Did I Mention Rain?

So today it rained most of the day. Seems like we're living in Seattle. Today was day 21 of rain this month (28 days.) Luckily tomorrow will allegedly be rain-free. I hope so as I still need to plant those darned blueberry bushes.

Yesterday was a tragic day here in the States. There was a massive storm front that spawned hundreds of tornadoes and they went through 6 states just destroying everything in their path. I've never been through a serious tornado like this one, and luckily few have as most tornadoes aren't this bad. These were just insane. A mile-wide swath of destruction is just crazy. And scary.

Riley seems to be feeling better as she is acting a little more normal. The only thing that wasn't normal today was her nap; it was a bit short today. I know she was tired since she was laying her head on my shoulder. That's what she does when she's tired. One of the cutest things she does when she's really tired is to just lay on the floor wherever she is and act like she's sleeping.

Some other "big" news yesterday was President Obama releasing the long-form version of his birth certificate. For some reason certain politicians believed that the POTUS (President of the United States) wasn't born in the United States. Some people say it's just because they disapprove of or hate or something him so much that they are just looking for anything to get him out of office or discredit him or whatever. I believe that. I don't see any other reason for this whole thing. I don't see any racism as everyone is saying now. It's interesting that they are only now saying this. How long have there been these "birther" allegations? A year?

What I find especially interesting is that the POTUS waited so long to release the document. The way I look at it, either he releases it right after the allegations are first brought out, or he ignores them and moves on. Why wait all this time and then produce it now? That doesn't make sense, especially since during his press conference after having released his birth certificate he said he found the allegations amusing. I read somewhere that he did it yesterday to try and take media attention away from his announcement about the new Secretary of Defense (Leon Panetta) and Ben Bernanke's historic press conference. That I can definitely believe. The Obama administration has used the media very well for their benefit.

On a lighter note I was excited to see that OT Gabe Carimi from the Wisconsin Badgers was drafted by the Chicago Bears today. Being a Badger fan that makes me happy and being a Bears fan I'm happy too as we have needed offensive line help for a few years. Am I convinced that Jay Cutler is the perfect quarterback for our team and the offense we run? Not completely, but Carimi will certainly help.

Did you hear about the "elders" in Korea today? The name you'll recognize is former POTUS Jimmy Carter. Sounds like his visit their wasn't very productive as the headlines afterward read "thanks for nothing, Jimmy." I've been reading a lot about Korea and specifically our involvement in the Korean war lately. I'm not sure North Korea (DPRK) will ever really cooperate with the south. They just have this deep-seeded hate against the south almost as if it's from back in the days of the birth of communism, even though they didn't get communism until later. And the nuclear situation just ruins everything. If they would lay off the development of nuclear weapons that would really help their stature in the world and especially with the south.

I saw an article just today that their was new construction sited at a nuclear site in the DPRK. The world and especially South Korea will not take anything seriously from them if they continue to develop nuclear weapons. What I did learn from former POTUS Carter's visit and press conference is that the humanitarian conditions in the north are pretty bad. Unfortunately this is what happens when you have an evil dictator like Kim Jong-Il. He doesn't care about his people at all. He has his own agenda and that's what matters. I also find it deplorable that the DPRK refuses to take responsibility for the sinking of the South Korean ship and the attack on the South Korean military base. Oh, but they have deep regret. Whatever.

Today the DPRK was threatening the south with "merciless fire" if the launches of balloons, which contain pamphlets ridiculing Kim Jong-Il & family, didn't stop. With that attitude how can they expect the south to want to meet for any kind of summit or have any food distributions. Craziness.

So Grace has off school tomorrow, but she has a birthday party to go to. We still haven't purchased a gift yet. She has started the card so she should be able to finish that up pretty easily in the morning. Looks like we'll be heading out to Target to get that gift taken care of. I'll also need to decide on something for dinner as I haven't planned anything.

Tonight I made blueberry pancakes and you'd think I had made everyone's favorite meal. I made two batches (Julie cooked most of the second batch) and they are all gone. I think I could have made more and at least some of them would have been eaten also. That Riley just love, love, loves pancakes. If I feed her them for breakfast she will eat like 6 of them. In her defense I do make them a little on the small side, but she had at least 5 I think for dinner tonight. She is pretty much the same way though with a waffle. Those seem to be some of her favorite foods. She gets very excited.

You should have seen her tonight. It was just too funny. After she finished her fourth pancake I think it was, she was actually licking her plate. And I don't mean a little bit, I mean really cleaning it off. She had blueberries everywhere: pants, shirt, face, table. This girl really enjoys her food. Here is a cellphone photo of her after she enjoyed a marshmallow bunny a couple days ago.



You can really see her eye crossing in this picture unfortunately. Try to focus on the messy face. Most meals this is how her face looks. Today she took her "extra" yogurt and was rubbing it all over her arms and hands and calling it soap (hope.)

I have a few more cellphone photos I can share. These next two are from a walk we took. She was walking her bear in it's stroller. In the second one you can see Grace racing down the hill way out in front of Riley. This was just before Grace crashed. It wasn't pretty.





This last one is Riley in a shoe box. She's almost getting too big to do things like this anymore, but she still tries. Sad to see her growing up, but I have to admit we're spending the time to enjoy watching her grow up as opposed to when we had Grace at this age. It's amazing how different you are with a second child. I'm not even sure it's only that she's the second child so much as that Grace is 8 already.



Alright, I must go and get some sleep.