It's all in how you look at it.

A couple weeks ago we had some really bad storms in the area. You might have seen some of the coverage about the F2 tornado that hit downtown Atlanta. After the storms passed through Atlanta, they headed up our way. We had many hours of tornado warnings that day and made 3 separate trips to the basement. I lost count of how many times the weather sirens sounded in town, but it was well over a dozen times.

Our first trip to the basement was with the first tornado warning they issued even though there was no sign of bad weather in our area. The second time though, there was good sized hail coming down, some of it was almost golf ball sized. After the hail storm, it was beautiful out and we took the boys into the front yard to let them see the hail that was laying all over the ground. The neighbors across the street were out there checking things out too. They are from New Orleans and moved up here after Katrina. I was talking to the dad and he was telling me about how he prefers hurricanes to tornadoes any day, because at least with hurricanes you know days or even weeks in advance that it's coming. I guess I can see his point.

Later I was talking to a friend of mine who moved here about 2 years ago from California. I think this was really her first experience with that kind of weather and she didn't enjoy spending hours huddled in the downstairs bathroom with her husband and kids. She said she prefers the earthquakes over tornados since earthquakes come suddenly without much warning and you don't spend a lot of time worrying about what's happening and if it's going to get you.

I don't know if I'd prefer an earthquake or a hurricane, but I know what to expect with a tornado so I guess I'll just stick with those.

The day he's been waiting for...

All Owen could talk about last summer was starting school in the fall and riding the school bus. I kept telling him he wasn't going to ride the bus yet, but he just didn't believe me. And he still asks me about once a week how old he has to be to ride the bus.

The letter of the week this week is the letter S. Well today they had a school bus at school and they got to go inside it and even ride it around the parking lot! He was so thrilled!!! He kept talking about it all day. I'm just sorry I missed his first school bus ride.

Never too young to start learning.

When Owen was about 2.5 years old we discovered the Leap Frog "Letter Factory" video. He loved it and after watching it just 2 times he knew most of his letters and their sounds. About a week later he watched it again and ad them all down.

Now Riley is car seat resistant. He screams and kicks and bows his back, but videos are the secret. He'll usually calm down and let me strap him in if I promise him a show. Of course, if he's going to be watching DVDs whenever he's in the van, I want it to be educational, so I pulled out the Tad and that's what he watches. He's not even 2 yet so I didn't really think he would get much from it, but at the same time I figured it's never to early to start exposing him to it.

This past week, he's started showing off. It's very random, but he'll see a letter, point at it, tell us what letter it is, and then tell us what sound it makes. So far he knows R, S, H, and Q. Those seem to be his favorites although sometimes he seems to know more, but it's hard to tell because he'll just be pointing at a sign saying, "I...I...I" And there is an I on it, but I'm not sure he's pointing at the I.