Ballerinas -- then and now

These two ballerinas have been dancing together for a long time.

They're best friends and boon companions -- even though they no longer attend the same school.

Watching them grow up together has been so fun!

Snapshot: and then my head exploded

OK, so why the frick are Fifty Shades of Grey and all its awful sequels and wannabe copycat smutty smut being displayed at my grocery store?

Don't get me wrong-- it's not so much the smut I disapprove of (although this particular species of smut is repulsive to me personally).  It's the crappy, crappy writing that just makes me mad at the whole publishing world.  I mean, publishers are so sniffy and dismissive of fan-fiction authors and people who publish on-line, because those writers refuse to make use of the golden talents of an editor.  Well -- what happened here, editing wunderkinder?  If these book were edited by a "professional," then stock up on your washboards and bags of rice, because the world really has gone to hell and the end of civilization is at hand.

And what is up with Safeway deciding that these dreadful excretions are appropriately displayed exactly in this location -- just above the Disney princesses coloring books and nestled next to the Big Nate storybooks and the Crayola products??  At the eye level of a precocious five-year-old???  This galled me most of all -- I had to come home and read a chapter of Pride and Prejudice to cleanse my mental palate.

Harrumph!

Introducing . . . the small boys!

 So we spent last week at the beach in wonderful Nag's Head, North Carolina.  This annual family get-together is a trip we look forward to for the entire year.  Sometimes we have a full contingent of cousins, aunts, grandfathers, uncles and grandmothers.  Other times a cousin or two has work obligations; last year the tall boy was unable to make the trip, but we were happy that the not-so-tall boy (the soldier's West Point pal) was able to take his place.  This year, although my sister's three oldest urchins all had obligations that kept them away, we were thrilled that SHE was able to be part of our shenanigans for at least part of the week.  Uncle Doctor does his best to stay out of the on-call rotation so he can join us (the nerve of some women!  Daring to go into labor while Uncle Doctor is trying to log jet ski hours!).  My fairy god-sister is always up for a week at the beach, and so are Carolyn and her husband the preacher.

And this year, the newest cousins joined us!  You've met the tall boys -- so now:  meet the small boys!  These pumpkin pies are my sister's new sons!  She and the preacher are in the process of adopting them, and how swell is that?!

 

 

Lucky small boys!  Lucky mom and dad!  Lucky family!

God is good!