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Gooooooaaallll!

I had a wonderful first father's day weekend!

Bets, James, and I spent Saturday doing our own private invite-only celebration which included grunting, fast food, father/son time, yard work, whiskey, and a whole lot of whatever-the-heck-I-felt-like, that is, fantastic.

On Sunday, we went over to my parents' house with Tracey, Kevin, Dan, Kate, Aaron, and Terri to watch the Brazil vs. Australia soccer game in HD. We watched soccer, grilled, had beer, played dominos, and went for a nice walk. Again, fantastic.

Here are some pictures from Sunday.

James looks on as Brazilian defender Cafu talks to his goalie Dida before the second half.

Eating James' neck while making cookie monster sounds makes James laugh.

Brazilian soccer star in training.

James wants to stand, always standing, all the time. Hopefully, he'll want to crawl at some point.

But it's still light out...

Bets snapped this picture last night after I sat down "for just a second" with James and favorite plush doggie toy.

I never used to just fall asleep for no reason, but now I've joined the ranks of "matured" society and suffer from occasional bouts of mild narcolepsy.

Helpful tips for mowing your lawn

I was going through my bills and paperwork last night and came across a manual for my riding lawn mower (generously donated to me by my parents). Thumbing through it, I found some illustrations that made some excellent points about safety. Hopefully, by sharing this information with you, I can make the world a safer and happier place.

Here, you can see that if you hop onto the tractor with a buddy, you are fated to fall head-first dive in the front wheel.

Illustrated here is how you might lose the tip of your toes or fingers. What? No blood?


The universal symbol for death by exhaust inhalation should be familiar to all of you. If you don't have a perfectly circular set of lungs, I assume you'll be OK.


Here, they show you the different spots on the body that debris can hit you. Ouch, but evidently, your knees are safe.


Try to avoid getting rolled over by your tractor. Not having an advanced sense of subtlety, I would not have thought of this.

I hope you've all learned some important safety tips from these invaluable illustrations. Mowing is not for fun, it's a responsibility.

Cell phone video *warning: low quality*

Just for fun, I thought I'd put a video from my cell phone of James swinging in a $3 swing we got at a garage sale event called River Hills Day. He kind of laugh/cries a little at the end, but I assure you, he loves that thing.

I can show you the world...

Jalladin on his magic carpet.

It was a nice weekend for us. We got a lot done, and even got to watch a couple of world cup games. I am rooting for Brazil primarily, followed closely by the US, and then Denmark and the UK at the distant tail end. After that, always the underdog.

Bonus Pictures: Spam Edition

Ladies and gentlemen,
Since I sent out an email to many of my friends and family, I felt it was only right that I should post some extra pictures for you to consume en masse (sometimes I like to inject latin into my posts, partly because it's fancy, but mostly because it's an honest good time).

I hope you enjoy them!

Taken this weekend, James is in a good mood. He's a bit small for this play center, so Betsy puts a little pillow in front of him to prevent him from flopping back an forth as much.

Last week, Bets and James were at the park. He wasn't really in the mood, but I can't resist posting pictures of James in our favorite hat.

We went over to my parents' house Saturday to visit with my sister Tracey, her husband Kevin, and their 8-month old Andy. At bed time, we were short one crib, so they tried to use the laundry basket instead...which didn't really work out - as you can see.

One last shot of James' play center, which is in our kitchen.

The list

Here's a better pic of James and I on our hike, taken by Bets.

I picked up a 4 ft. by 2 ft. white board from home depot for about $5 last week. We put it up in our kitchen next to our fridge and slapped some magnetic dry/erase markers onto the fridge. On this board, we keep a list of tasks and projects that need to be done. This is immensely helpful because who in the heck can remember what needs to be done around the house?

Now, I can scan the list (which is about 30 items long, yikes) and pick out the ones I feel like doing, which usually involves yardwork. Slowly but surely, that list is actually going down, much faster than before.

I don't know what it is about yardwork that I enjoy so much. Betsy usually does a good job of keeping me on task on the weekends, and when she suggested that I go out weed wack the yard instead of like changing the laundry or hanging up pictures, I just about teared up with joy. How sad.

Avian flew

Crawling? Not on these knees. Walking? Strictly for bipedal underachievers. No, no...I'm going straight to flying. Akaaawww!!