Let them eat (dry) cake

Sand spit in Tonga (only at low tide). The kids played
'Marco Polo' on land.

As we celebrated Matt's birthday last week, he got a little older and I was reminded that I am not getting any smarter. I made a cake from a mix--the kind that literally has four ingredients (cake mix, eggs, oil, and water)--and managed to forget one of the ingredients. To file away in your collection of nearly-useless information: if you're going to forget an ingredient in prepackaged cake mix, water is the only one you can get away with. I wouldn't recommend it unless you like really dry cake, though. Fortunately homemade chocolate frosting covers a lot of sins, if a bit lumpily.

Would have, could have, should have

We attended a Tongan feast with several friends. We
almost missed it because we crossed the international date line

Matt noticed the other day that our old house resold for almost $150,000 more than we sold it for three and a half years ago. The couple that bought it from us made almost no changes, down to the placement of almost all the furniture and artwork they purchased from us. It was eerie to see the place almost the same as we had left it.