Last weekend we were invaded by a toddler for both Saturday and Sunday. On Saturday, the Ward Manor’s subdivision was holding an Easter shindig up at the clubhouse. The Wife, The Niece, and MIL watched The Great Niece join the other toddlers in grabbing eggs. It was stated multiple times how quickly a field liberally seeded with Easter eggs was picked clean. I was also told not to liken the mass of children to locusts. Then the adults took turns escorting The Great Niece around the various playground offerings. Back at the house, The Great Niece continued her favorite game of getting Uncle Derek to take her up and down the stairs.

Sunday was Easter dinner, and it was a big dinner with all of the local folks. There was another Easter Egg hunt, as well as general shower of toys for The Great Niece. The original plan was for me to smoke a brisket. Unfortunately, when I was setting up, the heavens opened up. Grumble, grumble, grumble. We ended up cooking it in the oven. Of course, by dinner time, the weather was nice and shiny. Lots of food, lots of talk, lots of listening to The Great Niece’s beginning speech. She’s a lot more vocal these days.

This weekend was also saw the purchasing of some upgrades to Ward Manor. After going back and forth, a new double oven was purchased for later delivery. That would have been very helpful to have on Easter Sunday, and it will be very helpful for later holidays. We also decided to upgrade the robots. Our two Eufy’s are showing their age – and I still recommend them for “dumb” robot vacs. However, we said when it was time to replace Darth and DeeDee, that we would upgrade to smarter ones that had the self-evacuating towers. Those will be easier on us, but the clowder will probably be annoyed at us. Oh well, they’re lazy ingrates anyway.

There was another purchase last weekend, but that will get it’s own post tomorrow.