Thanksgiving

We had a very nice Thanksgiving this year. We celebrated on Thanksgiving day with Elizabeth's family up in Noblesville at her brother Craig's home. On Friday, we visited with my dad's side of the family in Shelbyville. On Sunday, we visited with my mom's side of the family in Shelbyville after church. That's a lot of Thanksgiving! :)

We also used the holiday break to get Christmas decorations up. We decided to buy a new Christmas tree this year. We looked around last year after Christmas thinking that we'd be able to get a good deal, but it was impossible to find any nice ones after the holiday. This year we just broke down and bought one. It was on sale, but still! It is a "Hadley Pine" pre-lit tree from Sears with 800 clear lights. It's very pretty!


The other really special Christmas decoration that we have is our Nativity set. We have collected the pieces as gifts from Elizabeth's parents over the last several years. They are from a store in Kokomo called The Op Shop. They make and sell opalescent glass for stained glass work. Not only is the set beautiful, but it's fun that it comes from Elizabeth's hometown! Check it out.

Random Stuff

Here's Noah showing off his skills as a magician!


Here's Hannah and Noah's cousin showing off his helmet. Apparently, he refused to take it off for quite some time!


We captured this photo up in Noblesville, a northern suburb of Indianapolis. Yes, that is what it looks like under those Christmas decorations!

Katie's Wedding

My cousin, Katie, got married on a Carribean cruise in October. The rest of my family went, but Elizabeth and I decided we wouldn't have much fun if we tried to take the kiddos. We couldn't stomach the idea of being that inaccessible for 7 nights either, even if we could find a babysitter. Even though we didn't get to celebrate on the cruise, we were able to attend a tropical-themed reception at the Maxim Events venue in Shelbyville at the beginning of November. The venue is owned and run by the same folks that have The Fiddler's Three restaurant, so the food was great. They also have a lighted dance floor, which the kids absolutely loved. Here's a couple of pictures of them dancing it up.




Here's a not-so-exciting video (I like it though) of the kids walking around the dance floor backwards. I'm not sure what started it, maybe they learned how to do it at school??



Here's the rest of the pictures from the wedding if you'd like to see them.

My uncle (Katie's dad) asked me to help him put together a photo montage video for the Father-Bride dance as I did for his other daughter. It's fun to be able to contribute something so meaningful to the celebration. While I'm on the topic, I want to show off my Photoshop skills. I also did a video for him for his parent's 60th wedding anniversary. In this video there were a series of professional portraits that had been taken at other milestone anniversaries; however, they hadn't had one taken for their 60th. So, I took a picture of them that had been taken with my cousin Nicole at her wedding, cut Nicole out, created a fake background using the all of the power of Photoshop and even added some texture to make it look like an authentic picture. Take a look at the before and after shots below. Some weird stuff happened with the resizing, so if you click on each picture you can see the a correctly proportioned one.

Adam's ER Adventure

It seems to be an annual tradition now. Me getting the stomach flu or food poisoning, having the gross symptoms that go with those ailments very bad for a period of time, getting so dehydrated I'm barely able to function, then my trip to the ER.

I had just been going on about how I made it a whole year without having to go to the ER. I guess that's what I get.

The kids had been sick on Wednesday and Thursday last week with a little bit of V&D (trying to spare you the gross words) from each of them. Friday night I had trouble sleeping due to pretty severe abdominal cramps. Saturday morning about 6 am it started. By around noon I was on my way to the hospital. The usual IV fluids and Zofran did the trick. I was back home by 6:30 or so Saturday evening.

Fun! Not...

Catching Up

Now that I finally have a couple of minutes to breathe, I'm planning on a number of posts to catch up. Stay tuned; I'll probably be working on them all at the same time, but posting each one as I get it done. Lots of stories, pictures, and even a video or two. How fun!

My Awesome Kids

Here's Noah responding to a "say cheese" request.


These two pictures were taken 1 second apart with the camera in rapid-fire mode. No Photoshopping, I promise. Check out the vertical!

My Sister

This explains a lot.

Four words!

It's hard to not come across as bragging sometimes, but it's my blog and I'll brag if I want to.

Yesterday, Hannah was playing with her dolls and mentioned that one of them was sleeping. She then went on to say, "This one's sleeping too."

Yep, you read that right, she strung four words together! Funny that the doctor told us that she'd be stringing three words together by her third birthday when we just passed her second!

Her speech has also gotten a lot clearer lately. She's really working on her pronunciation. If she says something slightly wrong and we repeat it back to her the right way, she tries it one or two more times, gets it right, and then doesn't mess it up anymore.

