Beaver Lake Back-to-School

Every year Miss V's school holds a potluck picnic at a local park before the school year starts.

This year was no exception.

Beaver Lake is a pretty little park with its eponymous lake...

...its National Park-like picnic shelters...

...its traditional totem poles...

...and its manly men, manfully grilling up meat. Manly!

We had a pretty good turnout for such a small school.

Me, I sat in the picnic shelter happily munching on a hamburger patty grilled in manly fashion, and considered the possible names of the totemic sculptures to be found therein. (Erm. In the picnic shelter, not in my hamburger.)

I settled on "Sounds Alarm When Relatives Visit"...

..."Shirtless In Seattle"...

...and "Dog Took The Family Jewels."

(I sense I'm going to get letters about this.)

Anyway, it was pleasant enough and V got to meet up with friends.

Meanwhile, poor Captain Midnight was recuperating from having had his wisdom teeth forcibly removed earlier in the day. He was sore and puffy, like a cheesed-off chipmunk. When we went home to check up on him and see how he was doing...

...we discovered the existence of a new and funky lawn ornament in our front yard.

And something else as well... a whole slew of new trees in the side yard.

Lo, Birnam Wood be come to Dunsinane.

V found the sudden spate of new trees amusing. Either our landlords are celebrating Arbor Day early or they're trying to create a privacy screen.

CM is coming along well enough after his trauma, subsisting on a steady diet of chocolate pudding and half-melted ice cream bars, and enjoying the pharmaceutical magic of Tylenol with codeine. I think he'll be back up to speed in a reasonable amount of time. Feel free to send him well-wishes in any case; I'm sure he'd enjoy them.