Trees Down, An Ant Nest, and a New Oven!!!

What an exciting week we've had! Last week, I came home from school to find that one of the dead(ish) trees in our backyard had fallen through our yard and into our neighbors yard. Thankfully, it was pretty easy to clear the part that was in the neighbor's yard, although Josh had to do it on Sunday, since the neighbor decided he was going to mow his lawn that day and kept running over pine cones and stray twigs from the tree top. It didn't fall on our swing set or anything majorly important, which was wonderful! I was slated to host the Mother's Bible Study on Wednesday, and I thought it would be nice to clear off the swing set, so that the older kids could enjoy themselves while the mommies sat inside. My day of labor in the yard certainly paid off -- I think all of the kids (some younger than I thought would enjoy it) really loved playing outside. My favorite view was seeing all of the swings filled up, two babysitters juggling to push all of them, and one or two kids climbing into the fort, and swooping down the slide. Our playset was left by the previous owners and hasn't seen a lot of use, since my kid (and the cousins) have really been too young. We have basically only used the infant swing. Unfortunately, I didn't crawl up into the fort to discover that there was an ant nest in the steering wheel. OOps! I'm afraid little Edy discovered this with her own two hands. I hope that I didn't send away all of the children with little ant bites. The next day when I arrived home from school, I found another tree had fallen while I was away -- right into and on top of the swing set! Thank you Lord for postponing that one day! The swing set isn't damaged, it's merely obstructed. Hopefully, the tree guys will come this week to cart away all of our dead trees, accumulated brush, and old chicken wire fence that has been mangled by the new subdivision built behind our house as well as by these latest two tree droppings. Yeah!!! I can't tell you how happy it will make to have that area of our back yard cleared out. And then on to today! Josh brought home a little present for me-- a new oven! Boy, we've been needing one. I think the impetus was Thanksgiving -- one of the turkeys is being roasted at our house! It's nothing too fancy, but everything seems to work (a real change from our last one) and the cooking & baking space are all BIGGER! I hope my new oven makes me a better cook/baker. I am SUCH happy camper. Since I don't have a dig. camera, you'll just have to come & visit to see the new oven, since I'm not going to waste a film picture on an oven & a crazy looking backyard.