Paul loses the Powerball lotto......yet again!

Occassionally when the Powerball lottery gets over $40 million, Paul will buy a ticket. Just one ticket. What kind of calculus Paul used to arive at that threshold of the jackpot to purchase any ticket, we may never know. Anyway, yet again Paul was denied another jackpot ($208.6 million ) which was (in his mind) rightfully his.

So it goes, Paul's dream of owning a Bugattti Veyron is remains unfulfilled. The most expensive and fastest street legal car in the world -- the Veyron -- is a 16 cylinder monster with 1,001 horsepower, a top speed of 253 mph, and an estimated 2.5 sec 0-60.

Maybe it's for the better....the Veyron comes with an automatic transmission anyway...denied his dream car, Paul embraces the "Fox and the Grapes" concept. In the meantime, while awaiting the massive lottery jackpot due to him, Paul can race around in our Passat station wagon (with a manual tranny of course) and pretend its almost like a 2-door Bugatti.

To make donations to "A Veyron for Paul Foundation" please send checks made out cash to Paul.

Can you not imagine Paul behind he seat?

You are what you eat......or at least you wear what you eat...

Sammy has been working on soid foods for some time now, each day eating more and (for the most part) seemingly enjoying it. His favorite is Gerber single grain oatmeal. Single-grain cereals supposedly ease your child's transition into solid foods. We tried starting with rice cereal, which most babies tolerate the best...but not Sammy. But he loves the oatmeal.

We figure a few more months and incisor teeth and Sammy will be ready for steak.

Smiling Sammy eating his oatmeal...

...often times little Sammy needs a BIG bath after eating...

...but he takes it all in good stride...

...unless Mommy sneaks in a spoonful of yellow squash!

Things that go bump in the night...

Back in '95 we saw a movie which explained an awful lot. You see, while you sleep or arent around, toys come to life and do things...so long as you aren't there to see it.

A few weeks ago, we went to the Mall of America. As usual we bought items we didn't need such as a Ricki Ricardo-esque bongo drum for Paul (sadly, for real). But the real prize was at the Lego store. They had Lego Batman and Robin people. So of course we had to buy them for Sammy...and since he can't play with them until age six (always read the labels) it was up to Paul to put them in a safe place until Sammy was of age.

Correction: Michele just informed Paul that the bongo drum was *NOT* for him but for little Sammy. .:sigh:.

The strange thing is that when we wake up in the morning the house is in shambles and the Batman Lego people are all over. Suspecting that what we saw in the movie was true, we needed a way to verify...so we asked our big orange cat Veto to take some pictures with Paul's camera during the night.

What follows is Veto's account as told to us by Veto....apparently while we sleep the great battle of good versus evil rages on in our house.

"I was sitting there with Paul's camera when I took a cat nap. I rolled on my back and was dozing off when I heard what sounded like jingle bells...I was able to snap off a quick shots of events as they unfolded. Meow."

Jingle bells, Batman smells...

Robin laid an egg...

The Volkswagen lost its wheel...

And Joker got away.

Veto did a great job capturing photos to verify our worst fears. Hopefully tonight Batman will get that rascal Joker. But we did see one last picture that Veto took...quite disturbing. It shows BatGirl getting into the Jokers love van. Why do all the nice girls go for the bad boys?

Sammy & The Wiggles

Well, we should have known something like this would happen. When we were children we had Mr. Rogers and Captain Kangaroo. Well, now it's the "Wiggles." The Wiggles are four grown men -- Anthony (Blue), Greg (Yellow), Murray (Red), and Jeff (Purple)-- who do skits, sing, and dance on a tv show for children.


There's also Captain Feathersword who is a friendly pirate who has a feather for a sword, which he uses to tickle everyone. A running joke is when he says, "Well blow me down" with which those around him oblige by blowing him down.

Uh huh. Four grown men and a buccanneer who tickles everyone with a feather for a sword. And they're from Australia. Uh huh.

Oh, and we now feel great empathy for other parents who can't get the song, "Fruit Salad...yummy yummy" out of their minds!

