The Cruise

We went to Nassau, which is attached to Paradise Island by bridge... Paradise Island is where the hotel/casino 'Atlantis' is. We took a taxi over and strolled around. They have a massive fish tank- very nice and big enough that you can pay to snorkel in. These are yellow tail snapper, which tastes awesome- in case you were wondering.

They had this huge manta ray... no joke, it was like 10 feet wide.

More yellow tail. I took this pic for the boys bc the statue in the background reminded me of the Lego Indiana Jones video game Thuggee statues.

This is the Royal Caribbean Private Island. It's totally right next to the Norwegian Cruise line private island.. you'll see why this is funny in a minute.

The big cruise ship on the left is ours. The little on on the right is the one my parents and 2 brothers, their wives, and 2 of my nieces were on that same day. Odd coincidence that we're cruising the same route on 2 different ships at the same time. We met up with my parents and brothers in Nassau for about an hour. Too bad Royal Caribbean and Norwegian didn't share a private island or we could have hung out on Sunday, too!

Dropped the ball

SORRY! Gma and Papa came and I was out of town for a few days... THEN there was some computer issue and I couldn't get pix out of my camera for some reason.

Anyways, now it's fixed and here's the update.

Austin lost another tooth! (the bottom tooth, on his left)

And, for Nate, it DOES take two to make it out of sight! (Mike is prob the only one to understand this horrible joke)

Grandma's Coming! (and Little Rock in August)

The boys are very excited to see The Grandparents Fenn.. They get here late tonight. I guess it's time to pick up all the dirty undies from the floor??

Also, the (hopefully) final Little Rock trip has been scheduled for August 2-4th. Food challenge of 5000mg (same as last, but this time with a 30 day window with no regular 2000mg daily dosing) is scheduled for Aug 3rd. Dave and I will be going with Austin this time. Grandma Fenn has very generously offered to stay with AJ and Nate. THANK YOU!

If anyone wants to see a short write-up on the study (from March 16, 2009):
http://www.medpagetoday.com/MeetingCoverage/AAAAI/13272

Movie Day

So all summer long, on Tuesdays, Wed, and Thurs at 10am, we can go watch a free movie at the mall. Today was Curious George. Having school aged children makes summer feel like it used to when I was a kid... and I'm LOVING it!

This is AJ

This is Oz.

Ozzy's Birthday Part Deux

Here are the Chuck E pix as promised. Look how passionately the kid plays! It was hard getting pictures of the boys- especially Oz- bc he kept running off with Ben. He's really growing up...








We opted for cupcakes at home.

Nate dug right in...

AJ took one bite of his cupcake then went for the grapes.

Happy 7th Birthday Ozzy!

Pix from Cake and Chuck E Cheese to follow later.




This set is for 8-14 year olds. AJ built 85% of it himself with little help from me.


Nate is especially happy with the treat bags! Can you see the big smile under his nukkie?

Austin goofing around under all the wrapping paper.

Working hard.

Trying to be inconspicuous with the Goldfish.

The much-talked-about Crystal Sweeper. He's almost done.. in deep concentration.

Dave's Work Thing

Dave had a work thing at a hotel near the beach. I brought swim gear and let them get in the pool. These are phone pictures, so the resolution isn't very good. Sorry!

The reason this first pic is interesting is bc Nate is up to his NECK in water and not holding onto anything. I'm not sure if you've ever done this, but it feels and is very unstable if you don't know how to swim. He kept doing this and saying, "I DID IT!" and dipping his head back so his hair would get wet.

Anyways, Grandma was saying she wasn't sure if Nate was ready to learn to swim fully... YES, HE IS.

Austin DOESN'T get spoiled by Grandma! :)

Ozzy loses a tooth.

Weather Stuff!

So we've had some wild weather lately...some here at home and some I had to track down. Here are a few pics and vids for your brief entertainment.

First up: We got (I am estimating) about 5 inches of rain on Monday morning in a four or five hour period. There is a pond out in front of my apartment complex. I think you will understand that the trees are NOT supposed to be underwater.
Who doesn't love ducks?
Oh, and about that rain...it did almost the exact same thing the NEXT morning too. Didn't get quite as much, and the water didn't come up quite as high, but it's a good bet that I got around 7 or 8 inches of rain at the beginning of this week.

Next up are some photos and videos from my storm chasing yesterday (Wednesday, June 17). The first picture is of a beautifully formed shelf cloud. I wish I could have gotten a more panoramic shot. I did use a wide angle lens, but the ominous nature of the storm isn't quite as apparent as I'd have liked.
Here is a rotating wall cloud I observed when I pulled over. I was just off of I-70 in Boonville (about 30 miles west of Columbia).
This is the same storm as it passed over the gas station I had stopped at.
This first video is actually from last week. It was taken just south of Lebanon (about 30 miles from my house) during a tornado warning.

These next two are from yesterday. Again, it's definitely hard to see the magnitude of rotation, but trust me it was there. I actually stayed inside the gas station as the storm approached and watched it from the door.

Little Rock....again.

We're working on another trip. Probably in August. Once we work out the details, we'll let you all know!

Summer Camping

This camping trip was HOT! We spent time having water balloon fights, swimming, and visiting the Marine Science Center.

Here's Dad and Savvy getting balloons ready for the show down:

Of course, there was swimming. AJ's hitting the wall here... very tired.

Savvy, Emily, and Nate up close... Johnny and Oz in the background.

Johnny and Oz

AJ with fruit rollup stickers all over. Gross.

AJ and Emily

Johnny and Oz

Marine Science Center.
L to R- Oz, Emily, Johnny, Nate, AJ, Savvy.

Dad and his boys.

AJ's Artwork

AJ drew this on the driveway when Oz was in Arkansas. He says it's a pic of him and Austin loving each other. Notice the heart. The big one is Austin.

STOP IT, DADDY!!!

The boys were playing hide and seek tonight. Dave and Nate were 'it'. Nate did NOT want help counting.