Cameron at Week 1

Cameron is now 10 days old. He is still doing great. Mom is really tired. So is Dad. So is Grandma. Ryan and Jac are not.

Cameron James Kartchner

Cameron James Kartchner was born on Friday, August 14th at 8:45pm. He weighs 7 pounds 9 ounces and is 19 and 3/4 inches long. Mom and baby are doing great. The labor was pretty quick and easy. The delivery was very quick and easy.

Swimmin in the ditch

The girls and I came home to find the water guy purging the hydrant, thus filling out ditch with water. I let them out at the end of the driveway and ran in to get the camera. They were loving playing in the rushing water. I was a little nervous about Ryan getting sucked under the driveway, but she steered pretty clear of the hole. Ryan started out fully clothed but then wanted to be rid of her shirt. By the end of it she was begging to take her shorts and underwear off too.

I remember being little and being so excited for the gutters to have water in them. My cousin and I would look for snails, see how much "seaweed" we could pull up, build dams and go fishing. We never caught one, dang it. I am so happy that I live in a community that is still small enough that I can let my kids do all of these fun things.

"Swimming" in one of the left over puddles, Jac looks like a dead body floating in a puddle.

The water was almost completely gone, but Ryan was trying to soak up every last drop.

Jac soon realized that there was "bugs and stuff" in the water, that was it for her. When Jac left, Ryan begged me to take my clothes off and swim with her. I was tempted, but being on the side of the road was a slight deterrent.

This summer has been great, Ryan has become an expert frog, turtle and lightning bug catcher. She and Jannica are protective of the tomatoes and scream at the squirrels to stop eating them. The dirtier they are the better. I am going to miss all of the laid back fun we have had, but I am looking forward to having a little time to myself (kinda) while they are at school.

Random comments

Tonight after dinner we were all enjoying a bowl of ice cream when Ryan says.....

"I LOVE talking to boys."

Kelly and I just looked at each other, dreading the future.

Jon and Anh's Wedding

Last weekend we flew up to Boston for Jon's wedding. He's a high school friend of mine. We took Ryan along and did a little sight seeing on Friday. We drove up to Gloucester north of Boston on the coast. Jaimee decided that we had to try some clam chowder, because that is what you are supposed to do. So we stopped at a nice little restaurant and I ordered clam chowder. At about this time, Jaimee wimped out and went with a boring regular type of soup. Wimp. We also ordered crab legs for our appetizer, because that is what you are supposed to do. Tasty but not something we would order again in the next year or two. There were some beautiful beaches and it would have been alot of fun, if it had not been raining.

The next day we woke up early for the long drive to the Dam Hoi (Vietnamese Engagement Ceremony). It was a fun ceremony where the grooms family presents gifts and introduces the family. Luckily they said yes, so the wedding was able to continue. We drove to the church for a beautiful wedding ceremomy. Then for the party afterwords. I had never met Anh, but she must be some kind of wonderful to be marrying Jon. She was so sweet and it was a pleasure to meet her. The next day we had Dim Sum in Chinatown with the bride and groom. That was a fun experience also. The best part was the chicken feet. It takes just like I imagined chicken feet would taste. Then the couple took the out of towners on a DUCK tour around boston. It was alot of fun.
I'd like to congratulate Jon and And on this wonderful occasion. It truly was a beautiful wedding and Anh is a great person for Jon. May they have many happy years (and children) ahead.

Ryan's First Post

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Wife is Out of Town, So What Do We Do?

Jaimee and Ryan were in Utah last weekend. I was supposed to send Jannica out there on Friday or Saturday, but the flights did not look good. Jannica and I had the weekend together and nothing to do. So what else do you do when you have no plans. We decided to go to the movie theater.

Well I picked up Jannica at 6pm and gave her the choice. We could either go to the movie theater together or we could go to Ireland and watch a movie on the plane. Why not, right? After all, we didn't have anything to do? So 1 hour later we were at the airport with our passports waiting for our seat assignment. 1 hour after that we were sipping mimosas (maybe just orange juice) in our Business Elite seats. 8 hours later we were ready for a full days adventure in Dublin, Ireland.

The first place that we went was to see the Book of Kells at Trinity Unuversity. It is this really old copy of the first 4 gospels in the New Testament. It has some fantastic artwork on its pages and looks really cool. They had a few other old books of the gospels that was interesting to look at. The next stop was a little home from the 1850's where they explained to us how life was then and about this specific family. Kind of interesting. Then we were off to the Dublin Castle. It was a neat place but not as cool as many of the old castles. It had more of a palace feel, than a castle feel. Still neat though.

We checked out one of the shopping districts on Grafton St where there was a lot of street performers. Some fun ones, but nothing to right home about. Except some strange guy running around playing the accordian. It made Jac laugh. The we went to one of the main parks and watched the couples snogging. If you don't know what snogging is then talk to your parents. It led to a great conversation with Jannica though.

So we went to the hotel, watched Susan Boyle get second place live on Britain's Got Talent and went to bed. So then breakfast, ride to the aiport, and back home in Business Elite again.

All in all, a fun little weekend trip with just Jannica and me.