Fun With the Family

Here is a picture of Earle, Collin, Ben and Robert Coggin (a friend of ours from Nashville) on Bourbon St. on Saturday.

Bear with me, it is my first time to post....This last week we had a great time with my mom, and my sister Lorie and her husband Josh. They came up for Ben's birthday, then on Thursday, we went to Mobile to celebrate Lorie's 23rd birthday. We had a great time visiting. Here are a few pics from Red Lobster in Mobile, AL. We also got a chance to visit with J.T., Rebecca, and Mary Katherine Harrison, Josh's family.

Here is a pic of Lorie and I, because we always forget to get our picture taken together....I think the last one we had was at her wedding....how terrible!

Here is a picture of Ben with a monkey on his head. He thought it was very funny. Mary Katherine gave it to him as one of his birthday gifts.Mary Katherine, Mom, and J.T. in the background.

Anyway, it was a nice little outing. Hope everyone is off to a good week!

Carrie

This weekend we had some friends visit us from the Nashville area. Since they had never been to New Orleans before we took them downtown to the French Quarter for lunch and to look around. After walking a little too long on Bourbon St. and passing some questionable establishments (Napolean's Itch and Big Daddy's to give you a hint of what we are talking about) we decided to make our way back to the square and on the way we passed some street musicians. Ben was absolutely mezmerized. He didn't want to leave. He was very interested in the guy playing the tuba and as you can see in the first picture, he wanted to drop a dollar in the bucket.









Just so I don't leave Collin out of this one, here are some random pics of the boys from earlier in the week.



Have a great weekend.

Happy Birthday Ben!!!!

Well, yesterday was Ben's birthday but we had his party here at the house tonight. I thought I would start out with pics from each of the 4* birthday's he has had (*if you count his birth). This one was small and really just a family affair. We had a big one for him last year and to be honest, we really don't know that many people with kids just yet.

It makes me said to look back at these and see how much he has grown in just such a short time. Time really does fly by once you have kids. Well, enough of the sentimental ramblings. On to the pictures

Ben calls this his fishin' hole. We have a little pond not too far from our house and he has been dying to go fishing in it.

We all had a great time and Ben loved all the gifts he got from everyone. Hope you all enjoy the pics.

Here We Go

Okay, so we have finally decided to take the plunge and start a blog. Several factors contributed to this decision. One of them is peer pressure. Several of our friends have started them and it is actually a pretty neat way to stay caught up with them and see what is going on in their lives. The second is our two boys. Ben and Collin are growing up so fast and it is hard to keep all of our friends and relatives caught up on their progress w/o cloggin up e-mail accounts with pictures. So..., we are going to give this a shot and see what transpires. We'll stick mainly to keeping everyone posted on the progress of the boys and every once in awhile Carrie or I will let you know what is going on with us. I am not making any promises but I will try and post a least a couple of times each week even if they are just pics. My days start much earlier than they did in Illinois and I am finding that I have less free time to play on the computer after getting home, eating dinner, spending time with the boys and getting them to bed, catching up with Carrie, and getting a bath/shower all before 10 or so in order to be in bed by 10:30. Whew, that makes me tired just thinking about it.

On Monday we took Ben to the aquarium here in New Orleans for an early birthday present. It was okay but we are kind of biased after going to the one in Chicago a couple of years ago. They just don't even compare. But we had fun and Ben wore us out.

In addition to that, as most of you know Ben started pre-school this week and the first day went really well. He goes on MWF from 9am to 1pm and so far, so good. Here are some pictures of him getting ready to leave and some of Collin for no particular reason.