An Interesting Saturday

I'll update you on our Friday night before getting to me and Nora's story about Saturday. Friday evening we babysat Jacob, Grace, Elisabeth, Silas, and Hannah. It had been quite a while since we'd done it! We had a good time with them, including doing s'mores over a fire, lighting off some firecrackers, and introducing them to guarana, a Brazilian soda. I didn't get many pictures, but here are a few:

Grace held Nora for me for a while...looks like Nora's loving it! :)

Hannah and Max played on the treadmill (thankfully they can't turn it on). It was funny; they played well some of the time, but other times you could tell that Max wasn't used to having someone else around to have to share with!

Hannah looooooooves Nora, and 'watched' her while we ate a snack.

Apparently our house is just too much for Silas, who fell asleep while the rest of us were eating a snack. Poor guy, he was exhausted!

On Saturday morning, Mom Rassi picked up me and Nora and then Heather to go to Nic and Amanda's grocery shower that was hosted by her aunts. The shower was alot of fun (fiesta-themed!), and Amanda's aunt Teri had tons of fun decorations.

The happy novio y novia

Favorite decoration=the giant inflatable saguaro cactus!

After the shower, as we were getting ready to say our thank yous and leave, someone came in from the kitchen and said, "Teri, there's smoke outside and it looks like it's coming from the barn!" We looked out the window and sure enough, smoke was pouring from the windows and doors of the barn just out back of the house. Through one door, you could see the glowing flames inside. After a few minutes of confusion and Teri calling 911, we decided to all go outside since there were some gas tanks close to the barn. It didn't take long for the flames to come out of the doors and windows, and we were all kind of in shock at what was happening. It turns out, the barn housed all of their chickens, and Teri thought a heat lamp must have started the fire. Unfortunately, there was some old hay in the barn, too, so it really didn't stand a chance. After being outside a couple of minutes, Mom, Heather, and I (and Nora) decided to just go so that our vehicle was out of the way for the fire trucks, etc. We pulled out, but curiosity got the best of us and we pulled into a field entrance nearby. As we watched, the barn became engulfed in flames and eventually caved in on itself. I don't have any captions for these pictures/videos, except to say I've never seen anything like it and I hope to never see anything like it again. We were all just sick for Sam and Teri; it's been such a rough harvest season for farmers, and now to lose all their chickens and their beautiful 100+ year old barn.....some tears were shed as we watched the barn go up in flames. From the nostalgia standpoint, I think Mom could understand the best, having just lost her barn a year and a half ago (even though it was taken down, not burned). So anyway, you can send up a few prayers for Sam and Teri as you look at these pictures/videos.

It was a sobering end to the shower, for sure. But I don't want to leave you all on such a depressed note, so here are some pics of Max in his new Sunday outfit. He was actually hamming for Greg for once. :)

And our personal favorite: 'Talking' on his cell phone (actually my cell phone!) while 'working' on the computer. I hate to break it to him that I think he has WAY too much energy to ever have an office job...I don't want to smash his hopes and dreams. :)