Derby Roses

A trophy from the Derby

Emily in front of the rose carpet - and some ladies creating and hand sewing the roses. Aunt Gayle would sure love to watch them at work.

We went to watch them make the roses that the winner gets after the Derby Race. Kroger florist makes the carpet of roses. It is beautiful and takes over 400 roses to create.

Derby Day at school

Michael and some of his first grade buddies on Derby Day
Michael and the 1st grade boys painting their derby horse
All the 1st graders with their Derby Hats
Emily playing Churchill Downs with the 4th graders

Emily, Sydney & Savannah

Emily Modeling her new dresses

Bi g Grandma made Emily these dresses for her birthday. She enjoyed modeling them in the beautiful weather yesterday. Does she have a future as a model? Who knows - but she sure enjoys playing model. Thank you Big Grandma for the dresses!

Parade Preview & Bed Races

One of the beds at the bed races - during the bed race parade
Some of the bed races after the parade
Emily and Michael in their masks they made at the Derby Parade Preview

To me they look like Storm Troopers from Star Wars - what do you think?

Emily and Michale are world travelers - Aunt Amber this one is for you :)

Emily at the band festival

Emily attended the first annual Band festival - and played with a band of about 50 students. There were representatives from 5 schools. They played 4 songs and did a good job. The concert was about 20 minutes long. I was able to have sub for a few hours so I could go and listen to the concert.

Michael and baseball

Anniversary Weekend

This past weekend we were able to get together with many family memebers to celebrate Grandma & Grandpa's 65th anniversary. Wow! That would be another 51 years for Doug and I. Hard to imagine what we will be doing in another 51 years. I only hope that we have blessed as many lives as Grandma and Grandpa - and shared the love of Christ with as many people as they have.

We had a shower for Lauren & Nick (my cousin & her fiance) on Saturday morning, a hayride in the afternoon, a BBQ for dinner, and a bon fire at night. A great amount of bonding also took place. It was a great day!

On Sunday we all went to Church at 9:00, then to the gym for an open house. An open house at Grandma and Grandpa's is not what you would consider an open house anywhere else - cold cut trays, finger sandwiches, relish trays, fruit, 10 - 20 kinds of desserts (including coffee cake & blatzkuchen - not sure of the spelling).

I had created a memory book for Grandma & Grandpa, as well as a DVD of the pictures which were in the memory book. Much time was spent looking at the book and sharing memories related to the book. I was very glad to spend the time creating this for grandma and grandpa. I know it will be looked at over and over again.

Earthquake

This morning Doug and I could not sleep. We were both tossing and turning. All of a sudden our windows began to shake, walls and bedside lamps rattle. I thought it was wind - but looked outside and there was not wind. The birds were also going crazy - cheeping, and flying around. It went on for quite a while - and then we realized we had just experienced an earthquake. Wow! The news stations were reportaing about what they experienced. This station caught it on tape during the news. Weird! I guess the epicenter was in Illinois, just over the boarder from Indiana. Here is the link to the news station that caught it on tape.http://www.wave3.com/global/story.asp?s=8191459

opening day bad luck

Michael is just not going to experience opening day for any Cardinal team (although he did go to the Bats opening day last Friday evening).
Michael's first baseball game was supposed to be this evening. It was called upon account of weather - they said it was too cold. What!!!!! Doug could not understand it - although it was chilly - the 7 year olds would not complain. Anway - since tonight was cancelled, the first game is now on Saturday. Well - Doug and Michael are sticking around for the parade on Saturday morning - and then taking off. Thus, he will not be there for the afternoon game (as they will be on the way or at Grandma & Grandpa's house). Their team is the Flicko's Cardinals (Doug's is the coach and the team sponsor ) so he will miss another Cardinal opening day.

Michael is not too happy about missing his game. He does not really see how an anniversary celebration for 65 years of marriage is more important than a baseball game. In time he will understand - I guess a 7 year old's priorities are different than a 36 year old's priorities. Pray that he will get over being upset and just enjoy the weekend.

Spring Tree Picture Slide Show

I played with my photo editing software - and made my favorite pictures even better. Let me know what you think - or if you have any advice (especially Jamie & Rachel).

new photo editing software

Now you can see the kid's faces - wow!
Cool in black and white.

