Easter was fun, although dark and rainy for most of the day. The boys had a great time finding eggs and toys in the back yard. Grandma and Grandpa Davis sent a box full of toys and Easter Balls (plastic easter eggs in the shapes of soccer balls, baseballs and footballs). We started a new tradition of the Easter Steak Dinner, also. All around, everything went swimmingly. So swimmingly, in fact, that the next day Xavier decided to involve the fish in the easter celebrations, being a very bad baby, indeed. He pulled out the aquarium heater and dropped it on the floor, which resulted in a pile of melted plastic eggs and melted carpet behind the tank. I came over to figure out what was happening when I started to smell burning plastic. I even went to make sure the stove wasn't on before I thought to look behind the fish. At least I caught it before he burned down the house!

       Joel kicked off this year's home improvement season with a bang. He built flower boxes, poured a cement patio and doubled the square footage of our deck, and he got it all done before the annual Memorial Day BBQ, despite a lot of inconveniently timed rain and a strained shoulder muscle. Details and lots of pictures can be found here.

       I'm not sure what he's going to do to keep himself busy for the rest of the summer. I'm sure we'll think of something...

       One of the vines I had to cut had grown through the city fence and out into the grass where I couldn't really see it or work on it, but it was obviously dead as far back as I could see. Well, apparantly I judged too soon. Pumpkins have this habit of dropping secondary root systems from every leaf joint. That means a 10 foot pumpkin vine, with leaves every 8 to 10 inches, can have over 15 different sets of roots! This vine that I thought had died must have found some dirt somewhere, because a month after I cut the dead vines out, I looked through the fence and found this little 6-inch-tall fruit hidden under the weeds! As far as I'm concerned, he shouldn't exist, but here he is. So I'm calling him my miracle pumpkin. I don't know yet whether I'm going to carve him, or eat him, or preserve him in lucite.

UPDATE: On November 1st, we baked and rendered him, and the next day we turned him into two pies. He was GOOOOOOOOOD stuff!

       Grandma Kohler passed away today. She was strong and clear right up to the end, which was an impressive 97 years! Visitation was on Sunday the 17th, and interment was Monday the 18th, followed immediately by the church service and lunch. I went down to support my folks, and later I put together a page about the weekend here.