A few pics of Nolan!

We don't want to show his face though so you will have to take our word for it that he is cute as could be!

We had a really nice time with Nolan. We learned a lot and we hope that we will be able to see him again in the future.

Our First Foster Care Placement

Elliot and I are watching an 11 month old boy (we'll call him "Nolan") for 6 days while his permanent foster mother takes a vacation. It's called respite care when one foster parent gives another foster parent a break for a short time. So, for our first placement we're doing respite care.

We picked Nolan up from his day care yesterday. He's gorgeous and so sweet. Our first night together went pretty well. He took about 45 minutes to fall asleep, but then he slept through the night. (Yay!) We had to wake up a little early this morning, but we're not nearly as tired as we thought we'd be. Lucky us!

Approved to be Foster Parents!

Mary and I have just been approved to be foster parents! Hooray for us! We applied in February and we were approved last week. We will let it be known as soon as we know anything else about who the first foster child or children will be. We are approved for young children either boys or girls and we are approved for up to two at once.

A Trip to the Fort

Last weekend we found out (the fun way) that we don't have to go all the way to Mississippi to see gun toting reenactors.

I present: Mission San Luis!

One time home of some Spanish and Native Americans!

Doesn't look like much but during its heyday, this was probably equivalent to a Goldfinger-era Fort Knox.

Every so often some of the people of who currently work there give little demonstrations of what life must have been like for those old timey settlers. First up, a march!

Picking your nose is timeless.

That mound over there is actually a giant Apalachee Council house.

Not too shabby. Next we got to go inside the actual fort and check the place out.

Once inside it became clear that 8 bit space invaders was based mostly in reality.

This building was used to shoot at aliens.

Next they showed us how they might defend themselves:

It was neat to see all those old guns shoot. They had matchlocks, flintlocks, hand held cannons called "hand guns" and a normal cannon. The leader of the reenactment told the crowd about how innacurate all the weapons were. He said that they didn't even aim their guns too hard, turning their heads away at the last moment so that they wouldn't get hit with sparks from the guy next to them. Sometimes only a few of guns would go off and sometimes they wouldn't hit anyone for a couple of minutes, but fortunately for them the ammunition dealt astounding levels of damage to its victims, vaporizing them instantly.

A cannonball grazed this guy's ear.

Also they sometimes would urinate on attackers climbing up the walls.

All in all it was a fun and informative trip.

Hope to see you there sometime!

Clotiiiiildaaaaaaa!!!

So. It's not just dogs that chew on shoes. :(

Habitat For Humanity

This past Saturday Elliot and I participated in landscaping a Habitat For Humanity house here in town. A group of people from our work, pictured below, worked together with others from the community to rip up grass, lay down sod, plant trees and shrubs, mulch, and water the yard. It was hard work, but it was fun.

Happy Anniversary, Us!

Today is Mary's and my 2nd wedding anniversary!

567∞!

I love my wife and I love my life!

Mississippi Beach

Recently, while we were in Mississippi, we decided to visit a beach. One thing that we noticed about this beach, was that there seemed to be a lot less wildlife than we were used to. No beach grasses or trees and hardly any birds.

There was this one armadillo(not pictured), but it was dead. We even looked for shells but couldn't find any... at first.

What sort of creature could possibly live in such a desolate, lonely place? Must be bitter and probably ornery, crabby you might say.

You'd be right: a hermit crab.

And eventually another one.

The sand was really nice though.