A Marathon Catch-Up Post

I can't believe another 2 weeks have gone by...I'm going to stick to the highlights of the past weeks and avoid writing a long post (hopefully). It's been a busy couple of weeks and I hope you enjoy the updates and photos. Thanks for stopping by and I hope you're enjoying your summer!

Keira's been in her new room at daycare for about a month and a half now. It's hard to drop her off in ther morning lately as she throws a fit when Mark and I leave her. Fortunately she's very comfortable with Miss Katie Jane and usually calms down within minutes to enjoy breakfast with her friends. She's had some great experiences and some traumatic ones too. Within a week she had two "incidents". First, she stepped on a toy, lost her balance and nailed her chin resulting in a scraped chin, as well as her biting her tongue on the top and the bottom. Ouch. A couple of days after that, she was bit by a classmate. That resulted in this pretty mark on her arm for a good week or so.

Those have fortunately been the only traumatic experiences she's had. She has had such a great time with the new room, friends, toys, activities, etc. Check out the fun!

She loves coloring...I'm not sure how her teachers keep her from eating the crayons, but I need to find out!

One of her favorite games is "So Big." We ask, "How big is Keira?" and she throws her arms up in the air and say, "So Big! Keira's so big!" while tickling her under the arms. Simple, but she loves it!!!

She loves to paint too! I'm impressed with how well she does in keeping the paint to the paper and her hands. One of these days I'm sure she'll discover the floor, her face, etc.

I have no idea what the activity was on this day, but it's the cutest picture. Mark and I laughed so hard when her teacher showed this to us. It fits her personality perfectly - what a clown!

Check out this video. She loves using the swiffer. It's a makeshift mop for me when I want to clean the floors. I tried taking it away from her and she was not having it. That's my girl!

For some of Keira's fun photos from the past month and a half, click on the following photo.

For Keira's 1st year photos, click on the following photo.

I was recently in Denver for work again and was able to catch up with some old friends, the Larsons. I visited with Steve, Vicki, Seth, Josh and even got to meet their youngest granddaughter, Ava. She was adorable and had a great time with her though it made me miss my little pumpkin tons. It was so great to see all of you and catch up!

Linh just completd her Masters studies and now holds a Master in education -way to go Linh!! She contemplating b-school now - the girl doesn't stop...Congrats!

Also, we met Mai's boyfriend, Matt. He'll be here through the end of July. He's terrific and we're looking forward to getting to know him better before he returns to England. The accent is so fun and he's going to cook for us this week - can't wait!

Other than that we're just trying to enjoy the summer that has finally come to MN. Sorry for the long post, but hope it's been worth your time.

Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day (a day late) to all the Dads out there! Here's a picture of Mark and Keira hanging out in the morning. Later that day we joined my family, along with my brother-in-law's parents, for dim sum. We had a delicious meal. The rest of the day was spent running a couple of errands and then winding down with a nice walk around the neighborhood with Keira in the stroller. She laughed and giggled as she looked around at all the people and trees.

Those of you that know Mark and his GT hat will appreciate the following photo. And, yes, we realize Keira looks like a boy with this cap and her "gender neutral" clothes, but she is the apple of his eye!
We had another beautiful day and took advantage of it after work today by spending some time playing on the deck. Keira absolutely loves to be outside. Check out this short video. She is always in a good mood when she's outside, especially when we let her play with the rocks in the landscaping. She loves throwing them onto stairs of the deck.

As we looked around the yard, we noticed our peonies finally bloomed. Well, at least one of the plants bloomed. It looks like the other plants will take another season or two to get there. Nonetheless I was super excited to see our first blooms. Here's a photo of one of the blooms. There are half a dozen of them so far!

I'm off to Denver Thu-Fri this week to continue work on a project I've been supporting over the last several months. Without giving anything away, our team is building a Best Buy store from the ground up using a lot of retail and customer insights. The store is opening Oct 3, 2008. I'm so excited. It'll be nice to actually see something tangible. That's not often possible in a lot of the work I do, so when there's something to see, it's pretty exciting. I'll be sure to take pictures when that day comes!

Other than that, life is pretty status quo for us. Here are some photos with Keira playing in the grass. She still doesn't like the feel of it against her bare skin, but she's getting used to it. Today she actually tooks steps in the grass and that's a first. We hope you are all well!

A Crazy Storm

This past Saturday brought a crazy storm to Rosemount, along with a lot of hail. Check out these photos. It was nuts! Fortunately this was the worst of it for us.

Hail pummeled and covered our deck within minutes. Thank goodness the hail was fairly small. Most of the damage was done to our plants. Unfortunately they got pummeled. We'll see if they spring back to life.

After the storm this gorgeous rainbow appeared...Absolutely incredible!

The following photos are of Keira in various new clothes she received for her birthday and from when she was born and is now finally able to wear. We've been having our own little fashion show with her. It's been fun picking out her clothes every day with all the choices!