Big Unveiling! New Blogging software means more frequent updates

Happy Birthday to Me

Happy Birthday to Me! We had a big bash for my 40th birthday, but also to get some of our North-side pals down to finally see our new new place and enjoy some outdoor activities. We had a fantastic turnout (over 40 folks!), and over my protests of “No one needs to bring gifts”, lots of folks chipped in and got me a fantastic birthday present: An excellent telescope, the SkyQuest™ XT8 IntelliScope™.

Patio Build

Patio Build. Over the last few weeks we’ve been in the process of building a new “dry lay” patio just off of the back porch. It turned out to be double the expected cost and 10 times the expected physical labor, but since Michelle likes the finished product, it was all worth it. Click here for a construction history photo album. 

Big Gallery Update

Big Gallery Update. After I made all these recent updates, I realized I had never added Thanksgiving or Christmas photos to the gallery. I have done so now, but lots of them are without captions so far.

	Christmas 2004
	Thanksgiving 2004

Site News Archive Reorg

Site News Archive Reorg. The “News Archive” section had gotten a little out of control, so I organized it by year. You can now browse the site news by year:  2000,
2001,
2002,
2003

Happy Easter

Happy Easter! Another first for the new house: We got to have an Easter egg hunt in our huge back yard. It was a little muddy, but still fun as we had lots of new places to hide eggs. Later than evening, we had dinner at Michelle’s parents’. Click here for a gallery of photos.

Skate Ramp Build

Skate Ramp Build. What a busy weekend! Andrew, Cameron, Derek, and I built a fairly sizable skate ramp over the weekend. We’ve been wanting to do this for a while, and since my Mom was visiting, we were able to use her truck to get all the lumber we needed. This was quite a learning experience and took longer than it should have, but with this job under our belt, the next project will go much faster. 

After suffering a work stoppage because of a dead battery in our power driver/drill, we finally finished the ramp late in the evening. To our horror, it started to rain right as the last screw was tightened. That didn’t stop the boys from taking some wet, slick rides. They went back out late that night after it had dried up a bit, but the real breaking-in was the next morning when it was sunny again.

They got brave enough to do some proper “drop-ins” from the 3-foot-high top. This project was tons of work, but it should get tons of use and end up being well worth the effort. Click the image to see a gallery of photos.

Our ramp is a slightly modified version of the plans found here: http://www.slapmagazine.com/new_site/woodshop/quarter/index.shtml

Holly Armstrong Named Twisters MVP

Holly Armstrong Named Twisters MVP! Holly has been playing soccer this season, but I’ve neglected to mention it on the site until now. I can’t keep quiet any longer, because in this Saturday’s game, Holly was named MVP! This is her first season to play, but she has been improving rapidly, particularly on defense. In this game, she didn’t let the other team near the goal for the first 58 minutes of the 60 minute game. Yes, the other team finally scored when the game was almost over, but it was The Twisters’ first tie (and first non-loss). Several of the girls nominated Holly as MVP, and the coach said she would have overridden them and given it to Holly no matter what.

Holly’s Oklahoma grandmother (Mamaw) was visiting us and also got to see Holly’s great performance.

Baby Bunny Rabbit

Baby Bunny Rabbit. During my first lawn mowing of the year (and it’s still officially Winter!), I frightened a tiny rabbit and it  ran across the road. As small as it was, I was surprised it could run so fast. Strangely, once it got across the road, it just stopped. I went over to check on it, and even as I approached closely, it stayed right where it was. To my amazement, I was able to pick it up. At that point it got lively again, kicking and scratching. It was so small though, that I was in no danger. I knew Holly wouldn’t be satisfied just to hear this story, and that I would have to show her the rabbit in person. Since Holly was out shopping with Michelle, I put the little critter in a container with lots of grass to keep it comfortable until she got home. I thought it would thrash too much for Holly to be able to hold it herself, but it remained calm long enough for her to ooh and ah, and coo and cuddle it. After this, we let it go in some tall grass behind our property.  Hold your mouse over the small images to read a description. Click to see a larger version.

Andrew’s First Track Meet

Andrew’s First Track Meet. Andrew is running track this year, and it turns out he is best at running distance. He has become one of the best milers in the 7th grade at MMS, and the mile was the race he ran in his first track meet. There were 8 schools competing and with events taking place for 7th grade girls, 7th grade boys, 8th grade girls, and 8th grade boys, the meet went well into the night. Andrew’s mile run was the next to the last event, not starting until around 10pm. Since he’d been standing around and goofing off since the meet’s start at around 3pm, he had had quite a wait. After some instructions from the judges, about nineteen 7th grade boys stepped up to the starting line. Andrew says he had butterflies the size of Thanksgiving turkeys in his stomach, but that didn’t last long once the starter’s gun went off. We think he did pretty well for his first race. He came in right in the middle of the pack, but expects to improve rapidly in coming races.

Getting instructions before the race. (Andrew is on the far left)

Lined up at the starting line and waiting for the gun.

Andrew streaks past during his third lap.

(Unfortunately, my camera battery went dead, so I didn’t get photos of the end of the race.)