long overdue update

oh, the month has gone fast. there just hasn't really been much to write about. i worry about being boring. but, at that risk here's the events of the last month.

we've spent lots of time at the pool and playing webkinz on the computer. that's about it.

ok, i'll try for a little more details. abby had her 7th birthday party. it was at the pool. 7 classmates came, plus her cousins and it was a nice day. i did not get to take the week of the 23rd off like i usually do, so i was bitter an unproductive at work anyway. sadly.

abby's in zoo camp again this week - the morning session which is really challenging and now we're really sleepy. next week we go to pittsburgh monday and come home on thursday. thursday night is the national car rental annual alumni reunion. so here's hoping for no flight delays.

the biggest news, of course, was the bridge collapse here. we are very thankful that there were so few fatalities. sadly, not everyone can say that they have no friends or family affected, but we don't know anyone personally involved. we're also grateful that our normal commute doesn't take us over that bridge. however you can not have lived in MN and not have driven over that bridge many, many times. we all have. we've even been under it because when we take the boat out for a river outing, we like to go up through all of the locks in Minneaplis. so we're still stunned. yesterday, kevin, abby and i had to be downtown to pick up uniform clothes for abby so we went to the stone walking bridge. there was a lot of people still there looking around. but there was really nothing to see, and i guess that's the eery thing. from the stone arch bridge, you should have been able to see the bridge, but it's gone. you can just see some twisted green metal and an oddly sloping concrete slab to the east.

i'm thankful, however, for the wakeup call this tragedy provides for the country to fix its deteriorated bridges. it's cliche, but truly this could have been MUCH worse.