A copious amount of photos

The last five days have been full of events and activities, and I finally had a chance to sit down and get some pictures edited. I am working backwards today... bear with me!

The best part of the last week is that my grandfather, Papa, and his wife Leigh are out here visiting. It felt so good to see Papa today. I am not even sure I can write about it without crying.
In fact, I can't... but after this last year, it meant an awful lot to be with him.

He and Leigh came today to watch Chet and Faith compete in their chess tournament, and Matt asked if he could come too and spend the day with him. Matt has always been close to him too, so how I could I say no?

Here are Beth and Leigh hanging out. This is the first time I really got to get to know Leigh, and we chatted up about nearly everything under the sun! We are spending Saturday with them too. Can't wait!
Before we left the church today, I asked a friend to take our picture together. We started with this one.
And ended with this one. It was Papa who started the rabbit ear attack. Then everybody went goofy. It must be genetic.
Here are the little chess competitors before everybody else arrived. Chet did really well. He won all but one of his games, and ended up with a ranking of 9 in the competition of 70 players. Not bad at all for his first time in a regional tournament!
And Faith... well she started out really well by putting her first opponent into checkmate in five minutes. Then she stalemated twice, and then lost twice, but she was still smiling and having fun in the end. She knows what she needs to do for a high ranking next year!

Chet's team took first place (there were 13 teams total)... good job guys!
After the tournament we all came back to the house and were showing Papa and Leigh the property when this toad came jumping towards me. I saw him out of the corner of my eye and he startled me. Kyle picked him up to show me it wasn't anything to be afraid of. Hmmph. It doesn't look particularly friendly, does it?

This was just a cute part of our day. We took Papa and Leigh to the Rooster to eat lunch, and got to introduce them to a lot of our friends. The owners, Rob and Willa, are celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary today. He surprised her this morning by putting roses on every table in their store...
with one of these cards attached.
Then, during lunch, he went to one flower store and had 25 red roses delivered to her.

About ten minutes later another bouquest arrived from the other flower shop along with a singing telegram. It was all very sweet. We left to go back to the tournament, so I don't know if he had any other surprises in store for her. What a fun way to eat lunch!

Alright.. moving backwards in time... Kyle's team suffered their first defeat Monday night to a team that was experiencing their first win. After the game was over I saw this beautiful blazing sun sinking down and climbed up on the wall for a silhouette shot.

He is so intense out there on the field. Right now he is playing short stop. I dare ya... just hit that ball his way!
He hit a triple on his first up-to-bat, and finised running in when the next batter got a hit. I love when they play on this field. I can get shots without that ugle fence in my way. I just have to keep one eye in my viewfinder and one watching for fly balls!
Isn't he cute?
I thought I would throw in some cows taking a moment to reflect in a pond.

Remember that herd that is supposed to be earning their keep by being fierce? Terrifying, aren't they?
We have a blue woodpecker living in the trees in our front yard. Before he leaves for the season I fully intend to get a non-blurry picture of him.
Satruday afternoon I heard a massive amount of baby-bird chirping, and saw this momma brd coming out of the birdhouse. A few minutes later she returned with a worm. I ran and got my camera, got it all aimed and ready to go, and when she came back I took a picture. At that point I realized my CF card was in my printer, so I ran back in and got it. Then she came back again and I took her picture for real, although I wasn't really ready and she came out blurred and the branch was in focus. Then she got irritated with my paparazzi moves, and starting going in and out of the holes on the other side of the birdhouse. Brat.
Here she is coming back out in search of another worm. She spent all afternoon doing this, one worm at a time. Sometimes it feels like I spend all day long feeding my squawking flock.... thank goodness I don't have to regurgitate all their food for them!

Saturday night I went to a crop with some good friends. We mostly did a lot of chatting and laughing, but I did get two pages made. Johanna... let's crop sometime too. I ahve to get back to regularly scrapping. Oh and Johanna... we weren't ignoring you last Saturday! We tried to come by the store, but it wasn't open yet.


Our hardware store has a Cinco De Mayo celebration every year, free to the public. Free is all I need to hear to load the kidlets up and go have a party! We brought along Chet's best friend Tyler too (who has become a regular fixture... he is a good kid), and I got ahold of my friend Crystal and she and her kids came down too. It was a fun afternoon. Here are Faith, Kyle, Tyler, and Todd monopolizing the barrel train. I think Todd rode it about 30 times.

And Crystal's son Zach gathered up all the dancers so he could have a picture taken with them.
Free food?? Free Mexican food? Oh yeah... that brings the teen boys around everytime!

Zach took this one of Matt and I. It'sokay that he cut Matt's head off. Now is only four inches taller than me, not six.
This bee landed on the fireman's hat I was holding for Todd. I figured if he was going to hang out with us I should take his picture too.

You know, when I see my child pointing another child in a direction, it always makes me wonder what they are up to. About two seconds after this shot was taken, Kyle and Rhett went running off in that direction. I still don't know exactly what they were talking about, but they ended up in the firesafety house.
Here is Todd on his 25th train ride.
And Chet spent a lot of time with a friend he and Tyler met up with at the party. It is always good to see him having a good time. He is looking so good right now!

okay... last party pic for now... I had to laugh when the face painter had to pull the kids' ears back to paint their cheeks. I know they have their dad's ears, but still... they aren't THAT big!
And here is my last shot to share tonight. Todd drew this the other day. Then he sounded out what he was writing. I know he means "Lava" Boy, but to read it out loud the way he wrote it is so much funnier. And I loved how he said, "Wait, fly ends with a y!" And doesn't everybody need a heow? Man, I love that kid.

By the way...this is my 500th post on this blog. That is a lot of posting!