Happy Birthday Veronica! We love you! 

Yes - we are alive and well and really enjoyed Yellowstone. Here is Veronica putting her piggies in the Yellowstone River. It was cold! I don't think we'll be posting all 100+ pictures, but we sure did see some fantastic sights. 

This is the courtyard at the San Xavier Mission just outside Tucson. Beautiful old mission presently undergoing renovation. It was actually interesting to see the damage caused by the great number of birds over the years that nested in the various Saints and such. Missions are neat though. Let's see - I am home in Georgia now, and Veronica's latest addition to vocabulary is "My"...so it's My Evan this, or My Elmo, My whatever. Cute. :) 

I just got back from Tucson, AZ where I attended the AAMVA Region IV Conference (see www.aamva.org if you don't know what an AAMVA is). Great meeting, beautiful area - it was really nice to see so many old friends I have not seen in years. It's also nice to see such a large gathering of civil servants who actually have a passion about their job and doing things better. Commiseration is always good, but so is problem solving. Anyway - Tucson was a little hot...I guess it got up around 110F each day I was there, but it's a dry heat. :) (It really does make a difference...but so does air conditioning.)

94!

If she won't brag, I'll do it for her - Jen took the GA real estate exam yesterday and scored 94%!Congratulations Jen! I guess that means the pressure is really on now, eh? :) I was invited yesterday evening to dinner with friends here on the project in Helena, MT. We went to dinner at an establishment only accessible by boat - I'll have to update this post later with the name. I want to say Indian something something, but it's not quite sticking. The lake was beautiful and we had it mostly to ourselves because most of the boaters who would have come from Helena were scared off by thunder, lightning, and hail that hit the town as little as a couple hours before we hit the water - zapped the electric a couple times in the office and caused a bunch of us to loose works in progress. We all forgot cameras for the outing though - I guess I'll have to finagle an invite from our host again when I get Julie, Jen and Veronica out next month!

Action shot 1: I forget what she was laughing at, but she just picked up the telltale sounds of a big jumbo from the nearby airforce base. She likes to point out airplanes and birdies as they fly overhead. 

Action shot 2: "Boss! The plane, the plane!" 

Action shot 3: post-airplane sighting.

Mommy is putting Veronica's hair up to prepare her for model action poses. Cookie is very interested in the background. That, or she's really hoping a banana dreamcicle will slip from a pair of little hands. 

Veronica and mommy enjoying banana dreamcicles on a beautifal Marietta father's day weekend. Yes, you can actually tell that the grass is growing out beyond the sod! I understand our nextdoor neighbor's son cut our back lawn for us on Monday...can't wait to see how it looks. :) Actually, by the time I see it again, I won't know the difference...which is probably good...in a way. 

This is Veronica's casual "rock star" look. I think she's waiting for mommy to fetch her water for her. ;) 

The Ice Cream Series

This is an "experimental post," to see how / whether an MPEG movie post will work. This is a slideshow compilation of the pictures that preceded in chronological posting (they appear individually below). The experiment didn't work - can't share movie files using the Hello software. But...in case you are curious, you can still view the movie. I had to upload the file to my rootresource site and make it available there. You may be able to just click on the picture below, your it may be quicker to right click on it and indicate "save target as..." to copy it to your local drive before playing. The file should be about 1.8 megs.

Sadly, her toes cannot always keep up with her mind and she stumbled in hot pursuit. I stole this picture of her after she hauled herself up and cried for daddy to pick her up, make her boo-boo better. The boo-boo disappeared as soon as I showed her the pictures stored on the camera...then reappeared when I wouldn't let her monkey with it! ;) Let's see - Montana is pretty and green, nice temps and all that. The rain blew in early this evening as I left work to return to my room, and think about doing more work. I'm looking forward to visiting Tuscon at the end of the month and spending a lot of July with Jen & Veronica! We'll be recruiting soon for a house and dog sitter when we pull a family field trip to Montana and Yellowstone. :) 

I tried to get a picture of her handiwork along her shirtfront when she got down from the table. She inherited her daddy's fascination with cameras and was compelled to chase after the photographer! 

Of course, some foods can help you learn to write. They can also serve as a nifty facial disguise. :)