Hertzler Reunion

click on this slideshow to go to the web album. Here are some pictures from a reunion that my mom hosted for the Hertzler side of my extended family (my moms mom) hope you enjoy. This event was July 6, but I'm just getting around to posting the pictures

Cara Eve Stoltzfus 7/19/08

 

 

 

 

Cara Eve Stoltzfus was born this morning at 10:36am.. and is doing wonderfully. Candace is amazing, and I'm humbled by her capacity to do this childbirth thing. 6lb 5oz 18 1/2 inches long. Shes sleeping now... i just changed my first diaper in about forever (ok about a year and a half or something) anyway... im proud of my daughter, and proud of my wife... this is the second baby she had with absolutely no pain medicine or anything. just gripping my hand. Thanks also goes out to our friend and Doula Jan King. She was helpful with the soothing words and encouragement.

some pictures are posted on facebook... if you dont have a profile there, you should. I will get around to publishing more here as I am able

Tylers graduation video

this is a video for my nephew Tyler Price. congratulations bro. by the looks of these pictures, you have a great and loving family :) its something to be extremely greatful for, and no amount of wealth, power, or influence can purchase you this kind of stuff. I wish you the best in whatever you do, and wherever you go.

My sister Diane (tylers mom) pulled all the content together, and I just did the computer work. She came over from NJ to help edit it and we spent many hours together... over the course of 3 days...- i only had minor finishing touches... AND THEN my hard drive crashed. dangit! I had lots of stuff backed up, so I didnt lose my life, but I did lose this project in its entirety... so what you are viewing is the 2nd edit version. whew...

anyway... computers stink sometimes.

ultrasound

 

 

heres some ultrasound pictures. One traditional and one 3d. its all a bit fuzzy, but when you see it in real life, its amazing how real it feels.

Looks like a girl they say. In our first ultrasound it looked like a boy. So who knows, and we are happy with HEALTHY. But we are pulling together some new girls names, and thinking that this new ultrasound was much more acurate (because of the size of the baby)

The excitement is mounting. :) just over two months... I guess we should start working on transitioning Tori into marias bedroom. guess we need to shop for bunkbeds. hmmm

springtime and puppies

its been a good spring so far. Toby is growing quickly, as are the girls, and my wifes belly. :) It's a good time to be alive.

here are some pictures to enjoy... of course, clicking the slide show will take you to the album, where you can enjoy the pictures full size.

its been a typical april/may with loads of rain, some really beautiful weather. Trips to the park, and days working outdoors. It's fun to be across the street from mom - easy to do lunch together sort of randomly, even just sitting on the swings, or walking the dog.

We were watching old movies last night - memories... wish dad was here to share them.

new puppy

Toby, our new puppy.

Maria and Toby, enjoying the Spring sun at the park.

Yes... I finally got a dog. Something I've been talking about for years. We bought Toby, a 9 week old Black Shih-Poo - half poodle, and half Shih-tzu. He's cute and rambunctious, and very much a puppy.
The girls adore him, and smother him with kisses... which he eagerly returns. Maria is enjoying caring for him too - its cool to see her excited about helping with all aspects of caring for him - I hope that continues. He's really small under 3 lbs.. but will grow to about 10lb probably.
Anyway, yall are welcome to stop by for a visit. he needs interactions with different people... to become socialized. So make it an excuse for a visit :)

anniversary trip to Ft Lauderdale

it seems like the only time im blogging lately is when I have some photos to show off... anyway, i wanted to journal this trip better, but never got around to it. I will give a quick summary.

We went to Ft Lauderdale for a couple of days. We had a great time, beautiful weather - just being tourists, eating in restaurants, catching a couple movies, and spending time together. We are celebrating 14 years of marriage.

We got a last minute internet package deal which included air, hotel, and car rental. So the expense wasnt that much...

a nice surprize when we picked up our car was that we were given a brand new hybrid Toyota Prius... it only had a thousand miles on it so far... and i absolutely loved driving it. It was so quiet and smooth. It had adequate power when you needed it, or on the highway, and this cool display that showed you when the electric motor was on, or when it was taking energy from your momentum and putting electricity back into the batteries. Really some very cool technology. We drove 260 miles I think, and it only cost us $22 - our average was somewhere around 45mpg... WOW.

Ft Lauderdale was nice... a very wealthy resort type place on the coast... and then more ghetto as you move inland. its amazing to me how much money is spent on boats of all different sorts, and expensive million dollar houses and these huge cruise lines. How much money is spent on excess and luxury. And yet i understand the attraction to it as well.

Family

I've posted some pictures from my family reunion. click on the slideshow to go to the album. I had my camera out for the group picture, and then went around and just took some random shots... so I know I didnt even get a good representation of everyone that was there, sorry I got some people lots, and totally missed some people (thats how random goes I guess)

Ive got a huge family on my dads side, He was one of 14, and so I have 75 cousins just on that side. in my album you can see pictures of 20some of them... obviously just a small portion of the whole family.

It was nice to be together, even as we age, and our own families start their own traditions, and reunions, its still nice to know how we share something in common. Our blood, and our heritage. And its surprising how so much of our upbringing has been formational in our own lives. You can see a thread running through the family, even though it is morphed into something new because of spouses (who don't always get it :)

Anyway, its lots of fun. Its also fun to see after a long time apart, how people resemble each other... like Joe, who reminds me of my dad... and Fannie, who really resembles her mom (my grandma who we all called mummy.)

I could describe these people typically as loud, fun, goofy, but in a mature mischievous way. I enjoyed talking to my uncles about rook, and hearing Amos remember how he played with my dad so much when they were first married. He told how they played so much together that they could read each others hands, by finger signals and winks - basically cheating, and no one could beat them (naturally.) I would love to get together and play with all these old timers. I hope i get invited some time (hint hint)

In many ways, I am much younger than most of the cousins... I am the third youngest of 75, and Julie is 2nd youngest... So I don't have the tight relationships that some of the others have that spent a lot of time together as teenagers and stuff.

I know its hard to take time to spend together, and the holidays are so busy -BUT- we really should spend more than two hrs once a year.