Love

Dan and I watched a movie last weekend that we just loved! Dan in Real Life is the title. Fitting for our family, I think. But it's with Steve Carell. Has anyone seen it? It was very endearing. And we loved the screenplay, the dialog was great. I'm not a great movie review writer, I had to do it once in a college English class and I'm not sure how well I did, so I won't attempt to create a compelling summary to set the scene for this next quote, (it's kinda complicated) so I'll just tell you the quote. But at the end one of the characters says, "Love isn't a feeling, it's an ability."


I have mixed feelings about this quote. (I'm not at all critiquing the movie, because I loved it. This is just something I've thought a lot about.) To me, this says that one can make a conscious decision to love or not to love. That there may not be a "one and only soul mate," but that we can simply choose to be happily in love with whomever we choose. But then I wonder if that kind of philosophy takes the romance out of love.

In contrast, at the end "Dan" says, "You know that feeling in your heart? When your heart is just pounding, like it's actually outside your ribs. Exposed, venerable, but wonderful and awful, and heartsick, and alive, all at the same time?" That description to me describes more of a feeling than an ability to love.

If you really have the ability to chose who you love, can you feel this same emotion as described? But I don't know, I just wanted to get some honest feedback on your thoughts of love.

Is this normal???!!!

Danny is chewing on EVERYTHING these days!! He's always chewing on his fingers, not sucking, but chewing! He chews on the bed sheet, toys, books, crayons, anything! I mean, he mutilated this ball. It was a hard nerf ball too. We didn't think he'd be able to chew it up, but he showed us wrong! This can't be normal, right? He's 2 1/2.

Family Vacation

We had a wonderful time in Hawaii! We absolutely love it there. The kids were great on the flights and adjusted well to all the travel and everything we put them through...except getting back on some form of a schedule since coming home. They have really struggled with the time change and now don't want to sleep at night! But if that's my only complaint, I'll take it!

The boys making goofy faces, intentional or not, I'm not so sure.

Danny showing off his slippers.

Kate looked so pretty with her lei at the PCC.

Dan's parents and brothers were able to join us on the trip. Danny LOVES his uncles! Here is Mikey and Danny splashing in the ocean. If you look closely, you can see Danny's cheesy Doritos face.

Kate enjoyed her grandma time on the beach. At this moment, Cindy was holding her hands, so it was a rare moment when Kate wasn't trying to eat the sand. She was oftentimes too successful.

Color Sortin'

I know this isn't the greatest picture, but I found it so interesting when I looked over at the fridge and saw this. We've played with the magnets before, but Danny's never sorted them like this before. I thought it was so cool! He did it on his own!

I love Springtime in Virginia!

Spring has teased us with a few super nice days here and there in the last month or so and I am just dying to see buds start coming out on the trees. Going back and forth to Tracy's orchard several times for all the wheat stuff only furthered my excitment. There's not really any green yet, but just imagining what it will all look like in a few weeks has gotten me very excited.

On msn.com this morning, I read an artice/slideshow thing about the most beautiful places in the United States to see spring's beautiful colors. Of course, Washington DC's Cherry Blossoms topped the list! That's one of my favorite things to do each year and I have been there every year I've lived here. I love it! Get ready for pictures in a couple weeks!

Check out the slideshow for some beautiful pictures and daydream about roadtrips.

Wheat

Wheat has been consuming my every thought lately, which is one of the many reasons I have not been up to blogging. It all began back in October when I visited my parents and talked to them about the difficulty about getting hard white wheat in Virginia. So my dad placed a few phone calls and helped me begin the process. And what began as a venture to get orders for 100 bags, turned into the challenge of coming up with a 880 bag order. Yes, that's an entire tractor trailer full of wheat. 44,000 lbs. I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

At first, orders filled in and there was a lot of interest, but then there was a point midway that I thought there was no way we were going to be able to reach that amount. That was it. No one else wanted wheat. I was imaging how embarrassing it was going to be to tell all these people that had ordered that we couldn't place the order because we were short of the amount. But over the span of a couple days, and the right person getting the word to spread the word to their contacts, I received so many emails and phone calls that there was more demand than wheat! Now, I have almost another half a truckload of wheat for another order! Am I ready to do it again?!

Of course, a project involving this many people can't happen without a few glitches. That would be too easy. For example, we received news on the day of the delivery that the truck had broken down in Ohio! So we had to spread the word that pickups would not be happening later that night. So we postponed the pickups to Monday, but on Monday we found out that they weren't able to fix the truck, so it still wasn't going to arrive on time. More phone calls. But it arrived last Friday and pickups went pretty smoothly, largely in part to my AWESOME cousin Tracy and his mad forklift/pallet jack skills! Thank you!

This is Tracy!
Tracy and his son Michael who also brought to the table much brawn!

Dream Entryway

I so want this.

Minus the dog.