Good reads

My good friend Challis introduced me to a cool new website
my 'read' shelf:

On this website, you keep track of the books you have read, are reading, and want to read. In addition, you can track what you friends are reading. Pretty cool. The hardest thing for me is picking a new book. With this website, I can look what other people have read, and liked, and read it myself. That should lessen the amount of bad books I read.
What did we do without the internet? I do so much research, stay in touch, buy all kinds of consumables, and journal about my life. I guess we used to do it the hard way; at the library, with stamps and envelopes, high school reunions, shop at stores, and an actual journal. And then there's the phenomenon of the ability to keep in touch with "acquaintances" whom we would otherwise in no doubt loose contact with. The fun thing for me is to try and locate those who I knew in Holland and even college, so we can "stay in touch" through website such as Facebook. Of course, some of the people I find, will soon become "stale" friends. We talk a few times when we first find each other, but never speak to each other again from then on. But there's the option... anytime, you can just send a quick message.

Jumping fun

Grandma and grandpa Ashurst came to visit. Grandma had some fun with the kids on the trampoline.

Graduation

Winter's last day of Kindergarten is tomorrow. I can't believe how much she has learned this year. She learned most of her letters in preschool, but couldn't read at all. Now she is getting faster all the time, and often doesn't have to sound out the words at all.
Kindergarten has a bunch of tests. Spelling, math, problem solving etc. Anytime Winter does a test, she does really great. She sure is a smart girl! Whenever she had a spelling test coming up, I would practice the words from the test, and keep practicing other words that are closely related to those. Then I would go harder, and harder, until I was just amazed at how many she can spell out. Maybe she should participate in a spelling bee. :)

Lost

I am a total Lost Junkie. Ever since I saw it for the first time about a year ago, I am in love with it. Tonight is the 4th season finale. I can't hardly wait! But I have to admit that it's better to watch the whole season on DVD, than live on Tv. It kills me to have to wait a week each time.
Another one of my favorite TV shows just started again: So you think you can dance. There are so many amazing dancers on this show. The first couple of shows are fun, because you get the occasional really bad "dancers" on there. The judges are really cruel, even worse than Simon Cowell on "american idol". There are a bunch of really good dancers from Salt Lake this time, which doesn't surprise me, because that city has sooo many good teachers and dance programs. That's one reason I would love to live in Utah, ... so Winter could do ballroom dance. She might do gymnastics though.

Marco..

They have to be Somewhere! I just have no idea where. What you ask? My keys of course. I usually misplace them, and quickly find them again. But I would say they are officially lost, as I haven't been able to locate them for over a week now. The biggest problem: that keyring has the only key to our suburban. We haven't needed to use it, but still.... we need that key! The only thing I remember is that I set them down somewhere because I didn't have pockets. This kind of narrows the field a little bit. I think they are somewhere in either the shop, shed, or backyard, but it's hard to tell. I'll keep looking, and update you if (cross fingers) I find them. Oh, and I should totally have some kind of key chain that you can buzz/locate from a "base" that's in the house in a fixed spot. Do they even make that?

Quote of the day

Sterling: "Why do people put seeds in watermelon"?

Happy Memorial Day

So, after our little discovery, I'm having a hard time writing an upbeat story about our holiday weekend. However, we had a fabulous time, so I will muster all my will, and try to write about it.
On Saturday we had a blast with the people from Joe's work. The goat was great, and so was all the other food. The kids swam for about 4 hours straight and had fun making new friends.
Yesterday we headed down to Plano and had a nice dinner with mom, dad, and grandma. We were supposed to eat some pig that dad had on the spit, but it wasn't ready in time (although we did get to sample it and it was delicious) After the kids went to bed, we had fun watching Robin Hood: men in tights. That is such a funny movie! It had been at least 10 years since I last saw it, and every time before the next joke would come up, I would just start giggling, because I knew what was coming.
Today we got together with Katy and Matt Morphis and co. We went to the Plano nature preserve. Can I just say that you don't need to spend money to have a ton of fun? We first had a picnic in the trees on blankets. Then we headed to the creek, and explored all the way down the creek bed. There were sections of the creek that were deep enough for the kids to swim in. We also built a dam, and took lots of pictures. But those were all on Katy's camera, so we'll see if we can get a hold of those.
I finished off the day with a fun game of "hand and foot" with grandma Helen. She totally beat me! We had yet another yummy dinner, loaded the truck bed full with bio-diesel equipment, and got back to discover the disaster area. Now I'm eating chocolate and crackers to try to make myself feel a little better and forget about the misfortunes of our chickens.