Spring Leaf Cleanup Night 1

I know it is not spring yet but it was like 60 last night and going to be almost 70 tonight so it kind of feels like spring. This made me curious to know when Spring officially begins.

“March 20th – is the 1st day of spring for 2009

Spring comes in between the 19th to the 21st of March and at different times. It changes on a yearly bases because the first official day of spring is the (Spring) Vernal EQUINOX. This is when The Sun is directly above the equator. It rises Rises due East and sets due West and does not do so on the exact same day every year due to the calendar is not exactly 365 persise days every single year. In 2009, spring will arrive on March 20th, as stated above and the Sun will be above the equator, crossing to the northern hemisphere at 11:47pm (ish)”

So we still have almost a month but yesterday was a nice trial run. Heath and Peanut beat me home and Peanut got busy in the sand box. Once I got home I changed and then fired up the chain saw to cut some things that were too long. Then I headed to the back yard to take down the ice hut. Jon and I put it up several weeks ago after a city camp out and it had been up in our backyard ever since. Peanut and I cleaned out everything inside and put away the stove and chimney then Heath and I took down the roof and wall pieces and got them all stored next to our shed. Then we got busy raking. Peanut and I got started filling a barrel with leaves and then hauling them down to the far back compost corner of the yard.

We dumped them out then Peanut would ride up the yard back to the leaves we were working on. Heath did some dishes then borrowed some rakes from the neighbors and headed to the far back corner of the yard to work on making piles down there.

Peanut did not last long helping

but Heath got a bunch of good piles in the back part of the yard and I got everything up high done, even the porch. Luckily Peanut was there to protect us from the shed

which was some sort of monser or something I guess.

We raked till dark then I took a few of the last pictures with Heath’s big camera I will take for a while. The last picture I took was of this:

It’s our new Camera. An Olympus Stylus 850SW

Tough enough for everyday life. The Stylus 850 SW is designed for active people who want a tough camera that can keep up with their on-the-go lifestyles. Incredibly durable, sleek and stylish, the Stylus 850 SW is a must-have vacation and party accessory.
SHOCKPROOF (5FT).
WATERPROOF (10FT).
FREEZEPROOF (14°F).

We I am terrible to cameras I drop them, I get them wet, I get dust in them, I get snow in them, I think I have even lost one but I like taking pictures and I do it a lot (19,877 is my total on smug mug so far). Our last Canon was a good camera but got dust in it and made the lens not open and close. Canon is fixing it right now but we decided to become a 2 camera family in case Heath and I both wanted the camera at the same time.

Tony recommended this camera as he has a similar one and has good luck with it in the pool and on backpacking trips so far and we went ahead and got a good warranty with it just in case.

We let it charge, cleaned up a little bit then headed out to dinner.

Tuesday night is family night at Pizza Shop and we took advantage of the buy 1 Queen Pizza get one for $1.

sQueen is like Medium and Roundtable is like supreme and we got one of these and 1 peperoni and almost finished everything.

Unfortunately there was a huge group in the private room and shortly after our pizza arived the kids in the room spilled out to the main part of the restaurant and tons of crazy boys were all over the place playing the archade games and keeping Peanut from eating his pizza.

We eventually filled up our stomaches and escaped the restaurant and headed home.

Peanut got his pajamas on and brushed his teeth. I discovered the camera was all charged and tried it out.

Peanut and mom helped by giving me something to shoot.

Then we laid down and read a book Peanut had picked out that looked like it was about any old random kid thing but happened to be about a little kid waiting for a baby to be born so he could play with it. Kinda wierd.

Once Peanut was in bed I put back on work clothes and headed to the basement for my least favorite part, sanding.

BEFORE

and

AFTER

Looks the same in pictures but the room is filled with a cloud of annoying dust. I got all the walls done and part of the beam before I got tired and and sick of the dust and decided to save the ceiling and rest of beam for later.

Then I took a shower and got to bed early in hopes of getting up early today to run but barking dogs kept me up so I skipped the run.