ronald McDonald was presenting about bullies in the afternoon.  His skit was entertaining, and the kids loved it.  They are also planning to have a Mcteacher night soon, so that was part of it.

 And finally, we have Chloe.  Sweet, sweet Chloe.  Good ol' Princess Upbeforsix.  She has an internal alarm clock that is remarkably accurate, to within minutes.  It wakes her up every morning at 630AM.  Which is most often before we would like her to get up.  We love her, but we sometimes have to double fist coffee cups to prepare for the arrival of Sweet Chloe in our presence.

 The warming weather has brought us outside in the afternoons a lot more, so you will be seeing the sweetheart out in the grass and flowers more.

Have a good weekend!

Sweetness!

I know I have said it before, but JEEZZZZZ!  I don't want to sub as a PE teacher ever again!!  I have a big problem with subbing for elementary school PE teachers...I always want to jump in and play.  Yes.  It's true.   I only want to do it because, thanks to my practiced biology, I am better at hand and eye coordination.  I HAVE been practicing for 37 years.  I totally ROCK the kind of tag they are playing this week.  Of course, sometimes they outmaneuver me, and they get me out...but they all like me more for it.  After all, their normal teacher NEVER plays tag with them...of course, the down side is I am feeling EVERY muscle I have ever had scream at me in pain!  Ah, the pains of being a sub.

Oh, did you notice?  My daughter is beautiful!

My Girl Is Sweet

This girl is forever surprising us!  She is the source of endless smiles and endless gray hairs!  I would not trade her for the world.

Giving Soul

My daughter has a giving soul.  If she finds a rock on the ground, chances are she'll offer it to you.  If she has a snack in her fingers, she'll offer it to the dog, allowing him to sniff and sometimes lick it and then she eats it, though usually she gives it to the dog. Yes, she is sweet.  She caught a cold.

and gave it to me.

Sweet little girl.

I'll describe it to you if you like.  I know you don't want it, but is one of my few pleasures, so bear with me.

It feels like I got up in the middle of the night and chewed on broken bottles and then swallowed the broken bits without aid of a glass of water.  It also feels like someone inflated a small inner tube around my neck.  I am not feeling well, but it could be worse.  If I didn't have a job I'd stay home.

I taught PE yesterday and will again all week...on the down side I yell a lot...stupid acoustics.  By the end of the day yesterday, my voice sounded like a jeep on a gravel road.  I'm going to try to use the whistle more and the voice less...but we'll see how that goes.

So, it's Tuesday.  That much closer to the weekend.  I wish this damned cold would evacuate like the inhabitants of a town next to a nuclear power plant in an emergency...how's that for analogies?

The daughter, upon finding she gave me something I did not want will probably just stick her tongue out.  At least she would if she knew what sticking your tongue out was for, other than a cool way to detect wind gusts and taste bugs.  Here she is practicing the tongue-sticking-out thing.

Wonderful Awesome Very Good Daughter

 She is ready for the runway, look at her work it!

 She is growing, too!

 "See Dad! Mom has the camera!"

We have tons of toys, but this occupies her time!