Birthday boys, Take two

We celebrated the second round of double birthdays this weekend. I seem to be suffering memory loss or something because I forgot to buy camera batteries - again. So I don't have any pictures to post. Sorry. We did get the party on video, so they won't be totally bereft of birthday memories. Yesterday was a lot of fun though. Jeff made kites with the kids and then flew them at the park. The kites soared and the kids had a blast.

For me, the best part of the whole weekend was the glorious weather. Ah yes...I remember what warm temperatures feel like again. It's been heavenly - sunny and sixty five with the earthy smell of spring all around. Whenever I get a house of my own again, I'm planting hundreds of flowers. I really miss plants here in this neighborhood of asphalt encircled, high density housing. Six more weeks and we'll have a yard again. Yay! And if we get really lucky, the people who liked our house in Ohio at the showing yesterday will buy it soon. Here's hoping.

Trevor played in his first tennis match and got fried. He forgot to take sunscreen and has a livid farmer's burn. He's very embarrassed about it, which only makes his face look like a steamed lobster. He won half of his matches though and had a really good time. He plays doubles with a really sharp guy from school and they are enjoying the boy to girl ratio on the JV tennis team which is hovering around 1:6.

Lindsey is a little nervous about middle school. I am too. We choose her classes next week. I just hope she can figure out a way to stay organized and keep up on her homework next year. Maybe, like a caterpillar, she'll undergo a miraculous transformation this summer that will allow her to fly with creativity, but still keep track of things.

Tyler and Evan are looking forward to playing baseball. Tyler is very charged up about it, Evan, not so much. This in and of itself is weird since he's a natural athlete. But we'll see how it goes.

Nathan is just thrilled to be four and both he and Jared want to spend all day at the park. Not that I blame them. But it is a good thing that they get hungry so often, or I'd never convince them to leave.

I'm finishing up the revision on my story and beginning to edit the manuscripts of the studies Jeff mentored his graduate students through. The students wrote the manuscripts and I'm just trying to keep from beating my head against the wall as I try to bring them up to publication caliber. Some are so awful, I'm practically re-writing them. I'm not sure if one student even knows what a complete sentence is, much less tenses, proper grammar, or appropriate statistical expression of data. That manuscript is truly beyond help so I'm not wasting my time. But it is baffling that someone can graduate with a master's degree and not know the basic conventions of written English. So I'll take two Tylenol, fix two manuscripts, and write again when I've recovered from my concussions. Then I'll patch the wall.