We met someone special for lunch

Cousin Beth was in the area for a wedding this weekend, so we met her for lunch! I think Claire would have gone home with her, especially when she learned Beth lives near Mickey Mouse. By the end of lunch, Claire couldn't get enough hugs from her new friend.

Finally got a shot of that elusive tooth!

I finally got a good shot of Maddie's first tooth -- and when I looked at it I think that tooth already has a friend. Check it out -- you can see the right one and almost see that tooth on her left coming in next:


If you'd like to see more pics of the girls (that's YOU Grandma and Grandpa) just click on that photo and there are a few more in the album that you can scroll through too. :)

Summer weather has arrived (if only temporarily)

Usually summer doesn't get here until mid- to late-June. That said, today we definitely had a nice, summer day. There wasn't a cloud in the sky and it was 80 degrees outside. Needless to say, our pasty selves spent the entire day outside -- covered in SPF 50, of course. We planted some sunflower seeds and mooched dinner at a friends house (where Claire splashed in their kiddie pool). Here are a few photos - note the pretty iris in my front yard! I think that purple one is Feedback, though Mom could tell you for sure:

She eats!

Here's what Maddie has been looking like before meals lately:



Yep. She finally willingly eats food!

Another brush with fame

This didn't happen today, but I'm testing some of this blogging tool stuff. So here's another shot when I had a brush with fame! Still not flying though...

Spending Time in Washington DC

Pilot to Family, Pilot to Family--

Well, I'm not flying right now, but have had some time off to spend while we've been in Washington DC. We're backing up some other folks' missions so aren't really expecting to fly. We got to see the sights at night when we arrived and fought the Memorial Day crowds over the weekend. We saw almost all the big attractions on the Mall, plus spent a good amount at time Arlington National Cemetary on Sunday.

I have a few more days of sitting and waiting to see if we get called to fly, so I'm playing with the SLR (that Katie can't snap photos of hummingbirds with) and working on my professional studies. You can see some of my tinkers here:

From Click for the album!

Lookie who joined us for lunch!

So, most of you probably know that Claire REALLY liked the hummingbirds at Greg and Melanie's house last summer. She has been wondering where they went ever since we came back home. We told her that the hummingbirds have to go on vacation to Mexico for the winter but that they would come back when it got warm here again (and then we crossed our fingers that her hummingbird feeder from Grammy and Grampy would bring 'em in when the time came!). She's been asking at least once a week since last summer about the hummingbirds and then would tell us that "they on 'cation". Well today during lunch guess who decided to join us!


OK, so that's not my photo; it's from hummingbirds.net. But give me a break. Phil took the SLR with him and I'm NOT the family photojournalist. Anyway, Claire was pretty excited to see him and so was I (it probably helped that I changed the water yesterday and it wasn't moonshine in there anymore). Hopefully he'll tell his friends about us and we'll have some regular visitors!

Our new blog!

Phil's sister's wonderful blog has finally motivated us to create one of our own. Since we're far away from home, this seems like a nice way to keep everybody "in the loop".