First Taste Of Winter?

First taste of winter? Well...not really, BUT I got your attention! Actually, we have an interesting system set to develop early next week. While temperatures are not going to be freezing at the surface, they MAY be cold enough above us to support some flurries or spits of mixed precip. The orange bar is mixed precip and the blue shows flurries. For you weather geeks, this is the 12Z GFS.

This is NOTHING to get excited about and we typically do not see any problems from winter storms until late December, but it will still be fun to watch.

Ryan

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Always Tracking... Waterfowl!!

Duck season started on Saturday and radars in the Midsouth were tracking ducks! Well, probably Snow Geese and Canadian Geese in addition to Ducks, but waterfowl nonetheless! This is not abnormal, this article in Outdoor Life notes NEXRAD picking up on migrating waterfowl in the past.

When I awoke on Saturday morning, I first looked at radar. With the Low passing to our South, I had a tiny 10% chance of rain in the forecast, so I wanted to see if most of the showers were staying South as expected. When I glanced at radar, there was a big blob of green heading South. I was confused at first, because if any rain had formed... it should be going NE (like the showers in MS seen on this radar loop).

My wife walked in shortly after sunrise from running several miles and I asked her if she heard ducks or geese while she was running. She said "YES"... tons of them. In addition, some friends of mine that were hunting heard a ton of them overhead just before sunrise. Well... that matches up with the radar image! There were also reports of an abundance of "droppings", but I can't confirm that! LOL

Maybe Hammertime and Bob Snell need to invest in a portable radar!

Take care,
Ryan

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Spica Cast, Two Years Later

This was my youngest son two years ago. While playing football with his brother, he broke his leg. It was a complex break, a spiral fracture to his femur. I'll never forget certain things about that night. First, the phone call from my wife with him screaming in the background. I dropped everything at work at went to AMMC. (KAIT was SOOO good to us that week). Second, the uneasy feeling when Dr. Schechter told us about the body cast he would be in for 10 weeks. And lastly, the amount of pain he had from the cramping.

At the time, we thought it was going to be the worst 10 weeks of our life, but God made it fly by and made it much easier than we expected. He traveled around town in a red wagon with Christmas lights and was embarrassed when people talked to him and gave him attention. I'm sure many of you saw us around town. The annoying part was when people thought we were carrying him the around in a wagon for fun. I guess they could not see the cast because of the blankets, but it was still annoying.

Now, he is 110%. Here's a picture of him from last week. He seems to be running quite fast across the football field! There are no signs of permanent injury and he plays just as hard (if not harder) than other kids!

It was a challenging part of our life, but we gained a lot from the experience. Since then, I have been able to help other families that have dealt with a Spica Cast after they found my blog through search engines. I've even made a few long-distance friends!

Big thanks to our friends, KAIT, AMMC, and especially Dr. Schechter for helping us through that time!

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Fireplaces Are Awesome

I love having a fireplace again. I know it is mild outside right now, but we still had a fire last night. I grew up with a fireplace and that's one thing I missed when we lived in a home without a fireplace.

After last winter's ice storm, it's going to be easy to find firewood this season!

I know it is a short blog post, but now that we are calming down... more bloggin' is on the horizon!

Ryan

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Crazy Weekend

So, we moved this weekend. If it were that simple, it would be nice! Since we are "The Vaughans", at least one of us had to end up in the ER and this time it was my youngest. We marked our territory in the new neighborhood with a big puddle of blood from a bike accident. Dr. Wilson at AMMC did an awesome job with him and seems to be really good with kids. He stitched him right up! If AMMC offered a frequent flyers program, we would be due a round trip to Hawaii for the entire family! Luckily we had witnesses again, so DHS is not going to visit us... We actually had two OR nurses, a children's pastor, and a pediatric dentist at our house at the time, so he was in good hands! Unfortunately, we have to go see that Pediatric Dentist regarding the accident tomorrow. He's gonna be a tough kid! :)

Overall, everything is going smooth. We are doing some remodeling, so we currently living with the inlaws. Hopefully, we are not getting on their nerves! We hope to be out by the weekend. We'll see how that goes...

If you are one of the 350 people that emailed me over the past few days.... Give me some time and I'll try to get through all of them! It's amazing how fast the inbox fills up!

Take care,
Ryan

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