Happy Birthday Tristan

Last Monday was Tristan's 11th Birthday. I really can't believe that he is that old! Tristan, I hope you had a great birthday. You really are a great kid, and a wonderful grandson. We love you! I thought I would show some of the pictures I took out at Kim's while we were celebrating.

I know this looks posed, and yea, it probably is. I think it must be Chris that is about to bop him on the head, I am pretty sure it wasn't the first time that it had happened.

He got some great presents. We got him a 4 man tent, and his aunt and uncles got him a nice sleeping bag and a camping lantern. Now he is ready for those warm summer nights. Or maybe a few chilly ones too.

I'm not sure Ethan ever knew I took this one. Not sure it would have mattered to him if he did know I was taking it. He was having fun trying to get it out with just his tongue.

He is pretty good on the tramp. Most of this is just me trying to get action pictures. Some were pretty good, others (that I will never post) were not so good.

I have to admit this one surprised me. Didn't know he could do a flip, but he did, although the landing was not real great!
Badmitten was the game of the day. I think someone (the people changed) was playing from the time we got there, til it was too dark to see the birdy.
In case you can't see it here, Bob is now playing with a racket in each hand. And using both of them to hit the birdy. In fact at one time he had two rackets in each hand. That didn't work out quite so well. The four of these guys are quite competetive. I think they all get it from their Dad.
It was a great time! I loved the weather, it was just right, not too hot, not too cold. And I love hanging out with our family. I can't wait for the rest of the summer and those great get-to-gethers.

The flower wall is finally up.

This has been a long time in the process. These are flower pictures that Carrie and I have taken over the past years. Some are from our own yard, some are from Hawaii, and some are even taken in Monticello. (From when we were down there when Mom was in the hospital). When I was trying to decide what to put up on this wall after we remodled I saw a wall with pictures like this at the Parade of Homes. I loved the idea, besides we could use the pictures that we had already taken. Carrie then started taking the individual pictures and taking out the color in the background to make the flower itself stand out. She had a lot of them done and then the computer goofed up and we had to dump most of what was on the computer. To say the least we were a little upset. Then in a tech. training they showed us how to use Picassa (Cindy I should have listened to you sooner) and I discovered that when I installed it on this computer it brought back all of the lost pictures. Ta-Da. So I finally had them all printed off and in the frames. It then took us about 2 months to decide just how we wanted to hang them. But with everyone gone last night Bob and I finally decided to just do it! I love it. It turned out smaller than I thought it would, but that is OK because it leaves us room to put up some more if we find more flowers that we can't live without.This is the next project. This is the family picture wall and I haven't decided if I want to try and buy all new frames for the family pictures or put them all back up in the mismatched frames. Hopefully it won't take as long as the flower wall.