Willi's quilt for Patti

When Willi (z'l) died, unexpectedly, while Patti was out of town last year, everyone who knew them was stunned. I talked to Patti about Willi's extensive T-shirt collection and offered to make her a quilt out of his favorites. She carefully culled his t-shirts down to these few and after some initial trepidation, I jumped in and made this quilt. Now she can snuggle up with him any time she needs or wants!

D&D night

The kids have been enjoying getting together with a few other teen boys and playing D&D for hours and hours. The adults and littles have enjoyed just hanging out and playing.

Gamers on the beach

I swear, within 24 hours of hitting the beach our home is game central. We've told the boys we're limiting the festivities this year to accomodate my decline and to give Ginger more of a vacation. Here are some happy testosterone laden lads with their controls well in hand.

Swimming in friends

One of the senior students who has inspired and helped William for years is Rogers Gossett. After the addition of their first child, (Holland) his wife (Jane) and I have become good friends. They shared their great pool with our family this summer. Here are a few photos to remind us of the joy of friends...

Mini Kendo camp

Actually it was just another normal week of Kendo, but William had a good friend (Galen) stay with us for the entire week. It was wonderful. He's a great kid and I wish he'd rubbed off on William some more. Fortunately Max was around to give Galen some more mature time. We went swimming twice, the zoo, teen night once or twice, the civil rights museum and Pink Palace IMAX.

The weekend of insane activity and indulged teenagers

William's Kendo team practice in Nashville brought about several other activities in the interest of saving fuel. First, here are some photos of William at practice and the obligatory beer and food that follows. For better photos go here. Thanks to Lisa for letting us stay with her. We drove William to the middle of freaking no where so he could stay over night with a homeschool buddy. Returned to Nashville for a brief break before going on a Starbucks mystery shop and pestering Ginger for directions to iD camp check-in. Thank heavens for the new GPS! We got Max checked in to camp where upon he instantly dismissed me and I was free to dash over and meet Lisa & Lynette to go to the CMA Fest. Lisa sweetly obtained a ticket for me! After having massive cell phone problems complete with leaving some bizarre message that alarmed my brother, parents and wife, I finally met up with Lynette and got to the stadium. Great performers, though Billy Ray must learn to shut up. Picked up William the next day and headed home. Beat for the next two days. Today is the first day I could even put 2 thoughts together, unfortunately those thoughts were "vacuum" and "mop". UGH!

How to build a patio without really trying

1. Have a friend decide to rip out her walkways
2. have the same friend offer to let you have the bricks if you remove them
3. get your teenaged sons to help you dig them up and load them in the truck (three times)
4. Have your hard working teenaged son clean the bricks and stack then neatly
5. Have your slacker teen marginally clean and horribly stack the remainder of the bricks
6. con a good friend to come "help" (since he's already built his own patio)
7. Get busy cooking, watching his kid brother etc...have everyone else do whatever he says
8. Go out occasionally to move a few dozen bricks.
   
9. Provide great barbeque and drinks and swimming compliments of #1&2