What this is leading up to is a question.

What must I do to remedy this sorry situation?

A. Expand my social circles so I don’t see this friend so much.

B.  Stop being such a social butterfly.

C.  Buy more clothes!

D.  Forget it!  Wear the same thing all the time!

E.  All of the above.

F.  A, B, and C.

What do you all think?  I am off now to scrounge through my closet to find something new and interesting to wear tonight.

Here is the area where the silver balls ended up.

Over here, not too far to the right, is where the silver bells pile onto one branch.  Don’t want them to be alone.  (The second bell is hard to see.)

Then all the gold ornaments apparently needed to be grouped together, away from the silver items (you know how they are.)

Last, but not least, the red balls had there own place of honor on the tree.

Overall, the tree looks lovely.  It was decorated with love and excitement- so fun to see.

Merry Christmas!

Years passed and the Prince met a new Princess with whom he fell in love.  He told her his story right from the start.  He wondered if and when a child might come knocking upon his door.  They decided to wed and managed to wander through their lives together for many, many years.  They had children and the Prince would occasionally look into their faces and wonder….

One day, the fairies that are always in fairy tales led the Prince to a message on the Internet which said, “If you are the Prince who knew this Princess, then I would like to talk to you.“  Was this the knock on the door?

Messages were exchanged and the truth was confirmed.  Yes, it was the knock of the child, a daughter!  Her Mother had passed on into the mists without revealing the true identity of her father, but a kind soul knew a name, only a name, so the daughter wrote it in a place where she hoped that he would find it…  and she waited.  The Prince and his child are thrilled to get to know each other.  The Prince’s other children are excited to have a sister.  And the other Princess?  She gets to be a wicked stepmother; aren’t there always those in fairy tales, too?

**********

This is not a made up story, obviously.  This is the story of our lives.  We are thrilled to introduce to you our 24 year-old daughter.  I’ll have to think of a good nickname for her.  She lives far away but we are looking forward to seeing her in person some day.

And best of all?

We are GRANDPARENTS!!!!

“How sweet! But are you sure you want to give it away?”

“Yes, it’s for you.”  she nodded seriously “I checked, it’s not the special coin Papa brought from his trip.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to keep it and spend it?”

“No.”  she shook her head.  “I want you to have it.”

I’ve been hearing the coins clink in my pocket all day and it makes me smile.

We drove to my parent’s place, spent a night and then headed to the coast.  We took The Long Way because that is just how we do things, much to the disgruntlement of the children.  They see no sense in it but who said parents had to make sense?

We were all glad to arrive, check out the ocean and find ice cream.

 After walking around awhile The Boy decided he would much rather go back to the hotel room, get into comfy clothes and relax.  It didn’t hurt that there was T.V. there with a kazillion channels.  But no, his parents were still in Torture the Children Mode and insisted on going out in paddle boats.

All safe in lifejackets.

The hotel key fell out of my pocket somewhere out there.  The river then became known as “The Lost Key River”.  And about every river we went over from that point on was called that- so hard to keep rivers hundreds of miles apart straight.  The hotel was very understanding and didn’t charge us anything. 

We made those poor children go out to eat and then FINALLY let them go back to the hotel room….and watch T.V.

We did spend time on the beach- stay tuned!

Granted there have been a few unsettling things happen during last years thunderstorms- branches breaking off, eletricitiy going out, trees breaking in half.  Stuff like that.  But she does go a bit overboard in the frightened department and, in typical for her fashion, will not listen to any reason becuase she is too busy making noise herself.

A few weeks ago we had a thunderstorm roll through the hills around us.  We had a meeting in town so the kids and I headed out to the park where the meeting was being held.  We looked at the gray skyes and hurried through our meeting as the kids played.  There were a few flashes of light in the distance that Sunshine commented on as we drove in.

“What was that?”

What?

“That flashing?”  sounding nervous.

Oh, probably nothing much. 

We went to see some friends afterwards and a few flashes were seen and a few low rumbles were heard.

On the way home Sunshine’s high voice proclaimed from the back:

“There was a thunderstorm, and I wasn’t afraid!”

Oh that’s good news honey!

“…because I’m five now!”

Makes all the difference in the world.

This shows how far behind I am at blogging but I wanted to share it.

This lovely thing, not the child doing a model impersonation, is my Mother’s Day gift.

It is tuned to the key of A or A minus, I can’t remember.   We hung it on the front porch but decided it wasn’t catching the wind there so we moved it out to the bird feeder.

I keep my kitchen window open a bit so I can hear them through out the day.

Lots of scrapes on the Boy but he seems to be fine. His face gets lots of attention. We tell people that they should see the tree!

Col. Panic was the narrator and sang a song.

Three of the cutest towns people.

The angel at the empty tomb.

He has risen!