Weekend Pictures

This weekend Scott's brother and niece came by for a visit in the middle of their spring break college tour. They arrived too late for Anna's fun filled Friday school carnival where I manned the clown bean bag toss for seventy minutes. Note to self, don't wear boots with heels if you are going to be squatting down repeatedly to pick up bean bags. I thought I was in shape. I'm not.

Scott and his brother

Saturday was a beautiful day, so we dropped by my office at the Rialto Theater for a brief tour, then went to Fox Island for a walk. This is less than ten minutes from our house, so Scott signed us up for a membership.

Scott and his dog

It's a nice place to walk, and dogs are allowed on the non-nature preserve part of the park. There's even a doggie beach where she can be off leash come summertime.

 It was beautiful in a stark, clear and crisp kind of way.

 The weather was warm enough for light jackets.

The girlsies (Anna and her friend) played down at the beach. I wonder if this is packed out in the summer.

The trees against the blue sky reminded me of Nice in the winter. There's something about naked branches reaching into blue sky that compels me to snap a picture.

And then...

Five and a half inches and yet another day of school cancelled Monday. The school year now goes until June 4.

It was beautiful, though somehow this was all a lot more charming and magical in December and January than it is at the end of March.

Nonetheless, it's still very beautiful. And Anna still exclaimed, "It looks like Narnia," when she looked outside.

Teeny Tiny Kids

I happened on pictures from our last couple of years in Gabon today, and I couldn't resist putting these up.  This first one was in the hotel pool close to the apartment we lived in the year before moving to Nice. 

There are lots of pictures of the Anna playing at the beach. She loved the sand and the water. That look of concentration and the cheeks is the same in the next one...

The chubby little arms, the curls, the cheeks...sigh. I like seeing my kids grow up, but still...

 This is on our balcony right before digging into Anna's chocolate birthday cake. I pretty sure this is a, "Mom, do we have to take a picture?" picture. I have none with Anna giving me that look, probably because we got the digital camera right before traveling to Colombia for her adoption. So, she was very used to me taking pictures ALL the time (those curls, I couldn't resist).

This is my favorite Anna picture from this time period. We were in the middle of Gabon at Bongolo Hospital, which is a story to tell another time. She's soooooooooo winsome, and I love the very big curls.

I think this is the first picture of Justin taking a picture of himself. The beginning of a long Harris kid tradition.

I'll end with this one taken in Nice, a year before our move here. We visited the summer before to have a look around, and we decided we liked it.

I'm going to have my first (and perhaps last) blog contest this week. It will involve a book, a question, and a number. Stay tuned...