Happy Father's Day

I took some pictures of the kids this morning and of course none of them actually had all 3 smiling and looking at me. So you'll just have to take the best individual picture of each kid and put them together in your mind to make a decent picture of all 3 together.

Here Dylan and Paige are looking, and mostly smiling, but Liam looks a little afraid of Paige.

Liam, still looking scared, not sure what Dylan is doing.

Dylan and Liam looking pretty good, not sure what Paige is doing.

Bill brought the boys' matching tiger shirts back from India.

We hope you all had a great Father's Day. Thanks to our dads for their great examples as dads, husbands, grandpa's etc.

And Happy Father's Day to our daddy - we think you're the best. Love, Dylan, Paige, Liam & Mom.

It's T-ball time

Dylan had his first t-ball game yesterday. It was a lot of fun. He had 3 great hits and got to play lots of different positions (1st base, 3rd base, short-stop and "the middle guy").

Here he is getting ready to hit...and yes, he did open his eyes before he hit.

Standing on 1st, waiting to run to 2nd.


Crossing home plate.



Playing 1st base, which I think was his favorite because he got the ball a lot.

We are already looking forward to next week's game.

Irony

I thought of a few things from the past few days that are too ironic not to post. So, here goes.

1. On the night of the storm, our neighbors parked one car in their driveway and the other in the garage. The one in the driveway survived the storm just fine. The one in the garage, it was damaged by the limb and debris. Ironic.

2. One of the projects we have planned for this summer is re-roofing our house. The shingles are in terrible condition. The garage roof, however, was just fine so we weren't planning on doing anything to it. Now, we get to re-roof the house and the garage. Ironic.

3. Liam is 8 months old and has yet to sleep through the night. We've been doing the 'let him cry himself to sleep' method for the past few days. The first time he actually slept through the night was the night of the storm. But I was still up at 3 in the morning due to the crazy storm. Now that's ironic.

More Storm Pictures

Here are a few more pictures from the storm.

Bill standing next to the limb that's going through the top of the garage.

Here's the tree that used to be in our neighbor's yard. Crazy!

A few of the broken limbs from our tree.

Free Firewood for anyone who'll come get it!

At about 3:00 a.m. Friday morning Bill and I were awakened by a very loud sound. There was lightning, thunder, pouring rain and crazy wind. I wasn't sure if it was a tornado or just a bad storm. We looked out our window and could see that a bunch of limbs from our huge tree were laying on the ground. It wasn't until later that morning when we woke up and saw the real damage:

This was the view from our bedroom window. You can see the limbs sticking through our garage (on the left) and our neighbor's garage, plus the tree filling up our entire driveway.

The top of our neighbor's garage.


The view behing our garage, looking down where the alley should be.

Limbs hanging over utility wires.

Another view of our garage and driveway.

The limbs that harpooned our garage roof.

Notice the limb is sticking through the top and coming out the front of the garage.

Crunch!

Our new double skylight inside the garage (with the limb still sticking through)

Limb sticking through the top and front of the garage

The winds were measured at over 75 mph, which is equivalent to a category 1 hurricane. I think we're lucky the damage wasn't worse.

We spent most of the day yesterday cleaning up with the help of a few really good neighbors. I think it was a win/win situation - we got some of the mess cleaned up, they got free firewood. The tree removal company was here today and all the limbs/branches are gone. Our insurance estimator will be here Wednesday to assess the damage. So now it's just a waiting game to see how generous they will be with their coverage :) Let the games begin!

Summer Vacation

After Bill got back from India, we packed up and headed to Utah to visit family. Even though it was a looooooong drive it was worth it and we're glad we could make the trip.

Liam enjoying a graham cracker

Having fun in the pool

The cute cousins!
Desirae, Liam, Dylan, Paige and Bella


Singing karaoke with grandpa-grandpa's such a good sport :)

A group photo at the aquarium

We had a great time and it was fun for our kids to get to hang out with their cousins, aunts/uncles, and grandparents. Lots of fun times and good memories.

Tigers and the Taj Mahal

So last year Bill took a group of students to Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands. This year he went with a group of students to India. It was an amazing trip for him. Here are just a few of the hundreds of pictures he took.

The Taj Mahal at dawn.

Another view of the Taj Mahal

One of the tigers they saw while in the National Park

Another tiger walking very close to their jeep