Sunday, December 27, 2009

Time with Family and Friends

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Yesterday we had a wonderful visit by Grammy, Kurt, Cherie, Harper, and lil' Vaughn. It was a little after Christmas, Christmas and a great meal. It's always fun to see the kids getting together and playing. They're a great group of cousins.
Pictures of the kids from the day.

Then the kids took off for Christmas with their father, and Robin and I went out to meet her friends Skye & James. I've seen James play one other time, but hadn't met Skye. They live in Australia and he gets the band back together when ever he's home. It was a great night with great friends.

Now, the 26th will also be known as the three shovel day, and I thought it was over when we went out for the night, but we woke up to a couple new inches of snow and it was coming down again. The best part.... we're going no where all day long! Might be hard to go back to work tomorrow though. Here are a couple pictures from this morning and keep in mind at midnight last night the drive way was clear.











Friday, December 25, 2009

Christmas Day Pictures

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Last post of the Christmas day frenzy of catching up on things.

This was the scene this morning in the living room. As you can tell, Santa was good to everyone involved. Even Nuts dove into the pile with his christmas treat in his mouth that made it look like he had a smile on his face.

Here are the pictures.

Also, a link to the our formal pictures shown down below. This will jump you down to that post.

Thanksgiving Cruise

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This one deserved a post of it's own.

Dar, Mom, Robin & I took a little four day get-away for Thanksgiving weekend. It was a great to spend some time away and to just be away for a minute. Trip seemed quick, but was still good. We did make some new friends with our table mates for dinner and another couple we met out on the sun deck each day.

Here are some pictures from our camera.

Also, a first for all four of us, we swam with dolphins. The unanimous highlight of trip for all involved. Here are the pictures from that.

Fall Activities

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Just catching up and sharing some pictures of the munchkins and all they've been doing the last two or three months.

In November, Jillian had another gymnastics show and tell event, the parents even got to go out and stretch and do yoga!

We also went to Tanners - it was too late for the maze, but we had a ton of fun on the mini-maze and of course we got a car full of goodies. Tanners is a must for every fall!!

Jackson had a great flag football season. These pictures are from the final weekend's double header and end of season party at Culver's. Game 2 was full of sugared up kids!

Jordan's reached the age of having full blown concerts for band and choir. This year, she made the audition style extra-curricular choir and sang with her class as well. We didn't take pictures at choir, they were on back to back nights, and the band shots were good.

Robin and I saw a few great concerts!!

The dogs are still spoiled, and have given us some health scares but continue to live the life of luxury. These are just some miscellaneous shots from around the house the last couple months.

Happy (early) New Year all!

Christmas Traditions

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Just wanted to share one touching moment. Between this year and last, Jillian and I have formed a new tradition where she helps me create the gift bags for my team at work, including a personalized Merry Christmas from her to each person. She also helps me do the final assembly. It's been quite nice, and this year I snapped this shot.

Adult fun with Kids Toys

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Jillian wanted Aqua Sand... little did I know there were toys for Robin in the box too!!

Somewhere, out there, there is a toy developer laughing at all the inside jokes that they made while they developed this.

Had to share the fun from Christmas morning.

:o)

Thursday, December 24, 2009

Famous Christmas Songs...

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We last saw Jackson with one tooth missing - perfect for Halloween, right. What could be better, than the other one falling out in November, and him, alone by the tree, singing..... "All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth."

Sorry Jack - I had to! :o)

Merry Christmas!!

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It's that magical time of year, where I say, "Shoot (or something like that), we haven't put up any pictures of all the fun school and sport activities that have had us running around crazy the last three months."

Some things might be out of order, but I'm going to start with some shots from the Christmas Card photo shoot. Look close, some of you might recognize the "studio." The picture we used for our card is at the bottom. Also, from that, we've made the first ever update to the blog's banner - about time, right?

















Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Cowboy Jack & Jack - o - Lantern

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Funny thing is neither are his halloween costume!! Two fun pictures to share of Jackson. First, each year the elementry school has a western day, and look at our little cowboy!!




Next, we had a miss timed lost tooth - two days too late to be a pumpkin head for Halloween and likly too early to sing "all I want for Christmas is my front tooth!"

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Boys Hockey Weekend

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Last Saturday, Blaze and I took our boys on their first hockey retreat! Something he and I have done a few times - meet in St. Louis for a Stars / Blues game.

This one was Jackson's second and Brendan's first Stars game. If I can find it, I'll add the picture of them each going to their first ever game in Bloomington.

But for now, here's a picture of the highlight of the night - Trevor Daley flipped a puck over the glass during warm up for both of the boys.




See all the pictures here.

Thursday, October 22, 2009

2009 School Pictures

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They Grow Up So Fast!

 

 

 
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Saturday, October 3, 2009

Kenny in Indy

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It's been about two weeks now, but we saw the Kenny Chesney show in Indy. When we bought those tickets months ago, we had no idea he would be coming to Bloomington the same week or that he would be announcing a year of "reduced" touring during that show.

Glad we went though, we always have fun in Indy, and we saw a lot of great music. Here are some pictures of Zac Brown Band, Miranda Lambert, Montgomery Gentry, Sugarland, and of course, KC.

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Iowa Pictures

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There were so many - I have to break them into various albums and be selective! Our summer '09 vacation started in Little Amana, Iowa. Nothing exciting by name, but we stayed in a hotel that has an in-door water park (two slides). The kids loved it, more than four hours of fun and they wanted to go back. Here is a large sampling of the pictures from the water park.

