It's time for me to brag. Abbie is very smart. She's four years, two months and twenty six days old. Today we sat down and started painting. The painting turned into drawing and writing. Then she wanted to write people's names. I spelled them and she wrote them. Above is the list of names she wrote. She also started numbering them. The G, L and W in the upper right corner was me showing her how to make those letters. These were the only ones she had trouble with. She didn't know all the numbers, but she knew that 10 came after 9 and she also knew how to make an 11.

Another thing that blew my mind tonight was on the drive home it started to rain, then it started to get sunny. I pointed to the sky and said it looks like over there it's sunny. She said, "Well don't we turn this way (pointed to the right) when we go home, so it should be sunny over there." That was about 2 miles from home and she knew that we were going to head towards the sun. It's probably me just making a big deal over it, but I was pretty impressed.

Labels: Family

Erika goes biking every Thursday night and last week, she had a bit of an incident. Below is the story from one of her friends about what happened. Note - she didn't fall - she's an exceptional athlete.

About 13 miles into the ride, riding 20+ mph, Erika's chain locked up and sent her skidding the length of a football field - OK, maybe that's a slight exaggeration... but really, check out the picture (taken with Madonna's camera phone). There was a skid mark from me in back to Erika in front. And she managed to stay upright the whole time! amazing! In what I imagine looked something like a 3 stooges episode, we attempted to dislodge the chain (knocking helmets, falling over, you know...) until a self-proclaimed "mechanical genius" made it his personal mission to fix it, but Travis still had to come bail us out....and Erika will now be known as "Skid" or "Skidder".

Labels: Family

Rena turns 6 tomorrow! I called Darci and Chris tonight and Chris was baking a cake for her!

Labels: Family, Holidays

From the day I met Erika, she said she wanted horsepower (a ski boat), not carats (in a diamond). So I found a deal I couldn't pass up.

Labels: Boat, Wedding

Tomorrow (5/17) is Marti's birthday - Happy Birthday!

Labels: Family, Holidays

Here's some information on the fires on the Gunflint. Dad was forced to evacuate the cabin on Thursday, 5/10/07 (I think) but then was allowed back in on Friday. He's got the sprinkler system going and so far the word is any place with a sprinkler system hasn't burned. It's looking better, but they are not out of the woods yet. The cabin is on Poplar Lake and it is a half a mile west of the Trail Center, which is a reference point mentioned quite often.

Here's some links with good info:
http://www.hamlakefire.com/
http://boreal.org/
http://www.mnics.org/Incidents/fire_1.shtml
http://www.fs.fed.us/r9/forests/superior/
http://www.inciweb.org/incident/660/

Here's a Google Map that I tried to show where the cabin is in location to the fire.

UPDATE:
As of today 5/16/07 at 6:00 PM:
Acres burned: 75,851 acres. 36,443 acres in the United States; 39,408 acres in Canada. Containment is now estimated at 35% for the entire fire; U.S. estimated at 65%. Projected containment date: May 20, 2007
Costs: $7,372,568

From this page

Labels: Family

Happy Mother's Day to the greatest mom/grandma, step mom and soon to be mother-in-law in the world!

Labels: Family, Holidays

Labels: Wedding

Here's what we've been up to for the wedding recently.

• We've got our tickets to Myrtle Beach. Erika will be heading down on Wednesday June 19th. Abbie and I will come down on Thursday June 28th. The three of us will be coming back on July 1st. Note - if you haven't booked your tickets yet, there are some cheaper tickets to fly out on Monday from Charleston, about a two hour drive from Myrtle Beach. I really like www.kayak.com for finding the best and cheapest flights.
• We also booked our honeymoon. We are going to Shannon, Ireland, leaving July 5th and returning July 15th. We are renting a car and staying at bed and breakfasts through out Ireland. We booked it through Sceptre Tours. The lady I spoke to today had a really cool irish accent.
• We registered at REI last night.
• We are now working on the music - neither of us knew that the church doesn't allow prerecorded music. Is this a chance for the band?

Labels: Wedding