Gardens

After the storms Wednesday night, my wife decided to see if she could dig a trench where the gravel driveway meets the paved section. While doing that, she found that there was a drain in place.

She started looking for a pipe where this would drain out at. She finally found it. A pipe left the drain and went into the yard 6 to 8 feet and just stopped. It couldn't drain out anywhere cause it was covered by dirt!!! We'll have to drain it out somewhere, just have to figure out where.

So, after looking at that, I decided I'd walk around the yard and look at the garden. It's the first garden we've had here, and it just doesn't look good. However, our tomatoes are finally starting to produce. Also, we finally have some blooms on our cucumber plants too. Now, I just need my peppers to start producing!

Very cool

Well, today, I had some much better photo ops.

I got home from work and was sitting on the couch when I saw a golden finch fly up into our weeping cherry tree we planted earlier this year. So I grabbed the camera and carefully opened the door. I only managed on shot, but I think it's good!



Later, my wife and I went for a while. I had my camera in tow! And I wasn't having much luck on finding anything interesting to take a picture of. Then I saw this tree. It looked fuzzy. It was something I've never seen before. I took a picture, but it doesn't do it justice.



A bit later, I was walking by this field that had a huge array of wild flowers/weeds in bloom... which ever. Either way, I gave it a shot.



Then the storms blew in! What a crazy night for storms. Tons of lightning, rain and tornadoes! I'm not sure how many touched down, but they were all over the place. It's raining so hard, I hear many streets are flooding. One of the nice things I like about storms is the lightning. I love it. Especially now I have a camera that is capable of taking photos of it. Here are a couple I thought turned out pretty good.





Oh, speaking of flooding, the rain is doing a number on our new flower bed. The mulch just keeps floating by.





This was a much better day.

Beautiful Sunrise

The sunrise was beautiful this morning. There was cloudy morning, but the sky was beautiful pinks and purples and blues as the sun came up.





This isn't as long as I had hoped, but it's something.

Quiet

I realized I've not blogged a lot lately. Mostly just because I've been busy. Some cause most things I just put in Facebook and I can limit more of who see's what.

But I saw someones blog the other day where they were blogging about their photography. I thought that might be fun. Get me back into my blogging, and more incentive to take pictures.

So, I'm going to give it a try. We'll see how it goes.

First off, at the start of the year, I decided I'd try to take at least 1 photo everyday for the year. I've failed miserably, but I'm still taking them and uploading them to my flickr set. You can find that here if you're interested.

Tonight, on my walk, it was getting late and the sun was setting on this mostly cloudy day. It was really nice out. The temperature was cool and many people were out mowing their yards.

I was really enjoying the colors of the sky tonight and stopped and took several pictures. I think this one may be my favorite of the night.




This picture was probably a close second. I liked how the sun was trying to peek through the clouds, and how all the trees and shrubs were framing the sky.





Further on in my walk, I saw downtown Tulsa off in the distance. From this vantage point, there were a lot of power lines between me and it, but I still thought it was decent.




Early on in my I saw these thistles, and really liked the way the looked.





Hope y'all enjoy this short walk through my walk tonight.

Updates

Today felt so good! It was like Spring was coming out for a visit! It was a nice visit too! My wife got some flowers planted, and bought a steak for me to cook on the grill!!! It was wonderful!

The garage door opener broke today, so that was bad. looks like the nylon gear is all chewed up. Will probably end up having to buy a new one.

We have a busy weekend coming up. I have practice Saturday morning for Wednesday's nights Kids Stuff at church, and then Saturday night we have the Cub Scout Blue & Gold banquet!

Well, guess that's it for now. Night all!

4 8 15 16 23 42

So, this week in Lost, the Numbers showed back up, but this time, with a bit more meaning.

Jacob had 6 possible protectors and a number next to their name. They are

4: Locke
8: Hurley
15: Sawyer
16: Sayid
23: Jack
42: Sun/Jin (not sure which one)

So, that being said, Riddle me this, Those numbers have been going on since WWII if I remember correctly.

How's that for some long term planning?

Howling

I knew it had been a long time since I've blogged, but I didn't realize it had been 2 months. Sorry about that (if you even care).

Tonight my boy and I went out and howled at the full moon again. We've managed to get out every time since we first started on July 7th! (one month it was cloudy so we howled at the faint glow behind the clouds)

We both really look forward to it. I wish I had done this with my daughter, though I'm not sure she would have enjoyed it as much as my boy has been. And this month, we'll get to do it again. Twice in one month, what a treat!

