david, originally uploaded by tara.aukerman.

I like the lines and the contrast in this photo of my husband.

dad, originally uploaded by tara.aukerman.

I miss my dad. =) I haven’t seen him much in the past couple of years because he’s been living in Hawai’i. I saw him every time I visited, of course, but only then. I saw my mom and sister quite a bit more because they traveled back and forth.

Now that the family is back from HI, I will be seeing more of them… but still, less of dad because he’s traveling. Right now, he’s in CA. He’s coming home this weekend, though, for Leah’s 17th birthday.

I like this photo of him – I like his eyes.

It has been a wonderful two weeks.  My sister, Leah, visited while our mother went to spend time with Dad in Hawai’i.  Then, Mom came back from HI and spent a few days with me in Indy.

I’ve discovered something:  of all the people I know in the world, I have the most in common with my sister Leah.  We like the same movies.  We like the same music.  We like the same shoes.  We drool over the same necklaces.  We have the same hobbies.  In fact, the biggest difference I could find between us while she was here was that she likes video games a little bit more than I do, and that I like playing the piano a little bit more than she does.

A couple of pictures from our family reunion, recently uploaded by Dave’s brother and his wife:

Tara, David, Randy, originally uploaded by rauke1.

Jake and Tara, originally uploaded by rauke1.

I just enjoy the first picture – I love having a big brother!  And the second photo…  Imagine that dog trembling – he was TERRIFIED of the water.  See how taut his muscles are?  He was very, very tense, and leaping about from rock to rock so he wouldn’t have to touch the water.  =)  We had a large audience up on the bank.

Dad and David are upstairs working on a small room/big closet we’ll be using for a library.  We inherited this project from the house’s previous owners – heretofore, this room has been closed-off and unused.  Now that my dad’s here, though, the boys are making this a liveable, useable space.  These guys started off with an unfloored, barely insulated, plastic-covered mess, and are slowly but surely turning it into a real room.  I’ll post more pictures as they get farther along in the process.

Just got back from the Aukerman reunion.  It was fun – I love this group of people.  It’s a strange mix of generations – the family reunion involves the four Aukerman brothers and all their various offspring, so we’re up to three generations.  The brothers interact with merciless heckling and the telling and retelling of Aukerman classic jokes (the punchline of the one of the goodies is “Leo needs a new face!”, and a relatively new one goes like this: “Hey, what was the score?” “3 to 2″ “Who was winning?” “3, by 1!”).  There’s a point at which an awful joke really does become funny – and these guys keep me laughing.

One of the funniest moments of the reunion occurred while we were waiting at the lodge for the last set of us to arrive.  The kids had just finished a day full of swimming and running around outside, so they were tired and starting to get grouchy.  One of the cousins grabbed Chutes and Ladders and all 5 itty-bitties ran over to play.  After a while, they started fighting about the rules, so a mom brought out another game hoping to split them up.  Of course, when the kids saw Candyland, they all wanted to play the new game and the other was abandoned as boring.  The exasperated mom told them that half could play each game, and then they’d switch, but the kids weren’t having it.  They all sat down and grabbed pieces.  Mom looks at the oldest 2 kids and says, “One of you is going to have to go play Chutes and Ladders.”  When neither volunteered, she gave the oldest a meaningful look – whereupon the girl gets up, stomps about 5 feet away, then turns around and seethes.  She looks at the mom and says (amid breath-catches, as if she’d been sobbing), “If this is the manner in which I’m going to be treated, I’m never going to play again!”  This kid is 7.  It was hilarious!  The mom gave in and let the girl come back – immediately, the drama queen settled down and happily resumed bossing around the other kids.

Anyway, here are a few pictures of my family (I only pulled out the camera at the very end because my sister-in-law was snapping so many pictures).

We’re back in Indiana.  And we’re exhausted.  We didn’t sleep at all on the long flight over the Pacific (something to do with the chairs and the screaming infants), so when we came home, after doing a few things, we crashed.  Hard.  Woke up to the doorbell – Dave’s parents came to drop off our dog (they watched him while we were away this time) and to report on his misbehavior.  He was angelic, they said, the first 8 days, and evil the second 8 days (messing on the carpets a couple of times, jumping the backyard fence, etc).  They looked relieved to give him back – and I don’t blame them.  =)  We’ll be keeping a close eye on him for the next couple of weeks – hopefully getting back to his routine and getting a ton of exercise will fix those behavioral issues.

Anyway, we’re back safe and sound for those of you who were waiting to hear. 

Leah and I have just finished watching all 6 hours of the A&E Pride and Prejudice – and she said she liked it!  She assures me that she didn’t say that to make me happy (I happen to think it’s the best thing since… well, ever).  Tomorrow, we’re going to watch the American version, and then the Bollywood version.  (For her literature class – compare and contrast.)  I’m in heaven.  =)

So nice… he lets me take pictures of him while I play with my new camera:

Dave, uploaded by tara.aukerman.

Posted tons of pictures on flickr. Click one of the pictures below to view them all. Wanna see something else? We were playing with the continuous capture settings on my new camera – it was meant for capturing fast moving objects (sports, etc), but we played a strobe game… Read the rest of this entry »