Another Saturday Barbeque
We invited Will and Sue as well as Liza and the kids over this past weekend for another barbeque in the backyard. It was a beautiful day and everyone enjoyed themselves.
I have to mention that it has become very clear to Sheila and me that the best home improvement project we have ever done was to build our outdoor kitchen and grill. This improvement has made things so much easier even in the dead of winter. That outdoor kitchen and grill is under cover away from rain, hail and snow. In the summertime when inside the house is ridiculously hot and sticky, it is awesome having everything available outdoors. We could still use a few small improvements in this convenient outdoor kitchen but it is already our most useful home improvement. This kitchen worked out very well on this day too.
When the kids arrived, they were pretty hot so we started off the day with fresh strawberry popsicles. Because of the pandemic, we don't see the kids all that often anymore so I try to get a good photo or two of each of them whenever I have a chance. They were unusually still while eating their popsicles so that is when I opted for some nice closeups of each of them...
The back end of our yard is filled with wild black raspberry bushes/vines and they are now ripe. The kids collected all they could before the bears get at them and take them all.
This is what they were picking... in all, they ended up with a colander full of black raspberries and they picked at them all day long...
Like clockwork on VFR-type Saturdays, our visiting biplane flew overhead low enough to see him waving...
There was some chatting with Ellie and Whitney being done. Ellie is in the ICU for a bit and, naturally, Whitney is staying with her. Ellie has been bouncing a bit between the children's hospital and ICU. Due to the pandemic, the hospital is not allowing visitors so we've been doing the usual video chatting instead...
NOTE: I didn't notice it at the time but, apparently, everyone was feeling a bit "blue" on this day. On the positive side, this type of coordination eliminates undesirable distractions in photos...
We celebrated Nan's birthday on this day...
I'm not much of a cake person but this cake is always good... chocolate cake, chocolate fondant, with a thick layer of chocolate mousse and a thick layer of chocolate pudding... very smooth and tasty!
Our original plan for darkness was to show the comet to the kids before the comet is too far away from Earth to view, but, the clouds rolled in sometime in the evening and they stayed. We changed gears and decided to see how creative the kids could get with light painting. While we waited for darkness, a few games of Ring Toss were played...
Darkness fell upon us and the colored glow stick flashlights were turned on...
I'm pretty sure that Mackenzie was attempting to write her full name here... and, mind you, you need to write any words backwards for them to appear correctly to the camera since the person with the light sticks is behind what they are drawing...
I think Lukey was briefly attempting to write his name here with multiple colors but quickly gave up on writing letters backwards and just went for a colorful design...
Lukey, the light stick hockey player...
Kenzie, the glow-in-the-dark model... and, for some reason, it appears as though her mom drew some sort of bushy bunny tail on her too...
Lukey's Vitruvian Man... in hindsight, we should have had someone draw a big circle around him too...
Lukey's Running Man...
Kenzie, the figure skater...
And, Lukey gone wild in multiple colors...
As Liza and the kids were getting in the car, Liza noticed a bright light slowly streaking across the sky where there was a break in the clouds. At the time, we both assumed it was just a boring satellite but I later realized that it was the International Space Station.
After everyone left, Gee and I bear-proofed the yard again by removing all signs of food and drinks and moving all garbage to the trash shed. Then we slid into bed and were fast asleep within moments. It was a really nice day that left us happy and exhausted!
I have to mention that it has become very clear to Sheila and me that the best home improvement project we have ever done was to build our outdoor kitchen and grill. This improvement has made things so much easier even in the dead of winter. That outdoor kitchen and grill is under cover away from rain, hail and snow. In the summertime when inside the house is ridiculously hot and sticky, it is awesome having everything available outdoors. We could still use a few small improvements in this convenient outdoor kitchen but it is already our most useful home improvement. This kitchen worked out very well on this day too.
When the kids arrived, they were pretty hot so we started off the day with fresh strawberry popsicles. Because of the pandemic, we don't see the kids all that often anymore so I try to get a good photo or two of each of them whenever I have a chance. They were unusually still while eating their popsicles so that is when I opted for some nice closeups of each of them...
The back end of our yard is filled with wild black raspberry bushes/vines and they are now ripe. The kids collected all they could before the bears get at them and take them all.
This is what they were picking... in all, they ended up with a colander full of black raspberries and they picked at them all day long...
Like clockwork on VFR-type Saturdays, our visiting biplane flew overhead low enough to see him waving...
There was some chatting with Ellie and Whitney being done. Ellie is in the ICU for a bit and, naturally, Whitney is staying with her. Ellie has been bouncing a bit between the children's hospital and ICU. Due to the pandemic, the hospital is not allowing visitors so we've been doing the usual video chatting instead...
NOTE: I didn't notice it at the time but, apparently, everyone was feeling a bit "blue" on this day. On the positive side, this type of coordination eliminates undesirable distractions in photos...
We celebrated Nan's birthday on this day...
I'm not much of a cake person but this cake is always good... chocolate cake, chocolate fondant, with a thick layer of chocolate mousse and a thick layer of chocolate pudding... very smooth and tasty!
Our original plan for darkness was to show the comet to the kids before the comet is too far away from Earth to view, but, the clouds rolled in sometime in the evening and they stayed. We changed gears and decided to see how creative the kids could get with light painting. While we waited for darkness, a few games of Ring Toss were played...
Darkness fell upon us and the colored glow stick flashlights were turned on...
I'm pretty sure that Mackenzie was attempting to write her full name here... and, mind you, you need to write any words backwards for them to appear correctly to the camera since the person with the light sticks is behind what they are drawing...
I think Lukey was briefly attempting to write his name here with multiple colors but quickly gave up on writing letters backwards and just went for a colorful design...
Lukey, the light stick hockey player...
Kenzie, the glow-in-the-dark model... and, for some reason, it appears as though her mom drew some sort of bushy bunny tail on her too...
Lukey's Vitruvian Man... in hindsight, we should have had someone draw a big circle around him too...
Lukey's Running Man...
Kenzie, the figure skater...
And, Lukey gone wild in multiple colors...
As Liza and the kids were getting in the car, Liza noticed a bright light slowly streaking across the sky where there was a break in the clouds. At the time, we both assumed it was just a boring satellite but I later realized that it was the International Space Station.
After everyone left, Gee and I bear-proofed the yard again by removing all signs of food and drinks and moving all garbage to the trash shed. Then we slid into bed and were fast asleep within moments. It was a really nice day that left us happy and exhausted!
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