Mark's updates

Mud Run

2010-09-26T22:01:00.001-04:00

We did the USMC Mud Run in Columbia SC last weekend. The kids did a race designed for their age called the pollywog and I have video’s for anyone that wants to see them. Just send me an e-mail and I’ll send you the links. I didn’t make the video’s public since this is my first experience with youtube. I uploaded the pictures to picasa if you want to see them.

The Mud Run was 4.2 miles long and had 32 obstacles that included everything I could think of. Some of them were a rope swing, 5, 10, and 15 foot walls, the grinder, the weaver, and countless hills and other logs at various heights and requirements to get through mud. It was a lot of fun and had to be completed with a four person team. I was on a team with some guys from church and LaDonna was on a women’s team with some girls from church.

Anyway, I’m going to start updating the blog again and there may be short entries, but I’ll try and be more frequent.

Tiling

2010-06-01T20:42:00.004-04:00

Our kitchen floor was coming up where the contractors didn't glue it well. So, LaDonna had been pushing to install tile in the kitchen. I started ripping everything out and moving in to various parts of the house. LaDonna and the kids went to Kinston to get out of the chaos of living with everything scattered and no oven. Some neighbors came over on Friday afternoon to help lay the tile and we finished up around 9:00. I decided to surprise LaDonna and do the bathroom while she was gone. So, I started ripping everything out of the bathroom around 9:15 on Friday and finished up at 11:00. I laid the tile in the bathroom on Saturday afternoon and finished around 4:00. Of course, I took Sunday off and LaDonna and the kids came home Sunday night. On Monday, I grouted the kitchen and the bathroom. We moved all the appliances back in the kitchen on Tuesday and finished the bathroom on Wednesday. I still need to install quarter round and add one more coat of sealer to the grout. I'm happy with how it turned out and couldn't have done it without my neighbors. There are some pictures on my picasa site and the link is http://picasaweb.google.com/Mark21900/051710KitchenFloor?authkey=Gv1sRgCNrSjYPK5NfsowE&feat=directlink

Baby Snake

2009-08-24T15:21:00.003-04:00

I was out in our front yard today and must have scared this little snake as I walked past. He tried to make a run for it, but I caught him. Our kids love torturing any insect/animal they can for as long as we'll let them. Several have lost their lives from being dropped or kept in a plastic container too long. We have one not so smart (because I'm not supposed to say "stupid" anymore) lizard that Lonna pulled part of his tail off last summer, yet we still see him hanging around often and all but asking to be caught and tortured.

Anyway, back to the snake. The kids weren't home when I caught him, but I took this video of Bryce playing/torturing him when he got home.

Update: Lonna came home from school and the first time she held it, the snake wrapped it's body around her fingers and she screamed. Once I assured her it scared and was trying not to get dropped, she was okay and loved holding it.

Some other information about the snake - It's about a foot long, not venomous, and is called a Ringneck Snake.

http://www.herpsofnc.org/herps_of_NC/snakes/Diapun/Dia_pun.html

Triathlon #2

2009-07-30T16:47:00.002-04:00

Last Saturday I did another triathlon. It was a 750 meter swim, 15 mile bike, and 3.1 mile run. I did it with two other guys from the ward and LaDonna brought our kids and the other familes came as well to cheer us on. My goal time was 1 hour and 40 minutes and I comleted it in 1 hour 38 minutes. This was the first open water swim and it lived up to all the rumors I had heard about open swims. I got kicked, I kicked a couple people, I got crowded out and I cut off some people. The swim was quite the event alone and I was tired coming out of the lake, but on to my favorite event, the bike. My transition was a little slow and I even took the time to put on some carmex, like chapstick, with sunblock. The bike course had more hills than was advertised and there were a some tight turns that caused at least two accidents. I finished right about the time I expected and knew I had a shot at my goal. I started the run and felt okay. I was trying to catch the two guys in my ward since they started six minutes before me. I thought I may catch them on the bike, but I never saw them. I caught the first guy about halfway through the first loop. As I came to the finish of the first loop, LaDonna told me that the other guy had just passed. I looked for him and saw him in front of me, but didn't really have the energy to catch him. So, I just kept the same pace. About a third of the way into the loop he started to slow down and I caught him pretty fast. I talked to him for a minute and then kept going. This was the prefect distance for me right now since I could barely swim the required distance a couple weeks before the race. I do want to keep working on my swimming and see if I can do the Olympic distance next year. Right now, I'm going to keep training and am thinking about doing a 10 mile trail run in November. I'll keep riding my bike with a guy in the neighborhood and hopefully keep swimming at least twice a week. There are pictures of the event on my picasa site if you're interested.

Ozzy

2009-04-29T20:41:00.003-04:00

Ozzy is the name of our new dog. We caved to the pressure of the kids, mainly Bryce. We have a plan that I'll share when I have some more time the reason the time was right. But, for now, Ozzy is a Rotti/Australian Shepard mix. He is 3 and a half months old and is about 25 pounds. There are pictures on picasa if you're interested.

Triathlon #1

2009-04-26T15:58:00.000-04:00

I completed my first sprint triathlon yesterday. I’ve been thinking about doing a triathlon for at least two years and finally decided to buy a bike and sign up. I picked one that was nearby and the distances were manageable for my first triathlon. Jason, my brother-in-law, and two other friends did the triathlon as well.

The swim was 300 yards, the bike was 14 miles, and the run was 3.1 miles. I completed it in 1 hour, 29 minutes, and 42 seconds unofficially. The results haven’t been posted on the website yet, so that’s my recollection of my time. My goal was to complete it in less than 1 hour 30 minutes so I completed my goal.

The race was much harder than I thought it was going to be. One reason I think is that I never tried all three events while I was training. Another reason may have been that I hadn’t done any swimming for two months. However, I know it’s not supposed to be easy and it was fun. I really enjoyed the race atmosphere and seeing how I competed. The training for the event is different than going all out for the three events to see how fast you can go.

All four of us that did the race yesterday are ready to sign up for another race.

Random stuff about the kids

2009-01-31T11:54:00.001-05:00

We had a game as kids that we called Deadman. Our dad would lie down on his back and pretend he was dead. Then usually lift one limb at a time and we would push it back down. Our kids love playing this game. Although, they like pretending they are dead. They’ll play with me, grandpa, or just each other.

Bryce has an OCD behavior that is very noticeable. When we put his coat on, he has to hold the end of his long sleeve shirt so his sleeves don’t go up his arm. He also insists on having his coat zipped up.

My father-in-law gave Bryce a small knife this year for Christmas. Bryce loves it! He is only allowed to have it when we are home and there are no friends over. He also has to keep it in his pocket unless one of us helps him use it for something. It’s been very funny to watch.

