Croquet:

. . .the game that separates the gentlemen from the rogues. As that statement seems to imply, girls aren't supposed to play (on a previous game Mark re-christened me Fred, which came in dashed handy on several occasions, one of which was our canoe trip on Sunday; my being Fred allowed me to be captain of a canoe until it was commandeered, but then that's there and not here, so I aught to save it for a different post), but since there were 3 guys and 6 girls, we ruled it obsolete.

Before going any further, I should point out that this post is intended to be read with an English accent; if you can't do one yourself, find someone else to read it to you; you have to get into the spirit of the thing, you see.

Ah, I forgot to mention, the traditional getup for croquet is a white fiddle-n-flute (or dress, as the case may be), those of us whose wardrobes couldn't make it up to that standard got as close as possible.

The rest of the town seemed to enjoy this part of the game as much as we did.

We had a few extra players the first game, so Mrs Misko partnered with Sonja, and Brandon joined me. His having won the last game we played, and my having missed the first 2 wicket shot (something I didn't know was humanly possible) had nothing to do with the decision; it was pure coincidence. He, I mean we came from behind, got some monstrously good shots, and won the game. It was a close call, with Virginia, Stefan and Us all at the last wicket together. Mark displayed his true character, turning rogue and trying to blast us all to the river, and he jolly well almost got us there, only not quite 'almost' enough. I made a darn good shot (for me, translate that: I didn't miss the shot that was 1 foot straight in front of me) and so we took the game.Then we stopped for some delicious crumpets (or scones) and tea.After tea, Sandra (who arrived late), Mrs Misko, Mark, Brandon and Virginia played another round of croquet while Sonja, Stefan, Alissa and I played Botchy Ball. We had to stop because we couldn't see the ball anymore before the game was actually over, but Stefan and I were winning 7-6, down from 6-1, 2 turns before. Lucky we ended when we did.It was getting dark, so sorry the shots are kind of blurry, but if I had put it on sport, instead of night, you wouldn't be able to see anything.This evening was in honor of Alissa's birthday; we were quite flattered to share the celebration with her, and had a marvelously good time!

VA Photo Gallery

I've been derelict in publishing this post, not because I've been so terribly busy (see, I'm being honest), but because I was purposely avoiding it. Two weeks of your life is a long time - I ought to be able to come up with something clever, if not profound to say about it, but I just haven't been in the correct frame of mind, I suppose. It's not that nothing worth writing about happened, because lots of things happened: We had all sorts of fun, with bowling alleys that mess with your score each turn, giving Becky several heart-attacks, (which I've heard isn't particularly good for newly-delivered mothers; oh well), waiting till it got light out to go to bed after watching creepy thriller movies, getting Aces over kings in poker (my best hand, I think). . .

But then I remembered that a picture is worth a thousand words, and, granting the number of pictures I took, I have already 'written' more words then anyone would possibly want to read.

So, I'll just introduce each subject.

Given that we were in VA, where the temperature rarely goes below 250 degrees, we spent a lot of time in the sprinkler/slip-n-slid.
David wasn't quite sure that water's all it's cracked up to be, his first time down. Daniel discovered the sport of trying to squirt aunts who are holding cameras, and found it to be great fun.

Jonathon and Samuel, drinking the water off dirty black tarp.

Of course, the big kids didn't want to get left out; I was right behind him. You know, I've discovered the strangest thing since starting this blog. Did you know that if you're the one holding the camera, you don't get in any of the pictures? It's really not fair in the least. Then there was the bee battles. I don't remember exactly what bug they were trying to kill, but they definitely put up a good fight.And we mustn't forget the reason for the trip - little 'Belle. There is no such thing as too much holding of a baby. At least for the hold-er; you never can tell what the hold-ie thinks. The end of the two week vacation came all to fast, (which is kind of redundant; isn't the defenition of vacation a period of time that is over before you want it to be?)

P.S. I'm feeling slightly guilty, so I might as well confess here as elsewhere. In the 'fore mentioned bowling trip, we thought I beat Becky by two points. I remembered afterward that because the computer wasn't working at the beginning, it had given me 3 extra points, so Becky actually beat me.

I feel better now.