North Carolina

Two weeks ago Jamie, Norah and I went to Raleigh to visit Jamie's brother and sister-in-law. We had a really good time and got to go see some pretty cool sights. The first day we were there we went to Duke Gardens to have a picnic. After lunch we traveled over to Chapel Hill and took a look at the UNC campus (and bought some Tar Heel paraphernalia).

Sporting Dr Seuss like blue hair-do's

We also took a day trip out to the outer banks, which was really cool. We first stopped at Kitty Hawk and saw where the Wright brothers first took flight. I think I enjoyed it much more than Jamie did. From there we went straight to the beach, where Norah got to jump into the ocean for the very first time. From the beach we drove down the shore all the way to Cape Hatteras to see the light tower. It turned out to be a long day, but it was well worth it.

Norah petting Razor

Norah loved looking out the plane window

At Duke Gardens

Somewhere between Hatteras and Kittyhawk

Cape Hatteras lighthouse

And a few more pictures of Norah, since that seems to be all that anyone cares about these days :-)

Minnesota Hacksaw Massacre

On Friday we had a little bit of time to do some chores around the house, something we don't get to do a lot of anymore. I was finishing up some work on the sprinkler system and Jamie decided to trim some shrubs in the front of the house. Specifically, these variegated dogwoods.


However, I'm not exactly sure that what resulted could appropriately be called a trim. I'd say it was more like a hatchet job. When I came around to the front yard I nearly choked. The once beautiful dogwood now looked like this....

Sprinkler System Installed

Well, I decided to be a bit ambitious this past weekend and I put in a sprinkler system. Everything went fine for the most part, with a few exceptions. First, I'm pretty sure a 160-lb man was never intended to run a 1000-lb trencher. Let's just say I felt like I got run over by truck after running that thing for 5 hours. Second problem, coax cable that's buried 3" deep in your yard is no match for aforementioned trencher. So not only did we lose our internet and TV for 2 days, but we lost our free extended basic as well. Now we actually get what we pay for, basic cable.... which totally sucks!

One of the many trenches... straight as a politician.

The jerk that took away our free cable.

The work crew. My neighbors Darrin and Bernard.

Before.

After. The finished product. Zone 1 in action.

PS - Funny story. My neighbor Bernard is from the Congo. He said, "in Africa I would just pay someone $50 and they would come and dig these trenches for me. Why are you doing them?" I informed him that in America it costs just a wee bit more than $50 to get someone to do this for me. More, as in $1800. I thought he was going to pass out when I told him :-)

What has Norah been doing lately....

Hi all. Just thought I would give you all an update on things and include a few pictures. On Friday, July 31st we are finalizing the adoption, yippee!!! We are looking forward to having all this legal stuff behind us and moving ahead as a family. Below are a few pictures of Norah, hope you enjoy.

Our little cowgirl

Reaching for everything, this time its the bottle

Norah loves eating her shoes

Howdy partner

Relaxing on the couch

She's already doing her hair in the mirror... oh boy.

Norah at her first Twins game. They beat the Tigers 4-3!!!

Black Hills Camping Trip

I'm turning into a prolific writer here all of a sudden. Two posts in one day! On Thursday of last week Jamie and I went out to the Black Hills to go camping with her mom and dad, and Emily, Doug and Ellie. Its a 10 hour drive from Rochester which I was not looking forward to with a 5 month old, but Norah continues to impress us and she did awesome on the trip. The kid is amazing, on the way there and back she probably only fussed for a total of 20 mins. If you say we are lucky, you're wrong.... we're blessed, big difference :-)

We, er I, was totally not prepared for the weather out there. It was 90 degrees by day, but dropped into the high 40's by night. Since I took along one pair of pants, one long sleeve tshirt, and one fleece, I spent the better part of every night freezing my butt off. We kept Norah in the tent with us the first two nights, but because it was so cold we decided to put her in the camper with Jamie's parents.