Bryce also has an uncanny talent for walking backwards. We think it started when we saw Mater and he commented that he was like Mater a few times. He will be talking to us and leaving the room walking backwards. He doesn't look behind him, he just uses some other sense of where he is going. He'll be just about to hit something and LaDonna and I will think he's about to hit it and he turns or just misses it. It's hilarious to watch.

Lonna was given a card game called Sleeping Queens from a friend of hers. She loves it and we’ve played it at least once a day for almost a month, most days it gets played multiple times. She loves to tell you the rules over and over and loves to explain the game to new people who come over. To play the game you lay all 12 queens on the table face down and as you play certain cards, you’re allowed to choose a queen from the cards that are facedown. There is one queen, named the Rose queen, that if you pick her, then you get to choose an extra queen. The deck we are playing with is kind of old and has some marks on some of the backs of the cards. We noticed Lonna was pretty good at finding the Rose Queen and I asked her one day how she was so good at picking it. She pointed to a bend in the card that you can see when the cards are lying face down. I was amazed and kind of scared. She didn’t put the bend in the card, but she was definitely using it to her advantage. I wouldn’t suggest anyone play cards with Lonna unless it’s a clean deck.

What? Is this a joke?

2009-01-20T08:30:00.003-05:00

The forecasters were predicting snow, but always had the line added that it depended on the track the storm took. So, I've heard that line so often in Maryland that I didn't think we'd get much. Well, this morning I looked out the window and the pictures below are what I saw.

We moved to North Carolina and left our snowblower and snow shovels in Maryland. All joking aside, I'm actually excited that it is snowing and looking forward to playing in it with the kids - who cannot wait to get outside. Neither of them really know what to expect with snow so it will be interesting to see their reactions. Right now, they are gathering items to make a face on the snowman they plan to build with the three inches of snow we have. By the way, EVERYTHING (schools, government, businesses, non-critical medical facilities) is closed today. Today is our normal trash day and I would bet they aren't coming.

Murphy Bed 2

2008-12-21T09:59:00.002-05:00

I have fininshed most of the trim for all the shevles and uploaded an updated pciture. Now I'm onto building doors. We are putting doors on the top two shelves on each book case. I'll hopefully have them done next Saturday, but we'll see how the week goes.

Murphy Bed 1

2008-12-16T09:33:00.000-05:00

I’m working on a Murphy bed that we bought for our guest room. A Murphy bed is a bed that folds up into the wall as you would typically see in a studio apartment. However, we put one in our guest room to make it a play room for the kids. We didn’t have guests enough to justify only having a guest room, but still wanted guests to have a place to sleep if they come to visit. I bought the frame that provides the folding mechanism and now I’m building book cases and a frame and doors to hide the bed. The bookcases are going to be on each side of the bed and the bed will be enclosed by the doors. I’ve also posted pictures of the progress so far on the bed and will continue to update as progress continues.

Cruise

2008-12-16T09:32:00.001-05:00

I saw Bryce and Cathi tonight and they pointed out that it has ALMOST been two months since my last post. So, in order to avoid the “last update” to say two months, I’m going to do a short update.

We went on a cruise to the eastern Caribbean the 15th through the 22nd of November and I’ve posted pictures if you are interested. There are a lot of pictures, so consider yourself warned. We visited Grand Turk, Puerto Rico, St. Thomas, and Bahamas. The cruise line was Holland America and the reason we chose them is because it was free because I had Marriot points that qualified us for the cruise. It was 185,000 points, which I lost track of how long we’ve been saving them. But, it was fun for the most part. We both got seasick one day and were pretty miserable for a few hours. The food was great, the performances were fun, even though I got volunteered twice which I’m not going to include details about. But, I won’t stop LaDonna if she wants to tell the stories.

A few things from the last two months

2008-10-19T22:01:00.000-04:00

I haven’t updated in a long time so I’m going to try and write about things that have happened since then.

First, I’ve uploaded a lot of pictures to picasa (link to the right) if you’re interested.

One of the photo albums is of Bryce’s 3rd birthday party. It was just a very small party but that’s the way we wanted it for a turning three. He wanted a “shooter party”, so LaDonna got some guns that shoot rubber darts and some play horses.

Another album is of a trip I went on for work. We chartered two sail boats and sailed from Baltimore down to Kent Narrows, stayed for a couple of days and sailed back. It was fun, but the highlight of the trip was getting to climb the mast on the way home. It was about 50 feet in the air. It was neat because there was a little spot to sit down at the top and enjoy the view.

I’m also taking a Personal Finance class this semester which is for a Finance Minor that I want to get with my Business Administration degree. It’s been pretty easy so far so I’ve been trying to do some other things during the class. One of those things has been to take an exam for work. There are a number of designations I can get depending on how many exams I take. Work pays for the exams and gives me a small bonus for passing each exam. I took the first exam two weeks ago and passed easily. I’m now going to study for the Series 7 exam, which is the designation to be able to trade stocks and mutual funds.

I’ve been traveling recently again – Baltimore two weeks ago, Chicago last week, and heading to New Orleans this week.

The kids are doing well. One of my favorite pictures and something I love about our kids is that they are not afraid of bugs, worms, snakes, geckos, etc. There are some pictures of Lonna holding a gecko we caught and then it ran up her shirt. She didn’t panic and just laughed and grabbed it by the tail and played with it some more.

My Sandwich is Bumpy

2008-08-16T08:13:00.000-04:00

As Bryce and Lonna were eating lunch yesterday, we heard Bryce say “my sandwich is bumpy.” I had no idea what he was talking about. But, LaDonna started to explain to him that she used crunchy peanut butter. They both like peanuts, but they were not sure they wanted them in their peanut butter. After a minute of discussing why the peanuts were in the peanut butter, they decided it was okay to eat and finished their sandwiches.

I know I didn't care for peanut butter as a kid and I can remember one day complaining to mom that she used crunchy peanut butter. She told me she didn't, it was actually my tooth and I had swallowed it.

Wedding details

2008-08-06T22:48:00.001-04:00

I know it's been a while since my last post and we have had a lot going on. I just haven't taken the time to write about it. It's strange to me that I'm deciding to do it now since I have a paper for my international business class due in 3 hours and I haven't finished it yet. Maybe this will help with new ideas.
Anyway, we went to Coleman (LaDonna's sister) and Darren's wedding the last weekend in July. They got married at the beach and Lonna and Bryce were in the wedding. Lonna was the flower girl and Bryce was the ring bearer, although he was not trusted with the real rings. There are numerous pictures on our Picasa site (there is a link on the right side of the blog). Some of the pictures are pretty funny and a couple that seem to be favorites are:

1. Lonna's thumbs up to LaDonna. We're not sure if she was letting us know that she was okay, or if the wedding was proceeding correctly, or if she was telling LaDonna that she had completed her task successfully.