The next morning we did a quick, rolling tour of the Amana Colonies. This was the culture part of the vacation! Along the way we found an amazing copper art house, some fantastic chocolate, fudge, and wine, the famed Amana Meat Shoppe, and various other neat little stores. These are some pictures of the copper art and around the streets there.

Separately, amid the Amana Colonies, there is a natural, shallow lake bed that is completely filled shore to shore with lilies. August is a little late in the season, but we still managed some good shots.

The trip rounded out with a stop at Uncle Randy's and the Iowa State Fair - the best fair in the nation! Here are the pictures from there, including, of course, the highlights of the butter cow and the kid who eats ice cream via his sunglasses! While at Randy's we reunited with our pal CJ (the bulldog) and he had two new friends who had so many names, I hesitate to put them here as I'll use the wrong name. Of course, there are dog pictures.

On the way home, we stumbled into a impromptu Stangl Reunion. No pictures, but all the bald heads were there! Great trip, fun end to the summer, now school resumes! :o)

Sunday, August 16, 2009

Merry-Go-Round; Then and Now

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There will be a ton more pictures from the Iowa trip to come shortly, but Robin thought it would be fun to share a "then and now" segment with the tearful Jillian frightened by the merry-go-round about five years ago:



compared to her at the fair this week (with no chaperon!):





Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Some Funnies

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In prepairing for summer's last roadtrip, I found this in Reader's Digest to be a little disconcerning:



One additional funny we received from our friend Helen (most of you will know who she is):




Pictures of the family road trip to follow soon.

Sunday, August 9, 2009

Summer Fun

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Everyone had a week with Grammy as always this summer. The one new part is that Grammy now has a digital camera! Here are some of the pictures she took on the respective weeks.

Sunday, August 2, 2009

Dog & Pony Show

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I don't think I ever posted the pictures from the other times that we have watched Roy. Here are some from this last winter.

Roy now has a younger brother, Riley. Four dogs kept us busy, but they were great for us this weekend. I took a ton of pictures, here's a good sample.

Jordan Volleyball Pics

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Friday was the last game for Jordan this year. She's done better, but it was a rough year as the team had to move up in division and was among the youngest / least experienced in their current division.













Saturday, August 1, 2009

Photo Sharing Site

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I know there is a ton of them... I'm looking to find one that isn't your every day Kodak or Flicker, but is accessable from State Farm's network since that is part of the audience. Trying out Photobucket today, and so far it's been easy to use.

If you haven't been by in a while, check the next entry for all the summer's activities. Since I'm just learning to use it, I'm going to use a link, but will also try some of their extras on this entry.

Here are the pictures from Harper's Party, bounce house and all!

Slide show:

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Catching up, 2009

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Yes, yes, yes… I’ve gotten the emails, text messages, and subtle hints at home that I’m WAY late in updating the blog. It seems the summer just moves too fast to keep up with it all. Along with all the normal summer, a slightly unplanned basement remodel that took all of June have kept me off of the computer, but I’ll put all bring it all up to speed from today back to April in one big entry. (reminder: links are generally pictures)

Today: It seems fotomat, the site that has all of the photos I have links to throughout the entire blog will be shutting its cyber doors 9/1/09. Nice of them to give notice, I’ll have to read up more on my options and I’ll let you know later what is happening. There is a chance every link to pictures from here back to the beginning may not work, at least for a little while. Sorry for that.

Last weekend we had the kids up to Burr Ridge briefly for part of Harper’s 6th birthday party. Of course, I left the camera there, so pictures will be up in about a week. Kurt had a whole pig on the roaster and the kids had a bounce house ‘o fun to play with.

The weekend before that we were also up to see Grammy for a while. The last two weeks were Jillian and Jackson’s weeks to spend with her respectively. Jillian was just looking too grown up to not take a couple pictures.

Jordan has continued her summer volleyball at the park, and I’ve continued to work with Doug as the assistant coach. This summer has also been Jillian’s first summer of softball. I’ve resisted the urge to join the teams coaching staff, but have continued the family tradition of “encouraging” from the crowd.

In June we made it to play day. That has also become an annual tradition and is a great employee benefit we have here in town. Robin confirmed the suspicions that spinning in circles does not agree with her. It was a fun day and not nearly as crazy as last year when we also worked in a wedding to the same day.

It's been a good summer for parents, kids, and pooches alike!







In May, Jackson played in his first football league. Everyone gets to play QB one game; he did well there and also made a really good receiver and safety. The great thing is it kept him with most of his basketball team – and the same group will be back at it for fall football and basketball all winter! Here are a couple pictures of him at QB (in doors, so the pictures aren’t my best work).











February and May made the whole household but me one year older as usual – of course I’d throw that in.

Last but far from the least, our family lost an important part in April. Tom passed away of a heart attack about the time the blog fell silent for a while. I understand much more of what Robin went through almost one year earlier, and her experience helped her to be just what I needed that week. I’m thankful for the time we had earlier this year and every year of the prior 16.



Tom, Dad, and most recently, "Grandpa Tom"

Sunday, April 12, 2009

Saga of an Easter Picture

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We just wanted to take one nice picture (which we did)...



But then Peanut felt left out...



And gave everyone a good laugh...



So we went ahead an included them:




Here are some other pictures of the kid in their outfits too.