Five years of fun

Actually it's been more like seven years, but yesterday, on our fifth anniversary, we spent some time looking back at all the experiences of our five years of married life and decided that it really has been a lot of fun.  We started this blog over three years ago (can you imagine?  Three years!  I mean, whatever did we write about before Calvin was born?  Ourselves?) and looking back through the site archives is a bit like perusing a family photo album.  It's true what they say about the road map of life, though;  just like a road map, which highlights only the most interesting stops, twists, and turns, the blog (and our photo albums, for that matter) shares mostly the amusing stops along our life route,  but not much of the road itself.  So what of the road?  Forty years from now, when we sit on our front porch rockers and reminisce about the good old days, will we remember only those recorded moments?  Or will we remember just as well sharing coffee over the newspaper on Saturday mornings, taking family walks to the mailbox in the evening, or taking turns washing the dishes while the other lords over bath, book, and bed time?  Really we already know the answer to this;  it is already hard to remember how we filled our time when we were just a family of two, the day to day of that era, gone only two years ago, has already slipped gradually from our memories.  But every once in a while something will remind us of late nights playing Trivial  Pursuit, or of luxurious weekends spent reading aloud by the pool at our old apartment.   Whether we remember them as vividly or not, really it's the every day, the small moments, that make up the meat of our lives, and we are going to make a conscious effort to enjoy, photograph, and record those moments as often as we do the more momentous occasions, so that we can remember what these days were all about.

We were behind, but now we're caught up.  Lots of new pictures in the July 2008 Album!

Raining irony, and not much else.

Isn't that just the way it goes.  This morning we set out to tackle five errands, all at local vendors, on one round trip in the car, expecting thunderstorms and rain in the late afternoon and evening.  Our first stop, to the Dexter Farmers' Market, was fun and successful.  Our second stop, to the Dexter bike shop, produced only bad service (and no tire pump, since we finally got frustrated and walked out).  The early arrival of rain on our way to Turner's Garden Center to buy a rain barrel rendered that stop a bit disappointing, but at least the service was friendly and prompt.  The rain slowed in time for stops number four, to my parents' for transplant plants, and five, to the pumpkin field at Wing Farms to load our car up with free rocks (we can't wait to show you what we've been doing with those), and had stopped by the time we reached home at noon.  Still expecting storms and showers all evening I immediately set to the job of installing the new rain barrel, working straight through lunch, lest the threatening storm clouds should decide to produce a deluge with the downspout in pieces.  The installation was more involved than we had envisioned (meaning it required more tools) but was not difficult at all, the hardest part being the leveling of the the blocks we put the barrel on, and as I stepped back to take in my hard work, the sky cleared to a brilliant blue and the sun came out of hiding to reward us for our hard work and conservationism.  Not another cloud dotted the sky all day, let alone a drop of rain fall to test our new barrel, and ten days of forcasting don't predict any, either.  Mother Nature is truly a scornful omniscient.

All our frustrations aside, we are very excited about our new rain barrel.  Want to know more about them?  Try here.

Friday means music. And ice cream.

Friday's in Dexter mean live music in the park downtown, so that's where we headed tonight, on foot, with our picnic packed and stowed on the bottom of the stroller.  The music was rockabilly and enjoyable, and there was a pig to boot.  Really, a pig.  You can see for yourself.  We had a great picnic in the shade, then danced for a while, then chased the pig for a while, and lastly we headed for the Dairy Queen for the quintessential ice cream cones.  And, of course, the quintessential mess.  You can see that for yourselves, too.  We can't say that it's the same as The Top of the Park, but in many ways we can say we enjoyed it more - far fewer people, the band wasn't as loud, the park was far more comfortable, and the ice cream more reasonably priced - and we wonder if that's a sign that we are starting to become Dexterites.  That would really be fine with us.

More pictures in the July 2008 abum.

The Milkman Cometh

Tuesday is now officially delivery day at the Ophoff household.  For well over a year now we've been enjoying fresh, organic, mostly local fruits and vegetables delivered right to our door every Tuesday afternoon.  The produce has always been phenomenal and comes in at prices far less than what we would be paying at places like Whole Paycheck Foods (if your curiosity has been triggered you can look up Door to Door Organics to see if they have a hub in your area).  Now Tuesdays will be seeing a second delivery man at our door - the milkman.  I've always gotten a kick out of my father sometimes talking about the milkman coming to his house when he was just a boy, but now Calvin will be able to do the same.  Far from being a milkman, of course, he will bring with him, according to our order, a wide variety of dairy products, all of which are organic, Michigan made (visit Calder Dairy for info), and, again, at a price below what we would pay in the store.  The milk is even delivered in glass jars and a wire basket, and to top it all off, the milkman is very friendly.

It rainbowed on our picnic

Well, it wasn't really a picnic, just dinner on the deck, which is where we eat most nights, but it did rainbow on us - twice.  We were sitting there having a relaxing dinner and out of nowhere - wham! - a rainbow.  And then, as if one wasn't enough, there was suddenly a second one, much lighter than the first, but just as much a rainbow if you please.  Calvin was probably a mixture of bewildered and excited, and after it faded, and for the rest of the night, we were privy to his continual chorus of "rainbow all gone."  It's kind of hard to explain wonder and majesty to someone who is yet innocent enough to see the whole world as wonder and majesty and who has not yet been disillusioned by reality, but we'd take innocence over disillusionment any day.