Tuesday, August 28, 2007

A round

by Grant

    brought to you once again, education by the Simpsons. Woefully ignorant is I, as I just learned that that weird singing thingy where one group of people sing  and then another group starts on the same section a moment later is called "a round." Fascinating is it not?

    I have begun to obsess about minor details such as heating the house during wintertime. Our old farm house does not have the greatest heat retention, and the furnace system is old and inefficient. As such, we began heating with wood in recent years. Unfortunately, my wrist pain has made it difficult to swing an axe as I once did. Thankfully, my father, being the kind man that he is, has loaned me his log splitter. I spent a couple weeks of free time (which was about 13 minutes all told) and finally on this last Saturday I got it to start. Ornery cuss, kind of like my Dad. Maybe more like my Mom. I also don't have enough wood, but I still have a connection from last year. This means wandering miles from home with only a chainsaw for company. The good news is that I have 500k in Accidental Death and  dismemberment life insurance plus 500k for a natural death. Hey, find the silver lining, I always say.

Baby/Life Update:

Hmm. The girls are doing well. Serenity's rolled over a couple times. Liberty is still lagging a bit physically, but that'll probably be par for the course most of her baby life. It's amazing how different that they are for being "identical." The boys are doing well. Titus is becoming much more eloquent and Forrest is being a big help typically. I do have a couple videos and my brother Forrest has a bunch of pictures that I'll grab and post.

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Murder!

Murder most foul. I just learned (yes, from the Simpsons) that a group of birds is called a "murder." How cool is that!

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Food for Thought

During World War II, Adolf Hitler called Roosevelt a war criminal.*

I guess with this in mind, it surpises me less that the crazy lefties out there would call Bush a war criminal rather than that they would insult him by comparing him to Hitler.


*In the last letter he wrote from his bunker before the Battle of Berlin

Sunday, August 19, 2007

Everybody is a critic

by Grant

I have subscribed to the blog philosophy simply because I ain't ramming stuff down your throat. You don't want to read about my ramblings, you can click that cute little X in the upper right hand corner. Or better yet, don't even view the page in the first place. I also have tried to break specific family issues into a separate section so you don't have to read my ramblings if you don't want to. Although, I have to admit that sometimes I mix the two. The perils of reading prose penned by yours truly. Now, to address one other criticism. I DON'T KNOW HOW MUCH THE GIRLS WEIGH! We know it's at least 13 pounds. But we have not been taking them in for regular check-ups because we have some people that come to the house and make sure that they're progressing normally. Unfortunately, they don't bring a flippin' scale with them. Now, I'll give you an update.

Baby/Life Update:
The trips went well. I spent 16 hours (2 8 hour sections) with a friend and talked about all sorts of stuff and would probably bore the socks off most of you. The Baseball game was cool (even though I'm not a huge fan) primarily because of great seats and great commentary from Kelly. Why I don't watch sports: Because my team lost and I wanted to punch out an annoying Mariners fan in front of me. If I want that kind of aggravation I'll tell my kids to pick up their toys.

The trip to Fairfield went well as well. Rebekah went up early while I was in Seattle and I guess things went ok, but she was happy to see me. Considering the sheer number of people and personalities, things went better (far better) than expected. Titus is pretty challenging as he wants to get into everything, but after a few days he would generally stay close to the rest of the Ballard fam.

Right now I am sitting on the floor by the girls as I am sick. Rebekah took the boys to church. Instead of having the TV on, I turned on some music with some cool visualizations that display on the TV. The girls have been pretty fascinated by it. What's the music you ask? Sometime mild that Rebekah had. Uhm, named after a city in the midwest. Oh, that's right Chicago! Wow. this could be considered child abuse couldn't it?

As far as pictures go, my other family members took far more than we did. Maybe I can get some from them.

Friday, August 3, 2007

On the road again

by Grant

    Rebekah and young ones have gone to my parents house. I am going to Seattle with a friend to watch a baseball game. When I get back, then I will make my own migration east southward. Hopefully we'll have lots of good pictures when we get back. Since we'll be gone for a week and basically w/out Internet access I don't anticipate posting anything for a week or so.

Baby/Life Update
    We finally connected with some babysitters. Two teenagers (late teens) and their mom. We took the little ones over (all four) and it went really well. Rebekah was able to go to her Bible Study and after awhile I went and visited a friend around the block. It went so well that I am still amazed. Now, if we can just get something regular going :)