Supergirl

I knew I would be a total sucker when we heard that baby #2 wasn't going to be a boy. Holy cow, I love this little girl.

Weather

Just got back from round one of family reunions up in Idaho. We hit Bear Lake with the wife's family, then were up with my parents for a while before spending a weekend with my dad's extended family at the grandparents' cabin in Island Park, Idaho. A great time was had by most. What we loved most (next to being with family, packing and unpacking the car, and not getting enough sleep, of course) was the cool Idaho nights and the relative coolness of Idaho summer days. Really, when the alternative is 110+ Vegas days and 85+ nights, almost anything is preferable, but the Idaho weather was just gorgeous.

One night in Bear Lake (July 3rd?), we were outside around the campfire when a huge storm blew in. I think I always say this when it comes to rain, but I don't think I've seen it rain that hard--at least not in recent years. Every time I thought it was the hardest I'd ever seen it, the intensity would pick up and it would rain harder. I've seen good storms in Denmark, and since living in Vegas we've had some impressive monsoon season rains, but this storm had waves of thick sheets of rain. Best of all, the lightning storm passed by very close to us, and I was able to get some fun lightning shots--I didn't want to run out to the car to get the tripod, so most of them were hand-held (I think I counted about a one minute exposure on each, or until a lightning flash came up). I braced myself against the door of the cabin, under the only overhang I could find that would protect me from the sheets of rain. You can even see that I wasn't completely protected, as the rain spots in a couple of the shots will testify.












Then, after arriving home and experiencing what my car thermometer said was 120 degrees, we had some stormy afternoons, the only benefit of sitting around in the sweltering heat. We went to my brother-in-law's place to swim, and I looked up at the pool lights and the night sky, and wanted to take a picture. By the time I had gotten around to it, the winds had kicked up and cooled us off a little. By the time we got home, a storm was a-brewin', and I tried to get out to get some more lightning shots. It was different this time, since there were so many nighttime lights in Las Vegas--my exposures were only about 30 seconds, and then pushed down to 15 when I was trying to shoot with the Stratosphere in the background. I think lightning shots are my version of the fisher's story--you should have seen the ones I missed when I was pointed the wrong way just slightly, or I was reviewing the pictures for exposure or on the wrong side of the house. I am happy with what I got, but I wish I would've gotten those others.

Our house is feeling blue.

Laura and I have been wanting to get the house painted for a long, long time, and we've run into some troubles. (Okay, the troubles haven't really been for us, what I mean is that we've had some difficulties finishing the project). Case in point: one of our neighbors has been doing odd jobs around the neighborhood--in fact, he painted the brick wall in front of our house--and he'd offered to paint the house for an incredible price. We, as usual, took our sweet time getting things ready and deciding on a color of paint for the place. Let's say it took us a month. Or maybe two. Anyhoo, we decided to bite the bullet and finally call the guy. I left a message on his cell phone, telling him we were ready to have our house painted, and, when you get a chance, could you give us a call?

A couple of days later, his girlfriend calls us back to inform us that he has had a stroke, and probably wouldn't be doing any physical labor anytime soon. I told her that I was extremely sorry for what had happened, and I hoped he got better, and, as you can imagine, it was an awkward conversation.

Later, as frequently happens in our neighborhood, a roving band of laborers came through and left a business card--this time, along with a color sampler for us to choose the color. We've gone back and forth between brick red (Laura's choice) to a two-tone combo of greens (my choice), but we were both able to agree on a nice blue. Laura was away at camp, and the band of laborers came back and talked to me. I arranged to have the house painted on the Monday I left for scout camp. I called Laura at one point during camp, and she said, "The house is blue. Really blue."

By the way, does anyone really know how to pick the right color from a tiny color swatch? Our house was supposed to be a darker, slate-ish, more gray-ish blue, but we now look like 1980s BYU Cougar fans. Our office, that's supposed to be a teeny bit olive green? Apple green. We've had great luck so far.

Thankfully, we both like how it turned out. It's probably just the relief of finally getting it done.

Synchronized sleeping (Part 2 in a series)

My apologies for the underwear. These kids are AMAZING!



Another view:

For my brother, Sam.

You knew it all along, didn't you?

I haven't laughed this hard in a long time.

I'm sure everyone in the world has heard of failblog.org before me, but I went to check it out today. I can't recommend it wholeheartedly because there is some risqué stuff, but I was skimming through some of the entries, and this little snippet brought me to tears:



see more Fail Blog

Call me sick, but I thought this was hilarious. (I just went back to the site, and you can click on "g-rated pics and movies only". I don't know how this will affect the size of the list.) :))--hey, that's a smiley with a double chin!

Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to camp I go.

Not that I post all that regularly, and not that you would pay that much attention anyway, but I'm leaving tomorrow morning (at 5:00 in the a.m.) for a week for Scout camp up near Brianhead in Utah. Rumor has it that the high will be in the 50s, lows in the mid-30s. Can't tell you how excited I am. Add to that a 40% chance nearly every day of rain, and you've pretty much made my week.

Oh, and at Scouts just last week, two of the boys who will be coming got into a fist fight. Joy.

Pray for me.

Bye!