I got myself some photo editing software - found a deal at walmart and it was only a buck on clearance. I got microsoft digital image suite anniversary edition. Here are two pictures I gave it a shot at quickly tonight. I actually have had it for about 2 weeks - but just got it loaded tonight. It is very easy and I will enjoy having something to make my photos look good :)

One final round of tree pictures

The beautiful pink petals have begun to fall, and fall, and fall. I have spent the past three days sweeping and raking up petals. Today I went and bagged them. Boy are they heavy. I made 6 bags filled with petals. They were so heavy I could barely move the bags. There are still plenty to rake up - as some were on our rocked area. We also have to empty the gutters - which are filled with petals :(

The tree sure is pretty when it blooms though.

Our dogwood tree in the front is just beginning to bloom. I will try some spring pictures of the kids in that tree - of course it won't be as nice, as the tree is also covered in vine.

more spring break pictures

Michael, Andrew, Mom, Noah & Emily drawing with sidewalk chalk
Emily & Noah enjoying the outdoors
Michael & Andrew playing on the swingset
Michael, Emily, Andrew, Mom, Dad, Noah - let's all pile on the chair
Emily, Dad, Mom & Michael at the canal walk

spring break pictures

Michael riding the tricycle down the driveway
Whee! Look at that crazy girl drive!
Model Emily
Michael looking cool

spring break

We are on spring break this week! On Sunday - Tuesday we were in Indy with mom and dad. We had a good time and I was able to get some more pictures for a project I am working on for grandma and grandpa. We went to the Canal on Monday night to walk - as the weather was so nice. We also taught the kids to play rumikub, played aggrivation, watched Michael and dad play carom & watched the 3rd Star Wars movie. Michael is really getting into Star Wars. Spike TV had them on this past weekend and this coming weekend. We have 4 of the 6 movies - and he had not seen the one which was on. Luckily dad was able to DVR it - as it was on from 8:00 - 11:00 and Michael would not have made it to the end.

Tuesday morning was the most adventurous. We had found a museum entitled "The American Super Hero Museum". It was a museum of all the movie & cartoon super heros - and I thought it was right up Michael's alley. WE left around 9:30 to go downtown. AFter reaching downtown - the turn that my GPS said to make was not there. We drove around for a few mintues and then called Doug to have him look for it in Mapquest. Those directions were also wrong. After driving around for about 10 more minutes we found the street (a miracle) and fed a parking meeter. We walked to the museum - and found a vacant building. The decals were still on the building - but all the windows were covered with paper. MIchael was upset and asked if we could go to the other one (the description of the museum said there were only two of its kind - so he wanted us to go in search of the other one). We opted to go to the state capital - which was just a short ways away.

After lunch at Cici's we headed home - stopping at the outlet mall. There is a Croc's store in the outlet mall now - so the kids each got a pair. I also hit Carters to buy gifts for a baby shower - and little Micah. After that we headed home.

After arriving home I started clearning out brush, vine, bamboo and other "junk" which was growing on our back "flower bed". It is hard work - and my back is sure hurting after working on it Tuesday for a few hours & yesterday for about an hour. Yesterday I also helped paint the back wall of the school stage black for our school play, as well as paint some wooden horses which we decorate each year in celebration of Derby.

Today I am just hanging around the house and relaxing. I will likely go dig up some stuff in the back yard - but then again may not.

welcome Micah Ruben

A picture of Micah to make Uncle Doug proud! (and of course his daddy and lots of other Cardinal fans)



The proud family

Greg and Jamie were blessed with a new baby boy! Congratulations! Jamie and Micah went home today. Pray for continued good health. All things are going well so far. We now have three nephews and one neice on my side of the family. All of us have two kids - so mom and dad have 6 grandkids at the current time.

rain, rain, go away!

It was rainy today, rainy yesterday .... and rainy quite a bit over the last week. I want to see the sun - especially since it is spring break. Pray for sun - the whole city is starting to have water issues.

more spring pictures

Today after school I got the kids up in our tulip tree. The blossoms had opened up more - and both kids wore matching uniforms to school. Thus - I thought I could get some good pictures.

opening day - but not really

Doug and Michael traveled to St. Louis yesterday. They left at around 9:00 and were all set for a day of baseball. They were ignoring the weather report - and figuring the day would be a great day for a ball game (isn't any day a good day for a ball game in the life of a Netherton boy?). They got there 2 hours before the game and walked around the stadium. They got some freebies that were being handed out before the game. Then they got to see the clydesdales enter the stadium driven by Lou Brock asd well as all the Cardinal players enter in convertables. After 3 innings the game was postponned until this evening due to rain. They did see Pujols hit a homerun, got to see Fredbird, and had a fun time. Michael was very disappointed though that he did not get to see the whole game. Oh well - now they will have to wait until September to see a full, real game.