Family, Goats, and Elvis?

Last Saturday, my family had the opportunity to take a day

off from all of the building, and have a family day at

my Dad's annual work picnic.

Somebody had the incredibly bright idea to hold it

at a local living history museum - and we all loved it.

I try not to say that I was born in the wrong century...

I know without a doubt that God has really good reasons

for putting me here when He did.

Still - I don't think I would have minded the 1800's too badly.

I hope to go back soon and actually get to spend some time

taking photographs - there were so many perfect shots.

I grabbed these few while basically running through the place;

if we had to choose between seeing everything - or letting

Kate take photographs...well, we saw everything.

I was good with that. :)

My older brother and his family got to come along -

which of course added to the fun.

I happened to get this shot of my nephew's Chuck Taylors...

I loved it - because he had no idea I was taking a photo;

the shot was perfect just the way it was. Unstaged.

While there... we discovered the resident flock of goats...

I hadn't touched a goat since I hugged mine goodbye last December

so I was thrilled to spend a few minutes with some again.

I just loved the little white Alpine on the right...so sweet.

Goats were a huge part of my life for almost twelve years.

I still catch myself wondering how I've lived this long without one!

I miss them like crazy, just the sight of these guys had me all

teared up. Just imagine all of the best qualities from a dog,

and all of the best qualities from a cat jumbled together -

and you might have an idea why I love goats so much.

I made friends with this Nubian,

she even agreed to smiling for a picture. :)

And oh yes, I did say something about Elvis didn't I?...

Well, we had our county building inspector out this morning;

and if I had ever actually wasted the time trying to imagine

what Elvis might look like if he were still around today -

I think he might resemble our county building inspector...

Weird.

I'm not sure when or where we lost the freedom to place

our electrical sockets where we want to -

but Elvis took an issue with a few of ours - something about us

having to have an electrical socket where we really wanted a

phone jack - or something like that...

Thankfully he gave us permission to move in anyway--for now.

If he hadn't, we would have considered letting him inspect our

current house and then tell us which his conscience would prefer

for us to be living in right now...

It's pretty bad when the government would rather have us die

of mold poisoning than have one too few electrical sockets...

I'll admit, I was really struggling to hold on to the Christian

fruits of the Spirit right there.

But, he said we could go ahead and move in, and just be sure

to fix that problem within 90 days.

I believe that I now think even less of Elvis than I used to.

As if that were even possible...