New flowers

Emily and I have been putting off the purchase of flowers for the summer. We finally did this on Wednesday evening. We bought Salvia, day lilies, marigolds, and Nearly Wild roses to replace the azaleas in the back yard. We also bought begonias for the front yard. Normally I don't care for these, but the rabbits that frequent the neighborhood don't eat them. We Here are a few pictures after the rain we had today.

Red Salvia


Stella day lilies


Emily took this shot of the rabbits that frequent the front yard. This was taken July 2005.

A few days off

I've taken Friday and Monday off from work, so it looks like get a little R&R. Emily and I went to the OBGYN yesterday. Everything is going well and we're still on track for a delivery of May 23rd. We also visited the day care yesterday.


We had dinner with Ian and Roya Sunday night. I took the camera to get a few pictures, but most of my shots didn't turn out. The one below is of Ian with Chloe.

Plano wildlife

Paul and Patty stopped by last night with Elizabeth. Elizabeth absolutely loves dogs since the baby shower. I took a couple of snapshots. She definitely knows how to smile for the camera.


Cleo was interested in Elizabeth at first, but quickly worked the adults for petting.



Took a quick snapshot of this lizard in the back yard today. He wasn't interested in hanging around when I showed up with the camera.


Andrea sent two books for the baby this week. One of the books was Little Pea. Emily and Andrea both hate peas (but for different reasons), so this book is really funny.



Here's yet another shot of Cleo at her favorite perch every morning.

36 Weeks

Took this picture of Emily tonight in the nursery. She's at 36 weeks. Not much longer to go!

Easter at the Schneider house

We had lunch with the Schneider family today. It got hot (about 91), but it wasn't too bad but it does go to show you that spring in Texas is only a few weeks long.

We took a lot of pictures and here are just a few. I've tried to put captions and names on here, but I'm not good with spellings of Persian names, so please forgive me.


Ian and Ideen at the piano.


Tahereh and her Easter hat.


Roya making a face.


Naheed and Mahvash.


Here I am enjoying some of Alan's homebrew apple cider. 7% alcohol packs a punch on a hot day.


The dog's enjoyed the pool. The high got to 91 degrees today.





Tourain.


Emily.

Latest pics of Emily

Here are a couple of quick shots of Emily from last night. She's 34 weeks along, and as you can see, she's really getting big. She's at the phase now where her hands and feet swell and there's not much room for food or anything else.




The pictures in the background are of the bayou in Idianola near Marie & Dorsey's house. I took these over Thanksgiving. Emily and I thought they turned out pretty good and so she had them matted and framed to fill the walls on the living room. She also framed the shot of the barn I took on Los Rios in Plano. Pictures are below.

That damn bird...

The picture above is of an African Crowned Crane. It was taken at a hotel Emily and I stayed at in Maui in 2004. This has very little to do with what's going on today, but I was playing with Photoshop and found the Shadows & Highlights feature which saved these two underexposed pictures.

Oddly, the crane is one thing I'll always remember about the trip because you had to walk through the hotel courtyard to get to your car. Every day we went by, the crane was there at the door looking in. He really wasn't shy as you can see. I think he liked looking in at us just as much as we liked looking out at him.

Spring is here

Spring's here, and in Texas that means that summer is almost here too. Flowers are starting to bloom in the back yard and these little dianthus come on strong in the spring with a strong hot pink color. We take pictures of them every year and I think no matter what camera you use, it's just hard to capture the color. They're hard to ignore when you're looking out the window.

Emily and I went to our first childbirth preparation class yesterday. It went well and we met other couples at about the same stage as we are. Most of the couples in the class were having boys and most of the folks I know have had boys recently. Baby gender seems to go in cycles, but I'd bet that world wide it stays pretty balanced.