Kat's 3rd birthday and various other pics

Well, sorry it's been so long. We're making huge progress here. The house is nearly all unpacked and put away (I think I have 2 boxes of my 'desk" crap left; oh and a few bags of clothes Dan brought on his second trip) and I know where almost everything is. I think we even have a home phone as of tomorrow (maybe even as of 22 minutes ago?). Though, in truth, the phones are the only items I'm aware of that I don't know where are.... maybe in my boxes?

The big news here is that Kat is now sporting her hearing aids (and I don't think I have a pic of her in them at all. Will have to take one tomorrow). She is now being poked and prodded and tested in every regard on both her Drs orders (Ct scan, MRI, vision test, blood work) and by the school district which needs to evaluate her to figure out what services to provide for her. So we've been in limbo, again, waiting to see what they will do. I haven't enrolled her in preschool yet, as there is a fulltime preschool for the hearing impaired that I'm hoping they will send her to that program and I don't want to bounce her around more than necessary. And all of her little playmates (namely her cousins) have gone back to school.

Dan has his office downtown up and running. And he had his second class tonight (he's teaching it, grad level Int'l Tax), so that's going well. This week is tough for him with 9/15 coming at him at 90mph. He lost a few to several weeks of work in the move (and the two trips across the country) so is playing some serious catch up.

I think that's the bulk of the update. Oh yeah, I think we close on the house on Tuesday. Cause Dan needs one more thing to do before 9/15. But it will be good to finish it up so that nothing can go wrong. And we have the added bonus of NOT having the moving in and settling in ahead of us after we close! It's so nice to have that behind us. Oh yeah, we had our party on Labor Day Monday (our going away party was on Labor Day Monday 7 years ago, so it seemed symmetrical to have it on that day). We had 40 or so of our friends and family stop by to check out the house (and the torture chamber) and hang out with us. It was really great. We are so happy to be home and the kids had SO MUCH fun playing that day. There were 7 girls, Kat was the littlest, and up to 5 of them played non-stop hide and seek throughout the house and yard for hours. It was a riot. Of course I have no pics of that craziness.....oh well, here are a bunch of other pics that I finally downloaded from my cameras. Oh yeah, and I got a new iPhone, as the new software for the iphone 4 pretty much made any earlier phones inoperable--what a marketing strategy! I will work on getting some pics and video tomorrow to see how it looks. Pony ride at the Vikings.

Kat and Leslie on John's porch. With her sprinkle doughnut.

Kat's 3rd birthday cake.

THIS is why I did NOT take Kat appliance shopping with me when Dan wan't here.....

I need to sign this kid up for gymnastics. NOW.

Leslie, myself and John at our big 25th reunion. How could it possibly be 25 years?

This is after the tornado in Mayville that Kat and I nearly drove through when we first got to town. There was lots of water to be played in.

This is Dan and his nearly 2 weeks of beard. There used to be a lot of red in there, but I saw mostly gray.

A new going, going, gone series......

My stupid Olympus camera (couldn't locate the good one) can't be bothered to focus on faces, but it did capture the dispersing water beautifully.

This is Kat showing off her new bunny and kitchen presents from Wendy. They work perfectly in her doll/playhouse.

I love that look.

If this video comes out...cause every kid today needs backyard movies that look like they're filmed with a super8 camera.....did I mention that that camera sucks?