So Halfway Through April, huh?

It's been one of those times without very much funny stuff going on.  But that's not to say that nothing at all is going on.

Cindy and Keith welcomed little Jessie a couple weeks ago. On March 29th she finally made her entrance.  She's super cute and both Mom and baby are healthy (but a bit tired).

This is Dave holding little Jessie.  He'd never held a baby before.  Not that he hadn't held a baby who was three days old--he'd never held a baby ever.  Of any size.  He finally relented to my peer pressure and agreed to hold Jessie.  And he didn't even break her.

Yes she's wearing a pink hoodie.  And she LOVES it.

Before Lemon went back to her foster home, she got comfortable enough with us to snuggle up and go to sleep on us.  (See--she really is super tiny.)  We were so glad that she finally came around to us and let us treat her like a pet.  She still has a lot of confidence to build and I'm sure her transition to her forever home will be a bit of a challenge, but she is definitely a dog worth saving.  Amanda told me this weekend that she was supposed to have a meet and greet but it was cancelled.  We'll be watching Lemon again this weekend, so hopefully she'll remember us and be a good pup.  And on Sunday I'm taking her to Especially for Pets for an event sponsored by our group, All Dog Rescue.

I'll just help you check your email.

Dave and I have been enjoying the bursts of spring we've been getting, taking to the Bruce Freeman Rail Trail on our bikes as often as we can.  We can access the trail from the end of our street (well, the cross street at our corner), so it's been easy to just hop on the bikes and go.  At one end, the trail dumps into the parking lot of a movie theater.  With The Avengers, Men in Black III and other movies coming out this summer, I think I know what we'll be doing over the next few months.  And if we take the trail to the other direction and bang a left, we can be at Kimball Farm for the most delicious ice cream EVER in about 5 miles.  It is my understanding that the calories don't count if you ride your bike there and back.

Fireworks, Bikes and Turtles

That's an awesome interesting combination.  But it's how Dave and I spent our holiday weekend.  Saturday morning we biked from our house to a nearby park and found a blueberry batch where we picked a bunch of sweet wild blueberries which I turned into pancakes.  They were delicious (the blueberries and the pancakes).

Saturday evening, we went with our friends Cindy and Keith, and Cindy's son Jake, to the fireworks display in Ayer, MA, not far from our town.  Fireworks were set up in the park and vendors lined the perimeter of the baseball field.  We set up our blanket and chairs just a few feet from the snow fence barricade between the field and the fireworks. 

Ever the prepared couple, Dave and I brought snacks, including S'mores paraphernalia, which we toasted over a small can of sterno Dave found in our camping equipment.  We received a lot of jealous looks from passers-by.  They totally wanted in on our S'mores action.

Being from Pittsburgh and growing up with spectacular Zambelli fireworks, I'm very critical of fireworks displays.  But I was very impressed with the show we saw Saturday night.  It was over 20 minutes long and our seats were great.  We were so close that I actually ended up getting out of my chair and lying on the blanket because I was craning my next so much. 

I took a little video and was pretty happy with my camera.  Apparently though, the rapid-fire grand finale caused a little glitch in the recording.

Sunday night we decided to take a drive one town over and check out their fireworks.  We got a great parking spot and laid out the blanket in the grass behind the Jeep, playing cards until it got dark.  Unfortunately although they advertised the show to begin at 9 pm, they didn't start until 10 pm.  Which was mildly annoying because for that hour, every random person who fired off something from their backyard had the whole crowd confused about whether that was the show or if they moved the location.

These fireworks were less exciting.  Shooting off one firework at a time was particularly painful, like they wanted to make the show last longer than it was supposed to by waiting for one firework to completely dissipate before firing the next.

Monday morning we met up with Cindy, Keith and Jake again, this time to ride our bikes on the Nashua River Rail Trail.  We've done this trail a few times, but never with our friends, so it was pretty fun.  The trail is about 14 miles long, and we did about 11 miles of it before turning around to come back.  At one point Dave was ahead of Cindy and I and he made an abrupt turnaround.  I looked down and there was a little turtle on the trail.  Cindy checked to see if he had gotten run over, but turns out he was ok. 

Cindy rescued him and put him back in the grass off the trail, trying to encourage him to get back in the nearby pond.  But before she put him down, he peed on her.  Maybe he was trying to get to the other side of the trail?  You know what's stinky?  Turtle pee.

Overall we had a great weekend spending time outside and enjoying the weather and time with our friends.  We usually do a big cookout at our house for the 4th, but with several friends being out of town, this was a fun alternative and a lot less work for me.