Elise Giggling

Camp Collage

Just messing around with Picasa and made this collage from camp pictures.  Click on it to view it larger.

Alpine Bible Camp 2012!

Click on slideshow to view larger photos from the album

Elise's First 4th of July

We had a great start to the day.  Elise did throw up once but not too much.  We were able to salvage her 4th of July onesie.  We weren't, however, able to save Kim's blue shirt.  It had to be traded out for a white one.  Here are mommy and baby for a pic.

Here we are trying to all three get a picture.

Here she is enjoying the parade..sort of.  She slept through it, even through the sirens.

She loves her bouncy seat.

We should seriously be rich from a stinkin Gerber or Pampers contract or something.  Her cuteness is ridiculous :)

Sammie and her tail going crazy.

Gracie doing her pose for the camera.

Elise was pretty content in her car seat so we left her there for a few.  So, I decided to play a few tunes and we sang some songs together.

Elise got to see her first fireworks..sort of.  She slept through those too.

She was all tuckered out after a long night.  She had her 4th of July sleeper on to finish out the day.

4th of July Float

I thought the 4th of July float turned out really good this year considering we lost a few days of working on it due to power outages.  Our theme was "Don't waste your sports" as we were advertising our basketball camp this month.  Here are some pics.

The goals are actually perfectly to scale in every way that was possible.  They are 72"x42".  The rim is actually a few inches higher than it should be, but the only reason I did that was because originally we planned on having them sit on the float floor itself and I didn't want the nets just sitting on the floor.    

Side view.

The rim is made out of pex piping with a PVC coupling.  It's as close to 18" in diameter as I could get them.  When I got them painted, I used them to draw my arch on the wood and then cut it.  I attached the pipe with screws.  Then, I had a 2x4 base to attach it to the goals.

 

Kim did the signs and as always did an awesome job!

Here is the finished product!  On the float it Katie Caldwell, Xander Fisher, Evan Eaton, and Julianna Eaton.  

Big thanks to Doug Hunter for pulling the float this year!  Also, thanks to everyone who helped stuff the napkins!!  That's always the hardest part.  

Adventures Without Power

The last three days have been pretty crazy.  It all started Friday evening.  I had just finished some things with the 4th of July float.  The radio was on and had been beeping constantly saying severe thunderstorms were headed our way.  I normally just ignore those because so often severe just means lighting and hard rain.  I saw the clouds getting nasty though so I went ahead and closed the garage doors and then I heard the pups crying at the walk-in door.  So, I let them in and kept working.  Out of nowhere though, the wind went from nothing to crazy.  I was thinking the worst and thought there was a tornado so I snatched up the dogs and ran inside.  Kim and I went to the front room and watched the mayhem.  It was the most powerful sustained wind I had ever seen.  When it was over, we knew the power was out obviously, but nothing looked too terrible in our yard other than a few small tree limbs.

I was still really nasty from having been working in the garage all day so I took a shower with a flashlight.  Finally, after everything had calmed down, Kim and I loaded up Elise and the pups and we took a ride to look around.  Oh my.  We didn't realize how bad things were.  Trees were down everywhere.  Smashed vehicles.  Smashed roofs.  Downed power poles.  It was pretty intense.

For the next three days, from Friday evening until Monday evening, we were without power.  I have never gone more than a day without power so it was a new thing for me.  Sleeping was downright terrible.  It was so muggy in the house.  We had a cooler and some waters so we were fine in that area.  Then, on Sunday afternoon, we went into Columbus to get a generator.  We had called Lowes and Home Depots all the way up to Cleveland and as far as Morgantown, WV to find one.  Finally, someone told us the East Columbus Lowes got a shipment in.  So, we ran up there only to get caught in another awful storm when we got there.  But, we survived everything.

Through all of it we had some good times though.  When the storm had just finished its crazy spell but wasn't finished raining, I mentioned to Kim that when the storm passes over we should go look at stuff.  Immediately, we both started in on, "Til the storm passes over, til the thunder sounds no more, til the clouds roll forever from the skyyyyyyy..."  Then, we busted out laughing at ourselves.  When we went to Columbus, we took the pups with us and that was an experience in itself.  When we got caught in the storm in Columbus, we saw a tent, yes, a camping tent (fully assembled) fly out in the road in front of us.  It kind of reminded me of the movie Twister when they were between the two tornadoes on the bridge.  The woman was on the phone when cows were flying by and she said, "I'm gonna have to let you go--we got cows."  All in all, it was horrible without power, but we had fun times every now and then.  Next time we'll be prepared with our generator though!