First Feis

A great day today at Erin's first Feis (fesh), an Irish dance competition. She entered two different dance categories and took first place in both. Attached are the before and after pictures - she was happy with her two gold medals, but not so happy about the sun in her eyes (maybe if her dad was a better photographer he would have planned that differently). She was a little bit nervous when we first got there, but relaxed right into it and did awesome (clearly). We were particularly excited because Erin was only recently moved up to a higher class where she learned to do the jig, and yet she still took gold in that dance. Most importantly, Erin had a lot of fun and she is very happy and proud of her accomplishments. Great that she got to see how all of her hard work and practice paid off.

6th Birthday

Not to be left out, Finn had a big event as well when he turned 6 on Derby Day. He made out like a bandit, and even slept with his new electronic, spring-loaded lightsaber. My buddy Mike Middleton absolutely loved the giant box kite that Finn got from his Aunt Shari and uncle Brendon (a replica of Darth Vader's Tie Fighter) but when he saw that you could also get a Millennium Falcon kite, he wondered if it could even fly. I had to explain to him that it made the Kessel run in under 12 parsecs, so yes - it can fly. Mike warned me when he arrived that he might have gone overboard on his gift, but as Finn's godfather he had that authority -- he and Cindee got Finn a child sized .22 rifle. It is pretty darn cool, and Finn is very excited to go and try it out.

Irish Dance

Saturday was Conor's first communion, Sunday was Erin's first dance recital. She did an outstanding job, and made us all very proud. The photo credits go to Mike Sugrue, who has a far superior camera to mine.

First Communion

Conor's first communion was last week, and I think he wore the family tie (Brendon and I, as well as our dad, wore it for ours) with more style than we did. I will take full credit/blame for the fact that Conor is not the most serious and devoted little Catholic, but he was perfectly behaved for the occasion.

Easter!

I hope that everyone had a nice Easter weekend, because we certainly did here. It was a full house in Bardstown, as we hosted my cousin Mike and his family (wife Betsy and kids Andrew, Ryan, Scott and Katie) as well as my Mom. The kids had a blast playing together, we had a wonderful feast, and thanks to the good weather we had a big egg hunt outside. One could not ask for a better group of kids - nearly 6 hours of 7 kids running around with each other and not the first fight. We opted out of fighting crowds and packing into a church that morning, but I assure you that everyone got a lot more out of the day together with family than they would have at a church service.

Fire Dept. Banquet

It has been a while since I've posted any pictures - sorry for that, but this semester has been pretty taxing. This is a pic of Carm and I (a.k.a. beauty and the beast) from the Fire Department awards and retirement banquet. A great time was had by all, and all the credit for that goes to my Mom for watching our children and dogs while we were out partying. I hate this picture of me, but it is a good one of Carm. Hope everyone is doing well. I can't help but include the "who's that guy?" pic that I jumped into. Sorry Billy and Tam. Take note of the red dry cleaning tag in my sleeve - I at least got my uniform cleaned even though I didn't check it over that well before I put it on.

Thanks for Voting Obama

Can you believe it? Politicians that are actually following through on their campaign promises!?!? The Obama/Biden team are working to push through the FIRE act and the SAFER act as promised, which will push some federal funding to departments like mine to retain firefighters, hire new ones, ensure that apparatus are fully staffed, and purchase needed gear and equipment. They also are getting through a federal collective bargaining bill that will ensure that unions like mine will always have our rights to negotiate our contracts. In addition, the Congress just pushed through a student loan forgiveness program for professional firefighters. I don't know all the specifics of that one yet, but it looks like I'll be able to get a large sum of my student loans wiped clean. A very happy day for me, and I can't help but gloat a little bit again at the Obama victory (he did mention firefighters in his inauguration speech), but these are all programs that McCain and the wolf-killing retard were against.