Yes, it's been a month. Here's what went on, with lots of pics.

Hiya. It's been awhile. You're probably wondering what happened? Let's just say it was probably the busiest two month period of my entire life. But, a lot of fun and cool stuff happened, so here's my 'travel' report. (no travel, really, but we can pretend..) Here's the story of spring at our house.

March 23, 2008 - Easter Sunday. Here's a picture of the family that I stitched together. It was FREEZING. None of the usual crowd was around to do Easter pictures. We always have a 'just the girls' picture, but this year it was just us. It was a really nice day too.

On April 5, we had a nice girls dinner to visit with Denise Z who was in town for a week. Then Jean and I went downtown to Artopia. My pictures aren't great from that event, but we had a good time. Got to see some interesting performances and some really nice music.

April 17, 2008 - Jordan performing her Dramatic Interpretation for Showcase Night at the high school. She'll be taking this performance to Nationals later this summer.

April 18, 2008 - The funniest play ever. The Complete Works of Shakespeare, abridged". Steve was one of 3 primaries in the play and they all played various roles. Steve played about 15 or 16 different parts, including most of the female roles, such as Juliet, Hamlet's mother, etc... I can't remember laughing so hard for a long time.

April 25 - Choir Competition at State. This is a picture of Steve and his girlfriend Victoria at M.U. All the kids did fabulous at state. Steve's ensemble received a 1 at districts and a 2 at state . So that was great. A couple of the kids we know got 1's at state.

April 29. Well, you just go right ahead and guess what this picture is about. I bet you will never guess. The answer is somewhere below..... Just look for the word fishing pole. Okay, if you are impatient, like I know you are.. I'll just tell you now. We were doing some housecleaning, as in "clean sweep' style cleaning. It suddenly occurred to the kids that the little tiny fishing pole, leaning up in a corner, in the upstairs hallway, right outside Jordan's door.....well....we tried to decide how long it had been there. We finally decided it was at least 3 years. So, what does that say about our skills in ignoring things? It got pitched finally.

April 30 - Debate and Forensics award night. Jordan received her pins for lettering in Debate and Forensics.

May 02 - The HAZING OF STEVE...in other words, how he got into the Improv Group at the high school. Three openings were up for the improv group this year, to replace the three outgoing seniors. After a workshop one night, auditions the next night, and making it to final callbacks, he still had to wait and see if he was one of the 3 who were chosen. We all went to bed, since the call hadn't come by 10:30 or so, we figured he didn't make it. (even though I made him wear his black shirt and red tie for the final callback)! Well about 11:15 the phone rings. It's a young man we know from church who is one of the outgoing seniors. He pretty much begged me to find a way to get Steve outside the door (keep in mind it's a school night) and he promised to have him back no later than 12:00. It was a 'tradition' for the new members to get initiated. So after about 5 minutes of deciding with John's help since we were in a sleep-deprived fog, I walked down the hall, woke Steve up, told him to get some clothes and shoes on so he could do something for me. Of course he is pretty groggy too. Finally I get him downstairs and trying to keep the whole thing a secret (they were going to jump him on the porch), got him to go out. They took him away, painted and taped and dunked him, and he came home the happiest I've ever seen him!

May 03 - Jordan and PROM!! The limo story. Corey's parents rented a town car style car with a driver to take them to dinner and the prom. When the driver took them to dinner, he asked if they would mind a big limo, at no extra charge (as long as they didn't get the cups dirty since he wouldn't have time to clean them). Umm, of course yes! So he drove them around a few places downtown for pictures before taking them to prom. What a great night for them.

May 10 - BEN GRAD! Our nephew Ben at his college grad party!

May 11 - Mother's Day. Can you believe I took no pictures other that this one? It's Fireball sleeping on the electric blanket. He's getting arthritis and he really likes the warmth. For Mother's Day, Steve got me the new Killers CD "Sawdust" which is GREAT. Jordan got me the Fiddler on the Roof WIDESCREEN special edition DVD. It's great to finally see it widescreen!

May 16 - class is finally over! Hooray. Eight months of intense training and now I'm official starting 'on-the-job-training', working to get stats high enough to be assigned to a group. We had a really nice graduation day. One of our classmates wrote "on the last day of training" to the tune of "On the first day of Christmas", and "this job is your job" to the tune of "this land is your land". We had lunch and bowled at one of the new places downtown and it was fun. I got three strikes in a row, and had my highest bowling score ever. !

May 17 - Nephew Luke high school graduation party . He is heading off to the Naval Academy this fall.

May 19 - The CURE in concert! What a blast! The opening act was called 65 Days Of Static. We have already downloaded a bunch of their music. It was a great night. The weather was perfect.

May 20 - the junior high awards ceremony. Steve, "best actor" award. His drama friends also got some certificates. Emma got a special commendation from the House of Representatives in this state! She's pretty awesome!

May 22 - Choir Concert, the last one of the year. The kids also received their awards for the district and state competition, medals and certificates. About a dozen, including Steve had enough points to LETTER! So, Steve got a letter! He was thrilled.

May 27 - Happy birthday Jordan!

May 27 - a family picture on Jordan's birthday. We had dinner at Bo Lings. It was my first time there, Steve's too, and we really loved it. Steve has decided that he now likes Chinese food.

OKAY TIME FOR A FEW BIRDS, but stay tuned for a picture of my new fountain! These bird pictures were mostly taken May 31st around town, at the nature sanctuary and at the local park.

Summer Tanager

Two Carolina Wrens building a nest.

Male Baltimore Oriole.

Eastern Meadowlark singing

AND HERE IT IS - June 1st! My old fountain got smashed recently and was beyond repair. John helped me pick out this neat one. I love it. It has 3 lights in it and lights up at night!

THE END