So that's what a weekend feels like

One of the inconvenient side-effects of my calling is that my family doesn't get to have a weekend very often.

But on extended weekends, we get to have almost two days of time that is just ours. And it is always wonderful.

This time, we went to Eureka for the Memorial Day festivities. We had a good trip down. Annalivia read.

We were greeted with news from Lil and Jake that Fetie II will be joining us in February next year, which is beyond exciting. Kalin fixed my blogs and it was just absolutely amazing to watch her work -- staring at source code with fingers flying. Roo and I went to the cemetery together and had a time to drive around Eureka together like we used to do as high schoolers. Dennis and Jake fixed things and tinkered with the endless little jobs always available at the farm. Annalivia played with her cousins and hung out with Grandpa Bob. Mom made a great dinner and spent some time just chatting with us.

Got to watch a sunset at the farm (though not the one in this pic that Kali took a couple of days ago.)

On Monday we joined Grammy and Gramps for the parade. Then went to the cemetery for a wonderful program. The speaker was a guy who has served two tours of duty in Afghanistan and he simply shared stories of fallen comrades. It was so incredibly moving. Really amazing. I once again was glad I made the trip.

Dennis and I had great conversation on the way home and Annalivia did amazingly well on the trip. After she woke up about 45 minutes into the trip, she sang to herself and talked a lot, ate some snacks and stuff, but didn't fuss at all. She did so well, in fact, that we ended up running errands and getting a new portable dvd player to replace one that died. We also bought a gas grill that we've been eyeing. So we got home and had hamburgers, corn on the cob, and watermelon. It was just really, really nice. We had a weekend. Wow.