An Update

Some going-ons in Princeton

Our ghost from Annie's Little Pots that hung in our front tree

Luna waking up from a nap in the sun

Our new toilet and rug :)

Grant goes... "People usually post pictures of their kids on their blog...

and we're posting our new toilet..."

The pumpkin that the squirrels ate.

It's Grant's pumpkin.

They left mine alone. :)

Christmas in Princeton?

No pictures for this post, but our neighbors down the street already have Christmas lights on their house and candy canes lining their walkway.  And these aren't just subtle white lights, they are flashing, fading, colored lights.

I thought getting our Christmas tree up the day after Thanksgiving was early.  I guess not!

Yard Clean-Up Day in Princeton

So this past weekend Grant's Uncle Rick and Aunt Marti and his cousin Beth and her husband, Brad came down to Princeton from the suburbs to help us with our house maintenance!  We still had some dead limbs hanging from the big tree in our backyard from the big storm a few weeks ago, so Rick helped us get those down.  Marti was a huge help by weeding and pruning our plants around the house.  We had a great time!  Oh, and don't worry about Rick on those high ladders - he's a firefighter! 

Glad we're down on the ground!

Marti obscured by the yard waste bag.

Head's up!

And as Grant said... (jokingly of course) "Hey Rick, could you get those branches down with a little less leaf mess?" :)

It's a bird... it's a plane... No... It's Uncle Rick! :)

Oh, and he even showed Grant how to use a chainsaw.  We should all be afraid.  Very afraid. :)

Tornado

It's official - it was a tornado that hit us Friday night.  Here's what the local paper had to say:

As it turns out, the Princeton area was hit by a tornado Friday night. On Saturday, the National Weather Service said the damage was caused by straight-line winds. On Sunday, the National Weather Service sent professionals to the area to assess the damage. On Monday afternoon, a press release from the Quad Cities National Weather Service determined at least a portion of Friday night’s storm damage was due to a tornado.

According to the agency’s Web site, the majority of the damage was still caused by straight line winds, however, evidence of a brief tornado was found near Route 26, about two miles southeast of town.

Wind damage from Friday’s storm was rated as EF1, which means wind was estimated at 105 miles per hour along the damage path, according to the weather service. The tornado dissipated three miles southeast of town, where a witness sighted a funnel cloud more than halfway to the ground.

What a Week!!

Last weekend our friends Dan and Cheryl came to visit with their kids, Chloe and Gavin.

It was a lot of fun having everyone around and we even survived a "tornado!"

Oh yeah - and we had a guest dog too - Jessie! :)

All of the girls got new purses in Princeton!

On Friday night we had a terrible storm.  No one is quite sure what this storm was classified as, but you look at the damage.  Looks like a tornado to us.  We even had the tornado siren go off!  Thankfully we had Dan and Cheryl to help with the clean-up!!  

The worst damage for us was this tree on our garage.  Luckily it didn't do any damage other than ripping off the gutter.

Trees down behind our garage.

This tree got singed by something and lost all of its needles on the bottom half.

Our beautiful backyard tree - now a lot more sparse!

Relaxing the morning after the storm.

We took a break from the clean-up to take a walk to the park.

As we went further down our street (Thompson) this is what we saw.

The roof on the funeral home down the street.

These people live about two blocks away from us.

We bought a little electric saw and chopped up the tree ourselves.

Dan and Grant on the roof while Cheryl and I hauled limbs to the curb.

Everyone helped out.

Even Chloe!

The next day we enjoyed the beautiful day and had a little picnic.

Notice all the limbs sitting on the curb across the street!

We did lots of reading and relaxing while everyone was here.  A perfect kind of summer!

The Quad City Air Show

This was a school bus with a jet engine in it!

It's certainly one way to get to school!

Watching the planes.

See the wing walker?!?

Otto the Helicopter flying backwards

Meeting Olivia

Our friends Mike and Melissa just had their baby, Olivia, a couple of months ago.

We met them for lunch and she is just so adorable!

Mike and Melissa with Olivia

Look at that smile!

Holding on for dear life.

Notice all the drool on Grant's shirt. :)