A Perfect Fathers Day

Sunday was my first fathers day, and I couldn't have asked for anything more. I got to sleep in a bit, and then was finally woken up by my daughters infectious giggling and screaming.


Then I went fishing with my Brother and Dad.





While they were fishing, I kept busy chasing this cool dragonfly.





I was in the middle of changing lens when my Dad caught this one, even though he got the fish, I call this "the picture that got away".








Back at the cabin we took a relaxing pontoon ride around the lake. My Dad finally got to show off his granddaughter to the neighbors down the way. She got to hangout in her favorite floaty.





The neighbors had a new dog toy that uses .22 shell to launch a dog toy out into the lake. I jumped at the chance to take a few pictures of Buddy leaping off the dock.





Finally, while we were docking the boat, my Dad started bragging to our other neighbors about my photography. (Thanks Dad!) So then I ended up going out in their speedboat to snap a few of them having a blast on tubes.











Here is the full Tubing Album, I caught a couple wipe out sequences that looked pretty amazing.







A huge thanks to my wife, and family for making this day one to remember.

Memorial Day: Backyard Landscaping

We had a very busy memorial day weekend, making it to both Osceola, and Danbury, and then home buy Sunday evening. My goal was to spread the remaining mulch around our existing beds... but combined with how much mulch we still had left over, and how nice the day was, I got quite ambitious.

I realized that with the garage roof was done, and the Elm tree was down, we were ready to finally plant around our garage and along the neighbors garage. With a healthy mix of planning and impulsiveness I set off to digging. And then off to Gertens for a completely full pickup truck of plants and shrubs.

Black tube sox with shorts... killer combo. Ignore me - Mia wiggling nonstop is again the highlight.

Memorial Day Landscaping - Timelapse from Nathan on Vimeo.

All of this rain we have been getting recently has actually been great for everything we planted. Once its nicer out - I will post some better before and after pictures.

There is no way we could have done all of this in a day without Sandy's help. And thanks to Grandma Peg for sweeping off out porch, and Kathy for making us Dinner. My imagination works at this speed, always forgetting that everything takes longer to do than I think it will.

In other news, Mia is officially crawling. This morning as mol went down the stairs, Mia went crawling after, and I did a test to see, what Mia would do when she got to the stairs. : ) I was of course right there, and she didn't even slow down, in a way she kind of threw her arms out, like she was going to penguin slide down the stairs. (Mia would have made an excellent penguin, in the last month before finally crawling she perfected the belly swimming in place move.)

While installing the gate at the top of the stairs last night was good timing, it marks the transition into the next stage of parenthood. My good friend Andrew explained it really well... "there is absolutely no instinct for self preservation, that is all on us now."

No matter, just as with the added responsibilities and stress that came with each milestone we already passed - each day also brings the small moments that fill my heart and blow my mind. A new giggle, clapping her hands, or maybe even waving at me as I left for work.