Did You Miss Me?

Our internet went out last Wednesday, but this afternoon (while the kids and I were out picking blueberries) the Internet Guy came and fixed it, so I'm Back! My e-mail box was overflowing and Facebook had lots of stuff it thought I wanted to see (turns out most of if was not life-changing. Surprise!), but now everything is back to normal. Only, Tuesday we are supposed to switch over to a new internet provider, so if I disappear it is probably because I don't know how to make the new connection work. Anyway...

On Thursday we knocked off early and met friends at Stone Mountain, for our yearly "end of vacation/combined birthday party" get together. Early in the day the weather looked pretty doubtful, but it wound up being Gorgeous! Everyone we hoped would make it Did make it (except one boy who was down with allergies -- we'd have liked to see him too, but we understand about allergies!), and we had a great time!

I didn't take a picture of the cake because it was a Disaster. The kids wanted jam in the middle of each cake and marshmallow fluff between the two layers. And Katie particularly asked me to "use lots" of fluff. So I did. And the top kept insisting on sliding off. It was very sad. But apparently still quite edible, as none of it was left over. (Both kids blew out the candles, but I didn't get a picture of that either. This one shows the evil fluff oozing out the sides of the cake, though.)

After lunch there was the usual climbing and sliding at Widow Falls. No one got hurt, and we mostly had the place to ourselves, which was nice!

 The kids found this gorgeous little salamander...

and this wonderfully ambitious little dung beetle. He was rolling his gross little ball of stuff up a steep slope littered with (to him) gigantic sticks, leaves, and rocks. And he never once (that we heard) moaned or whined. I wanted Travis and Katie to stick around and learn to be more like dung beetles (as regards perseverance), but they were not so impressed as I.

It really was a good day.

And today, not only did we get two big coffee cans full of delicious blueberries, but also I completed my first assignment for that Latin class! Aside from a couple that I'm not sure about, I think it went pretty well. Now I just have to figure out how to submit my answers!