2. Bryce with the ring bearer pillow under his chin. This just points out the obvious. Boys that are two years old should not be trusted with the real rings at a wedding and two year old boys get bored standing in one place for a period of more than three minutes.

We are very proud that Lonna and Bryce did so well. They didn't act up, they did everything that was asked of them and they looked adorable doing it.
During the wedding, I was “watching” the kids while LaDonna ran to the car for something. After a few minutes I decided I should probably check to see where each child was. I found Bryce in the same general area he was 10 minutes ago when LaDonna left. But, I couldn't find Lonna anywhere in the grass area where they had been playing. I looked and looked and finally looked on the dance floor and she and Coleman were dancing. After the dance I asked Coleman what the deal was and she said she was talking to some guests and Lonna came up to her and told her that she wanted to dance. So, her and Coleman went out and danced. It was very cute.
If you look at the pictures, you'll see at the end that eventually a number of people ended up going swimming. All the groomsmen went first, then the groom, the Jack (Coleman's dad), then I think Coleman and a few of the bridesmaids, then Mary (Coleman's mom). Mary talked me into jumping in towards the end as well.
Anyway, enjoy the pictures and I'll write more about the beach pictures soon.
p.s. I just went to post this blog entry from word into blogger and blogger is currenly down. So, it's not always my fault I can't post.

A learning experience (for me) with Lonna

2008-06-25T13:09:00.000-04:00

Lonna: Where's mommy?
Me: She's not here right now.
Lonna: I need to ask her a question.
Me: You can ask me
Lonna: But sometimes you say no.
Me: What do you want to ask mommy?

At this point, I'm thinking to myself that whatever she asks for, I have to give it to her. So, I'm hoping that she doesn't ask for something outrageous or I'm going to have to find a way to do it.

Lonna: I'm hungry and would like a snack.
Me: Okay, what would you like?
Lonna: I'll show you.

She took me over to the snack cabinet and pointed to a chocolate swirll thing.

Of course I gladly got it for her.

Funny Phrases

2008-06-21T08:38:00.002-04:00

I know it's been a while and I've meant to post a bunch of times, but it's just been busy. I have a couple of examples of Lonna's funny sayings. One is below and I'll try and write some others soon, as well as other things we've been up to.

We have been reading the Book of Mormon Reader to the kids at night and we have the videos for the van. One of Lonna’s favorite chapters is about the Liahona. One day she was asking LaDonna about the Liahona and the purpose. LaDonna told her "the Liahona told Nephi and his family where to go". Lonna said, "so it’s like the GPS".

We were impressed that she linked the two together.

Last weekend

2008-05-07T09:54:00.003-04:00

We were in Kinston last weekend for an Estate auction that my father-in-law did. He's an auctioneer and so we helped out with the auction and bought a lot of stuff/junk as well.

We also took some time to take some pictures of the kids, so check out the picture link. There are some really good ones.

Maybe When I'm Older

2008-04-04T10:32:00.003-04:00

Last night we were teaching the kids how to play "Mother may I?". LaDonna was calling out the commands and the kids were playing. Then I went to play and Lonna was calling the commands and LaDonna, Bryce, and I were playing. Lonna told me to "take one baby step", I asked "Mother may I?", and she said "yes". But, instead of taking a baby step, I took a giant step. She quickly told me to go back to the start. She also demonstrated what a baby step looked like and said "maybe when you're older, you'll remember."

LaDonna and I both had a good laugh and Lonna just kept going like nothing had happened.

Now, I know she has heard it somewhere else. So, I'm going to be listening to see if I say it, or if it is someone else.

Lonna’s Birthday

2008-03-24T18:59:00.000-04:00

We had Lonna’s birthday party last Saturday. She is now 4 years old and she is acting older each day. She invited 13 friends and then we invited one more. I was thinking there would be several that wouldn’t be able to make it because of one reason or another. But, we had 13 children show up for the party. LaDonna had planned a lot of great activities and all the kids had fun. We also had a piñata that was broken successfully without any injury. I’ll post some pictures in our Picasa folder soon.

RSS (Really Simple Syndication)

2008-02-25T10:27:00.000-05:00

I am not sure how many people are using this technology, or if anyone knows what it is, but I’ve seen the links on a number of websites that I read regularly and have briefly looked into it in the past. This last week I was determined to understand it and see if it could benefit me. So, after reading multiple articles on various websites and different software package descriptions I have figured it out. And I love it! I try to keep up with about 8 different blogs, 3 or 4 news websites, and a few different online stores that change daily. The RSS feeds make it simple to track any new postings to any of the websites I read regularly.

I thought this was so cool that I had to share it in case anyone else hadn’t figured out what it was yet. But, if you have figured it out, I’m kind of disappointed that no one shared what they know. Also, I’m kind of disappointed that I didn’t figure it out sooner. I regard myself as someone who is generally up-to-date on new technology and how it can help us in our lives and I have missed the boat on RSS for a while now. So, I’m interested to see how many people are using it.

Anyway, if you don’t know about RSS yet, I want to help. First, you have to choose a Reader or aggregator. I went with Google reader because I already had a Google account, it was free, and there was no software to install. But, if you don't want to use Google's, there are at least 50 other free software programs you can download. For Google Reader, once you sign in and get to the Reader page, you start adding subscriptions. Subscriptions are the websites that you want your reader to download information from and display it. As soon as you get into the reader page, it will download all your subscriptions. For all the websites you add to your subscriptions, it keeps track of how many topics you have not read, just like e-mail. The only downside I have found so far is that I haven’t been able to comment on the blog after I read. However, you user just clicks the link in the left pane and a new browser page opens the website and you are able to comment.

I’ve added all the blogs I read, the X-Box news, Lds.org, and the daily shopping websites I visit to my subscriptions. It’s also very easy to organize all your subscriptions by dragging and dropping, which I love.

So, if you don’t mind, let me know if you knew about this and just didn’t share? If it is news to you, I think it’s worth sharing considering how easy it makes it to keep up with multiple blogs and websites without having to check them all each day.

Miniature Golf

2008-02-10T19:30:00.000-05:00

We took the kids miniature golfing for the first time last week and it was a lot of fun. It was a course that was pretty beat up, but it was cheap and it was their first time so they didn’t care at all. We had all 14 holes to ourselves for the entire time we were there and they had a playground area and teepee for the kids to play on after the golfing. Needless to say, the golfing was interesting. They both could hit the ball and get it close to the hole and a couple of times the ball even went in the hole. Most of the time, Bryce would hit it the first ball and it would go in the right direction. He might try a couple of other times, but then he would pick the ball up and place it within an inch or two from the hole, then hit it in. It was pretty funny to watch and especially funny on one hole where the hole was on a slight hill, so when he placed the ball next to the hole it would roll down the hill and he couldn’t hit it in. He went back and picked the ball up and placed it next to the hole, and again it rolled down the hill before he could hit it in. He repeated the same thing a few times and then placed the ball above the hill and it rolled into the hole! He got the ball out of the cup and went to the next hole.

