.....God willing, naturally....Mom and I will be on the Maasdam in Boston, preparing to set sail for points north and east!

Yee, as they say, HAW!

I'm so excited I can hardly stand it. Canada! Iceland! Greenland! England! Ireland! Norway! Holland!

Wow, wow.

It's my fervent hope there's wireless available on the ship so I can blog as we go. Which brings up a story Mom just called to tell me that she'd read: a representative back in the Revolutionary times, Hamilton Otis, attended the funeral of George Washington, and knowing that his wife back in Boston was agog to hear about it, he wrote a letter describing it as it happened, then sent it to her by courier.

By jingo, he was live blogging before live blogging was cool, as best he could.

Last night I went to the Curtis Needs a Ride improvisational comedy performance at Christ Chapel's "den", and there's a new member of the cast as Steve Rupp is moving to Chicago. Ricky - that's his name - was sent out of the room and the audience provided an activity, location and person for him to have to guess: witchcraft, Saskatchewan, and Mr. Bean. He got the first without a whole lot of trouble, but the last two were hard. Flu, Grayson and Austin managed to give him sufficient hints, though. Improv cracks me up. Don never cared much for it, but I love it.

It's been raining all afternoon, but I'm thinking it's going to stop soon, as the sky is lightening. This would be good as in an hour I leave to volunteer at a wedding. Very messy weather for a wedding, it's been!

It doesn't seem like that many years since I posted photos of Charles going to his senior prom, and now here's Dmitry escorting Carolyn to the Southwest High School prom. 

Alex had a tuxedo that fit Dmitry nicely - and the shoes, too! - and he took everything to Carolyn's to change.  I showed up a bit after 6:30, to take pictures and drive them to the Hilton downtown.  We made a quick detour to let Mom get to see them, too.  ;^)

Aren't they a beautiful couple?  And I love this picture of Mom adjusting Dmitry's tie a bit:

Being in a t-shirt and jeans, I wasn't much of a match to them, but still...how often does one's youngest child head off to the prom?

The biggest smile on Dmitry's face came when he had his picture taken with his Grandma.  For his mother he looks pleasant....for his grandmother he beams:

He his Grandma. 

As I said, it was my lot to take them downtown to the Hilton, which wouldn't normally have been a problem except this is the weekend of the Main Street Arts Festival (Cherrie and Forrest, I was Wrong, Wrong, Wrong, and the festival does go all the way to where the hotel is!), plus there was something going on at the convention center (the hotel is across the street from it), and there was something going on at the Bass Hall.  All told, it made traffic a misery, what with so many streets closed off, and stretch limos all over the place, and crowds of people.

After the prom (though they aren't planning to stay the whole time) Carolyn's parents will collect them, then they'll go back to her house, change, head to IHOP for a bite, then soak in her hot tub. 

I am a lazy blogger.  Sorry about that! 

Last Sunday was, of course, Easter.  Hallelujah, He is risen!  The choir and orchestra showed up at church starting at 6:30 a.m. (I was a slowpoke and didn't get there until a few minutes before 7 a.m.) to have a hearty breakfast prior to singing/playing at the four services that day.  Skipped the Tenebrae service but, by jingo, I sang at all four services!

After we were released from duty at 1 p.m. (we got to leave the loft as the sermon began), I scurried home to frost the 3D lamb cake I'd baked the previous night.  Considering the transport issue of getting it from my house to Kirstin's house in Keller, I decided against having it sit upright, though it would.  No way it'd stay upright for that distance.  Still, it came out pretty well, though Elaine's chocolate cheesecake beat my dessert, IMO.  Chocolate cheesecake beats almost everything.

There was a bunch of family gathered at Kirstin and Matt's that afternoon, though we missed Jessica (at work), Jonathan (in Costa Rica) and Alex (working at Irving Bible Church, where he's an intern).  We had lamb and ham, and John's bodacious mashed potatoes, and a wonderful corn dish, and a lavish spinach/strawberry/pecan salad, and I don't remember what all.  It was delicious, that's for sure.

There were three egg hunts:  one in the back yard, one inside, and one in the front yard. 

While the children rushed around like mad monkeys, the adults would chat:

My bro-in-law, Richard (Don's eldest brother), came as well, and he sensibly stayed on the sidelines:

Rarely has an Easter gathering been so photographed, between Mom, Elaine, Jeanne, Jill, and me.  Here are Mom and Elaine examining a shot:

Jeanne is an Ultra Aunt, who brings goodies for all the children:

Above is my nephew, Justin, and Charles.  I uploaded more than these, but when I went to "choose" pictures, the first bunch weren't there, which was Highly Annoying.  Oh well. 

Hope everyone had a good Easter!  We sure did. 

Edit:  Ha!  The errant pictures showed up:

Above is Elaine holding Baby Brielle, and here's Joe, Dmitry and my sis-in-law, Mary:

.....and I am....the only reason I haven't every cool thingummy comes out is because they, well, cost money.

Now, considering how many gadgets I have/had, obviously this is not always viewed (by me, anyway) as an insurmountable obstacle.  Amazing how I can rationalize purchasing something I don't actually need, but just really, really want. 

The Big Release at the moment, i.e. the Apple iPad, hasn't been able to tickle my "I want it!" bone. 

What's its point?  It's too big to fit in my purse.  If it's not going places with me, why wouldn't I just use my iTouch?  I love my iTouch for checking email, FB, weather from bed, without having to get up.

The main problem with it is that, like the iTouch, it doesn't run Flash, meaning my favorite FB games won't work on it, either. 

I suppose it's as well.  Had the iPad run Flash, I might be tempted to spend money I can't afford on yet another digital goodie.