Father's Day, Farewell to Friends, and Big Storm Strikes Glasgow

Happy Dad's day to Popski, Great Grandpa Pellerito, Grandpa Berry, Great Grandpa Berry, Joe, Mike, and all others within the realm of Fatherhood!

Father's Day Weekend for us started with a wonderful yet bittersweet outdoor party/cookout, held jointly in the backyards of our house and next door. Wonderful, because there were about 30 of us who gathered during a picture perfect, low humidity, firefly-filled evening... but bittersweet because the reason for the party: Our friends and neighbors, the Woodworth Family, are moving to Virginia near DC. The oodles of children spent a few hours playing games, blowing bubbles, and eating lots of junk food... while the adults kicked back, talked, ate, drank, and generally gave up getting the little ones to bed at a reasonable time. At about 10 pm (about 2 1/2 hours past bedtime), Evan and Daddy laid out in the grass for about 15 minutes to look at the stars and blinking airplanes, to which Evan said "This is like a camp out!" The trees were electrified by the constant flickering of dozens and dozens of fireflies. Autumn sat up on Daddy's shoulders, arms to the sky, trying to catch them. It was fantastic. Evan even woke up this morning crying "I want (sniffle) to have (sniff) another... PARTY."

We are going to miss the Woodworths, including the munchkins (first and fourth from the right in this picture) who have been such good playmates for Autumn and Evan... it has been so great having friends right next door especially during our time adjusting to our new life in WV.

But, at least there's one good thing to come out of this - since they are moving, the Woodworths have generously given us their swingset/playplace, which we moved into our backyard a couple weeks ago. It is getting VERY heavy use each day... and has quickly turned into a serious kid magnet for our section of the neighborhood. We joke that sometimes it seems like we're turning into the Timberlake Circle daycare.

And finally, I have to unfortunately end this with somber news: Our former hometown in Montana, Glasgow, just got absolutely pummelled by a very strong "supercell" thunderstorm this evening (Saturday) with 50-65mph winds and baseball sized hail... all with more than an inch of rain in about 20 minutes. The hailbomb marched basically right down the main artery of the region, Highway 2, hitting town after town after town (possible tornado involved as well, but not confirmed yet). It undoubtedly caused tremendous crop loss because of the high winds and large hail, and we already have heard about lots of broken windows and damaged siding. There is probably serious roof damage as well. Glasgow is a town of only 3,000 people, almost 5 hours from a mall and 2 1/2 hours from a Walmart... so meeting a sudden need for building/repair supplies is going to be difficult. We do not know the extent of the impact of this storm on our Montana friends (though the ones we reached north of town apparently didn't get hit bad at all), as this just happened only a few hours prior to me writing this. They are in our thoughts - hopefully things are not as bad as it appeared on radar when I was at work earlier this evening. -Mark