Lonna played the holes without cheating too much, but got bored with the actual golfing within a few holes and then just wanted to play on the golf cart they had or run around the course.

You can see pictures by clicking the Picasa link on the right side and choose Mini Golf.

Krispy Kreme Challenge

2008-01-27T13:52:00.000-05:00

Jason (my brother-in-law) was over at our house about a month ago and mentioned this race they do at North Carolina State University, it's called the Krispy Kreme challenge. The Challenge is to run from the NCSU Bell Tower to the Krispy Kreme doughnut shop, eat one dozen doughnuts, and run back to the Bell tower in less than one hour. I was intrigued and said I'd do it with him. Grandpa (my dad) also committed to doing it with us, except for he signed up for the "Casual" participant, which means he didn't have to eat the doughnuts.

The race was yesterday and it was wild. There were 3000 participants and it started off well. I felt good running and enjoyed running with the group. As far as I could see ahead of us and behind us was a 4 lanes wide of people running to the Krispy Kreme bakery. The run there was mostly downhill and I had some adrenaline so it seemed pretty easy. Jason and Grandpa both have GPS running devices so they were keeping track of our pace and how far we had gone. The run there was supposed to be around 2 miles. According to the GPS devices, it's actually 2.3! I think we made it to the bakery in about 20 minutes and Jason and I grabbed our box of a dozen doughnuts and a cup of water. We found an open spot in the parking lot and started to eat.

Before the race, I thought I could enjoyably eat 4 or 5 doughnuts. I wasn't even close. The first two doughnuts tasted good since I hadn't eaten breakfast and it was now getting close to 9:30. After the first two, it went downhill fast and each one was less and less appealing. After about 5 doughnuts, I looked at Jason's box and he was at least one doughnut ahead of me. I asked him how he was doing it and he had put two doughnuts together and was eating them two at a time. I started to do the same and it went quicker. I eventually finished all twelve in what seemed like 20 minutes. It was actually only about 12 minutes, but the memories will be imbeded in my mind for a very long time. I ended up finishing the doughnuts a little before Jason and he is a much stonger runner than I am so I decided to start back to the Bell tower. I started back and felt decent. I was happy that part of the challenge was over and I was on the last leg. I had 28 minutes to finish the race and complete the challenge so I was feeling decent. My stomach definetly felt like I had stuffed a dozen doughnuts in it and I could feel it moving more than I normally do when I run. After about a half of a mile, I heard a bunch of people in front of me yell "eeww gross" and I could see someone losing some of the doughnuts they had eaten. It didn't bother me as much as I thought it might. I made it a mile back before I had to start walking. I walked for a minute or two and then started running again. I repeated the walk for a couple minutes, then run a couple times. The hills were brutal and I had trained on the treadmill without any incline so I wasn't used to any hills. On the run to the bakery I had tried to look for Landmarks to give me an idea of how much distance I had to complete the race. I had in my mind that Ledo's pizza meant there was only one quarter of a mile left. However, on the way back, I must have missed it, because as I was about to start walking again I saw the start finish line. That of course motivated me a little more and I sprinted the rest of the way to the line. I think I finished the race in about 53 minutes which was within the challenge and I was grateful it was over.

We'll have to see if I continue running, I have good intentions and want to keep it up, but I have a lot of other good intentions that never come to pass.

Here's the link for the website if you're curious about the history or anything else. http://www.krispykremechallenge.com/

Jingle Bells

2007-12-12T14:02:00.000-05:00

Since the last video seemed to work okay, here's Lonna singing her version of Jingle bells. She was singing it over and over last night in Walmart. I thought it was cute and hopefully she spread a little Christmas joy to everyone shopping, because she wasn't signing softly.

Boogers and sugar

2007-12-12T13:42:00.000-05:00

In the South (or at least North Carolina), when adults kiss babies under their arms or necks, it is referred to as getting their sugar. So, Bryce has now started to get his own sugar so we won't get it from him. Sometimes he'll share, and sometimes it's all gone because he ate it all.

Both kids have also been sick often and so we have started asking Bryce if he has any boogers. Sometimes he'll come tell us when he does.

Here's an attempt at my first video blog.

Crown Molding

2007-12-10T08:47:00.000-05:00

I decided that I wanted to route an extranet cable from our office to the XBOX 360 so I could play XBOX Live without dragging a cable through the two rooms each time I wanted to play. So, I needed a way to hide the cable. I came up with a pretty good plan to go in one wall in the office, out the other side in the family room, along the top of the wall to the other side of the family room and back inside the wall. This meant that I needed to do crown molding in the family room.

I routed the cable and ran into a couple of unforeseen obstacles, but they were easy enough to work around. I then wired the room for surround sound. It was easy enough to do since I was going to do the crown molding anyway.

Then we went to Home Depot and picked out the crown molding we wanted and I came home and measured all the pieces I would need to complete the project. By the way, LaDonna, with some help from me, painted the family room, and then realized the family room color didn’t go well with the old kitchen color, so we painted the kitchen as well. After all the painting, I got started reading about how to do crown molding. I found that I was in for more of a challenge then I thought. We don’t have any 90 degree angles in our family room. I read the website instructions a few times and didn’t understand it completely. I read them again, again, and again. I finally felt comfortable enough to try and start some cuts.

This blog would be 15-20 pages long if I went through all the mistakes I made. Also, LaDonna talked me into doing the kitchen crown molding as well since the two rooms are connected without a wall. Anyway, suffice to say, the crown molding is up two weeks after I thought it would be and I still need to caulk and paint. I’m hoping to get that done before Christmas.

I think the final appearance will look okay, not professional by any stretch. But for my first time, I’m okay with the outcome.

Trip to Tennessee

2007-10-16T09:46:00.000-04:00

LaDonna's mom moved to Tennessee a few months ago from the North Carolina mountains. It's only about an hour and a half west from where they lived before. We hadn't been out to see them or the new house, so we took a road trip this last weekend and drove out. It took 7.5 hours to get there with one stop for dinner where we let the kids get out and stretch. It took us just over 7 hours to get home because we tried a different route. We ran into one accident and stopped three times. One stop for a meal and two for potty breaks. We still have one more route to try to see if we can cut off some more time from the trip.

It was a good trip and the kids had fun playing with their cousins there and seeing family. They live within walking distance to the lake where the fishing is supposed to be great. The kids got to do some fishing, but we didn’t have time to do some real fishing. Below is some little fish that the kids reeled in. Brian had already hooked one for each of them and they got to reel it in. LaDonna has a sister named Patience that lives really close to her mom and she has two kids, Seth and Westin, that were there. Lonna and Bryce were pretty excited about the boat ride and fishing. When we pulled the fish out of the water, Bryce wanted to touch it again and again. Then the fish would move and he’d jump and laugh and want to do it again. Lonna was excited as well and watch me take the hooks out and put them in a bucket. We kept the little fish for bait fish and later that night put the little fish on the hook to try and catch some big fish. We didn’t catch anything, but the bait kept getting eaten, so we know there were fish there.

