Finlay Park sits squarly in the middle of Downtown Columbia. It is used to host festivals for kids during the day and concerts in the evening. When special events aren't going on kids, adults, and dogs can be found enjoying the waterfalls, green lawns, playgrounds, and walking paths. Here are a few pictures of the boys enjoying the park.



Luke walking under the water fall. He did this over and over and over.

There are nice pathways all around the falls but taking short cuts that require climbing is much more fun!

While Luke was running around the edge of the water making his mother nervous Timothy and Wil enjoyed rolling their ball. Excuse me, Wil's ball - he is becoming quite territorial with his toys now that Timothy is able to take them. So "share" is the newest sign being incorporated into Wil's vocabulary.

Yea, I'm cute!

The Bear Walk - Wil's newest way to get around. Walking may not be far behind.

James's passion for running and for the mountains came together last weekend in his first mountain trail run. The run was called rock2rock, a 10k, that involved two fairly significant inclines (and as a result declines), lots of mud, downed trees, and rocks. James was told when signing up for this to plan on doubling his standard 10k time of 45 minutes, so we planned for him to take approximately 1.5 hours. Now, lots of the guys and gals running this thing were naturally accustomed to mountain trail running having run races as impressive as the annual Mt. Mitchell challenge, which is a 40 mile run up and down the largest mountain in these parts. For them this was just a "fun run". For James, accustomed to the flat terrain of North Central Florida, this was going to be a bit more challenging. At least I thought so - I admittedly had low expectations for him. I just wanted him to complete it without spraining an ankle or turning a knee. When I saw the men and women coming through before him, beaten and battered by the trail, I became slightly worried. But then he emerged down the steps that brought the runners to their finish. His time of one hour 13 minutes was better than he expected and aside from muddy legs and a few scratches he came through feeling great. He was 47th out of more than 120 runners. He loved it and is now more addicted to trail running than ever. I think we will be making more trips to the mountains for these races. That's fine by me - the antique shopping up there is great!

It is always fun to stumble upon something that reveals what Luke has been up to. While looking for some pictures we came across these.

For the second time in 2 months we have been hit with the stomach flu. For Wil it all started last Friday while I was with Timothy at the hospital. The days that followed have been filled with vomiting and very messy diapers. Wil is really quite pitiful when sick. When awake a steady moan can be heard throughout the house and when asleep he is so out of it that he doesn't wake when, well, there has been a GI emergency. Instead he continues to sleep and roll around in his crib waiting for us to come in and find the disaster. He is so lathargic that he can hardly sit up so I often find him folded over like a taco where I last placed him.

As far as hospital experiences go (and we have had plenty) today's was quite pleasant. Timothy, who could not eat after 1am the night before, was amazingly happy. He was very interested in what was going on around him and even more delighted with all the attention he was getting. And he got plenty of attention! He was a hit because everyone that looked his way, including the anesthesiologist, got big smiles. The procedure itself was short and sweet and all the steps we had to take from check-in to discharge were very clear and easy.



These are pictures of him waiting to go in for prep. He's so cute in his gown I couldn't pick just one!