This & That: Around Here This Week

So around here this week...

Yep, this happened. My many-year-old laptop died a final death and couldn't be revived. Several of the alphabet keys were giving up the ghost, so it was time to get a new one. I'm loving it, although the smaller size has taken some getting used to, and there's always that learning/remembering curve when setting the whole thing up.

We have Marc's kiddos this week and it's been interesting to be back in the school drop off and pick up mode, and then entertainment mode as school was cancelled on Friday due to staff being out with Covid.

"I'm gone" flowers arrived and he wasn't even gone. He was in the kid trenches with me.

We've had cold temperatures, low clouds and fog for most of the week. All that combines to give everything a lacy coating of frost, that's just so pretty.

We don't get it very often, but it's kind of fun when we do.

When I drove Marc's boys to school the other day, Levi told me we needed to make a treat that looked like this. I'm not sure I can duplicate the look.

Meanwhile, sent to me from the kids and grandkids this week, I got this one of Evan on his phone. Being totally absorbed in his phone is a fairly typical representation of my eldest child, but notice that he's next to the ocean doing it. Definitely a change of venue. He's been in Hawaii for some continuing education and his wife, Jan, snapped this picture.

More proof that he's in a much warmer climate than we are at present....and the text exchange that went with it. Actually, Evan tans the best of all my kids. He has his dad's couple-of-shades-darker than his mother's whiter than white, skin. That said, it's been many years since he rogued beans as a summer job and proved that point.

Marc and Rachelle decided to join them for part of the time, which is why I have Marc's kids this week. This picture is representative of a long-standing inside joke with the boys that I believe started when they all had to read Lord of the Flies for school. In the book, having the conch meant it was that person's turn to speak, if I remember right. So...Marc has the conch. You can imagine in a family of 5 boys there had to be a way of designating whose turn it was to speak or things might descend into total chaos and mayhem. And while we don't have an actual conch, although Eric bought several when he was in Hawaii a few years ago, we will pass the figurative conch to Marc.