Our neighbor’s kids were testing out their costumes for Halloween this year. For those of you who are sans children, the one of the right is Tinkerbell some fairy and the one on the left is a DoodleBop:

Inside every older person is a younger person wondering what happened.

So, so true. It feels like yesterday I was just a kid myself. Hard to believe that I am married (to a wonderful, beautiful wife). Hard to believe that we own a house. Hard to believe that we have procreated, and that our amazing child is currently sleeping about 10 feet above my head. Incredible how life changes so quickly.

Slightly less hard to believe is that Shannon allowed me to put “Eat Me” on my birthday cake:

This fourth of July was a lot of fun - we spent the evening with our good friends Helena, Nate, and their beautiful daughter Elin. It was so nice seeing fireworks and spending some relaxed time with friends and neighbors.

You may notice that the album format has changed slightly. It’s not perfect yet, but at least it’s a start toward something better. The links for “fullsize” images may not work yet because they are still uploading (about 1 gigabyte left).

An album is forthcoming for this year’s Fourth of July celebration (I’m currently in the middle of revamping my photo system). The picture shown here is taken from our front porch. Yes, I did make sure all of our home insurance payments were current.

This year we were lucky enough to join our neighborhood’s annual picnic celebration, consisting of the following:

• 25+ kids, most of whom live within a stones throw of our house
• Large fireworks from our pyrotechnic neighbors
• A keg and plethora of food
• Staying out until 3am

Update: album is now online

I just posted a new album from Memorial Day. We spent a nice, long, lazy weekend with Shannon’s parents, relaxing and visiting with family and friends.

I have posted a new album of us spending Mother’s Day afternoon at Nate and Helena’s new house in Indianapolis. It was a gorgeous day to sit in the shade under a huge tree and just enjoy some time with kids (both ours and our friends).

We had a tasty brunch filling our faces with casserole, french toast, bagels, and fruit salad. Us guys were outnumbered 10:4, which is probably how it’s going to be (at least for the next couple of years).

A few of my favorite pics: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Just posted a new album of pictures we took over Easter - nothing particularly exciting, just family shots and more of Libby with her rabbit ears.

Here comes Libby cotton tail, hopping down the bunny trail…

Libby celebrated her first St. Patrick’s day in style! Micki, Scott, and Grace all stopped by to say a quick “Hello” - it was great to see them and their wonderful daughter (she has changed so much!).

As they left my parents arrived, which kept the total number of parents at a steady 6 (Shannon’s parents were staying with us). You can imagine how spoiled Libby probably felt :).

For dinner Susan made a very tasty traditional Irish meal for the whole gang. Corned beef and cabbage didn’t sound too appealing to me at first, but man is it tasty! I had seconds plus dessert (grasshopper pie from my mom - my favorite!).

All in all, a very good “first” St. Patrick’s day.

To help us prepare for Black Friday (aka “The day after Thanksgiving”), allow me to present DealsPlus’ Black Friday deal indexing engine. No more weeding through all the random deal pages; find all the best deals through this one site.

One site to rule them all,
One site to find them,
One site to bring them all,
and in Black Friday bind them! 1