You can read more about it here if you're interested.

Life

Life can be so strange sometimes. Things are going about as good as they can go. I'm blessed beyond measure but at the same time, it's hard to imagine more heartbreak and difficulty than I'm having.

Right now, i'm sitting on the top of an old fire tower in Roaring River State Park. So old, the trees are taller than it is. There probably isn't another person around in over a mile or more.

It's funny how God can use a walk (or hike in this case). There are old burnt and dead trees all around. Tres and leaves dead and decomposing, but in all this there is life and beauty.

The sun is shining, the wind is blowing. I can hear birds and frogs and the talking of the trees. Izve seen beautiful butterflies. I've sen dragon flies and it all so beautiful.

So, even in the chaos of life, there's beauty. And even after the stroms that come through, life thrives.

Holy Cow!!!!!

I just saw a couple things I wanted to share.

First,
The 9/14 issue of Sports Illustrated has OSU on the cover! (go ahead, click the link)

Second,
Take a look at the college football rankings http://espn.go.com/college-football/rankings

A quick summary (AP Poll)
1. Florida
2. Texas
3. USC
4. Alabama
5. Oklahoma State!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
13. Oklahoma

Not sure I've ever seen OSU ranked above OU before.

Crazy!

August?

Are we sure today is the last day og August? It was 51 when I left the house this morning! Not only that, but it never got out of the 70's today!

Crazy I tell you and you'll not get any complants form me!

4th Grade Pictures and more

I promised pictures, So here they are.
As usual, you can click on the pictures to make them larger!

4th Grade

3rd Grade

2nd Grade

1st Grade



Kindergarden


Pre-K

4th Grade

Today is the start of my boys 4th grade year! Wow, it's hard to believe he's here!

It seems like only yesterday he was learning his colors and his letters. Starting to read and write. Today, he's in 4th grade. The things he'll learn, the things he'll experience, I'm excited for him!

My beloved is taking him to school this morning, and I'll be home when he gets off the bus. Hopefully, I'll have a picture of him on his first day of class. I love those pictures as we take them every year, the first day of school.

I'll try to post pictures later.

Good Day

Today is turning out to be a good day, even though it started a bit rough.

I went to be a bit early last night, and was sleeping relatively well. That was until 5:00 this morning when the cat started meowing. So, I get up so he doesn't wake up my wife, to figure out what he needs. He took me to the living room and went to the front door!

He's not an indoor/outdoor cat. He's only indoor unless he escapes, and hasn't escaped since we moved to the new house. Anway, I almost threw him out the door anyway for waking me up! I went ahead and checked his food bowl and made sure that the door was open so he could get to his litter box and went back to bed.

I went back to bed, laid down, and was wide awake! So, after about 5 minutes, I decided to get up. I had my quiet time, surfed the web, fixed breakfast, and packed a lunch. My wife woke up about 7:00 and I got the bed made, laundry going, and dishes done before I left the house at 7:15!

Work has even been going pretty well today.

The downside is knowing my dishwasher broke yesterday, and we've no money to fix it.

Oh well, guess we'll do dishes the old fashioned way for a while.

Mechanic

Today was my boy's first time to work on one of our vehicles.

It was cool having him help me.

Making memories!!!

Tonight, my boy and I went out, and howled at the moon! Why? Because it was a full moon, and we are wild men, and it was fun!

We've also decided to always try to howl at every full moon! Is this silly? You bet! But what better memories can I make with my boy now then to do something silly with my boy!

Things have made me realize how important it is to have fun, and make these precious fun memories with my boy now, while he still wants to be with me, and have fun with me. He's 9, and before long, dad will no longer be cool.

We came into the computer room to see when the next full moon is, and it's on August 5th! So we already have our next howling date scheduled. In fact, we've scheduled the rest of them for the year! (and for the record, there are 2 full moons in December... 12/2 and 12/31!

Then, after howling at the moon, we went and found the ISS passing over and enjoyed watching it fly by!

When it was time to come in, we took the time to howl again!

Good Idea?

So, I'm up in the office this morning, walking back to my desk, and I notice a woman out in the parking lot putting up a sunshade in her truck. That in and of itself is not unusual, but she was putting it on the OUTSIDE of the truck! I even watched her put it under the windshield wipers.

I'm not sure why she was putting it on the outside of the truck, but she did. Before lunch, we noticed that they did indeed blow down as we expected. But, on the bright side, she's warming up the engine for when she gets off of work.

