Children are a Blessing

I love my kids.

They're pretty funny.

These kids are pretty cool, too. Little Samantha was born in August.

And she was blessed at grandma and grandpa's house. (Congrats Michael & Amanda!)

According to Judi, all of her kids came out with spiky hair.  I really hope my next one has it.

Happy Birthday To Us

Happy Birthday to me....

Happy Birthday to me...

(This "cake" was amazing.)

Happy Birthday Dear.... oh yea. US.

Happy Birthday to US!

Summer Catch-Up

The rest of our summer -- in photos.

Flowers that popped up in our yard this summer. It was fun moving in January... all spring and summer has been full of surprises. :)

Popsicles were a daily thing.

Even dad liked them.

One of our random trips to Tahoe.

We're really excited that we didn't have to give up the beach when we moved!

Any guesses?

Hint: The scarf is "hair."

From left: Katie (office assistant), Dr. Jack (head of the Reno office), um...the wolf, Steve, Dr. Cliff (head of the whole shebang), and Michelle (marketing chick)

Last month Steve's office had their patient appreciation picnic. It's kind of a big deal... over 1000 people came. They had bouncy houses, lots of food, face painting, and lots of giveaways. Even the UNR mascot made an appearance.

Ellen

As I was going through photos that I wanted to post here (Ahem... a lot of them.) I realized I never posted photos from my Aunt Ellen's funeral. I wrote a post about it on my other blog along with some thoughts I'd been having over the summer, so if you want to read about it, click here.

At first I thought having a family picture taken right after the graveside service wasn't the ideal situation, but maybe it is. It was a poignant reminder that families do exist beyond the grave. The feeling of peace was incredible.

Me and my roomies. Uncle Paul (R), and my dad (L), who, if he was wearing black, would be a pretty snappy secret service agent.

Hot August Nights

Every year in August there's this thing called "Hot August Nights" that happens to Reno. Everyone pulls their classic cars out of their garage, parks it in the parking lot of one of the big casino hotels and thousands of people walk around, oogling all of them. 

A girl Steve works with has a 1934 Chevy (well it's actually her husband's car). They invited us to cruise with them during one of the nights.

Pretty rad, eh? Most of the interior was original, as well as the engine. It only goes up to 35 mph, so we drove it around town for a while. No seat belts, either. Ack!

We parked it at the Grand Sierra Resort and walked around to look at the other cars.

I love the cute little corvette convertibles.

These were some of Steve's fav's.

This one was from 1911!

This one was from sometime in the 20s. Steve really liked it.

We got the girls to pose a few times. They liked the cars after a while, but as you can see, they were dripping with enthusiasm toward the end.

See?

After sunset, we drove down to the main strip where they had a parade of sorts for all of the classic cars. It was so fun to experience all of this while IN one of the cars instead of just watching them go by. Ivy really liked waving to all the people. Toward the end she just stuck her hand out in a Nazi-esque salute to the people. She's funny.

We drove behind this beauty for a while...

Look familiar? :)

Here's a shot of all of us. Melissa (holding Ivy) works with Steve. Her husband is on the left, and the other guy is a friend of theirs.

The end. :)