If you follow the Goings On of the Garners at all (Hi Dad!) you’ll have noticed that as a sort of writing prompt exercise, I started Blogging through the Alphabet with Marcy over at Ben and Me.  I had tried this before back in the fall, and it yielded about 4 posts before I gave up.  I prepared A is for Astronomy,  but I missed the deadline for “B.”  I was pleased with  C is for Commonplace Book and D is for Dvorak.  I was less excited about E, and F had me completely flummoxed, so I didn’t blog those letters.  I managed G is for Great Falls, but missed H,  I and J.  So I let it go, because to continue when I had missed all of those letters, two of which are vowels, seemed very incomplete.

When Marcy started over again, (she had blogged all 26 alphabet letters!) I decided to try it again, and wondered how far I would get.  This time I got to D and Didn’t Get It  Done.

I had quite a few ideas – D is for Dust.  This one would have been a picture post!  I thought about D is for Doric, but felt that Ionic and Corinthian should have their due so that will be coming later in a post, G is for Greek Architecture…(surely the anticipation is building!)  I considered D is for Doves (we have some new baby doves visiting our feeder), D is for Ducks (we’ll soon have some baby ducks visiting, assuming I’m a good judge of Mallard mating behavior), D is for Dill, Dickens, Domes (more architecture), Discs (as in Ultimate Frisbee), and Drill (a potential Latin Lovers post).  As you can tell I had lots of choices but I didn’t get it done.

I did have a great weekend with Mr. Garner and our American Heritage Girl at the Family Camp Out at Northwest River Park!  Mr. Garner showed us girls how to put up our tent, and how to build a fire in the fire pit.  He fixed us up a wonderful dinner of Grilled Chicken, Green Beans and Baked Potatoes in the coals!  We sat out by the fire and looked up at bright, sparkling stars in a dark blue sky, savored the crackling warmth and listened to the fireside antics of the young children in neighboring tents.  The giggles and parental remonstrances slowly quieted as bedtimes came and went, and the sounds shifted to an occasional dog bark, the fall of a log on the fire, a shower of sparks, and the soughing of the wind advancing through tall swaying trees.

Morning brought hot coffee (Okay, it was Folgers instant, but it was good and hot!) fried eggs, sausage links, and blueberry muffins tucked inside orange peel halves, wrapped in foil and cooked in the coals! Delicious!  After a morning gathering with other families working through fun bonding and problem solving activities, GraceNotes scampered off to complete a few items on her camping badge and Mr. Garner and I did a little exploring.  Dinner was shish-ke-bob and then we were off to a Night Prowl presentation which eliminated all possibility of an unknowing encounter with poison ivy (I thrilled when GraceNotes looked knowingly at me when we learned poison-ivy-impersonator Virginia Creeper’s botanical nomenclature,  Parthenocissus quinquefolia,  because we had just learned our cardinal and ordinal numbers in Latin!), and featured star-gazing in a wide open field,  a physics lesson on sparks-emitted-by-teeth-chomping-wintergreen-lifesavers, and calling local owls (the Great Horned owl, Barred owl and Screech Owl are all native but they knew better than to show up).   Snuggling in our sleeping bags that night, we fell asleep listening for owl calls, then woke to morning birds chirping and trilling, and golden sunshine glowing green amidst the baby leaves unfurling in the trees.

All in all it was a deeply satisfying weekend, even if I didn’t get my “D is for “ blog post done (by the deadline)!