It is an amazing process to experience! What a miracle.

Don't fear, Noah is coming along as well. He's putting multiple words together now, just not four!

Boston Area Trip

I've gotten quite backlogged on my blogging due to a special project I've been working on. So, I'm going to start trying to get caught up.

I thought I'd start with sharing some pictures that I took while in the Boston area on a business trip (I never actually went into Boston). On the morning after I got there, my work got done a little before lunch time, so I hopped in the car and headed for the coast on an adventure.

I did a quick internet search before I left the hotel to see what the best scenic route would be to check out the beautiful New England fall foliage. Here is a map of the route I took. You can use your mouse to move it around to see the whole route, or enlarge it.


View Larger Map

Unfortunately, I didn't have my digital camera so I bought a disposable. The pictures are pretty terrible, some even have a line down the middle of them where the color changes mid-picture. I'm so glad we have digital now!

I stopped off in a few small towns along the way like Glocester and Rockport. In Rockport there was an area called Bearskin Neck that had lots of little shops.

Here's a couple of the shots I took.





If you're interested, here's the rest of the pictures.

While the fall foliage was pretty, I wasn't that attracted to the area. Everything felt so old. Some of the towns I drove through dated back to the 1600's. I guess if you like that sort of thing it would be perfect.

Halloween Party or 4th of July Party?

We hosted a Halloween party yesterday. Unfortunately, it didn't much feel like Halloween outside as the temperature rose above 80 degrees. Needless to say, chili wasn't the best food we could have chosen for the day, but seriously, how are you supposed to plan for 80 degree weather in October!

We had a large group of friends and family that joined us for the party. I had to cut the guest list off at some point though. We had well over thirty people here!

We ended up renting the bouncer from Bouncertown that I mentioned in my last post about the kids' birthday. It was quite a hit with all of the kids. We also had cornhole set up in the backyard.


The best part, as usual, was the food. Many of the favorites from last year's party made a second appearance, but there were some new goodies as well. My favorite was definitely the "Graveyard Pudding" complete with edible tombstones.


The costumes are always fun as well. Grandma and Grandpa came as clowns! Hannah and Noah were Raggedy Anne and Andy.





Click here if you want to see the rest of the pictures from the party. Thanks to everyone that came, we had a great time and enjoyed your company.

The Two are Two!

It's hard to believe, but Hannah and Noah are two! (Maybe not so hard if you consider Hannah's attitude lately.)

We had a wonderful day last Saturday with Nana, Papaw, Grandma, Grandpa, and Aunt Amber. Everybody came over in the morning for presents, a great lunch (Papa John's), and ice cream cake from Dairy Queen. Grandma and Grandpa also stayed to watch General Conference (a semi-annual church-wide conference; we watch it via satellite).

Probably the most fun part of the day was presents! It's so much more fun now that Hannah and Noah know how to open presents and get excited about what's inside. Here's a couple of pictures of them opening presents.




Hannah got a very special present from Grandma. The cradle in the following picture was made by Elizabeth's grandfather for her when she was a little girl. Hannah has loved playing with it now that it has been passed down to her. But now it's super-special because Grandma made a matress, pillow, and blanket for the babies!


On their actual birthday we took them to Bouncertown here in Greenwood. They had a really fun time in the toddler bouncer. We also had some more yummy pizza! Here are a couple of pictures from there.





Click here if you're interested in seeing the rest of the pictures.

Fall Premier

Okay, hopefully I'm back for the fall. I don't really see things slowing down anytime soon, but I've heard there are some readers that are disappointed that I haven't been keeping up. I'm happy to oblige.

I just spent the last hour trying to put a fancy new background on the blog to celebrate autumn (my favorite season by the way). Unfortunately, I couldn't figure out an easy way to change the template HTML without getting rid of all of my widgets I have set up. If someone knows an easy way, let me know. Otherwise, I guess I'm going to have to spend a bit of time getting familiar with the code to pick out the parts that I need to move.

A couple of weeks ago I went to Spokane, Washington on a business trip. I really enjoyed the area a lot. There is the Spokane river that runs right through downtown. There is a very nice park that you can walk around in. Outdoor activities are within a 10-15 minute drive in any direction. Beautiful parks, mountains (even ski resorts for the winter), lakes, rivers, etc. One of the afternoons after we got done at work, we made the 30-minute drive over to Coeur d'Alene, Idaho (think the skinny part). It was absolutely beautiful. It is home to the world's longest floating boardwalk. The water is crystal clear. We were at the end of a pier where the water was 14 feet deep and could still see the bottom of the lake! We even got brave and took a seaplane ride over the lake and mountains. For $60, it was awesome! Here's a picture of my colleague and I with the pilot and the plane, a nineteen-fifty-something de Havilland Beaver. The pilot has been flying since 1942 if I remember correctly. Click here if you're interested in seeing more pictures from the plane ride and trip to Coeur d'Alene.


