Walk For Life

What an eventful day. It started this morning at 4:15am. That's right, read that as three hours before people should start their days. It didn't matter that I put Norah down an hour later last night to hopefully get her to sleep past 5:30. But she spited me by getting up an hour and half earlier.

After the early start, we went up to Como Park for the New Life fundraiser. It started out overcast, but turned out to be a great day (if you consider 85 degrees, 90% humidity, and no cloud cover great). We met Norah's birth mom there, as well as an uncle, 2 aunts, and 2 cousins. We had an absolute blast walking around the lake for the Walk For Life. Norah spent the first half in the stroller, but finished out strong walking probably the last half mile all by herself.

After the walk we spent about an hour just sitting and talking with Sarah and her family. It was fun to get to know them. And they got to see Norah running all over the park and playing with two cousins she had never met. Speaking of which, Norah has a pretty sweet setup. She's got grandma's, grandpa's, aunts, uncles, and cousins on Jamie and my side of the family. But she also has all those from her birth mom's family. Like I said, pretty sweet deal.

After all that fun, we all went to Snuffy's. I had never heard of it before, but it was great. It was an old-style malt and burger shop. After that, we headed back to Rochester. Only problem is that we got home and starting about 6:30 tonight Norah started puking her guts out. Luckily Jamie was in the leather chair, so no major damage, just don't plan on sniffing the carpet in front of the chair :-)

Norah and her "new" cousin Luke

Sitting with Sarah after the walk.

Her new cousin Olivia.

Giving cousin Olivia a good-bye kisses.

Diaper Wearing Baseball Star

We found out yesterday that some wanker(s) stole the baseball bag out of my truck. It had two bats, my glove, cleats and all baseball related equipment. I was not real happy yesterday. Luckily, the $275 glove I bought when I played at Taylor was in the house so I still have that one. Buts its an infielders glove and doesn't do so well with softballs. So yesterday we headed down to Dick's Sporting Goods. I told Jamie, at the very least, I need to buy a cup before our game on Monday. So I got my much needed cup and a new pair of cleats. I was proud of myself though, they were the cheapest pair of baseball shoes I've bought in my entire life. They cost the same as what my Walter Payton kangeroos cost when I was in the 3rd grade... $35. The difference, I think I just scored a sweet deal, but I remember my mom nearly flipping out when I asked for $30 shoes 25 years ago.

Then we decided to have some fun:

Surviving the Storm

Well, we just experienced probably the worst storm I've ever been in last night and lived to tell about it. Luckily Norah was asleep and, amazingly, never woke up. It showed up around 9pm last night and brought with it torrential rains and unbelievable winds. It was raining so hard you really couldn't even see the neighbors house across the street. Then, almost instantly, the winds came. The reports are that winds topped out around 78mph in NW Rochester, and I believe it. The rain was going straight sideways... thats when we decided to head to the basemment ASAP.

We didn't sustain any house damage that I can see, which is amazing. There are numerous trees in our neighborhood that snapped like toothpicks, the biggest one was probably about 10" in diameter. We did loose the canopy on our deck though. The wind was so strong it snapped the 4 straps holding it down and tossed if off the upper deck. When we assessed the damage this morning there was no chance for a recovery. I pronounced it dead at the scene.

At about 10pm I headed over to the Kelm househould to help out. They faired much worse. All the front windows were blown out, and a couple in the back as well. Not to mention their garage door now looks like a fruit roll-up. It was incredible the damage in their neighborhood. The house behind them was missing its roof!!! From the looks of the soffet in front, their roof was closing to getting ripped off as well.

I already took the canopy off, but here's one leg.

Side view, with canopy laying in the back.

Where it came from and where it ended up.

RIP beloved canopy (2008-2010), you served us well.

Tilt your head 90 degrees left to see the 3 branches destroyed on our neighbors tree.

Wide angle view of the huge branch that snapped off this huge oak.

Broken Appliances and a Smile that Saves

About a month ago Jamie and I were standing in the basement when the furnace kicked on. All of a sudden we heard this annoying high pitched squeal coming from the furnace. I narrowed it down to the induction motor, but decided at that point it was time to call in the pros. They came and fixed it, but not before leaving us with a nice hefty bill. And you know what they say, when it rains it pours.

We noticed a couple of days ago that the contents in our upright freezer were not frozen solid like they should be. I monitored the freezer for the next 24 hours and noticed that while it appeared to be running, it wasn't keeping the food frozen. Not surprising considering this freezer was made before I was born I'm sure. We ended up getting a brand new upright from Lowe's yesterday, and dang, those things are expensive!!! The only part that I was okay with is that we did get a "deal." They knocked off 10% right from the start since it was an Energy Star freezer (as a side note, since our old freezer was built in the 60's, the sheet says this one should save us over $80/yr in electric bills, another score). We also just got a $25 off card in the mail if you spend more than $250. So we cashed that bad boy in. We also got a $25 rebate from the local electric company for using an Energy Star appliance. And we paid with Discover, which is paying 5% cash back on purchases from Home Improvement stores right now. So, all in all, my miser side was appeased with all the savings.

Yesterday Norah and I went down to the farmers market with our friend Pico and something happened there that just absolutely made my day. I had Norah in our stroller and I was just pushing her through the market. She, like usual, was just waiving and smiling at everyone. At one point we came to this one stand with a guy who was probably 85 years old. He was just sitting on the bed of his truck with a bit of a scowl, but mainly just a dazed look on his face. He looked like an old guy that just needed a friend to be honest. Well, we come rolling by and Norah gives this old guy a huge smile and starts waiving to him. You could just see the fog lift off this old man's face. He just looked at her for a second, then scowl vanished, then a slight smile. Then he even started waiving back and saying hi to Norah. It was just one of those times where a dad hopes his kid always has the ability to brighten someone's day like that, it was pretty sweet.

