Happy Birthday Granddaddy!

Well, my attempts at having a video of the kids have been futile all day, but I wanted to at least take the opportunity to say "Happy Birthday Granddaddy"!

Its a big one!

Nature takes care of itself

A while back, Mike realized that some robins had built a nest where two of our rose bushes grew together. It wasn't too surprising - we have lots of robins in our yard and they seem to have survived the drought of this spring/summer.

A few weeks back, Mike noticed eggs in the nest and now there are babies in the nest! At first he thought it was only two but now it is clearly three. Once in a while, we see mama bird bring food to the babies but most of the time, its just the babies. I have stood and watched them for a while - they will be sitting there with their mouths partially open and then think they hear something, and all go crazy with their mouths wide open, climbing over each other, thinking mama bird is coming to feed them.

As long as we leave them alone, these birds should grow and eventually leave the nest, probably to contribute to the poop on our mailbox with the other robins. But for now, they wait patiently for mama bird to bring them dinner!

Dance Recital

Samantha participated in her 7th dance recital this weekend. She is a member of the Senior Company at the South Riding Dance Academy. Because of this, she participated in both recitals (Sat night and Sun afternoon). We attended the Saturday one as a family (Nancy, Mike, Michael, Granny, and Granddaddy) and I helped out backstage at the Sunday show.

Granddaddy and I laughed over our shots of the backs of heads that we took at the Sat show, so I scooted into the auditorium on Sun to get a few more shots - most were much better.

She performed tap and ballet (shown below) and jazz (pictured above). And by the way, Mom and Dad, it was even hotter in the auditorium today - if that is even possible!

Loss

Severe thunderstorms are pretty much a given each Spring in our area. We have been fortunate that we haven't had any this Spring - until this week. We had a small one yesterday and a doozy today. In the course of 30 minutes, we went from overcast to hail, tornado warnings, swirling winds (yes, in the course of 10 minutes it went from blowing one direction to blowing the other). And then it was gone.

But, alas, so is the weepy willow tree. We have small hopes that we can right it and replant it, but I don't have much confidence in that happening. :(

JDRF Walk

We participated in our local JDRF walk this weekend - the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation walk. It was damp and drizzled from time to time, but the temperature was cool and it was a nice morning. We saw some familiar faces and met some new friends and even got to talk to some pharmaceutical providers about the types of research and development they are doing in diabetes management

This is definitely a new "annual event" for the Stopper family.