Ready for the weekend??

Anybody out there glad the weekend is here? We certainly are. It has been a pretty normal week and no major plans ahead of us for the weekend. I’m sure we’ll make it hectic though, some way or another. One thing is for certain, something is seriously wrong with our climate. We have flowering trees in full bloom here one month ahead of their time. We had temperatures in the mid 80’s this week.  Shown below are a couple of shots from the last few weeks, have a great weekend everybody.

Picture of Venus and Jupiter

Last week I heard a story about how close the planets of Venus and Jupiter would appear in the Western skies all this week. Sure enough, we had excellent visibility last night and the two planets are immediately obvious as you look to the West. Beautiful. I got my tripod out and took the picture below, which required a 30sec exposure. I was pretty happy with how they could be framed between the gap in our tree line. Then I looked online to see the photographic efforts of others this week. Wow, the picture here on the National Geographic website is stunning.

We had a very relaxing St Patrick’s Day. Once we got some of the Saturday morning chores out of the way, we pootled around in the garden for a short while before Steef and Ginette came over. We had some great food, perfect weather and some beers to honor the patron saint of Ireland. The kids had a blast. I watched the rugby too, pity about that, after about 20 minutes and they discovered we had no scrum, it was all over.

Happy St Patrick's Day

Happy St Patrick’s Day everybody, wishing each of you a great day. We’re taking it easy here today, we’ll have some friends over later this evening for dinner and I’ll watch a recording of the Ireland game later tonight. Should be a good one. Sláinte!

Shown below are a few pictures of the kids this morning in the clothes that Granny Owens sent over, thanks again Mum. Lynne is feeling much better today by the way, many thanks for all your well wishes.

Lynne Hit by a Car Whilst Riding Her Bike

Lynne was very lucky she did not get seriously injured today. It was a great day so she headed out for a bike ride. As she rode along the main road, a car approached from a side street and pulled into the road right in front of her. The driver was turning left and was looking right as he veered way to far out into the main road. He never saw Lynne and she crashed right into him, was thrown from her bike over the hood of the car and landed out in front of the his car into the middle of the road.

She has some bruising on her thigh right above her knee where she got tangled up with her handlebars but other than this she is fine. It could have been a lot worse. She is a little shell shocked of course but ok. Her leg will be sore for quite some time. We’re both so grateful that this incident didn’t cause any significant injury.

The picture shown below is from a bike ride we did in 2003 but she did have that bike jersey on today.

Megan and Ashley Visit

Tonight was out first evening of the year to have dinner on the deck and we did so with Megan and Ashley Mathews. They’re Randy and Lorraine’s grandchildren from Texas who are visiting this week. They came over this afternoon and spent the entire afternoon running around and playing with our kids, they were absolutely exhausted when they left. I think everybody had a brilliant time.

Three Musketeers.....

The beautiful Spring-like weather allowed us to do lots of activities this weekend in addition to meeting with lots of friends. We met with Steef and Ginette on Saturday, had a great morning in the garden this morning before we headed over to Lisa and Brad’s house for a relaxing afternoon to celebrate Aldens birthday. I’m going to write a short post on each below but I wanted to share this great photo below of the three musketeers this morning. They were in heaven out playing and very cooperative when I asked to take a quick photo.

Happy Birthday Alden

We celebrated Alden’s birthday today, he turned 14 and getting very mature. Lisa and Brad provided us with some great food and drinks as usual and of course the ambiance and setting for a great afternoon hanging out on their farm. The girls spent most of their time in the creek getting filthy and Connor was obsessed with wanting to drive Brad’s tractor, which we finally did when the festivities were winding down.

Sowing Seeds

With the clocks changing last night, Spring in the air and a beautiful clear blue sky morning that was just warm enough to be out, we all dived into the garden this morning. Lynne and Connor went to the shop to buy some seeds and when they returned we donned the boots…I just love this time of the year.

Nasi Goreng and Satay Chicken

On Saturday we all headed over to Steef, Ginette, Marissa and Aneka’s house for a play date. The kids did their usual play activities, we sat around and drank some beers and had a great chat. They cooked some excellent Indonesian food, nasi goreng and satay chicken. It was yummy, they’re from The Netherlands and very versed in preparing this. We had excellent evening guys; we’re looking forward to many more such evenings this year.

Buzzcut

We have a beautiful Saturday here in West Lafayette; Spring is really in the air. There are small signs of life everywhere. Both girls and Connor just had a haircut, or rather Connor just had a buzzcut…it was a painful operation indeed.