Blogrilla

Sunday went reasonably well, but it wasn’t as productive as I wanted. I managed to give the honeysuckle a trim, but I have a lot more to take off. That bad boy can really grow! Additionally I was able to move about half of the giant pile of mulch to under and around the swingset. I know that I will move a good chunk of what’s left to surround the daylillies that are next to the house. I also have to move a couple of loads up to surround a barrel next to the street and a strip of grass that borders the driveway. If there is anything left I will just increase the depth of the mulch under the swingset. That won’t be so bad.

We also went to Toys-R-Us to get replacements for all those backyard water toys that failed us on Saturday. The kids also wanted to spend some of their money on new toys. Ben got a Star Wars snow-speeder lego set and Gabriel got a Star Wars T-16 Skyhopper () lego set. They’re very in to Star Wars just now.

On the way home Liz remembered that she volunteered to pick up some extra tickets for the dance recital for a friend of ours. We swung by the dance studio and were stunned to see a line out the door and around the corner of people! amazing. If it had been just our family, we would have opted to come back another time, but we had promised this friend that we would pick up FOURTEEN tickets for her. And we had our doubts about whether or not we would be able to get 14 tickets together unless we picked them up right away.

So I dropped Liz off and I took the kids to the park. They played and I sat on my duff. After about an hour Liz called and said she was ready to be picked up. holy moly, that took a long time!

I was tired from the day and recovering from some sunburns so I was pooped out! I think we wrapped up the day by watching some more “Darling Buds of May”. Its pretty sappy, sentimental, nostalgic, stuff to be sure.

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The weekend went by quite quickly. On Saturday we took the whole clan to “Greenwood Park” — I think that’s what it was called. At 10:30am we took the kids there so the boys could play in their soccer game and the girls could play on the playground. While we were there me and the girls had a picnic and met some more old friends. It was nice. I didn’t get to watch the boys play, though.

Afterwards we had to high-tail it back to town so we could drop off 75% of the kids at home. Chloe and I went to her T-Ball game. Mostly she played in the dirt. She got to bat three times and each time she got on base she inspected the ground as if the dirt around second base were some how substantively different from the dirt around first base.

When we first arrived I got to throw some grounders to the team. I enjoyed it. I could see myself coaching little league some time. Right now I can’t because I so frequently bring Grace. But I think I could do it some day.

Chloe got to play pitcher, which in t-ball really only means that you’re in the middle of the action — not that you “pitch” anything. Many of the kids bobble the ball up the middle, so it was up to my little girl to throw the ball to first base nearly every time. She also had to pay attention so she wouldn’t get plastered by the rare slugger. When she was playing pitcher I was pleased with how she did. Otherwise, I thought she had a lot of opportunity for improvement.

In the afternoon we tried to set up a kiddie pool at the bottom of a slide, but sadly, the inflatable pool had a hole.

So we set up a slip-n-slide. But it was defective — two large holes at the far end produced a stream of water that shot far over slide and made it uselesss.

So we set up a SECOND slip-n-slide. It didn’t work out very well either because it was set up to have two slides both fed by the same source. On the source couldn’t adequately wet both surfaces simultaneously.

So we gave up and set up the sprinkler instead. The kids liked that. When Gabriel got a small cut I took him inside and actually had to shower him off before cleaning and treating his cut! He was VERY filthy! As were all the other kids.

By this time they (we) were needing a rest so we insisted on some quiet time.

I think Liz and I finished the evening off by watching “The Darling Buds of May” DVD that my parents sent. I think we’ve finished off the first of two discs. I wonder how many there are? I wonder if the five I’ve got are all there are.

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While the temperature outside is a pleasant 62 degrees the air is thick with moisture and scents of spring. The sky is dark with heavy gray clouds and a strong breeze pulls the smells of the cherry blossoms in to the parking lot.

I stopped for cup of Yukon at Starbucks. Its good. I saw a story in the Boston Globe Magazine section yesterday that was a transcript of two people hashing out the relative merits of Dunkin Donuts coffee and Starbucks. What a waste of space.

I have to speak today in front of the “Joint Project Managers” group because one of our directors got chewed out by the president for asking for more disk. For half a million dollars worth of more disk. So I’ve done some research and need to present it in front of some people later today. I have all the details, but I’m not sure if I have the grand plan in which they’re most interested.

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