Two unrelated thoughts

Adam has decided that he doesn't want to be an altar server any more. My poor Catholic mama heart is breaking. Doesn't he look just perfect in his cassock and surplice? After he fainted at the altar on Christmas Day (yes, really), he's been afraid to serve. So I got one last picture to remember his serving days. He's not completely off the hook, though. I told him that he still has to serve for family weddings, funerals, and homeschool Masses.

I'm going to miss seeing him in his vestments. (Are they vestments, when he's just an altar server?)

Now, for the unrelated bit. I don't know why this didn't occur to me earlier! Hubby & I like our morning (decaf) coffee, as I've said before. However, we often have leftover coffee. Being a coffee snob (who is so grateful to have an almost sister-in-law who works for Starbucks), I don't like it reheated. When in North Carolina this past weekend, I watched my friends reheat their coffee from the previous day's brewing and shuddered at the thought! I've debated pouring leftover java on the plants, but I don't want to harm them with too much nitrogen. I use the grounds in our compost, after having reused them at least once. But what to do with the leftover joe?

Put it in ice cube trays, and save it for iced coffee!

Why didn't I think of that sooner?! I freeze all kinds of things in ice cube trays - chicken broth, tomato paste (I can never use a full can, and hate to throw any away), homemade baby food; why not coffee?

North Carolina

Over Memorial Day weekend, the kids and I, sans Hubby, visited with some friends in North Carolina. Long drive, but well worth it. It was so nice to visit with our friends who we hadn't seen in nearly a year.

One of the fun activities they planned for us was a visit to Lazy 5 Ranch. It's a drive-through petting zoo with bison, giraffes, long-horn steer, zebras, emus and ostriches, llamas, pigs, water buffalo... well, you get the idea. Visitors can purchase buckets of food to feed the animals along the way.

Here is a picture of our standoff with a long-horn. This is right before he clunked the hood of my van with his horns, because he had to reach down to scratch his leg. I still haven't checked to see if I have a dent in my hood.

Here is Joey, feeding a llama. We were lucky - in the car ahead of us, our friends' son was spit upon by the llama they fed. Nothing better than llama spit, especially right after said llama has eaten. They rolled up the windows and refused to feed the llamas after that. LOL!

Here is Adam stretching out of the sunroof to feed a giraffe.

And Luke, taking his turn with the giraffe.

This last picture shows a bison eating from our friends' van. Can you see how HUGE the bison is? I'm sure that if I stood next to it, it would be taller than me. Imagine facing that as you're sitting on a horse, armed with nothing more than a bow and arrow! The boys said that the bison's tongue was very long, and multi-colored. Now there's something you don't see every day!