On Friday, April 5, Bill and I travelled in the RV to Cape Girardeau to spend a long weekend with the Missouri Whitakers and watch the solar eclipse on Monday. Owen, Evangeline and Laura have April birthdays, so we will celebrate them as well. It always takes us longer than we expect, almost 8 hours on the road. I was excited to see the kids and they were excited to see us. We spent most of the day Saturday around the house, just playing and hanging out. Our only excursion was a trip to Walmart with all four kids in tow to buy groceries for the weekend. I bought a pork butt and got in in the crock pot for BBQ later Laura and Mike arrived later in the afternoon. It was a nice day so we had burgers and hot dogs on the grill. More games and March Madness on TV. These two were peas in a pod watching the game:
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| Grandad and Owen |
Sunday morning the Whitaker family went to church. I shredded the pork and cleaned up the mess. We will have a baked potato bar for supper with pulled pork for those who want it. For lunch, I made bacon and pancakes. We had a fun afternoon which included watching more March Madness. After supper, we shared birthday gifts with Owen, Evangeline and Laura.
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| Home from church |
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| Pancake brunch |
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| Fun and games |
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| John doing his own thing |
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| Spectating |
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| Owen's cardboard box creation, a ring toss game. This was part of his birthday party activities. |
Monday, April 8 - Eclipse Day.
We were invited to the farm of a friend of David's who was hosting an eclipse viewing party. They had a beautiful place just outside of town, a perfect setting. We arrived early enough to set up and have our picnic lunch. The eclipse was amazing (but my pictures are not.)
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| A beautiful setting |
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Getting ready
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| Friends and family gathered to share this awesome event |
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| Progressing |
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| We were surprised that event with just a crescent of sun, we still had lots of light. |
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| Totality |
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| Sunset effect |
When the eclipse was finally over, Bill, Laura, Mike and I drove downtown and walked out to the riverfront.
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| Downtown Cape Girardeau |
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| Looking upstream toward Cape Rock |
Back at home, we had another pleasant afternoon on the deck and playing in the yard. There was a selection of left-overs for supper and one final March Madness game.
