Props to my better half...

Right. So, I did a photojournalism degree in college. I sweated for 5 years to get the thing, and what do I have to show for it? Well, I work in engineering and my wife takes far better photos than I do.

So, not much.

I mean, to me the photos below are great. Put a camera in Heather's hands and she produces these gems. I'm humbled.

Finn never ceases to smile when you hold him up like this. Plus, it never ceases to put that dorky look on my face either.

Everytime I look at this photo of Lachlan it makes my heart twinge just a bit.

Truly, I am a blessed man.

Fatherhood in a single photo...

I am convinced that this pretty much sums up what it is like to be a new dad.

Tired, somewhat perplexed, and left hanging with half a bowl of Rice Krispies on a way too early Saturday morning.

Yep,.....that's pretty much it.

World Cup Fever...

This is late in coming for sure, but I already miss the World Cup and needed a reminder of it. Tell me a game that brings more countries together for one sporting event. American football? Baseball?

Nope.

Soccer really is the only international game that truly can lay claim to a series of matches that can be called the "World" cup. The soccer behomeths like Germany, Brazil, and Argentina are ever-present during World Cups, but it's the little guys I like to watch more. The US, Japan, Australia, etc. These teams are playing with their hearts because they want to win no matter how elusive that win may be.

Usually, once the semi-finals start I lose my zeal a bit. It's really the beginning knock-out stages that are more dramatic. You have all these underdogs that might just make it through if they are the better team on the day. Then again, it's hard to beat drama like Zidane's headbutt. That's another story though.

I was sorry to see the US tumble down like they did. Myself, just like many others, after watching the US performance in 2002 thought that maybe we have a chance to be a world-class team. Maybe we do, but after our recent round of matches, maybe we were just really lucky in 2002. We sure as hell had an easier table to get through back then. Ah well.

In the photo of above, we're all wearing England shirts. Since the boys are half-English you gotta support that stuff. Plus, I love the English squad. They just manage to break my heart everytime. We took this shot at 6:00 a.m. on England's opening day this World Cup. In the end, England broke my heart once more. Sigh.

Anyway, I look forward to the next one. The boys will be 4 years old by then. Wierd.

By the way, extra street-cred/punk rock points for you if you got the Air Miami reference in the title of this entry.

Phew.....

Well, we're finally all back to relative health and happiness.

The illness chain of reaction formula worked liked this:

Croup + Lachlan(Finn + Heather + Me) = Domestic Misery

All 4 of us being ill combined to create a powerful index of sickness hell. No one slept for 5 days straight. The boys would wake up every two hours or so crying. We'd stumble into their room all blurry eyed, feably try to get them back to sleep and then stumble back into our room only to have the other kid wake up and start the whole process 20 minutes later. It was like a tag team coached by Beelzebub himself.

Slowly, slowly things got better. They're back to sleeping now, which means we're back to sleeping now. It was just one of those parental experiences we'll have to re-live again and again I'm sure. Ah well.

You see this picture above? This was taken during the previous week when we were existing like the living dead. I'm not actually looking down at Finn lovingly, I'm actually nodding off into oblivion.

But at least I'm wearing a Helmet shirt. Old school punk mixes with sick fathers real well.