More snow fun!

The kids were out of school almost all last week due to snow. Here are some pictures of us having fun on the snow.

Finally the long anticipated video of Patrick riding his bike!!!!

Patrick Can Ride a Two Wheeler!

I was going to post some video footage, but have yet to get around to taking some. Patrick would not even ride his bike with the training wheels. They kept slipping out of place and then he would fall over. So her learned not to trust the training wheels and decided he would just rather not ride his bike at all. So, he has been riding his scooter everywhere. I think all that scooter riding helped him practice his balance.

Out of the blue Patrick said he wanted to try riding his two wheeler. I had tried earlier this summer to get him to try and he wanted nothing to do with it. So, I immediately took him up on his offer and in less than five minutes he was riding his bike around the cul-de-sac all by himself.

After that brief experience we took a bike riding hiatus due to the weather. But once it warmed up again, we could not keep him off his bike. He said he wished he did not have to sleep so that he could ride his bike all night long and was up at 7:30 the next morning asking if he could ride his bike.

The weather has cooled down, so there has not been as much riding time this past week. I better get that video taken before it gets really cold.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

I was tagged by my friend Shannon to post the fourth photo in the fourth album on my computer.

This is a picture of Lenny and his grandpa Keenan on a ferry in RI were we vacationed with Leonard's family summer 2007. We are on our way to an island off the coast of RI were we will tour the island by bicycle, visit a picturesque lighthouse and enjoy the quaint local shops.

I tag Tia, Ily and Karen.

Soccer season is well under way. There are only two games left. So far Lenny's team is undefeated. Patrick team does not keep score, but they have done well. Below is a video of Patrick scoring a goal. He does quite well for his age. At least his mother thinks so.

Happy Birthday Tamra and Lenny!

We have been out of touch with the rest of the word since Sunday afternoon. They weather service projected severe thunderstorms for last weekend, but we went all weekend with no rain. What they did not know was that instead of rain we were going to get hurricane strength winds of 60 t0 70 mph with gusts up t0 75mph.

We were completely oblivious to the storm raging outside as we sat in church Sunday afternoon. I could tell that it was a bit windy out from the window but was not prepared for the strength of the wind when we went outside. Trying to get to the car the children were struggling to walk in a straight line and the bits of leaves flying around in the air hurt when they hit you. The whole drive home we past street after street with fallen trees, broken branches, leaning road signs, swaying traffic lights. On the highway there was small debris blowing everywhere. Upon approaching our neighborhood there were branches and leaves strewn throughout the roads, more houses with broken trees, shingles flying, siding loosening.

We arrived at home to find the tree in our front yard cracked in half, luckily lying in the sidewalk and not in our house. The power had apparently gone out around 1:30. So we unloaded and settled in to wait out the rest of the storm. A few hour later a piece of metal on the side of our house came loose. I could hear it flopping around in the wind making awful screeching, scrapping, banging noises. It was attached by only a few nails. I really just wanted it to fall off. It was getting twisted and mangled by the wind, so would need to be replaced and I was worried that it was going to damage some other part of the house. Finally it did break loose, but we never found it. By the end of the day we were left with a few missing shingles, the metal off the side of the house, a fallen tree and no electricity.

The power was out for about 55 hours. They did tease us by turning on the power early Tuesday morning then taking it away again just a few hours later. We are lucky to have power back now. The report is that 21,000 local residents are still without power and it could be another day or two until power is restored.

Driving around there are lot of others a lot worse off. Damage to other house include roofs with half their shingles missing, sides of houses with big chunks of missing siding, trees down everywhere, a fallen chimney and who knows what else I have not seen.

I am happy to report that we are all safe and have wonderful friends and neighbors that helped us get through the power outage. It has been like camping out with street potluck BBQs and picnics to help us have warm found to eat and not let thawing food go to waste. We are very blessed and thankful.

Beginning the clean up process.

Hurricane Ike made it all the way to Ohio!

The other night at bed time I read the boys the story of Joseph and the coat of many colors. After finishing the story the following conversation took place.

Mom: Patrick, if Lenny dropped you in a big hole and then sold you would you forgive him next time you saw him or would you be mad at him?

Patrick: I would be mad at him for selling me!

Lenny (trying to be compassionate replied): Well, Patrick the next time I saw you I would give you half the money.

Mom(trying to contain my laughter): "HALF?!"

Patrick, however, seemed grateful for his brother's "generousness".

Patrick: Okay, I'd forgive you then.

Baseball is officially over and soccer has started. Today was both the boys first soccer game. It was Patrick's first soccer game ever and Lenny's first game on the older team where they play on a full field, not half a field. They both did well and had fun. I did not have my camera with me and they do not have another game for two weeks because of Labor day weekend. But I will try to get some footage at the next games. Lenny's team is light blue and called the Wild Cats. Although he thinks his name does not go well with his uniform because the Wild Cats are suppose to be red (High School Musical) And Patrick's team is neon green and called The Green Beans! I think that is so cute. It makes me smile every time Patrick tells someone his team name.