And now some pics of Sammy watching the Wiggles...

"Dad you're blocking the tv!"

"I love the Wiggles"

"Don't bother me...the Wiggles are on"

Paul's favorite character is Captain Feathersword...
...the pirate who lives with the kind of reckless abandon...
...that Paul only wishes he could.

After the storm...

This past Tuesday night we had a pretty spectacular storm. When we woke up there were quite a few branches down in our neighborhood. One of the blossoming trees in the center of our street broke off its trunk completely. The Rochester city DPW came by and cleaned up the downed branches and trees...the very next morning (now that's service!). Luckily we only had a few branches they had to trim and an injufed arborvitae.

We wondered if they'd do our rain gutters too..

Paul could use a chipper like this one...

Paul was a bit late to work as he was blocked in by the truck...

An arbor vitae next to our house is all pushed apart from heavy rain.

Bouncing Sammy!

Nothing interesting to say here...just some pics we took of Sammy today as he bounced up and down in the bouncer. Notice his shirt...he's developed quite the taste for clothing.

Sammy the bouncing baby!

All smiles for the camera!

Our son!

Sunday in the Park

Panoramic photo of the playground...

...this picture was sticthed together from several photos

One of the nice things about living in Rochester is the city park system. It has over 60 miles of trails...and perhaps more importantly now with the addition of Sammy...some excellent children's playgrounds. Over by Silver Lake there is a very large playground. So this past Sunday Michele, Sammy, Sharon, Ana, Noah, and Paul went to the park. To describe it as large is a bit of an understatement. Now that Sammy is with us, we're more than happy to have our taxes go to these types of things. We didn't expect it to be as hot as it was, so after about 45 minutes the kids had had enough. But we took a few pics. Enjoy.

Sharon, Ana, & Noah on the bench swing

Michele, Ana, and Ana's hat

Michele & Ana

With the price of gas, we'll all be driving something like this soon.

No top notch playground is complete without a pirate ship!

Sharon loading the kids up on the choo choo.

Where in the world...are Michele & Ana? (see hint)

Mr. Excitement at the park.

Sammy catching some Z's

Sammy and Red Dog at the park

Babies "R" Us Comes to Rochester!

Rochester Minnesota is now home to more than just the Mayo Clinic and a water tower shaped and painted like a corn-cob (really!). The local Toys "R" Us in town just put on an addition and opened a Babies "R" Us. How convenient for us since we rely on bottled Similac to get us through Sammy's night feedings now.

They had a "grand opening" where they had coupons, cookies, and cartoon characters for the kids, so we took Ana, Noah, and little Sammy. Here are some pics.

Some cartoon character "Dora" with Sharon & Ana

Noah is usually all smiles, but sometimes when photographed projects melancholy.

Sammy was up to this point not impressed at all...

...until he met Winnie the Pooh (what is a Pooh anyways?)

Ana may be small in stature but mighty in heart.

Baby Steps

Sammy's Aunt Sharon was kind enough to give him the walker his cousins Noah and Ana used. Sammy took a short while to figure out that he could move himself using his legs. Here's some pics of Sammy moving around one step at a time. You can probably notice from one of the photos that we watch a 13" tv set...yes we are on the cutting edge of technology. If you open the bottom picture, you'll also notice that Paul watches tv with close captioning on. Yes, he's getting old.

A Cookout With Sammy

Well, summer is now here along with cooking dinner on the outdoor grill. For the Fourth of July, Michele had Paul go to Wal-Mart (his favourite store) to get a charcoal grill. Paul bought a Weber "Smokey Joe." So for two days in a row now we've had cookouts. Today, while the kabobs were cooking we snapped a few pics of our snazzy son Sammy. The tasty kabobs were purchased from Rochester's Ye Olde Butcher Shop...a favourite of Michele's.

Sammy & Michele on our back deck.

Sammy wearing a nice hat.

Sammy posing for the camera...

Isn't he the cutest?

Sammy & Paul

The kabobs on the "Smokey Joe"