Nothing Gold Can Stay

It happens every year...When spring comes and the trees start to bud, I'm reminded of one of my favorite poems (one of the few that I've got memorized).

When I look out my window over the park across the street, the trees look golden with their new buds. Soon that gold will turn to green. Last night the whole family went for a walk in the park and Erin and I stopped to look at some of the buds on the trees. They look remarkably like flowers instead of leaves. They were beautiful!

I enjoy these golden moments very much. Enjoy my annual dose of Robert Frost:

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

Granderson in GR -- Pictures

It was a perfect night to be at the ballpark! Here are a couple of pictures of Curtis Granderson's one and probably only night as a Whitecap.

Going to see Granderson!

They just announced that Erin's favorite Detroit Tiger, Curtis Granderson, is going to be playing one game here with the West Michigan Whitecaps tomorrow evening as part of rehabbing his broken finger. She has had a t-shirt with his name on it for a couple of years now. Since we had nothing else planned, the kids and I will be headed to the park to watch him play. Go Granderson!

Open Season

After church tonight we went out to see how our crop of tulips was progressing. They looked really good earlier.

But tonight we found only deer track and almost all of our tulips shaved off near to the ground. Bummer. I guess it is open season on tulips...

Smoky Mountains

We had a wonderful spring break down in the Smoky Mountains. We spent 5 days in a cabin in Gatlinburg. Two of those days were spent in the Smoky Mountain National Park. And even though it was early and most of them were still hibernating, we even got to see an "early riser" bear! The only downer was that Erin took two of the days to recover from strep-throat...bummer.

On the way back we spent a night in Lexington and enjoyed a little bit of horse country.

Enjoy a few of our pictures!


Brant visiting an old homestead


Phase 10 on the porch


Playing at a picnic in Cades Cove


That water was FREEZING!


Our bear!




Thoroughbred Park in Lexington


Kirk, I'm disappointed that you would grafitti this inside an old home in the National Park!

The Spaghetti Harvest

Happy April Fools Day!

The Museum of Hoaxes is happy to provide the top 100 hoaxes that have stunned the unsuspecting masses. Topping the list is the 1957 BBC special report on the Swiss Spaghetti Harvest. Click here to see the top 100 list where you can also see the orginal Spaghetti Harvest newscast.

I also like #4: "The Taco Liberty Bell" along with the very creative response by White House Press Secretary Mike McCurry.

#7 will appeal to all of you who celebrated Pi Day not that long ago. I kind of like the idea of rounding Pi to the much more simple 3.

Enjoy!