Our new car!!!

A Honda Fit. We bought it tonight. We pick it up tomorrow.

The end of an era?

Today we took a ride to Swansy, NH (near Keene) to look at a Ford Escort wagon for sale. Paul has had a love-affair going with Escort wagons. We have had one, and sometimes two, (not to mention his parts cars that we don't talk about) for the last 18 years. Paul's father saw one in New Hamphshire about a month ago that he thought looked perfect. We went up there last Saturday to check it out. It really did look perfect; one owner, 60 thousand miles, no visible rust. It was in a real small-time used car lot; the guy who owned the business lived down the street. Today Paul called him and made plans to meet him at his business. He brought the car down the street to a garage and they put it up on a lift - the frame had rust holes.

So....Paul has decided that his time with Escorts is probably over. We are not sure what is next. We stopped at a couple of car dealers on the way home - Mazda, Hyundai and Honda are some options. We'll see!

Patriot's Day

Marley slept overnight last night as this is school vacation week and I had today off from work. I was still a little tired from my sleepless sleepover Friday night, so we just hung out at home. We did get the outside of the fairy house cleaned up. It's always a mess after the winter. We even planted some flower seeds outside the front door! With the outside cleaned up, Marley can work at her "leisure" on the inside.

Later that evening we met Kris and Toby, and Janelle and Mason at the mall. At the end of the night we were in Borders and I just happened to look over at Marley and Toby. They were both doing that weird foot thing. They rest their feet on their toes somehow. It must be hereditary!

God's Gospel Girls Sleepover

Tonight Marley and I went to the Girl's Ministries sleepover. You were supposed to dress up as your favorite woman in the Bible. I went as Deborah (how appropriate) and Marley went as Mary. I wasn't going to bother dressing up, but when the leaders went to set up the night before, the Children's Pastor said that we could borrow the drama team's costumes if we were really careful with them. I had no idea what Deborah would wear, but I thought my costume looked rather judge-like.

It was a fun night. Pat (the leader of Prims) and I were in charge of dipping pretzels in chocolate. I think we had the easiest job. Other leaders were in charge of hair, nails, games, making pillows (which in the end I had to help out with :( ).



I'm not sure if I will actually sleep over next year. That floor is awfully hard (not to mention not sleeping much).

Fairy Houses

Today after church, Paul, Marley and I set out to go letterboxing. I had three picked out, all in the same vicinity. One that I knew she would love was called the Woodland Fairy Houses. One problem. It also said it was down for maintenance.

The letterboxes on this hike were inspired by the book "Fairy House" that I bought for Marley back in 2005. It was after she read that book that we made a couple of fairy houses in the back yard.

On this hike there were supposed to be four fairy houses, but the letterboxes were under reconstruction. She didn't care. She wanted to see if the fairy houses were still there (and I did too). To our delight they were there, albeit a little under the weather from the winter. We plan to go back after the letterboxes are restored.

Starting out....






If you get tired, you can always lean on your walking stick....




Paul helping Marley make a raft with a birch bark sail....




The raft and sail....



A totally fun day!

Marley's Easter

Marley was sick on Easter and never got to wear her new Easter dress, so this Sunday was Marley's Easter. She didn't seem to mind that it was only in the 50s with sleeveless and sandals. Oh to be young again!

Celery/Carrot Soup

When Marley got here tonight there were some celery stalks on the kitchen counter. After her parents left, Marley said to me, "I have a project to do tonight. I want to make celery soup." She assured me that she knew how (see recipe below). She basically did it all by herself. The only problem was it was a little too salty. I had advised adding some chicken bouillon for flavor. She didn't know bouillon was salty and I didn't see her add that third teaspoon of salt. Other than that it was pretty good. Paul said he loved it!!!

This is the recipe (as dictated to me by Marley)

Zeuss came home....

When we got to Dot's to take her grocery shopping tonight she was quite upset. Her cat had gotton out on her. She told me that if he didn't come back that she was never getting another cat, and for me to remind her of that if she ever said she wanted to. I told her he could come back when he got hungry and we left to go grocery shopping. Guess who was waiting by the front door when we got home?

Easter Sunday

Today was a wonderful Easter Sunday with family and friends. The only dark cloud was that Marley was sick. She started with a stomach thing on Friday and it continued into Sunday. Basically she was on the mend by Sunday afternoon, just not up to par. I told her that I was sorry she didn't get to wear her new Easter dress, and she said she would pretend next Sunday was Easter. She is such a sweetie. Mason, on the other hand was in top form. He had the cutest outfit on, tan pants, Madras shirt and blue vest (so like Mark). We took tons of pictures but the hit was his bunny suit bought by his other grandma, Stacia. He looked adorable in it (especially crawling) but he really didn't like it, so we have a lot of crying face pictures. Good day!