Since the hurricane...

Just some recent updates for our family.  Starting most recent and we'll work back.  Rosemary was blessed yesterday at church by her dad.  We were kind of worried no one from our family could come be a part of things, but Ben's cousin, Chris, drove two hours that morning to be there and my brother Jim and wife DeAnn drove down from Maryland for the entire weekend to spend time with us (they left their cute boys behind).  Rosemary was a little angel during her blessing.

We visited the same cemetery with Jim (since Wesley Jolly is Jim's 3rd great-grandfather too) and took another picture on the same bench.  It's not often we get our entire family in a picture and this is a first for the six of us.

We also went to Sarah P. Duke Gardens.  It wasn't as hot as our last couple of trips and much more enjoyable.  

Carolina likes to find random flowers and get her picture taken with them.

I'm so glad I just found my camera battery charger. I've experimented with the ipod and the android and really having trouble getting decent pictures.  The next two were taken with the android phone.

Love the biscuits Uncle Jim made us this morning!

Moving back a week...     Rosemary is one month old and Joe finally was cooperative for his first pictures with her.  Most of the time he pretty much ignores her, but every once in awhile, he will acknowledge her presence.  He is very talkative and usually carries on a running narrative for us.  He can say her name just fine, but usually refers to her as "new baby."

Saturday evening after the big storm and we were at the Durham Bulls' baseball game.  Not sure if they won or lost, but we had fun.  Ben got free tickets through a local orthopedic office for the whole family.  The event took place on the party deck and included free food too.  I loved the freedom of the party deck.  My kids could just roam and enjoy themselves and not drive everyone crazy.  We'll save our baseball game attendance for this once a year event.

So here is the damage from Irene.  We are several hours inland, so it was just a windy rainstorm.  Pretty mild, I guess.  The tree broken below is small compared to the next picture.

This picture is of a 100-foot tree that fell during a lightning storm at the end of June.  Seriously huge and we're glad it fell in the direction it did.