I’ve included some pictures of the lake from the house and also of the kids fishing.

My birthday present

2007-10-05T13:15:00.000-04:00

I wanted a steering wheel for the XBOX 360. So I found one on Craigslist and got it last night. While I was shopping for it, Lonna had been looking at it and asked if she could play with it. She's always wanting to play my games and I won't let her. So I told her that she could play with it as soon as I bought it. Last night before she went to bed I told her I was going to get it and this morning when she got up she remembered and it was the first thing she asked about when I saw her. "Did you get the wheel?" I told her "yes", her next question was "Can I play with it?" So, we went downstairs and hooked it up. It comes with the steering wheel and pedals for the gas and brake. I let her play PGR3 and her and Bryce loved it. I'm waiting for PGR4 to come in the mail today and then it looks like I'm going to have to share my toy during the day. That's not something I'm used to doing.

Grandma came down this morning and tried it too, but I didn't get a picture of her playing. She was weaving back and forth and started to get a sick feeling. I was very impressed that she was even willing to try it!!!

Halo 3

2007-09-28T16:13:00.001-04:00

We got home from our trip to SF on Monday morning and Halo 3 came out on Tuesday at Midnight. So, Monday I took a nap for a couple of hours and went to hang out at the pizza place next to the store that I bought the game from. I went up with a friend here who was also getting the game and we ran into two other people from the area that we have had over for a LAN party. They had a Halo 2 tournament at the pizza place from 9 - 11 pm and then the store opened at midnight to let you pick up Halo 3. I got it shortly after midnight and had arranged to meet some friends online shortly after midnight. We played the campaign mode until 6:00 am and completed 7 of the 9 levels. I finished it yesterday.

That doesn't mean I'm going to stop playing it. I've already started the campaign again to find some of the hidden items I didn't get the first time through. I also will be spending time in the matchmaking multiplayer matches. Fun Stuff!!!

San Francisco

2007-09-28T12:24:00.000-04:00

The following is our trip to San Francisco. I've included some pictures below, but will only post a few and the rest will be in our Picasa site (Click "Our pictures" link below to see all the pictures).

Tuesday (9/18) we flew out to San Francisco and drove to Santa Rosa for our balloon ride on Wednesday.

Wednesday we got up and drove to meet the hot air balloon group. There were 4 balloons that went up and 10 people in our balloon. We took a lot of pictures that you can see in the Picasa link below on the right. The balloon ride was a blast and we were in the air about an hour. We took off from one of the vineyards and flew south. We got up to about 3400 ft. and at one point were traveling close to 40 miles an hour. They said it was very fast for a balloon and it was because there was a storm coming in. It didn't feel like we were going that fast at all. Once we started coming down the balloon slowed down and the landing was very soft. We helped pack all the equipment and then went to a brunch that the balloon company prepared.

We then headed back to San Francisco and stopped at the Golden Gate Bridge. We walked across the entire bridge both ways and later that night learned that there were wind gusts up to 47 miles per hour while we were walking the bridge.

After we walked the bridge, we got something to eat and returned the car and took the shuttle to the hotel.

Thursday we took the Caltrain to San Francisco and took a bus to China town. We shopped in China town all morning. We saw the Transamerica Pyramid which was on my list because AEGON owns the building and it’s one of the most photographed buildings in San Francisco.
Friday we took the boat to Alcatraz and did the tour. It was neat to see and hear all the stories that they have on the audio tour and the guided tours. The picture below is of 3 cells. Only the middle cell had the furniture in it.
This is a picture of me in a solitary confinement cell.
We spent all the other time seeing the normal tourist sights like the “Crooked” road, the sea lions, Fisherman’s wharf, and Pier 39.

This is a picture of a section of Lombard Street, the "crooked" road.

We were watch this family do this trampoline set-up and the two Grandfathers in their 50's were drunk and did it. We were laughing so hard that when the one grandfather got done he said he was paying for me to do it. So I did. I managed a few double back flips and a few forward flips. I tried for a triple back several times and couldn't pull it off.

Shoes

2007-07-25T09:15:00.000-04:00

LaDonna bought Lonna a bunch of play clothes, jewlery, and shoes from a lady on Craigslist. The hit of all the items has been the shoes. They have probably 8 pairs of shoes with all the Disney princesses on a pair. Bryce LOVES wearing these shoes, especially the light blue Cinderlla shoes. If Lonna has them on then he will tell her "Mine", meaning they are his and she needs to take them off. I have informed him that boys don't wear heals, but he hasn't taken my advice. He has worn them so much that he can now do a full sprint (for him) in heals. It's kind of impressive to watch considering he can probably run faster than I could if I were in heals. Anyway, I've included some pictures below of the shoes.

Picasa Website

2007-07-24T09:56:00.000-04:00

I've also added a link on my Links below to our Picasa Website that will have more pictures. I'll still upload some to the blog, but if you want more pictures, then click the link.

LaDonna’s Beach Week

2007-07-24T08:56:00.000-04:00

Last Saturday, LaDonna went to the beach with 7 other women for the week. It was a girl’s week at the beach. Grandma is watching the kids for 3 days and Kimberly is watching them for the other 2 days. Last night they stayed the night at Grandma’s and so it was kind of weird being in the house alone.

I bought LaDonna a new camera for her birthday so we sold the old one on Craigslist yesterday. The guy lived in Durham so I told him I didn’t have the kids and I would meet him halfway. I got on the motorcycle and rode to meet him, sold the camera and rode home. It’s kind of weird to think how much free time I might have if we didn’t have kids. I know some of you are still at that point, and I never regret having them, but last night it was nice to just be able to take off and ride the bike.

I was reluctant at first to let the kids spend the night at Grandma’s – for selfish reasons. I like Lonna coming to wake me up in the morning (when it’s after 6:30) or when Bryce calls for “Daddy”. He knows Mama is gone for the week so I get most of the attention, except when Grandpa’s around. Bryce usually talks about Grandpa as much as anyone.

It was also nice not having the kids last night so I could work on an assignment for school. I’m taking Intro to Marketing and Microeconomics. I should have only taken one of them at a time. I’m just not motivated enough to work full time, help with the kids, and then spend my free time only working on school. I guess I’m still too selfish and like to play X-Box too much. I have a Marketing plan that is due next Tuesday, so I worked on it last night some since I didn’t have the kids.

I hope this doesn't sound like I don't love my kids, because I do. They say and do the sweetest things. The things they remember are amazing and the things they learn by watching and listening are mostly funny.

