Hello Everyone,

Glad to have you back. This post caters largely to my relatives, but the rest of you are welcomed to look in on what we do when we get together, as we do quite frequently. Family is an incredible blessing, and I am blessed with a long Christian heritage in mine.

However, we start out with someone who is not a relative (though he probably is somewhere way back)...

There have been some characters working on our house...

...but this spouting hanger takes the prize in eccentricity. He introduces himself as "Stumpy the Great," offers to sell you his business every ten minutes, and keeps up a running commentary if you are anywhere within hearing distance. We had fun the day he came over.

"HEY, did you just take my picture? That will cost you $50."

Dad and Conrad were huffing and puffing to put the pool away in the vicinity where he was working.

He looked down and laughed at them and said, "Why didn't you take the water out? Then it wouldn't be so heavy."

So now you have a taste of what Stumpy the Great is like. The only way to find out what he's really like is to hire him to hang some spouting for you.

A Weekend at the Cabin with the Martins

Why, the nerve! Trying to leave myself and my stuff at home!

Every two years we drive past Reptileland. Sometimes we don't stop; sometimes we do.

Butterfly or Moth? You tell me.

Old Stick-in-the-Mud
Hey, didn't you know that chewing grass went out of vogue fifty years back??

The latest in hotdog roasting technology.

Dilemma

Problem Solved

(I told you two posts ago that you would soon get to see the unmannerly manner with which some males eat hotdogs. ;-)

Eric too is good at solving dilemmas.

Uncle Dale - marshmallow connoisseur.

And here we have the avid student (on the right) and the greedy onlooker (on the left).

Saturday Morning - the weekend starts for real!

Grandpa feeds his mind while...

...food for his stomach is being prepared.
Too bad the stomach can't hold as much as the mind - that was a fantastic breakfast, Sylvia!

We be off to see the bees.

(Dad announced that he would be interested in going to visit the local bees and would also be willing to take any passengers. Well, the amount of Martins who be interested in bees turned out to be more than we would be able to fit in our van. Therefore, it became necessary, since every last Martin be interested in bees, to take all the vehicles that be around.)

After driving through bee crossing...

...we all swarm around to see a bee swarm.

Gloria, very skeptical that bee stings can cure warts.

55,000 miles of flight be represented by that jar.

Our guide told us that they have never quite figured out why honey gets put in bears: "Around here, we don't like bears very much!"

Tasting Time

Hmm... it tastes like...

Ahh... honeysuckle!!

We smiled when we arrived; they smiled when we left.

Our taking some of their honey sticks with us probably added to their joy.

After lunch, the scientific society convenes and opens the proceedings with a balloon blowing pantomime.

Next on the agenda, three stalwart scientists set out to prove F = mg.

Ah, yes... gravity works.

But, to become a scientific law, a theory must be tested over and over again.

Incredible!! It happened AGAIN!

"Never, never, never, never give up." -Winston Churchill

Gravity does make it rather painful to sit down on thin air.

Trying to convince Kendall that he "sees a bear."

(Yes, Bohannons, we still do that to people occasionally. ;-)

Candace's Portrait

Fellow Canon Powershooter

Sylvia - a great CatchPhrase player. She always gets her phrase across.

Kendall, smug with the knowledge of the correct answer but not about to give it away to the opposite team who is floundering in confusion (they don't know enough about science, you see).

Concentration

The babies of the family: youngest "child" and youngest grandchild.

The skill gets better every time. This game ended 25-27 I believe.

Now Dad's always been very dominion-minded... BUT... weeding the volleyball court - that's got to be a first!

Gloria entertaining...

...both baby and babysitter.

Me and my great aunt Gloria.

(You wouldn't think by looking at us that she is three generations older than I, would you? ;-)

More of Gloria's auntics.

(Sorry, if some of you don't get that one. :)

The Quirky Quarter Quest

I'm still shaking my head over this part of the weekend - learned some new things about my relatives through it. Either they're a very thrifty bunch or just a very determined family... But you don't know what I'm talking about... yet.

Here's Dale who started it all by throwing a quarter into the yard for the younger cousins to find (and keep).

Well, his wife was one of the first ones to organize a search since, in her words, "I didn't know we have money to throw around!"

The grass-combers bow to Dad's superior quarter hunting methods.

Caught you, Sylvia!

(And she wasn't the only adult helping. I think every single relative was out searching at some point!)

"There it isn't!!"

Many false alarms and earthworms later...

...Gloria finds a quarter!

But what's this?? A black X?

Searchers: Dale, was there a black X on your quarter?
Dale: No indeed!

The counterfeit quarter planter is discovered.

Even Grandpa's spotlight didn't bring the real thing to light. Some folks are already planning to take the metal detector along if we go again in two years.