Mr. Handsome wrote a post about the family campout we took in September…
I have been trying to come up with words to adequately describe our first camping trip with Little Buddy. You could say it was a “smashing” success, if by “smashing” you mean that the air mattress deflated and we were smashed down on the hard, rocky ground for the night. It was certainly not a “full- blown” success.
It was a “rousing” success if you mean we were “roused and awakened” every hour or so by the crying of Little Buddy, who was not used to sleeping in a tent. You could say it was a “big hit” if you are describing what my wife wanted to do to me when she realized I had forgotten my pillow and had decided to use hers.
Perhaps a better way to describe it would be a “brilliant success,” if you are quoting my wife, who asked in the middle of a sleepless night “whose brilliant idea it was to try to go camping with an eight-month-old-baby.” It was an “extraordinary” success if you are describing how extraordinarily difficult it was to start the campfire using the soggy wet wood we had brought from home.
I suppose we all had a “big” time if you are describing the size of the mosquitoes that chose to reside in our humble tent after we accidentally left the tent flap open. I’ll take the blame for that one.
It was a “runaway success” when our campmates’ pet dog escaped into the woods and we spent an hour pursuing the young rascal. It was an “unqualified” success if you are describing how the most unqualified individual (yours truly) tried to cook breakfast and burned all the bacon.
“Overwhelming” success is a good word to use if you are describing the feeling we felt while trying to pack up the huge mess of a campsite–after enjoying our meal of burnt bacon. You could say it was an “astonishing” success if you are describing the look on Ellie’s face when, after we got home and unpacked, I said, “That was a lot of fun. We should do it again next weekend.”
Most of you know that Mr. Handsome makes oil and acrylic paintings as a hobby. We have enjoyed traveling around the Nashville area to different art shows and town festivals to sell his works of art. He has also displayed his paintings at coffee shops and other venues across the city. He started with landscapes and has since branched out to a variety of other subjects, including musical instruments, ships, abstract paintings, animals, and skylines. And for Christmas, 
Until this summer, Mr. Handsome had been painting solely with oils for almost three years before starting to use acrylics. Initially, he called it “experimenting” because he expected to have many failures as he got the hang of it, but he didn’t, and even his first paintings turned out great. (If I had been the painter, the results would have been much different, let me tell you.)
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Mr. Handsome has been experimenting with abstract art this fall, as different art shows have different clientele with different tastes. Last week, we spent a few late nights in his “studio” creating paintings together as a couple. (His studio is a tiny room off our garage that is devoted to his painting endeavors. It has been very handy because in our previous apartments, he has had to paint in our living room or kitchen.)