James' Birthday Party - take 3

Over Labor Day weekend, my brother Robert and his son James came to visit us. We had a lot of fun with them and got to celebrate another birthday party for James. Ok, so James we've already been to two parties for him, but on Monday was his real birthday - so we had to have another little party. But anyway, here are the pictures of Labor Day.

Shortly after arriving here, James began to explore our house. Jodie and I didn't even think about childproofing our house, so it was kind of funny what he would discover. He found a jar of jelly beans in our pantry, pop tarts, honey, and bubbles. Once he found the bubbles, we went out to our balcony and started blowing bubbles.

I decided to try and make a big bubble maker out of a hanger - something I remembered doing in elementary school. Well, it didn't work so well and eventually I started making them with my hands instead. It was fun to make some bubbles with James, especially when he would dip his hands in the soapy water and wipe them on my arms and say "all clean." Here's a picture of us cleaning or making a mess, depending on your perspective.

That night, Jodie made James a giant cookie for his birthday.

While we are singing happy birthday to James

And blowing out the candles.

After he blew out the candles, we all had some of the cookie and then Robert and James had to head back home. It was a lot of fun, even though it was very simple. Although, I think that next year James is going wonder why his birthday seemed so much shorter than last year.

Ok, these next few are some pictures of the monsoon that we had Tuesday night. For those of you who aren't familiar with monsoons, they are very heavy storms - but they are very short though. As a kid, they were one of my favorite things, especially when the heart of the storm passes overhead - except for the time we had to sandbag our house. But anyway, here are some pictures.

I took this one right at sunset, hence the pinkish glow. The "cloud" on the right of the picture is part of the heart of the storm. If you are a hundred feet to the left, you wouldn't even get a water droplet.

This is a few minutes later after the sun began to set.

This time, the heart of the storm came right over us. It was an interesting experience trying to get a picture because it was raining and blowing so hard that I got drenched even though I was standing in our cover balcony.

Anyway, not much to see in the picture, just all the raindrops that were coming at me. It was a great weekend and it was very nice to have some company visit us.