Filly (baby horse)

2007-07-02T20:20:00.000-04:00

I meant to write about this experience when it happened and not three months later. But, since I didn’t, you get to read it now if you choose.

We went to Kinston for Easter and Kari’s horse was pregnant and they thought it could be any day while we were down there. We checked when we got there on Friday night, several times during the day on Saturday and then again on Saturday night. Coleman went across the street to check on Sunday morning and called to the house saying that she needed Papa (LaDonna’s dad) to come over to the pasture. He headed over and I watched from the house. I could tell they were walking towards the back of the pasture, but couldn’t really tell what was going on. Then Papa called from his cell phone and asked if I could come out and help. Roxy (the mama horse) was still in the pasture, but the filly had managed to get outside the fence and was down in a ditch. Papa and Coleman had got the filly out of the ditch by the time I got there and Papa was carrying the filly across the pasture to the stables so they could lock Roxy and the baby together and not worry about the other horses. While he was carrying the filly, the other horses were very curious and kept crowding him and Roxy, who was following. A few times Roxy would go after the other horses when they got to close. The filly would get excited and start kicking while Papa was trying to carry her. She probably weighed 70 pounds and when she started kicking it made her difficult to hold on to. About half way back to the stable I volunteered to take a turn carrying her. So, Papa started dealing with the other horses and I carried her rest of the way. Her hair was so soft and it was pretty cool carrying a horse that was less than 12 hours old. The pictures below are just an hour after we got her to the stable.

We’ve been back several times since Easter and she has grown amazingly fast. I still don’t think she has been named yet. Papa bought her from Kari and is going to sell his current horse (Rocky). They only want to have 6 horses and the colt makes 7.

Our front yard

2007-06-19T08:52:00.000-04:00

We've just finished a moderate project over the past few weeks. When we moved in, our front yard was 50% dirt, 40% weeds, and maybe 10% grass. A neighbor across the street and a friend in the community were planning on laying sod so we decided to do ours as well.

We started by renting a tiller and splitting the cost with the neighbor across the street. It took about 6 hours to till the front yard and I still missed several spots that I didn't go deep enough. The ground was very hard and dry which made the task pretty tiring. We then had 8 yards of 50% top soil and 50% compost delivered. They dumped it in the driveway and we spread it in the front yard until it was about an inch deep.

Finally, we had 5 pallets of sod delivered. We went with Bermuda grass because it is drought tolerant and is supposed to look like the fairway of a golf course.

Now we just have to water it every morning and watch for bugs, weeds, and all that fun stuff. We'll see if we do the backyard next year.

Hurricane Rita Rebuild

2007-04-06T07:55:00.000-04:00

As I’m writing this entry, I’m on a plane towards home - another flight that was delayed, but optimistically, not cancelled like the last one. I left Tuesday this week and I’ll be home tonight (Wednesday) so it’s really only one night, even though the kids and possibly LaDonna have already gone to sleep. I’m flying home from Des Moines, Iowa which I don’t even need a map to visit and get around anymore. I’ve been there several times and it’s not big enough to use a map that many times. The woman at the Courtyard that I stay at recognizes me each time I come back, which is kind of neat in some respects.

Anyway, last week we (my Business Unit) went to Cameron, LA. First of all, our business unit comprises 32 people and 28 of us went on this trip. We have an annual team building trip/offsite meeting and this year our Business Unit leader decided he wanted to take us to Cameron, LA.

The story behind Cameron, LA is that in September 2005, just shortly after Karina hit New Orleans and Mississippi, Hurricane Rita hit the western area of LA, including and mostly Cameron, LA. Cameron is located near the gulf of Mexico and had a population of 8,000 before the storm. Now they are at 6,000 and most of the 2,000 that are gone are not coming back. Cameron Parish schools had all their elementary school destroyed and most of the high schools sustained heavy damage. The water line rose 10 feet within 2 hours.

AEGON USA adopted Cameron Parish schools shortly after the hurricane and have since donated more than $700,000 to the parish schools. A team of our senior management went down at the beginning of the school year and put together desks and other furniture so the kids could start school this year. They only went two days a week last year because of the damage and lack of equipment/furniture. So, that’s where our Business Unit leader got the idea.

We all flew into Houston, TX on Tuesday and arrived around 6:30 pm (7:30 EDT). We then drove three 15 passenger vans one and a half hours to stop for dinner. After another hour and a half or so at dinner, we drove another hour and a half to stop at a grocery store, and then another hour and a half to the place where we were staying. We arrived at 1:30 (2:30 EDT). The whole trip was long and tiring, but it was for a good cause.

The parish schools lost all their elementary schools so all kids are now going to 4 different high schools. The high schools didn’t have play grounds so know the elementary kids don’t have playgrounds at the high schools. We went down and started the playgrounds. We outlined the play area with railroad ties and then mulched the area where the equipment will go.

The day before we left we went to a Hotel/Casino and had time to have some fun before flying out on Friday.

Last weeks adventure (not a fun adventure)

2007-03-21T13:37:00.000-04:00

I just thought I’d share an adventure I had last week. I was in Baltimore last Thursday and Friday. I got up at 4:30 on Thursday morning to catch a 6:20 flight to BWI. I made it to an 8:30 meeting with plenty of time and the rest of the day was great. Several people in the office gave me hugs and were happy to see me. That never happened when I was working there everyday. I stayed at Grandma and Grandpas Thursday night and went to work on Friday. Most of the North east was expecting a major storm and several airlines had cancelled flights in the morning trying to prepare for the storm to arrive that afternoon. I kept my eye on my flight and everything was on schedule to leave at 3:40. I left the office and returned the rental car and when I got to the airport the flight was delayed until 4:15. Well, 4:15 came and still no plane. They finally cancelled the flight at 4:25. I checked the monitors to actually find out the flight was cancelled and was a little irritated they didn’t make an announcement. I immediately called Grandma and Grandpa and asked them to come pick me up. Then I thought about getting a car and driving home. It’s only about 5 hours, but it was sleeting in Baltimore and rush hours were in effect. I called Grandma and told her I was driving home and not to worry about picking me up, although she was already at the airport when I called her. I then asked another man that was on the same flight if he wanted a ride. He said “yes”. I then heard two more guys talking about driving and offered to let them ride. They both wanted a ride as well, so the 4 of us got in a car and drove to Raleigh. We got to the airport at about 11:30. I stopped and got dinner because we only made one stop driving from Baltimore. By the time I got home it was 12:30. I had completely missed Lonna’s 3rd birthday, She didn’t know it was her birthday because we are celebrating this weekend, but I still knew and I didn’t want to miss any events in their life.

