Spring has sprung in the past week or two since Easter, with blossoms appearing on trees all over town. We also got to see our tulips and daffodils in our yard again, a colorful display that will last probably a week or two. I’ve been enjoying biking all over down as well, of course, going by Hanscom Park, the Big Papio Trail, the Keystone Trail, and catching a whiff of blossoms every which way. Several woodchucks seem to be out and about along the trails as well (making things interesting as I try to avoid them).

I even got out to go biking with Hannah a bit on Saturday, pedaling on down to the Sandy Park and back, pushing against 25 mph winds along the way.

In food-related news, I got to have some barbecue with Nate down at Oklahoma Joe’s, and Vivian and I got to have some of Graley’s last hand pies of the season. We also took our kids out to Roma’s for some Italian food on Thursday. We were going to take them to Malara’s, but they decided to shut down forever even earlier than they’d planned, likely because they could barely keep up when Vivian and I dropped by a week earlier. Roma’s had remodeled since I last visited back in 2019 (with my parents), so it was an unexpectedly fancy affair. Hannah was quite delighted at the endless garlic bread we got with our meal, and Aaron’s naturally a big fan of noodles and sauce and parmesan (please).

Then on Saturday, I went to see the Steve Deace movie “Nefarious” with my parents. It was an R-rated “Christian horror” film and very good. It reminded me both of The Screwtape Letters and Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter speaking with Jodie Foster in Silence of the Lambs. It was good enough I may wind up seeing it again. Then Vivian made some split-pea soup, which was perfect for a cold and rainy Saturday.

We wrapped up our last Men of God dinner of the year with some smoked ribs from Woody on the following Tuesday. We also got to hear from Colt Doherty, who pastors a church in Atlantic, Iowa and talked about his experience getting a wreck while drag-racing and coming to accept Christ afterward.

Aaron’s got a few more weeks with his friends at Royal Rangers before the year. Some of his troop-mates made pizza on Wednesday, and we got to sample some before heading home.