Paintball Party

Taylor’s Birthday

Whapp. Wham. Powie. Kapow. SPLATT. 
Holy painted landscape, Batman.

Taylor, Tanner and 13 friends had a paintball war for Taylor’s 11th birthday. Gathering at daybreak, we trekked to Wacky Warriors paintball. We had the entire place to ourselves. Spent the morning getting in rounds of paint ball battles between thunderstorms. It was a great day targeting each other, sometimes actually hitting someone, and sloshing through the mud. The mud and rain made for a memorable experience not soo to be forgotten.

Happy 11th Birthday, Taylor.

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Concuring the Storm

Tanner looks great in a suit. I can picture him as a powerful influence in this world and navigating lifes stormy moment with ease. Perhaps these picks illustrate what I see in him.  Or maybe I am just a prowd Dad.  

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Rusty’s First Year

Rev's River City Rusty

Rusty joined our family 4th of July weekend 2010. We spent our summer vacation at our cabin at Island Park, ID and drove up to Bozeman MT to get our newest family member. Rusty is all bird dog and full of life. When not rough housing with the kids, chasing birds in the back yard, snuggling with Laurie, Rusty is running with me or disrupting conference calls. Rusty has brought a lot of love to our home.

Check out www.TrueGritBrits.com for Rusty’s roots. Montana’s Rusty Little Pants and Deseeker Lone River Revelie are Rev’s River City Rusty’s  parents. 

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As of June 2011, http://truegritbrits.blogspot.com/ still has a chronically of Rusty’s first 8-weeks from birth to near the time we picked him up. Check it out. Rusty was called “Black”

 

Keeping track of the flock

I love this picture of Taylor among the Geese in the lot across the street from our house.

 

Training for 1/2 marathon

Getting serious about training for a 1/2 marathon. Check out my runs at Garmin Connect – Click for Details.

Memorial Day 10K Run

 

Derby 2011

This years focus is areo dynamics. Fewer frills, high thrills.

Built for Speed.

 

Summertime Fun

Lots of fun this summer while on vacation in Utah, Idaho, and South Dakota.

Thanksgiving Point Dinosaur Museum

 

Shredding at Hidden Valley

Yep, StL has it own ski and snowboarding resort – 4 lifts, terrain park, snow makers and night skiing – http://www.hiddenvalleyski.com/.  OK its not Utah or the Rockies and the snow is man made.  After 9+ years in Texas with no snow or any serious hills, we will ski/snowboard anything – we aren’t picky.

HV is a great starter hill. The boys took to it like humidity in Houston or Mormons to Utah. Taylor was really looking forward to Boarding and could not wait to go back the following weekend. That’s right two weekend in a row we strapped on the boards and shredded like pros. All right, we stuck to the beginner stuff and spent most of the time on our butts. At least we can act like we are Shredders with ski passes attach to our coats so everyone will think we are die hards.

Taylor is a natural and he looks cool doing it!

Tanner has Mojo - he just wish he knew what it is.

 

Derby 2009

Pinewood Derby has become an annual family activity. This is our 3rd set of derby cars and the most expensive yet. Each year we have added some new tool. This year it was a scroll saw – a must have for getting great curves. We used Laurie’s french curve drawing templates to come up with some fun designs. Talyor designed a traditonal racer and Tanner wanted his car to slice through the air. 

The 2009 pinewood derby was the kids first pack meeting since moving to Missouri. The kids had lots of fun. Tanner took 1st place and Taylor took 3rd. We must be slipping to let another car into 2nd.

TnT Racing Team

Taylor’s Red Hot Flaming Skull.

Tanner’s Cobra Car – 1st Place

TnT Racing Team

Tanner’s Cobra Car

Taylor’s Flaming Skull Racer

 

2008 in review

The year 2008 has brought about many changes for us. The most significant change is in our address. After nine years in North West Houston, Texas, we have moved to Dardenne Prairie, Missouri. Dardenne is outside St. Louis to the west. This change was brought about by a career change. Kevin left HP to join Savvis to take the product management responsibility for hosted compute services including the emerging area of Cloud computing.

We are settling in to our new home. It is nice to get a basement and be able to spread out (no basements in Houston). Laurie has plenty of room for her art supplies. The kids think the basement is great for science projects – mixing vinegar and baking soda – and hanging out on the hammock.

Our new neighborhood is surrounded by park lands and has walking/jogging paths. We can enter the path from our backyard. The path circles a 15 acre lake and makes another loop through the woods. The paths are part of the Dardenne Greenway that will eventually connect multiple parks, Busch Conservation area and to the Katy Trail.  We all enjoy walking, jogging, or biking the path.

In September, we experienced huricane Ike. We were fortunant to not recieve any house damage and just spend 10 days without power. The kids enjoyed the time out of school and discovered lots of things to do without power – whittling, board games, crusing the nieghborhood on bikes,… kids had a great time.  After a week with no power we bought home a small generator to do laundry  and run a window AC unit and some fans – the tempatures were up in the 90’s with high humidity.

Earlier this year, Taylor was Baptized. Taylor’s Grandpa and Grandma Van Mondfrans came to Houston for the Baptism and Birthday party. It was a great time and everyone had fun.

Our first snowfall In Dardenne Prairie. Tanner and Taylor built a snow man in the front and a snow fort in the back.

Taylors Baptism in June

Taylor’s 8th Birthday

Grandma and Tanner playing at Taylor’s Birthday party

Kevin and Tanner at the St. Louis Arch Museum

The new house in Dardenne Prairie

Our first snowfall In Dardenne Prairie. Tanner and Taylor built a snow man in the front and a snow fort in the back.

Aerial View of BaratHaven – our neighborhood.

Mad science in the basement – a school project gone wrong.

Tanner in the Basement celebrating his chemical reaction and plotting bigger things to come.

Taylor's 8th Birthday