Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Still not buying this whole 'spring' thing...


So today is Ostara, the spring equinox, the beginning of the end of Winter...as I write this, it's warmed up to a whopping 24 degrees outside (up from -8 degrees when I woke up!), and it's -ugh!- snowing some more...

Last night we did the obligatory egg-dyeing extravaganza, and this morning there were buckets o' stuff for the kiddos.

We went light on the candy this year, and stuffed the buckets with mostly toys instead. The two biggest hits were the screaming missiles (huge, long balloons you blow up and shoot up into the air) and those 'plastic balloon' thingies that I remember from my childhood- you squeeze a bead of (probably toxic, highly fumey) sticky goo out of a tube and blow it into a sort of ball (the kids thought they looked more like brains and fat boomerangs, and even stuck several together and made a creature of some sort...)
Personally, I thought that the fumes were just getting to them, but a good time was had by all...

I finally managed to get outside and find some branches with buds and put together what I call the 'Ostara tree', which in reality is a bunch of branches stuck in a vase, hung with cute little symbols of spring...a little sympathetic magic couldn't hurt, right? The coolest thing is that after a couple of weeks, the darn things actually sprout leaves...

In previous Stevens news:
We celebrated St. Patrick's Day with a big Irish dinner of glazed corned beef, colcannon, and raisin-caraway soda bread, and of course lots and lots of Guinness! The kids had been counting the days, and finally got to see their uncle Andrew, who came down and spent the night on Saturday. While he was here, he was assimilated into the MySpace gang as well- Keely helped him create his own page...

After dinner, we headed up the street to the Soldotna Sports Center, where the St. Balrick's Foundation was holding their annual fundraiser to benefit 'conquering children's cancer'. Ben had his head shaved and raised over $200, which wasn't bad, considering he just showed up and hoped he could play too...some of the people he sees every day don't even recognize him now...
I told him that all he needs now is combat boots and a pair of red suspenders!


And that's it for this installment of our crazy adventures!

More to come...


1 comment:

FREE RANGE ACADEMY said...

Hey! I wasn't finished gazing at his fabulous hair yet! Why do you think I added you to my links? Jeeesh.

H. Woodcutter