Meg's Handywork

Late last year Meg wanted to try wood turning so she decided to turn the handles for a bbq set for Ben for Christmas. Here are the pictures of her first very successful effort.

National Botanical Gardens

During a lull in the action on March 20th I went down to the Botanical Gardens

Medusa cactus in the desert room.

A cacao (chocolate) tree

And there was a special exhibit of orchids from around the world.

Kill The Bill !!! My Intro To National Politics

Saturday morning March 20th. Showed up in D.C. with 40,000 other people to urge congress to kill the "health care" bill.

A lot of the crowd were Tea Party enthusiasts.

Conservative congresswoman Michelle Bachman

Jon Voight

Iowa congressman Steve King, who called the "press conference" that saturday at noon. He announced it thursday morning on the Glen Beck show and 40,000 people showed up on Sat. at noon.

After the "press conference" A lot of people gathered at the Capitol steps and a number of legislators came out and addressed the crowd. These guys never came down but just looked on looking smug.

This is congressman Lynn Westmooreland from Georgia who explained to a few of us the reason for the smuggness. At this point in the weekend there were not enough committed votes to pass the bill. But Westmooreland explained to us in detail who was going to be bought off or coerced and how and predicted the the final vote precisely.

This was the most polite cleanest and mature group of people I have ever seen. But Nancy Pelosi still sent these guys out. To their credit though they were very well disciplined and polite themselves.

Some Conservative congressmen addressing the crowd with a bullhorn.

My favorite picture from the weekend.

Tree Down

The giant spruce tree fell at midnight Sunday.
Tuesday at 4:15 pm we got our power back.

If you look at the pictures below you will see that the tree was laying flat on the ground until I cut the next to last 8 foot piece off. Then the weight of the root ball stood the trunk up again, almost taking the wires out again.

So I had to cut the tree down again.

Some good sized piles of brush were generated from the limbs.

Ripped out by the roots.

The tree missed the house and came down between my car and Meg's car. Some of the branches did do a little damage to my car.

The tree was 69 feet tall and contains 350 board feet of lumber

Good Times at Chuck E. Cheese...Kind of.

My brother Adam and I took the kiddos to a pizza/arcade place called Chuck E. Cheese yesterday. The boys were so excited to get into this big monster truck...that is, until we put the token in. They're not much for 'adventure'.

Look who turned two!

Caleb turned two on July 6th and we had a Thomas the Train themed party. He is obsessed with Thomas. He got a Thomas bath boat, a movie and a book that makes sounds and plays music along with the words. He also got two timeless classic books from Grammie and Papa G and a pair of much need pajamas. Thank you!!!

Misc Caleb

Here are just some random pictures of Caleb over the last five months.

He hated this swing as a baby. Oddly enough, now he loves it!

Enjoying the view while eating breakfast.

This is how I found Caleb one morning. He loves to read just like his daddy.

Camping and Four Wheeling

We went camping and four wheeling in the mud this spring. It was cold, but very fun.