And here's a couple photos from a couple of weeks ago when we took Norah in for pictures. Enjoy.

This is a favorite of mine since I don't think we've ever seen this face before.

Dancing, like she always does.

Dear Lord, please make them put the camera away.

(Workin' at the) car wash

Today Norah decided to help daddy wash the van. I think she ended up drinking more water from the sponge and getting more water on her clothes than she did on the van, but she sure had fun. And looked cute doing it.

She dried the sponge by sucking on it, so she needed more water.

This is our favorite, look at that smile.

Visiting the Rices

We just got back from spending a week with Shawn, Melanie, and Lydia. We flew out on the Monday after Easter and Norah, while quite squirmy, did a great job of traveling. We got delayed several hours on the way out though, so by the time we got there it was already pretty late.

On Tuesday we woke up to find Norah had herself a 102.9 degree fever. Amazingly, you would never have known that she had a fever for the first two days. She played with Lydia and had a great time. And then on Wednesday we all ventured over to Hershey World. It really is a cruel place for anyone who is a chocolate lover. Chocolate was everywhere, but you couldn't eat it. Lydia and Norah ended up taking the Chocolate Tour Ride about 5 times. They loved the singing cows!

Then Thursday came, and the ear infection. Norah went from a fun happy kid to little miss clingy. On Friday we ended up at the doctors office to get her some medicine, which of course, caused her to throw up. But this is all payback of course for when Lydia came to Minnesota and threw up all over our living room floor. Unfortunately we ended up staying at the house for those last few days because there was just no taking Norah anywhere. But we still had a great time and Norah loved spending time with Lydia (and auntie Melanie and uncle Shawn). We are just hoping that the next time we get the girls together they can both be healthy!

Unfortunately we don't have any pictures at the moment because our camera was broke. So once we get them from auntie Melanie we'll post some here.

2007: A Minnesota Odyssey

There has been quite a bit of excitement around here over the past week. It started off with a trip to the Wisconsin Dells. We spent three days over there with our small group just hanging out and enjoying the indoor water parks. Norah did amazingly well for her first time. She was always a bit hesitant for the first hour or so each day, but then she really warmed up to the water. When we were at the wave pool, she actually started walking toward the deep end. If I wasn't holding her hands she probably would have walked until the water was over her head!

The other big news is that I sold out and got a mini-van. We started looking back in September when we found out we were pregnant. So even though we won't be adding kid #2 this summer like we expected, we still went ahead and got one. We sold Jamie's Jetta to a guy from St. Joseph, MO last Saturday a week ago. So we were down to one car for a week, but this past Friday we headed up to the Cities and picked up a 2007 Honda Odyssey. Jamie is definitely big pimpin' in the new ride.

Norah being entertained by Addison.

Just checking things out.

Drying off after a nice swim.

Hanging with her best friend Ashlyn.

What up homie?

Norah reading her New Testament to daddy. (a budding theologian)

She absolutely loves brushing her own teeth.

Dancing Queen

More videos:

Fun in the Snow

This past weekend I went with two buddies up to Jamie's uncle's cabin to do a little ice fishing. We had a perfect day to do it. It was only about 6 degrees outside when we got on the ice, so we started out the day in the pop-ups, but by 9:30 or so the sun was out and there wasn't a lick of wind. So we spent most of the rest of the day fishing outside. The only problem, someone must have told the fish we were coming. There were five of us total in our fishing posse, but in the 11 hours we spent on the ice I think we only had about 15 keepers... and that was even questionable if take into account uncle Todd's internal tape measure wasn't quite up to par.

Last week we also took Norah out into the snow for the first time. She absolutely loved it!!! She would have stayed out there all day if we had let her. Here are some pictures of the action.

Her first few steps in the fluffy white stuff.

Chillin' (literally) with daddy

Gumby's great escape. This is one of my favorites.

Here are a couple of videos as well. The first one is Norah getting kicked in the head by accident when daddy was making a snow angel. The second is her playing and singing with mommy.

End of January Update

Not a whole lot of new info to share. We did start the paperwork this past week for our second round of adoption. Unfortunately there is a waiting list right now at New Life so it may end up taking awhile. Thanks to an old college buddy, we did start investigating the possibility of adopting from Haiti. We never thought of Haiti as an option, but in light of recent events and all the children that are now without parents we thought it was only logical to atleast look into it.

And Norah turned 1 this month. Its been fun watching her as she continues to understand more and more things. Tonight Jamie told her to go and get her blanket and come back, and she did! Now, we just need to work on that attitude problem she's developing. Now, what everyone really wants, more pictures of Norah.

Norah with her best friend Ashlyn

Norah getting a ride from her other best friend Hannah.

Norah playing at her new kitchen

And here mommy dressed Norah up as a stripper.

Caught in the act!!!

Norah's friends Sam and Owen came over to play.

And Norah likes to get down. She turns on this radio by herself all the time and starts getting jiggy. Tonight she had some dancing partners. Note Sam, he does a little break dancing to finish off his routine.

Someone Needed a Trim

Today we took Norah to get her first haircut. Her hair was starting to get completely out of control, so we need to trim it up a bit. Here are some photos from the event.

Just before the cut, showing her vampire fangs.

The final product.