PICS OF THE WEEK

I haven't put many pics up lately so I thought I'd share a few off the camera from this past week. And as an update the next month holds for us several exciting things -

Tropical Storm Fay came on through this weekend and has dumped quite a bit of all day rain on us so far, expecting more, which is not a good thing since we are still trying to finish up the lake. Today it's been sunny and windy so hopefully the path has altered and things will dry out by the weekend since we only have a few days of work left and we can be done! Then we'll just need another one to come on through and fill it up!

Jack's cast comes off on Thursday, and pending any abnormalities on the xrays, he will be able to have a real bath for the first time in almost a month!

Work has been 100 miles a minute, but I am bound and determined to make this week a record for getting things cleared off so I'm able to unload some of that stress. I have done virtually no travel since Jack's been born, but on the 18th I head up to Pittsburgh for the day for a meeting at Dick's Sporting Goods and Daddy will brave his first full day alone with both boys. Actually, they will be at daycare, but he will have all morning, dinner and bedtime on his own. I have no doubt he can do it, but it will be good for me to get out of the way and let him :)

At the end of the month, a close work friend (Congrats Minoru & Shiori!!) is getting married in Huntington Beach, CA, so Grandma Ruth has arranged to take a few days and come down so Cory and I can fly out to attend. It's a Monday wedding, special circumstances based on the fact that 50% of the wedding party are professional fisherman that have tournaments every weekend, so we are only going Sunday-Tuesday, but either way, will be a nice break for us to be together!

Finally, the boys have managed for the past few weekends to coordinate napping at the same time so I have actually had a little "me" time in the afternoons which has been amazing! Praying that continues!

We just wrapped up one of the best message series at Church of the Highlands as well today, so if you listened to last weeks message online, you will definitely want to listen to the final! It was POWERFUL again! It's too early for me to post the link here, but just go to the website on my Favorites on this page and click on Multimedia - Current Series. It should be uploaded by sometime tomorrow.

Duke transitioned a few weeks ago to a new room at daycare, but we had to highlight this pic of him with his "Aunt Kay". She took care of Jack as well in his first 6 months at Odyssey Early School and we LOVE HER!

While trying to find some "other" things to occupy us while Jack recouperates from his break, one of Cory's prostaff and his wife are nursing a fawn who lost it's mother. Since Jack's very first word was "deer" (shocking I know), we thought it would be fun for him to get up close to one. We've been able to watch them from the house on occaision as they wander along the fenceline behind the house, but this was WAAAAY more exciting.

Many of you probably remember when we first moved here, my comments about the size of the "bugs" as compared to what I'd experienced in Wisconsin. Well, over the past several weeks, we have had a visitor on our patio...a Black & Yellow Garden Spider, Argiope auranta. At first, well as per usual I FREAKED OUT as this is not just a normal sized spider, as you might be able to tell based on the comparison to the TV remote sitting near the top of the picture. This "little" fella measures about 4" long. But after getting online and reading that it eats a LOT of BUGS, and since we couldn't really make use of the patio while Jack was recouping, since his favorite thing to do is run through the sprinkler, and his cast cannot get wet, I figured I'd let the guest clean out the yard of all the pesky flying critters he could. Friday however, Cory and I decided to grill some steaks after the kids were in bed, so Mr. Argiope auranta now resides somewhere in the back woods where Cory re-located him. (Call us "green" we figured having him and some of his friends around is better than spraying pesticides all over long as they aren't right outside my backdoor!)

Thought I'd save the best for last! We broke out the ball pit on Saturday, since the rain kept us all inside. Duke is obsessed with balls these days, and Jack enjoyed throwing them all out of the pit (still working on putting them back!) Was also a good opportunity to teach some additional lessons on sharing with Duke, which has not been a strong point now that Duke is mobile and can get to just about any of Jack's toys that he wants too!