Lonna's milestone

2007-02-20T15:26:00.000-05:00

We have been putting off trying get Lonna potty trained until we moved. So, last week we decided it was time to give her the full court press. LaDonna gets all the credit for this, because the first day was very rough and there were accidents, false alarms, and communication issues (terms to describe what she did, or needed to do). However, the second day was just short of a miracle. Lonna went pee-pee in the potty several times and NO accidents. The third day we saw even more progress. She was getting undressed and getting on the potty herself. Sometimes she would go, sometimes it was a false alarm. I think she probably took off her pants about 20 times, no exaggeration. She had one accident yesterday, but overall we are very happy with her achievement and how fast she took on this new and exciting challenge in her life. We thought Oreo cookies were going to be the reward, but LaDonna introduced ice cream cones and they have been a huge hit with Lonna. So, now every time she "stinkies" in the potty she gets an ice cream cone. We're going to eventually kill this reward, but for now it's working and we love not having the diapers to change. We still have some work to do because during sacrament meeting she claimed she needed to use the potty 3 times and none of them were the real deal. We have also not been putting a diaper on at night and she hasn't had any accidents, so I think we'll take the progress and work with her on knowing when she really needs to go versus when it is fun or gets her out of sitting in church.

Moving progress

2007-02-15T14:42:00.000-05:00

We’re all moved in and mostly unpacked. We have begun to get organized, but haven’t hung anything on the walls yet.

I’m working from home this week and will be gone all next week, including our 7th anniversary, except for Friday. LaDonna’s mom is coming to stay with her, us the time I’m home, from the 20th to the 26th. I leave on the 25th again and come home on the 27th. I’ll have to see what progress we can make on the house between now and Monday. I’m sure LaDonna and her mom will get some things done while I’m gone, but I’d like to be here to help on some of them.

We went to church Sunday and found out that there are 6 other active families at church that live in our subdivision and I’d guess there are about 200 houses in the subdivision. It’s not Utah but we had 250 in our last community and only one other member couple lived near us. One of the families we met that lives one street over has a 3 year old girl and a 10 month old son and the parents were both nice.

We also met Kimberly Harris’ sister-in-law’s brother and sister-in-law. They live less than a mile from us and seemed very nice. They also have two sons, one that is older than Bryce by about 5-6 months and a new born.

Overall, we’re adjusting, it’s hard not knowing where the closest stores are without having to go to the internet and then once you get in the stores we don’t know exactly where everything is, but we’ll get there.

We're moving

2007-01-26T21:11:00.000-05:00

In case you haven't heard. We are moving to North Carolina on February 8th. We will be living in a town called Fuquay-Varina. The name and city have some neat history so I've included a link to learn more if you're interested. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuquay-Varina

Our ward will be meeting at the Stake center which is next to the temple. It's about 15 minutes away.

We are sad to leave a lot of things in Maryland, but are very excited about the new opportunities and the new house.

We bought a 4 bedroom 2.5 bath house in a community. The house has an office for me to work from home, which I was very excited about. The family room and kitchen are connected, which LaDonna really wanted. Overall, we really like the house, the backyard is sloped or it would be the perfect set-up all around.

Boring news

2006-12-11T15:14:00.000-05:00

I believe all of you know that we want to move to North Carolina and have been looking for the right time and opportunity for our family to move. We have an update for you, but, I want to start by telling you some history of the last year.

I told my boss about 9 months ago while on a trip to Ohio that we were planning on moving to North Carolina. He started planning for the move almost as soon as we got back by giving some of my responsibilities to other members of our team and making sure I had time to train them before we moved. I had originally told that we were going to start looking as soon as we sold the rental houses. He’d ask me every couple of weeks for an update and I’d tell him that we were still planning on it and that the timing was still flexible, but we wanted to do it by April 2007. Everything proceeded with the plans for me to leave AEGON and find a new job.

Background information - We have an office in Atlanta, GA that manages some TPA’s (Third Party Administrators) like we do in Baltimore. Their TPA’s administer GAP insurance and Debt cancellation insurance which is not what we do in Baltimore. In Baltimore, we do mainly health products.

In late October, my boss, Jeff, was working with the TPA director in Atlanta, Karla, on a Due Diligence and set-up of a new TPA for them. I’m kind of our expert in Baltimore on setting up and terminating TPA’s so he asked me to go with him down to Atlanta and help them get a start on this new TPA. I wrote about the trip I think in my first blog entry. The trip to Atlanta went good and we met with Karla and her team and began to walk them through the set-up and documentation process that we follow in Baltimore. The partner they were setting up had a location in CA so I kind of volunteered to go on the due diligence visit with them. I didn’t have a lot going on at work and thought it would be a good experience. While I on the trip I told Karla that I was leaving AEGON and moving to NC. I still don’t remember how it came up, but when I got back Jeff asked me to come to his office. Jeff had also asked me to keep it kind of quiet that I was moving until we had some solid dates. He started the conversation in his office by asking me if I’d told Karla that I was moving. I thought he was going to be upset that I told her, so I gave him excuses that she didn’t work in Baltimore and that I told her it wasn’t public knowledge and not to share the info. He interrupted my at that point and said that he didn’t care why I told her but that she had called him and told him that she wanted to hire my to work from NC for that Atlanta office. Jeff told her that he hadn’t thought of that and that he was going to explore the idea of me working for Baltimore rather than let me work for Atlanta. It’s been about a month now and as of today; AEGON is offering to let me continue my current job and work from home in NC. I will be telecommuting and traveling to Baltimore/Atlanta almost once a week for a couple of days (one night). I still have to sign a formal agreement that needs to be approved by HR and Legal before it’s official, but it’s been through Jeff, and two SVP’s and I have the verbal approval.

We are planning to go to NC on Jan. 13th and LaDonna will stay for the week. I’ll be flying out of Raleigh to visit an account and come back on Thursday of that week and look for a house on Friday or Saturday. If all goes smoothly and we can find a house then we should be moved by the end of February.

This is definitely a blessing we have been praying for and has been answered by Heavenly Father. I had no idea that this would come about and move as fast as it has. We prayed almost a year ago to know if we should pursue moving and we received an answer that we should. I’m a very impatient person and several times I thought that it wasn’t moving fast enough and we put off doing things “until we move”. I can now say that I believe Heavenly Father has his hand in our lives and will bless us.

Thanksgiving in Boston

2006-11-28T17:56:00.000-05:00

We spent Thanksgiving in Boston with Jason, Kimberly, Ethan, Grandma, and Grandpa. We drove halfway on Tuesday night and the other half Wednesday morning.

