Picture for the reunion auction... (5"x 7")



This is the picture I drew for the auction, and of course it was in a dragon snot frame. I can't remember how much it eventually went for. I think my Magic Uncle Ralph won the bidding via someone bidding as R. Huntzinger (which could have been half the males there.)

I had been working on a different painting and thought I might take it to the auction, but it was big and gaudy and just not becoming what I wanted, so I decided to do something more simple, and when Maryanne said she was going to have her dad bid on it I came up with this dragon reading to the girl. I almost wrote her name on it to insure that no one else would bid on it, but that would have been cheating, not that cheating is bad or anything, it would have just been too blatant.

Through the magic of my ill behaved scanner and printer Maryanne will still be able to have a copy of her very own, if and only if, she will e-mail me her address, and let me know if she wants it to come with a snot frame or not. Also she has to promise that she will come to the next reunion in person.

The past few weeks...

We built a "poor white trash" chicken coop. We still need to get a bucket of rusty nails to complete the look.





We got the garden mostly planted, plus a few trees and a hedge, just in time to go on a vacation and leave all the crucial watering up to my nephews and sister in law.



First we went to a family reunion north of Sacramento, CA. I wasn't feeling well so I didn't get pictures. Then we headed down to the Bay Area where I grew up and my in-laws still reside.



We hit Monterey to see the aquarium, and Fisherman's Wharf then, camping at Big Basin, where we heard plenty of racoons but didn't see any, and we also didn't see any banana slugs or wolverines.



We spent some time at the beach, the kids really liked this even though they were both terrified of the water.



We had a lot of fun, but my husband and I were feeling extreme claustrophobia in the bay area, and needed some space, so we headed home a day early. It's good to be home, eating normal food and not driving in the car burning up expensive gas.

Birthday Presents for Girls:


Barrettes seem to have become the standard present, coming from me, around here. So here are some that are going to kids in our neighborhood, who invited my son to their birthday parties. I think it's kinda funny how I'm making my son give them such girley things, but they are girls.