Like many parents of the 21st century, we utilize timeouts as a way to discipline our children when they act...well...two.

Hannah has gotten really into acting out traumatic experiences she has had. It's hard to determine how much diaper rash cream some of the baby dolls have on them at this point, if you catch my drift. Apparently, one of Hannah's timeouts was particularly traumatic. See what I mean.



Here's a few other fun and goofy pictures of the kiddos.

Summer Haitus

Just wanted to pop in and let everyone know we are still alive and having a great summer. With all of the great weather, fun activities, work, etc., I haven't had time to post anything. I promise it'll pick back up as we move into the fall. Perhaps when the good shows like Chuck and The Office come back.

American Idols Concert

We went to the American Idols concert on Tuesday night. Our friend Andrea was able to go with us. She ended up serving as our photographer since she had the aisle seat. She took some great pictures. You can see them here.

The concert was great. I was very disappointed that David Archuleta didn't sing "Imagine." It was still a great show though.

Busy Summer

Time flies when you're having fun. It's been a month and a half since my last post. Most of our loyal readers have probably given up on me by now. Hopefully you all understand!

I've just got a collection of some photos to share.


We had some friends over to celebrate my birthday with dinner. Elizabeth made this wonderful birthday "cake" for me.



Earlier this summer, Elizabeth bought the kids a small pool for the backyard. Of course, since I'm so crazy about the grass, she's not allowed to leave it out overnight which means she spends more time setting it up and emptying it than they do playing in it each day. Anyway, they really like it.


Here more recently we picked up a little Elmo sprinkler as well. Anything helps on these hot days!





On the Fourth of July we had some friends over for a cook-out (we mostly stayed inside though since the weather wasn't that great). We did go out for a few fireworks after dinner. Here's a picture of Hannah and Noah enjoying the show. We finished the night off with some homemade ice cream. Yum yum!


On a more serious note. My Aunt Candy got married on July 4th in Gatlinburg, Tennessee to a man named Jim Long. They had been together for quite some time (years) and finally tied the knot. They had a reception in Greenfield at he VFW where Jim was a Commander and bartender on Saturday, July 12th. Unfortunately, the following morning Jim passed away. The funeral was this past Thursday. It's really hard to find any silver lining in all of this, but if there is any, it's the fact that he ended on such a happy note and got the opportunity to see his friends and loved ones one last time just hours before he left us. Here's a big group picture with Candy and Jim in the front and all of my family. We even had some surprise visitors from Ohio and Georgia.

Flooding

I'm sure those of you who live around here are well aware that we have had a LOT of rain and storms lately, for those who don't....we have! I even saw one of the top stories on cnn.com was from Franklin, Indiana (just 15 minutes south of us).

The rain that started sometime in the early morning hours on Saturday and came down up until around noon on Saturday seemed to tip the scales. As we watched the rain come down from our house, I was surprised to see the street flooding outside...



Once the rain stopped and the sun came out, we decided to get out for a walk since we had been cooped up inside all morning. We were surprised to find more flooding when we left the subdivision...







Still not realizing how bad things really were, I decided to go to Lowe's to buy a new grill. It took me over an hour to get up to Lowe's at Madison and County Line Road. There were many intersections that were closed or impassable. It was while I was driving tht I first started hearing on the radio how bad things really were, and about the state of emergency that had been declared.

Our church was cancelled this morning, partly because of the flooding and partly because they just put another coat of varnish on the new hardwood gym floor...but mainly because of the flooding. The Bishop tried yesterday for an hour and half to get to the church and couldn't make it.

Around noon today, I got a phone call that one of our ward member's homes had flooded (she's on vacation) and they were looking for wet vacs to help clean it up. I loaded up and went over there to find an unbelieveable mess in this community. It is a community of duplexes, sort of like those 55 and over communities, but we did see some younger people living there. Water had been inside many of the homes. When I arrived they had just finished pulling the carpet up out of the neighbor's house and were just getting ready to pull it up in the home I went to help with. We ended up helping a number of other residents in the neighborhood. There was mud EVERYWHERE. One house in particular had laminate floors and the mud was very thick. Yuck!

If you'd like to see the rest of the pictures from the flood click here to see the rest of the album.