Rain, rain go away

The weather the last 5 or so days here has been lousy. Rain! Not our usual dumping-buckets-for-half-a-day rain, but long-lasting drizzly, cloudy, on-and-off, misty rain. I know as I am saying this that I will not get any sympathy at all from my overseas family since that is kind of the norm there, but I still don't like it. When we first moved to North Carolina, I didn't like the rain much at all but I got to like the quick in-and-out storms that are more common here. I like the craziness and randomness of a lovely morning followed by tons of rain for an hour or two and then sunshine. I think one reason why our current weather is now so despised is that we had a marvelous weekend before this with 80 degree days and sunshine the whole time. Psych!

There are a few things I'm really looking forward to this spring:

• Picking strawberries at the pick-your-own farms
• Seeing all the tons of spring flowers all over, especially all along the highways
• Planning and hopefully planting some vegetables in our garden
• Tennis!
• Hiking and camping

Hooray for the first day of spring on Friday! Everyone balance an egg to celebrate!

Self Portrait

Here is a self portrait that I drew when I was 5 years old. Some of my favorite things about it are:

• Freckles - I did have a lot of freckles when I was little. Apparently I thought they were very bold and only above my nose.
• Earrings - I definitely did not have earrings when I was 5. Maybe I thought they would help distract from my grossly uneven ears. Come to think of it, those look like Mr. Potato Head ears...
  
• Red hair - Is that a mistake or not? I did not have red bangs, but I wasn't colorblind either.
  
• Apparently no clothes - need I say more?

Anyways, I think this is pretty good, considering. Blue eyes, pink cheeks, light skin, crooked smile, yellow hair. Yep, that was me all right.

Picnic Weather

This weekend has been so beautiful! Friday, Saturday and Sunday were all above 70 degrees and sunny. On Friday I wanted to work on fixing up the garden a little to get it ready to plant but after a few minutes I decided it was too hot. Sunday we went on a picnic at the park. We sat on a blanket and had sandwiches (thanks Ryan and Lindy!) and played Kubb (that lawn game where you throw the wood sticks at the other wood pieces). It was fun. We should have taken our camera! Agh! I need to get better at that.

Little Jeran

While we were in Utah, I managed to get my hands on a whole bunch of pictures of Jeran when he was younger. Previously we only had 2 or 3 from before his mission and it was so sad! Now we have a lot of wonderful pictures so I thought I'd share a few here.

Baby Jeran

Jeran (left), Raymond and Derek

Raymond and Jeran

Jeran's on the Expos Little League team (about 10 yrs old)

Jiggity Jig

We are home again now. It was a fun trip and VERY busy. It was great to see all the family and friends again. We made it up to the Beav and got both sunburned and sore but it was worth it. The snow was perfect and it was plenty warm without being melty. Andrew's wedding was fabulous and I am so happy for him and Lindsay. Anyhow, I'm supposed to be working now so I'll write more details later.

Favorite computer games

So I am going to tell you about my current favorite computer games. There are so many! :) There are two main places I go these days to play those little online games when I am bored. First is a wonderful website, Free World Group Games, that is a collection of all sorts of flash games.

There are a lot at this site that I really like but by far the best is Bloons (and Bloons 2 and 3). It is a tower defense game where colored balloons of varying strength, speed, and quantity flow along a course and you try to pop them all with your monkey or dart towers before they make it off the screen.

Another fun tower defense type of game is Ant Buster, in which ants come to your picnic and steal pieces of cake. You place towers to stop them getting the cake back to their hole. You lose when all your cake is gone.

Yet another really fun game at that site is Big Bucks, which is like Monopoly against the computer but faster and more automated and all everything happens simultaneously.

Some other good ones are Garden Inventor, Arachnophilia, QBeez, Beseiged, Orb Attack, Crazy Tracker, Glowstones, Pathfinder, Sprinster, Frantic, Power Pool, Gravity Master, Tiny Trials, Youda Farmer......... I could go on for a good while longer. If you can't find these games, you type in the name on the search box on the right-hand side of the screen that says "Search site" and it should come up.

Another good place for quick online games is an app on Facebook called MindJolt Games. It has tons of easy little games. My favorites are Brain Bones, which is a dice strategy game, and Bubble Spinner, which is really fun and addictive. In Bubble Spinner, you shoot a bubble at a wheel that spins a little when you hit it and when you get 3+ bubbles of the same color, they pop. You can't let the bubbles hit the side of the screen or you lose. It's a good one.

Things I want to do in Utah this time

It's no secret. I'm getting purr-etty excited to come to Utah next week(!). I've been trying to think of a list of things that I want to do while I am there. This is what I have come up with so far:

• Eat at Sizzler
• Go snowboarding
• Make a snowball
• Take lots of pictures
• Go the Distribution Center
• Hang out with Family
• Help prep 3rd Apartment for the newbyweds
• Go to Macey's
• Play Nintendo/PS/N64, etc.
• Attend Andrew's wedding and reception (Ooohhh boy!)
• Go to Down East Outfitters
• Eat at Village Inn
• Call to check on the cats
• See everyone's home renovations, etc.
• Eat delicious food
• Say goodbye to Missionaries
• Trim Pepper's claw's
• Go on shopping expedition with sisters
• Cook delicious food for family (oo-la-la!)
• Get ring inspected at Needham's
• Don't bother Jeran while he's studying for his test or working on his grant
• Have fun in both P-Towns
  
• Eat at Cafe Rio or Costa Vida
• Visit with friends
• Go into work just to say hi
• Test new shower in 2nd Apt.
• Sleep
  

If you have any other ideas and suggestions please feel free to let me know. Of course, I will be doing much much more than just these things so be excited, either to experience these with me or else to hear about it afterward!