Spring Visits

Mom and Jere arrived as part of a scheduled stop on their whirlwind train tour of the US and Canada. They brought wonderful warm weather and we all got out and enjoyed it. It was wonderful having them here and they had some nice connections with the boys. We had a nice first day of Ridvan celebration with the Amherst Baha’is and a program that I helped put together. They were here 5 days and left on Tuesday morning bound for Chicago.

That Sunday Alfie’s friend Eric and his kids Aiden and Meredith were here visiting. I managed to break Aiden’s remote control airplane on my very first try and felt very bad about it… we came back here and goofed off… Meredith shows us some of her latest fashion ideas and I attempt to be Meredith.

Wednesday blurred past and then Thursday evening John, Carole and Noah from Oregon show up. The boys clicked immediately and ran off upstairs and weren’t heard from for hours… amazing!

I had a chance to catch up with Carole and John while we waited for Britt who was overseeing the installation of the equipment in the new gym she is starting through her job at Service Net.

I woke up on the stuffy side this morning and we all got on eachother’s nerves until we got out of the house. Isaiah had his first day of spring soccer and I took Amán to his friend Reid’s birthday party. Then we all went to the Welborne’s house to celebrate Jen’s birthday. Afterwards we came home and I crashed on the couch comatosed… one of those deeeeeeeep sleeps … my body shut down almost entirely… 3 hours… we then had dinner and had a little bday party for Anika who turned 1 today. Then we packed up stuff and went and watched Amherst High play Northampton in baseball… well… we did that for about 15 min then we went to the playground next door and had grass fights…

The whole house is asleep and quiet… me? I am still running on that nap I took. But this is such a special time of day… everyone tucked in and mellow… so peaceful... I am so lucky.

Differences

I was just reading about some interesting findings about the way women and men are built. They have found amazing differences in size and density of different sections of male and female brains and that we are wired that way from birth! And how that means that in some cases doctors really need to take gender into account when making a diagnosis but also in prescribing treatment.

On the Gruhe-vee family side of things it is amazing how incredibly full life can get. Between work, family and Baha'i related activities the days are flying by. Even with the craziness of our daily routine we are still managing to do some interesting and fun activities. Saturday we went for a nice hike to Skinner mt. house (compare the previous pics to these and you'll note the snow is gone). Sunday we had a nice children's class and a wonderful afternoon with Eloy and Renata Sheppard and their three kids Andrea (boy), Isabela and Juliana. These are some Baha'i friends from back in the school days. They are both from Brazil but have lived here for about 20 or so years.

I include some pics of when Dad and Janet were here for Larry and Peter's 60 birthday bash up in Shelburne Falls. Also here is the link to another tune called Abrete I was fooling around with as well as the "thrush" which is a recording I made of a bird that would sing outside our window in the woods around our house in Shutesbury. I have been thinking of the garden of Ridvan lately when I hear it... I don't .... Check them out New_Songs

Britt and I just got back from our dance class where we learned some classic Merengue steps... our teacher is a nut but wonderfully so... although she is threatening to cancel the class if we don't bring any more couples to the next class.

Ericka, Mason and Anika will be returning on Saturday. They just spent 10 days in Virginia with her sister and mom. Every night at prayer time the request was the same from the boys, "This prayer is to thank God for a good day, and for a good day at school tomorrow and make the days go by fast until Mason gets back". Isaiah burst into tears the first time he said that at prayer time. Very cute.

The last thing is that I am back to obsessing with surfing and am looking for a used wetsuit and board... man those days at Hermosa or Bejuco were the best (except for when I almost put my eye out of course)

Post April Fools

Another weekend blew by... I pulled a muscle in my back raking friday night. It hurt enough to stay home while the others went on a birthday hike with Oma. Lise came in from Chicago for the celebration. I got a chance to ice my back and watch the rest of Casino Royale. Then I recorded a bit and waited for everyone to get home. We ate nice Irene birthday meal of salad, bread, cheese and pork. Everyone played poker (including Isaiah) after Aman went to sleep and I drove 1/2 hour north to hang with Peter and Larry who were celebrating their 60th. Dad and Janet spent the night here at the house and we had a mellow sunday morning while Britt went to teach our children's class. Isaiah and Dad went for a bike ride and Aman and I played in the sun with some action figures while talking to Janet. Mellow schmellow. And now the crazy week has started. So much to DO!!! (By the way, our friend Kristin posted a comment and it was so nice hear from her but she didn't leave an address... can anybody help???)