Michelle picked up a new hutch today that she found at a consignment shop. It's a beautiful solid maple hutch in great condition. It's about 5 1/2 feet high, 4 1/2 feet wide, and about 18 inches deep. She and dad picked it up (thanks to the Odyssey's cargo room) and set it up in the dining room while I was at work. Michelle is happy to now have a place to store/show some of her fancier place settings. The kitchen cabinets were getting a bit crowded. They tell me the boys had a fit because they were being blocked off from the dining room during installation and setup.
Michael is taking his first steps now. Daniel is an accomplished walker with that classic, new walker swagger.
Mom, Dad, Claire, Michelle and I went out to Martha's Exchange Restaurant for dinner tonight. It's my folks last night here. Tomorrow they'll drive back home to Chicago. Poor Claire was so tired by the time the food arrived. "The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak." ;-D
The CD on my iMac isn't working right. I'm fairly certain it's a hardware failure. The CD's go in, the motor makes a sound like it isn't going all the way in, and then it spits the CD out. With my kids who knows if they didn't stick something in the CD slot. Many years ago Michelle complained when our Saturn's tape deck wouldn't accept cassettes. It turned out Claire had stuck a NH highway token in the tape deck. In any case the iMac is still under hardware warrantee so it shouldn't cost too much (other than time). Abby uses the computer nearly every day so this is hitting her the hardest.
Michelle's college roommate is finally done with her overseas adoption. Her new daughter, Alia, arrived a few days ago. Congratulations, Erica!
The Nix family joined us for Easter yesterday. It was a great dinner. The weather was so warm we had pork tenderloin on the grill as the main course. As is common when we meet with the Nix's, there was a lot of screaming and giggling between the four young girls: Claire, Abigail, Kelly, and Melanie.
We've had a decent amount of rain these past two weeks. I hope the local leadership can finally stop talking about the drought. The brook in our back yard is flowing at a really good clip. With the path I cut clear last fall, it's now easy to go to the edge to watch and listen.