Yard Work

First, how do you like the flags? They're a bit too in-your-face, I know, but I wanted to get to this post so that's how they'll be for now.

We had a St. Louis summer wind storm again yesterday. It seems like we're having a lot more of these recently. One knocked out our power a week ago Monday as well. And last year you probably heard that over half a million residences had their power knocked out just as we entered a heat wave with temperatures at 100.

This year, we've been having temperatures from 95-105 for the past two or three weeks. So yesterday, while I was at work, Isabelle called and said that a tree had come down on our fence. We watched outside as the sky got black, and the centerfield giant video screen at Busch Stadium lost its feed and provided a bizarre green source of light in the dark skies.

This provided the impetus we needed to buy a chain saw last night at our neighborhood Sears. So this morning I spent three or so hours clearing the mess. And I didn't injure myself. I sure could have, but I guess my combination of standing in the V of the tree ready to lean back, and poking my head, shoulders, and arms through the hole in the fence were a good enough strategy.

The Minnesota Giants

Actually, from our perspective, these are the Minnesota Second Cousins (of Julia). And they are brothers but not twins. They are the sons of my first cousin Anne Byrne, who lives in the Minneapolis suburbs. We were able to visit them during our recent trip.

Michael, on the right, is 6'10" and studying engineering (we forget what kind) at the University of Michigan. Matthew is 6'6" and stockier that Michael, and he has just entered Duke University as a freshman.

Their dad Pat has decorated their rec room half in Michigan's colors and paraphernalia, and the other half in Duke. Home Depot carries school colors, in case you were wondering.

So, let me fill in some details on our recent trip so it starts to make some sense. We had three weeks, so we decided to take a train across the northern US, since many from my family live on the route of the Empire Builder. We flew to Portland, Oregon, and visited my sister who lives in Cottage Grove. Then we took the train to Williston, North Dakota, to visit my grandmother, aunt, uncle and cousin. Then we continued and visited my aunt and uncle in Fargo, ND, and cousin Anne in MSP, and then finally we visited friends in Detroit, before flying home from there.

Anne knew how to play a lively pattycake which kept Julia enthralled.

Posting: How Often and How Much

OK, so here I go for another posting. I am sure that one per day will not be our long term pace. As I watch my friends' blogs, I know the usual pace is about 1-5 per week. Here are some friends' blogs:

• Alisa & Frederic
• Lee & Stephanie
• Joe & Laura

These are also at the bottom of our church web site, which will soon be going through a renaissance as our current provider is closing up shop.

We also have some photos out on flickr but I haven't figured out how to manage all of those yet. To those of you who saw our photos when they were on Yahoo, sorry! Flickr doesn't just let you make all your photos public.

We welcome your musings! Please feel free to post a reply.

Tea Time

It's another Sunday afternoon, and I don't have praise team practice today at 4 like I usually do. So we're getting ready for tea and biscuits, or rather tea/iced tea/milk and biscuits/bagels/Oreos. Mauritians don't have any trouble convincing us Americans whether to have a snack at 5 pm or so, but what to snack on is a different story. Even in their African summer, sans air conditioning, hot tea with milk and sugar comes around every morning and afternoon like clockwork. With the tea, you'll have bread in the morning, and crisp, barely sweet crackers in the afternoon. Or crepes if you're lucky. :-)

On another topic, here are some scanned images of some professionally produced photographs taken and edited by my uncle Glenn. We visited them during our recent trek across the northern US.

Chloe Michelle's Profile

Welcome! It's a girl!

Yeah, we know we should have been blogging before now. Now let's see if we can set a reasonable pace...

Last Tuesday, our delivery doctor gave us another in a series of good reports on Isabelle's pregnancy. The new due date is December 3, based on the ultrasound we got the Wednesday before that.

At our church, Mid-County Church in St. Louis, baby girls are everywhere. One couple, after adopting a girl and a boy, just had a boy. But aside from him, the last six or eight arrivals have been girls. Good friends of ours with two girls are due a few weeks before us, and they refuse to try to find out ahead of time. Other good friends with one girl are due a few weeks after us.

Having majored in statistics, and having observed that half the world is girls, I know that the odds against all three of us having girls were 8 to 1. Now that we know we will, the odds against the other two having girls are 4 to 1. In other words, it's still unlikely. Try telling that to all the other families that have two or three kids of the same gender.

God must be smiling on us, protecting our sanity. Sure we want a boy, but we certainly feel blessed that Joey-Chloe turned out to be a girl. Julia needs a sister. She will be Chloe Michelle, Lord willing.

Later!
-Chris