I feel like I should mention that the below t-ball footage is of Patrick's first game and he no longer slides into every base and does not have to be reminded to touch home plate. He improved well over the season.

Leonard took a half day on Friday and we went to the Y as a family to practice some soccer, and then went swimming. We got Lenny to attempt to dive into the water. His first few attempts were graceful belly flops. Finally I got him to squat down way low, put his hands straight out in a point above his head and then just told him to kind of fall over into the water head first. He was a little hesitate at first, but then did it! It looked real good, but he had to flip around in the water to get turned right side up again and all that turning around in the water I think kind of scared him. Although he knows how to swim and knows the right technique to do freestyle, he still does not like to put his face in the water. I hope next time at the Y I can convince him to try again.

Patrick had a big day as well. He swam all by himself, no floaty! He did really well at his swim lesson the past two weeks and got comfortable enough to try a back float with his floaty on all by himself. Friday I tried to get him to do the back float with out the floaty and with me supporting him. He seemed so relaxed and said he wanted to try to swim to the edge of the pool. He was practically close enough to reach out and grab the edge, but I let him go and he push off me and grabbed the edge. I could tell though that he had really swam for a spilt seond so I pulled him back further and told him to try again. And he did it he swam all by himself. It was actually a little more like treading water because he could hardly get himself to move anywhere, but the expression on his face and his joy was priceless. He was so proud. And so were we.

Patrick Playing T-Ball

Patrick is the one in red running from 1st to 2nd!

Have not posted in a while. Finally got some pictures on my computers, so here they are. Just an assortment of our summer activities (Dayton Dragons ball game, fun in Georgia on the lake with cousins, baseball, t-ball, local children's discovery garden).

Sorry still no pictures to post. I did buy a new camera, a canon 590 8 mp 4x optical. But our computer is in need of a cleaning. I have backed up all of our files and now just need to clear the hard drive and start over from stratch. I am still gearing up to do this. We need some anti-virus, spyware software stuff - the main reason for the overhaul. I will try not to drag my feet too long on this project, but I see no point in loading the new photo software and uploading pictures that I will just have to reload again.

I have been keeping myself busy with lots of reading. I started the Uglies series by Westerfield at the begining of June. It is a YA series, but because I enjoyed Twilight and Harry Potter so much I decided to give it a try. It is a good series. Of course nothing could be as intense as the Bella and Edward relationship, but the Uglies has some pretty good relationship stuff and lots of action. Definately a good read. There are 4 books in the series, Uglies, Pretties, Specials and Extras. I have yet to read Extras, but that book was kind of an after thought. It was only suppose to be a 3 book series and book 4 introduces a new main character, with the main character from the first 3 books as a side character. So, I am not as anxious about reading the 4th book, because the real story already has had a nice resolution. The book is set in the future and is very thought provoking about our social norms and customs as well as our treatment of the enivornment. And of course a good love story intertwined throughout the whole series.

I never really liked reading growing up and feel like I have discovered a whole new world. Reading is such a great source of escape and entertainment that I never new I was missing. I know I now neglect my family a whole lot more and sometimes stay up way to late, but I am glad a have found a new interest. Now when someone asks what my hobbies and interests are I have an answer. I like to read!

We have had a good Sunday at the Keenan house. Today Lenny bore his testimony for the first time in sacramaent meeting. He volunteered to do it all by himself. I asked him if he knew what he wanted to say say. He asked if he could just read a scripture. So I asked him if he had a favorite scripture or story that he wanted to share. He said he liked the story of Heleman's warriors. I asked him what his favorite part of the story was. He said it was that the parents taught their boys about the church, so they were not afraid to fight. So I told him he could get up and say that and that he was happy his parents taught him about the gospel. He wanted me to write it down for him. So I wrote down three simple sentences describing what we had talked about and he went up to the pulpit all by himself with his piece of paper. He stood up straight and tall and read it nice and clear. Afterwards I asked if he was nervous and he said that he was when he first got up there, but after he finished he wanted to do it again. I am very pleased with Lenny for being so brave and for recognizing what a good feeling he had after bearing his testimony.

Lenny also had another milestone today. He lost his second tooth. He was very brave about that too. It was very loose but not quite loose enough to fall out. He worked on it all by himself and pulled it out all on his own. Yesterday he found out that his Aunt's, who is living with us, birthday is on Monday. After discovering this he said he had to loose his tooth before Monday so that he could get money from the tooth fairy to buy his Aunt a birthday present. So, I think he worked extra hard today to get that tooth out in time for his aunt's birthday.

Lenny can be a handful at times, but he really does have a good heart. I just need to work on remembering that when he is jumping all over the furniture, making messes all over the place and constantly climbing all over me.