This past Monday was Katie Grace's 6th birthday and to celebrate I took the day off work and we all celebrated! Katie Grace got to pick out a toy with money from Grandma & Grandpa. She decided on a Cabbage Patch girl who eats ice cream cones. Then, we went to the Mall where she rode the merry-go-round and then went to Build A Bear to make a stuffed animal. She created a girl cat named Fluffy. When we got home we had birthday cake and she opened a few more presents. John got her a toy phone and answering machine. Then she opened up her brand new bicycle! She (and we) had a great day.
Katie Grace just completed her first season of t-ball and as a reward (I suppose) for sticking it out the team got these adorable bobble-head trophies! She was so proud. However, she decided later in the day to wrap it up in wrapping paper and give it to John as a present because he's such a great brother (her words exactly). It was so cute. Then tonight as she was going to bed she asked him if she could have it back. Oh yeah, and totally unrelated, Katie Grace has lost her two top front teeth.
I spent the first several hours of Fathers Day 2008 in the woods with John. I was photographing a local mountain bike race the County was putting on and so from 10am to 2pm John and I were deep in the jungle-like environment of Boone County! John had a great time lifting rocks and skipping stones. We found an old deer skull in the creek... The weather was perfect as the humidity was low and the temps moderate. The rest of the day I was at home with Katie Grace, Melinda, and her parents. I got some presents and we all ate a good dinner. Can't beat that!
Check out the little baby bunny that a neighbor of Melinda's parents found in their garage. No mommy in sight so they are having to feed this little fella themselves with an eyedropper.
We've had some pretty intense severe weather lately. Lots of freaky-looking clouds and a few strong thunderstorms. The weather-guessers have been going overboard with all their technology. On numerous occasions they induce panic using their Doppler radar which has indicated dozens of tornadoes on the ground only to be wrong with one isolated exception. Meteorologists seem to rely too much on their tech-toys and their forecasts are more inaccurate than ever before. To compound things, the National Weather Service now issues tornado warnings when there is a Doppler-indicated tornado. Problem is, there are tons of these indicated by radar and they are almost never actually there! Now, after hearing the sirens dozens of times this Spring, people are not taking them seriously anymore. A recipe for disaster for when a real tornado hits! Watch the skies folks...
On this date in history...June 6, 1987...we attended our last day of high school. Then, the following day, June 7th, we graduated. Mel's dad took some incredible photos that day. I didn't know they even existed until a few year later. As it turned out, he took a photo of me getting my diploma from Mr. Parker! What a day that was. And now, 21 years later we are on the eve of a reunion where we hope to see some people we haven't seen since that day. It will be great catching up and just hanging out. Life changes us from carefree high school students into (hopefully) responsible adults. Some of us have taken some pretty hard blows over the years. Some of us have been there for others; some have been there for us. Some have seen life take them all over the world while others (like us) have simply stayed put. However, we all had one common starting point to this race called 'life' and that was 21 years ago at a high school graduation ceremony. Tomorrow we will come back to common ground with each other. I'm looking forward to it.
I'm puzzled by the fact that the editor of the Community Journal-Clermont felt that this photo should make the cut in the latest edition. I suppose a photo is worth a thousand words... I can think of at least a few captions that I would have used for this photo just to keep things light-hearted in the ol' sports section:
John grabs his sunglasses and puts them on when he sees Katie Grace wearing her pink headband as glasses. Hams for the camera and Mom was more than willing to snap. Just another day in the life. Wouldn't trade it for all the designer fashion sunglasses in the world.
