beautiful day

today was quite lovely. we went and met dh's family at zilker park for one of our nephew's birthday. it was a lot of fun. it was weird because dh has two sisters and the one who planned this party seems to be irritating a lot of family members. they all seemed so put out with her lack of planning skills. but i don't see how the way she planned things was all that differently from the way most of us plan things...and the things that people didn't know, well, let's just say we all have cell phones, you know? so even though folks seemed kind of grumpy at the beginning, and a little inflexible, too...well, it was a hell of a party and i think everyone who was there had a blast. (which just happened to be all of dh's immediate family--which is no small task as he is one of five and they all have kids, so there are....let me see....counting his parents, 27 of us. only the niece who was up here this past week had to stay home because she had too much homework that didn't get done during the tourney... they had a massive soccer game. it'll be interesting to see how long it takes the family, collectively, to heal from that one.

something else about today....we love watching birds. well, really, we're more raptor watchers than bird watchers. we love hawks, owls, vultures...we've seen ospreys and i think we once saw a crested cara cara, which even though i'm probably spelling wrong, i really did see. anyway... there was this pair of red tailed hawks at the park today. we watched them for a long time. we kept making up stuff that their presence was "foretelling"... well, one landed in a tree right by our picnic tables. so my nephews and my oldest son and i were standing under it. sigh, all i can say is that is truly an amazingly huge and awesome bird. it was fucking huge!!! i was amazed, humbled, and totally impressed. they just don't look that big from the side of the road or up in the air. and when it took off, well, that was icing.

so onward and upward. i have to travel to get my car fixed this week. i don't know a lot about cars, but i think smoke coming out of my radio is probably not a good thing. but now that the radio's turned off, things seem fine. but i'm getting a little cramped by what my car can't do these days...power windows, side view mirrors, now the radio...so off to visit grandpa we go...

prayers to the mamas
prayers to the brothers (they're just needing it lately, it seems)
prayers to all the parents

oh! and a huge cheers to my sister who ran a half marathon today!!! and while i think i might could do it if i HAD to...i'm pretty sure i couldn't do it in the three hours and seven minutes she did....

ok, that's all i got
peace