Never Too Old for the Candy Store

We made our traditional pilgrimage to Powells, the amazing candy store which has an astonishing array of candies and confections, a continuously running loop of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and a gelato counter where I caught them perusing the choices. I thought I had achieved a perfect candid shot, but these kids are well trained at posing for the camera with a mother and a grandmother who are never without a camera. Tim was quite pleased that we were in and out of the store in 13 minutes flat this year. Not so pleased that in said 13 minutes they managed to choose $50 worth of candy.

I keep thinking that they will outgrow the tradition of decorating gingerbread houses before Christmas, but although they are both growing up too quickly, their interest in gingerbread houses is still keen. I have to admit that I would miss it if they ever lose interest.

OilMan, Tim, Peter and Will played golf this morning and came back saying that they didn't play well but had a really good time. Seven houses were hit by errant balls...why would anyone want to live on a golf course...but the true record was made by one ball which hit the same house twice! Maya and I went for a walk with Ozzie around Spring Lake.

The excitement for the afternoon was provided by a new Miele robot vacuum named Scout. Everybody knows how much I hate to vacuum so we all sat around the living room watching Scout with rapt attention to see a) if it would be the answer and b) how the dogs would respond to it. It followed Ozzie around mercilessly and he kept giving us baleful glances over his shoulder as it kept trying to run over his tail.

The jury is still out on whether it will be the answer. First we have to figure out how to read the directions. Not one of the four languages they are printed in are comprehensible....