Oh, you know…

… it was just another beautiful sunset at the lake.

What do doors, lights, and unflushed toilets have in common?

Put your best guess in the comments. We'll post our answer in a couple of days.

Color Wheel Turtle

Portia said "I especially like his head."

Portia’s Kindergarten Graduation!

We were invited to a very cute Zoom ceremony. Kudos to Grossmama for having her devices ready to go and capturing this photo of Portia greeting her principal Dr. Steenport after getting her certificate. She insisted on wearing her Queen Elsa dress with the super-hero cape that Nana added! And tennis shoes, because, you know, a girl's got to be practical!

Kindergarten Art No. 2

Kindergarten Art No. 1

Portia's backpack has been overflowing…

Happy Birthday to Me!

There was a lot going on on my birthday, so I just made myself a quick mix-from-a-box coffee cake and topped it with some (real!) whipped cream. Added a candle for good measure. Might not have been super fancy but it was yummy!

The plan had been to celebrate my 41st like it was my 40th… but the pandemic has not subsided enough for the kind of raucous wall-to-wall-people event I am envisioning, so I punted for another year.

Throwback Tuesday

And old friend shared a bunch of photos from back when all of us were in grad school. This is one of our favorites - glad we got him invited to sail with us that day!

My birthday present!

It's not quite done… but we have gutters and now, just in time for my actual birthday, we have the tank! Once the two are connected, we'll have a 1,000-gallon (= a little less than 4,000 L) rainwater harvesting system. This should help us get through (some of) the summer watering months without using precious drinking water.

This is the face you hope for…

… when someone is opening a gift from you. Caught this one as Portia was opening her birthday gift from Nana last weekend. It's a hand-sewn unicorn flag for Princess Portia to hoist on the flag pole in the treehouse at Dripping Springs when Her Royal Unicorn-ness is in residence.

Shapes

This one is from Wiley's backpack. All the colourful shapes are meticulously cut out of coloured paper, glued on a black rectangle, and then glued on the checked background that is actually blue strips woven into the white background. Very geometric!

Surprised Sheep

Portia's backpack comes home from school packed with paper and other art work. I keep selected pieces - this one is very cute but a little big so I took a picture and will recycle it now. The sheep look pretty surprised! I wonder what they are looking at…?

Birthday Girls

Portia and her friend (whose name starts with a K) enjoyed hosting their birthday celebration together!

Zach Bot in the wild

Happy Hugs!

Nana and Gramps finally got their hugs yesterday!

Three Days of Birthday Joy

Portia got her requested "lemon cake" from Nana on Sunday.

Happy Birthday Portia!!

Zach Bot!

Here is the menacing "Zach Bot" piñata all ready to go for Portia's Wild Kratts-themed (outdoor-only) birthday party on Saturday. I'm excited for what all the kiddos say when we lower this bad boy out of a tree. Hopefully they don't get scared...

Happy Soccer Player!

Still without front teeth...

Princess

Occasionally, even aspiring astrophysicists just want to play at being princesses, too.

A new regime

When the kids come home in the afternoons, Neal and I tend to be wrapped up in conference calls or otherwise ensconced in our home offices. So the kids' chalkboard has taken on a new life. Written in color-coded simple words and placed in the kitchen on the way in from the garage where they park their bikes, the kids have no excuse for not knowing what they are supposed to do when they get home! This was Friday's board.