loving the sunshine!

The kids enjoying an awesome ecocruise in Tangalooma Bay, Queensland Australia
Copyright (c) 2006 Wendee Holtcamp

I can't tell you how amazingly happy I am to have sunshine back after a week of rain. It was like a reflection of my soul, too, or maybe the crappy weather was just weighing on my soul. And now I have just been soaking up the sun like a mad woman! I sit in the backyard at the patio table and just bask like one of those lizards trying to get warmed up. It fills every part of my soul. I couldn't live in Oregon again, I don't think, it's just way too cloudy and gray and rainy! Viva la sunshine!!

This week is my kids' spring break and we haven't had anything big planned so today we went to Mountasia which is a place with go-carts, miniature golf and bumper boats. We went with Doug and had a great time! The go carts weren't that fast at all, but it was our first time ever driving them so it was really pretty cool. We got soaking wet on the bumper boats, too. If we thought the go carts were slow, the bumper boats, well they do not move hardly at all but they do squirt... And Doug made sure I got completely soaked. Ha!

Afterward we went to Baker St. Grill and that was yummy. We sat on the patio in the glorious sunshine and dried off. It was a good day. I finished my taxes, finally, and have been working on my chapter about young earth creationism and my visit to the Creation Evidence Museum in Glen Rose, Texas last October (See pics at Land of the Lost). I hoped to finish it this week but now I'm not so sure! It's already Friday tomorrow!! I also sent off my Expedition Shark Discovery Channel blog as an entry to the Society of Environmental Journalism Annual Awards for Reporting on the Environment- wish me luck! Can't hurt to try!

So I'll keep this short, I'm gonna send off my taxes after a quick review, and get back to writing my book chapter! A week from Tuesday I'm giving a talk at my son's school on the many benefits of forests and trees! I have to develop a Powerpoint for that, but it's going to be modified from a talk I gave a couple times already. The first time was for one of the first meetings of my nonprofit, San Jacinto Conservation Coalition (yes, I do have too many irons in the fire, you think??!). Ooh that link is broken at the moment, hopefully it will be back soon! So I have lots and lots to do... hope I can manage to keep all the balls I'm juggling in the air!! I'm feeling really good though. I feel positive, and determined to keep the joy in my days!! Let's hope it lasts!! I have to share one more funny thing. I did this little quiz on facebook "Where Should You live?" based on your preferences for weather, culture, attractions etc, and guess what the answer was? No big surprise here - Australia!! It cracked me up though because I swear I didn't doctor the quiz to answer that way and I was actually surprised it gave me that answer!! But hey, I'm game. I've always said I want to live there!!

Here's a photo of the day last week when I had lunch with my friend Carmine Stahl, author of Trees of Texas. :)