Just a few people over

It's funny how big the family is. Now to have my parents, grandma, and siblings over it's 20 people. Next year it will be more. And that's not even counting all the step kids. To have that many people over for a cool / cold weather meal is a bit of a work. But I can do it. I actually like the challenge of doing it. The cleanup... well, I'd prefer that someone else enjoyed that challenge. Ideally a house elf.

What I need is an outdoor oven. An honest to god, it regulates the temperature and has lots of space, oven. Then I could easily meals where the house temperature wasn't so effected by me cooking.

Maybe next time I'll just make salads. Ahead of time.

I'll love you forever

Those kids grew. They grew and they grew and they grew. They grew until the girl was four years old and the boy was almost two. They got into half a kilo of glaxal base. The girl opened the lid and encouraged the boy to make a mess while their father was working on dinner. They smeared it on the walls. They rubbed it on the shower curtain. They covered every flat surface and had it running in globs until it went splat on the floor.

Sometimes their parents would say "these kids are driving me CRAZY!"

But when those kids were acting nuts and needed to be restrained, their father would pick them up and rock them crazily back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. While he rocked them he would sing off key:

I'll love you forever,
I'll like you for always,
as long as I'm living
my baby you'll be.

The photo doesn't capture the full extent of the mess by far

Back in the saddle again

The weather was just warm enough on the weekend to go for a bike ride with the family and not think that we'd have to ride through a patch of ice. It. Was. Glorious. Laura said I was like a puppy pulling at the leash. I was so damn excited to be riding again.

Extra points for finding all of us

I think that it's because it's the light at the end of the tunnel. It means that I'll be able to bike to work again with Isaac. Honestly I love that. It's not a fast bike. It's a very easy 25 ish minutes where I've got my arms around my child and we're talking about what we see. The river, the birds, the dogs along the paths, the construction trucks.

It also means that I'll be cutting my commute in half I think. Sometimes the traffic can be quite bad. A couple of weeks ago it took me an hour to go about 1.3 km in the car. Let's say it took me 15 minutes to get the car, but that's still like triple the amount of time it would be to walk. I could have shuffled faster.

But now the weather is warmer, hopefully soon I will back biking. Now the question is how do I solve the Sword of Testocles problem...