Oh, wait...

Resident Camp Update

First, I will admit. I was nervous this weekend.

This camp that my boy went to was more than just another night at a friends house, this was a true camping trip! The kind where your shower is either a dip in the lake, or provided by God in a rain storm! He slept in a tent, without an adult in it. And to top it off, it was a rather stormy weekend.

I didn't think he would, but I was afraid he would want to call us to come pick him up, and I didn't want that. I wanted him to realize how much fun this stuff is! How he can have fun without me or his mom around.

And man did he!

When we first got there, he saw me get out of the car and came a running! When he finally saw his mom, he ran to her too. He talked to us a few moments, and then was quickly out pacing us with his friends headed to dinner.

The leaders told me what a great job he did, and only had one slight breakdown and that was Sunday morning (after a very tiring week). So, that was awesome! He was so tired come Sunday, after lunch, he fell asleep at the lunch table!

Watching him interact with his friends, allowed me to see how much he grew up this weekend! To listen to him talk about the paddling the war canoes, and swimming, and the castle, and songs, and skits they did, was incredible. We sang one of the songs several times in the car on the way to my parents for church camp this week. I learned more about the 3 days at Resident camp than I think I found out the entire school year about what when on at school.

And as happy and proud of him as I was, it also makes me sad knowing how much my little boy is growing up. But again, that is is how it should be.

This week, he is at church camp with my parents. He'll be exhausted by the time he gets home. But he's having a good summer!

Big Step

Today's a big step in family, or, at least, seems like a big step.

My little boy, who's not as little as I'd like to think, is at Webelos Resident Camp. It's a 3 day, 2 night camp where Boy Scouts run the camp for the Webelos. They'll be camping out while they have all sorts of fun. And I'm here at home, while he's there at camp.

He wanted me to go with him. And normally I would, but I felt like he needed to do this camp without me this time. Let him grow up a bit.

He was sad about it yesterday, but when I left him at the camp today, he didn't bat an eye...

As it should be.

It made me both happy and sad.

And I suppose that is also how it should be.

Decorated!

Well, we finally finished up the decorating and painting... well, mostly, you know how it goes.

The house is really awesome, and we love it here. The house, the area, the quiet, EVERYTHING!

Anyway, I promised some pictures. I put out several on my Flickr page. You can click to enlarge.

More busy-ness

Wow! Has it been a long time since I've blogged. I've thought about it a lot, but just haven't managed to get in here and do it. I've had a lot to say, but now that I've got the time, I can't think of most of it.

So, what's been going on?

• Well, We got moved in, unpacked and the like. We are finishing the painting up of the last room (master bath) today or tomorrow (Saturday at the latest). Once we have the paint done and finish the last bit of decorating, I'll post a bunch of new pictures.
  
• Kids. I'd say what's to say, but there's been a lot, I'll post more below (or later depending on how long this post is.)
• Saturday is my and my beautiful wife's wedding anniversary. We wanted to go do something, but doesn't look like that's going to happen. 11 years!
• I got my parents moved from Bartlesville, OK to Hodgen, OK. I hurt my back in the process, and it's just now getting back to normal.
• I've been pricing fencing for the new place, man is it expensive.
• E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo) has been this week, and I've enjoyed it. Wish I could have gone to it! Lots of video game goodness!
• I'm sure there is more, but can't think of it.

So, my kids, first my boy.

• We were asked to have him tested for the Gifted and Talented. I thought it was strange, but I told them they could test him. Anyway, he scored in the 99 percentile (meaning better than 99 out of 100 of people that took the test. So, next year, he'll spend 40 minutes, twice a week for enrichment activities (whatever that means).
• He also was given an application for a Lego Robotics team that will meet one to two times a week before school next year and a competition in Stillwater in December. (I think that link is right) He was completely stoked about it till he found out he had to fill out part of the application himself, so he said "nah". Well, being the good dad I am, I made him fill it out. He was stoked until that point. We've not heard back, but are hoping he gets to be a part. they are only choosing 10 kids out of the 4th -5th grade class.
• He finished 3rd grade with straight A's!!! We are so proud of him.

My daughter though is another matter. We just had to spend $500 so she'd not go blind! She's had the same pair of contacts in her eyes (without removing them nightly like she's suppose to) for the last 8 months+. Luckily she was able to get some glasses (the dr said no contacts for at least 1 year if ever). But she can see, so that's whats important.

Anyway, I guess that's all for now. Hopefully, it wont be month before my next post.