We had a good time and saw lot's of stuff. We drove the Needle's Highway, went to Mt. Rushmore, ate at the Purple Pie Shop, went to 4 Mile Town, (start sarcasm) and probably the most exciting of all, the CrazyHorse Monument (end sarcasm). CrazyHorse was one of the weirdest things ever. We went for the free laser light show which started at dark. We got there about 90 mins before it got dark, so we sat there and froze our tooshies off. Then when it did start we got to hear for 30 mins about how evil the white man is for stealing the red man's land. And after hearing how much we white folk suck they finished it off with a moving song, Lee Greenwood's "I'm Proud To Be an American."

We brought Jamie's "new" camera along too. About a year ago she bought a new Nikon D300. It was slightly more than "holy crap!" and just less than "that's it, give me your credit cards." The problem is, she never uses it because she doesn't know how to use it. So I bought a book at Barnes & Noble which is basically a how-to for the D300 and read that on the trip so we could actually start taking some pictures with it. Anyway, here are a few from the first batch.

Adoption Update

Its been awhile since we've updated what has been going on, so I thought I better get out here and write something.  On Tuesday of last week there was another meeting with the judge to discuss the paternity action that the birth father filed.  Like two months prior, he failed to show for this hearing.  So the judge dismissed the birth father's rights and we are now free to move towards finalization! 

We still have to wait another week or so to call the courthouse to set up the finalization, but that is the last thing left to do.  Then I'll officially have papers to prove that I'm Norah's father in case she decides to claim I'm not when she's a teenager and hates me ;-).  We plan to throw a little party as soon as the finalization is complete.  If you live in Rochester we'll let you know, if you don't live here, well, you can celebrate with us in spirit.

She Makes Me So Proud

We traveled back to Indiana over the Memorial Day weekend because Jamie and I went to the Indianapolis 500 with my mom. More on that later. First, let me share with you all something that makes me one happy daddy. As you can see from the video below, Norah is going to be a football fan.

As for the race, that was pretty cool as well. I never had a desire to go to the race in the past, but my mom has been asking us to go for the last couple of years. So we finally gave in and decided it was a once in a lifetime opportunity. Well, now that I've gone once I'm hooked and I'm thinking this might have to become a more regular thing. I wasn't expecting just how loud it was... and believe me, it is LOUD!!! But there is something about a car with almost 700hp that goes 220mph gets a man all excited :-) Here's just a little clip from our spot on turn 4 (where 5 of the accidents happened). This video does not do any justice to how loud and cool it is to actually be there.

4 Months

Today Norah turns 4 months old. Its wierd because it seems like we've had her a lot longer than that, and I mean that in a good way. So we updated the Shutterfly website with a few new pictures if you are interested. Here's a couple to tease you.

The Many Faces We Love

There are many others that I just don't have updated pictures of at the moment. We love you too...Kanani, Kawika, Ellie, baby Alderman, Addison, Braedon, baby Jaxson, Abby and Deepali

You can do it!!!

Our little friends were over hanging a few weeks ago..... I know I'm a little behind!
It was just so darn cute I had to post Owen trying to feed himself!!!

Latest News

Already asking questions that a man can't answer correctly.

Standing tall

Grandma found out Norah loves the TV

There are the pictures, now on to the updates. Well, there have been a few things of note in the adoption process recently, but we still are not any closer to having closure. Back on April 14th there was a scheduled meeting between the birth father, the birth mother's lawyer, the adoption agency's lawyer, and a judge. The meeting was scheduled by law specifically because the birth father filed a paternity action against the agency back in February. But the birth father never showed up. Obviously that doesn't look good for him, but when the birth mom's lawyer contacted him he claimed he was never notified of the meeting.

As a result of his not showing up, the judge/referee gave the birth mom's lawyer the okay to file papers essentially canceling the paternity action the birth father filed. The next thing on the agenda is that another meeting has been set up between all the parties. This isn't going to happen until June 23rd, so we have another 2 months to wait. If the referee rules in our favor at this meeting then we would essentially be in the clear.

In other random news. I am apparently responsible for starting a new group on Facebook. The funny thing is that several of us at work have been making fun of them recently. Why? Because its getting out of control. You can become a fan of just about anything. You can become a fan of: breathing, water, sleeping, and even "not being on fire". Well, one of my friends from college actually became a fan of the latter, so I had to comment on it.

As you can see, that led to the creation of a new group. Ironic I guess.

Day at the Park