On Thanksgiving, Jason and I went to play a game of touch football in Salem. However, 15 minutes after everyone was supposed to be there, we only had three people. The third person knew of another football game that was going to start in 45 minutes at another park. The other game was going to be TACKLE. I gave up tackle football about three years ago when we had two Elders in our ward that both weighed over 200 pounds. I tried playing tackle with these guys and was sore for several days and decided that I was too old to be playing tackle football anymore. But, I really wanted to play football and Jason was game so we drove over to the other park. Some of the guys in Jason’s ward were making up the teams and I believe the primary factor they were using was weight. Anyone less than 185 pounds were on our team, and everyone over 185 pounds was on their team. There were one or two exceptions, but for the most part each of our players were outweighed by 20 pounds or more. It was a very close game and a lot of fun. Needless to say, but I will anyway, we took some hits and dished a few out. Jason had a jammed finger that swelled up large and both of us were in pain for a couple of days.

Thanksgiving Dinner was great. We had a Brine Turkey, Mashed potatoes, Sweet potatoes, and Green bean casserole. Kimberly, Jason, Grandma, and LaDonna did a great job on preparing everything and it tasted great. We also had Pumpkin, Banana Cream, and Blueberry pies.

I love Thanksgiving because I usually get to play football, eat, watch football, and browse ads for black Friday. This year a few stores opened early and I found a lot of things that I “needed” were on sale. So, Jason and I got in the car and went to CompUSA which one of their locations opened at 9:00 pm. When we got there, the line was 400 people long and it was pouring down rain. We opted out and decided to go to another location that opened at 12:00 a.m. When we got to the other location, there were about 28 people in front of us and we had a two and a half hour wait before the store opened. We talked to people in the line with us and generally, the time moved quickly. There was a lot of drama trying to get into the store, but I’ll save that for a story sometime. We both wanted to get the GPS navigation unit that was on sale and we both got it easily. We also picked up memory cards and flash drives. It’s a real adrenaline rush for me to try and get all the deals when you walk into the store with a lot of other people that are going for various deals and it’s very chaotic. It’s also a game to see when you should go to the store and begin standing in line. I figure I don’t really have anything else to do at those hours so I might as well get a bargain on some electronics that I “need”. After we got the stuff, we went home and I was planning to go back out at 5 a.m. on Friday, but I set my alarm for the wrong time and realized it too late, so I stayed in bed.

Just a heads up – Jason and I did practice Project Gotham Racing 2 while I visited and are preparing for the Christmas competition.

General update on the family

2006-11-07T12:31:00.000-05:00

In September, we sold both the rental houses we had which was another item we needed to complete before we can move to North Carolina. I'm planning to look for a job after the first of the year and as soon as I find a job, then we'll move.

I'm still with AEGON, an insurance company, as an Account manager for Third Party Administrators (TPA) and it's kind of weird now. My boss knows that I'm leaving so he's not giving me any long term projects. It's been really slow for a while because of that. I'm now helping our office in Atlanta set-up a new Third Party Administrator. It's something I kind of just lucked into, but I've set-up 4 new TPA's and am kind-of the resident expert on how to do it and what to look for. Therefore, I was in Atlanta for 3 days last week and am going to be gone all next week. On Monday, we fly to L.A. Tuesday, we meet with the partner at their location in L.A. Wednesday, we fly to Cedar Rapids, IA. Thursday, we meet with there IA location. Friday, fly home. It's kind of a pain to be on a plane 3 days in a week and deal with the time changes, but it shouldn't be a bad trip because it is spaced out a little. I usually only travel a few nights each month and sometimes they are day trips.

At church, I'm Elder's Quorum president and have been now for 4 years. I'm ready to do something new, but they just replaced both of my counselors and left me as president so I'm assuming they won't release me until we move.

LaDonna is teaching primary (Valiant A) and is also compassionate service leader. She's wanted to teach primary for a while and they just put her back in so she's excited about the class. She wasn't really excited they were teaching the Old Testament, but she's doing it anyway.

LaDonna is working for Grandma and Grandpa 3 days a week and the kids go over and play and keep Grandma from working.

Lonna has just started to use the potty. It's very exciting for us since she is already 2 and a half. We still have a ways to go, but at least we are on the road to not having diapers for one of them. The first time she used the potty we gave her one of her Christmas presents early just to try and reinforce the behavior. She isn't going to get a present every time, but it was a special occasion so it deserved something special.

She is very bossy and reprimands LaDonna and I often. One that is/was amusing is when we are trying to get her to move a little faster, she'll say "Don't push Lonna."

Lonna also likes to go down to the marina with Grandma to feed the "baby fish". There are minnows at the boat ramp that they feed crackers or bread. Lonna usually dumps an entire package of crackers in at once if we don't watch her.

Lonna is talking all the time now and only uses signs once in a while. She has tried to teach Bryce a few, but doesn't really use them herself. She is learning her ABC's and can sing the song missing about 30% of the letters. She can count to ten, although she skips #4 most of the time.

We read the same stories at bedtime most nights and recently found out that Lonna has memorized the books. One example is "Goodnight Teddy", we'll read the first couple of words on the page and she'll finish the sentence. Most pages only have a sentence or two, but it's neat to listen to her finish them.

Bryce is now walking most of the time. When he wants to get somewhere fast he'll still crawl, but he is trying to walk more and more. He still has bright red hair and it's only getting darker because there is more of it now. He has learned two signs, eat and drink, and uses them fairly often. He'll also say "duck" and "ball", sometimes pointing at the right item, but sometimes he's not even close. He is more like a typical boy that I would have imagined. He likes to hit, play hard, and head butt. He generally does things more actively than Lonna did around the same age. A story about the head butting, a week or so ago Lonna and Bryce were both on Lonna's bed. They both crawled toward something and their heads collided. Lonna started crying almost instantly and Bryce just looked at her and kept playing. The kid has a hard head and sometime will head butt a wall just for fun.

Halloween

2006-11-07T11:09:00.000-05:00

I'll start with an update from Halloween. Bryce was a dinosaur.

He didn't really get to do much other than get carried around all night and watch Lonna go door-to-door collecting candy. He's had a few pieces of candy and knows that it tastes better than the other food he is accustomed to eating.

Lonna was Belle from Beauty and the Beast. Ashes made the dress for her and she loved it, as did a number of other people throughout the night. She received compliments at 80% of the houses we went to and people were amazed at how cool the dress was. We have a hard time getting a picture of Lonna while she is smiling. Her forced smile doesn't really look good, but I've included a decent picture from the evening.

We had a pretty good time and Lonna wanted to keep going when we were done.

Introduction Blog

2006-11-07T11:06:00.000-05:00

I have enjoyed reading John and Kristen's blogs over the past couple of months and I also was glad when Ashes sent out the update on her family. I wanted everyone to have a chance to read more about our family so I've created this blog. I know Mom (hereinafter referred to as Grandma) probably updates everyone on some of the events and activities in our life. But, the first hand account and pictures are sometimes better.

With that being said, I will try and write in this blog often, whether or not anything of signifigance happens. I reserve the right not to update it as well, not because I don't want to, just because I might not get to it.