What We've Been Doing

Life has been pretty quiet, with little, or no, blog-worthy activities in the Judd household. Here is a rather mundane summary of the past few days.

Photography Club
I had been eagerly waiting for my first photography club meeting, here in Temple, which finally arrived on Friday afternoon. You know how sometimes it really feels like you are a good "fit" for a group? Well, this club seemed to pinch my toes, allegorically speaking; it didn't feel like such a good fit. I'm going to give it a second try, next month, but I don't have great expectations for a long term relationship. I may have to look in another direction . . . perhaps an online photo challenge group.

Out-of-Order Kitchen
As with all new houses, we had a punch list of things we wanted our builder to fix. The biggest item on the list was tile repairs in the kitchen and the bathrooms. The tilers are here this week, and will have my kitchen torn up for, probably, four days. I guess we'll be eating a few meals out this week!

Back In the Saddle Again!
It didn't take long to be tapped on the shoulder to teach Bible classes again. Beginning in June, I'll be teaching the two-years-old through pre-K Sunday morning Bible class. I'm looking forward to getting to know a whole new bunch of little ones.

The Leon River
Tonight, after dinner, Dan and I went for a drive down to a beautiful, secluded park on the Leon River, which lies in the shadow of the Belton Lake dam. Here are a few pictures I took.

Celebrating

Watching the rain run down the window panes, from inside Applebee's

It was raining last night. In fact, there was a pretty good thunder and lightning storm going on. But after dinner we decided to brave the elements and go out for dessert at Applebee's. We were celebrating! Not Mother's Day, which is coming up next week; nor our wedding anniversary, which is coming up in June; nor Dan's birthday, which is coming up in July.

This celebration marked DAY 100 of our retirement!

Apple dumpling with ice cream - a nice way to celebrate the first hundred days

Supermoon 2012

Saturday night I got out my rather antiquated tripod and went to the backyard to try various camera settings, in an attempt to capture a photo of the Supermoon of 2012. Here, from space.com, is a simple explanation of the phenomenon, in case you missed hearing about it on the news.

"Because of a fluke of orbital timing, the full moon of May peaked late Saturday just as the moon was passing its perigee, the closest point to Earth of its orbit. The result was the biggest full moon of the year, which NASA and other scientists nicknamed the supermoon of 2012." 

Sadly, we had a lot of humidity in the air, so the pictures I got were not as sharp as I'd hoped for. Also, I was only able to shoot it while it was near the horizon. Once it got much higher, it went behind clouds and never reappeared. But here are three of my better ones. The first picture, which shows a red/orange tint is what it actually looked like when it first came over the horizon. It lost that color as it rose in the sky.

Guess What We Did on Thursday

We decided to test out our theory that we could go visit the grandkids and return home in the same day. Of course, we knew it was possible, since it's just under three hours each way, but we weren't sure how practical it would be.

I'm happy to report that it was both practical and enjoyable. We left home at 9:00 a.m. so that we would be to Chris and Kelsey's house by lunch time. Clara was in school, of course, so lunch was with Kelsey and Robert. Kelsey had only told Robert that "somebody" was coming to visit, and we were tickled at his ecstatic greeting when we rang the doorbell . . . "Grandma! Grandpa!" (with a HUGE smile on his face and hugs all around).

When it was time to fetch Clara from school, Dan and Kelsey went to pick her up in our car, while I stayed home with Robert, who was napping. Clara didn't know we were coming, so was surprised to have Grandpa's little red car show up at school.

We spent the afternoon talking with Kelsey and playing with the kids.

Clara searches for Rome, where her Daddy often travels for business.

Silly . . . 

Silly . . . 

SWEET!

Grandpa spent a long time making things out of Play-Doh, using the Play-Doh factory. He got really good at pressing out little Strawberry Shortcake dolls in every color of the rainbow. Robert was pretty patient, watching all those little girly things come off the presses, but finally had his fill. "Dinosaurs!" he demanded! So, taking pity on him, I spent the next few minutes cutting out red and yellow dinosaurs with him.

Around 4:00 it was time to go to the pool for Clara's swim lessons. Here she is, all decked out in her swim suit, swim cap, goggles and cover-up, showing me how it's done.

After swimming we went to dinner at Pei Wei, then said our good-byes and headed home. We were back home by 10:00 p.m., in time to go to bed at a decent hour. What sweet grandkids we have! Good job, Chris and Kelsey.

Clara reading the fortune from her fortune cookie