20 Years!

It's been 20 years since Joe and I were married. I said to him the night before our anniversary, "20 years ago this very minute I was dry heaving." I'm so mean. :) But he isn't. And just to prove it, he had an AMAZING anniversary celebration all planned out. We went to the temple in St. Louis first thing. Kinda cool to be in the temple exactly 20 years later to the minute. Then he surprised me with a most exquisite diamond bracelet. One diamond for each year. I'm still reeling from that one. Then we ate crepes and quiche at a little street cafe before walking through Forrest Park to the outdoor Shakespeare-In-The-Park theater. We watched THE BEST play. It was "The Merry Wives Of Windsor" and was so very funny and well done. We then took a cab back to our super-duper fancy hotel where there was a stunning bouquet waiting for me in our room. The next morning we ate more chocolate and strawberry crepes and then home to work in the garden. :) I am blessed. Some of these pics are from my phone, so the quality isn't that great. Oh well.

This is Landon's arrangement of A Poor Wayfaring Man Of Grief. You have to listen to the whole thing. It starts off quiet, but man!! Landon sure does like to put his own spin on things!! Oh, and you need to turn off the song playing on this blog by clicking the pause button on the player to your right.

The garden is tilled.

The dog is sunning.

The chicks have arrived.

The berries are leafing.

The strawberries are blooming.

The tomatoes and peppers are growing.




IT'S SPRINGTIME!!!!!!!!!!

Country Life

Tonight our family planted lots of tomato and pepper seeds. They are sitting on a shelf in the window for now. It will be months before it will be warm enough to trust Mother Nature not to freeze them to death. I am looking forward to planting my garden. It's one of the many things I love about living in the country. Another thing I love? Signs like these.

This one is in front of my daughter's rural Christian school. The whole school has about 120 kids and goes from k-8. There are 10 kids in her class. The school has VERY LITTLE money. Her tuition is $125 per month. They have very few computers and even less playground equipment. And you know what? The kids at this school are not just learning, they are THRIVING. No TV, no sex ed., no government money. Just good 'ol fashioned teaching and learning going on there. When the kids come out of this school and go on to high school they are, almost without exception, ahead of the public schooled kids academically. (And socially, I might add) Gotta love country livin'!

Ahhhhh.....

I just love Hawaii. I love the weather, the beaches, the culture, the people and the food. I especially love the big, huge, King Kong sized fancy hotels that we get to stay in for Joe's medical conferences. :) The thing I don't love: cold rainy weather and hiking, which is why I'm not posting a single picture of our volcano exploration day. Ugh. What a drag. I'm just going to pretend that never happened. Aloha!

Respite

Because being cold really messes with my mind, as in, makes we want to go postal, I decided it was time for a break. I needed blue water, warm weather and jewelry shopping from my towel on the beach. I needed MEXICO! I would have taken my dh, but since he was busy working to support my habits (hee hee...just kidding...he was on a ski trip with Landon) I took my two girls and joined my two best friends and THEIR two girls each for a par-tay on the sea. That's right, cruisin' time. Nine girls for a week of fun, sun, food and crazy zipline action that would make Tarzan himself pee his loincloth. What a total blast. I am so lucky to have such fun and fabulous friends. Not to mention my super sweet darling girls.

The Cold

Wow. It is really cold here. I mean, really cold. Like freeze the lake solid cold. Which is why I am adding pictures of my kids riding unicycles on the frozen lake in my backyard. And also why I will soon be adding pictures of me laying on a beach in MEXICO and soon after that, me on a beach in HAWAII. Because, I really, really, really hate the cold.