Hannah practicing before a football game. She is in the drum line.. because Bassoon does not do marching band.. She is clearly not excited I’m taking pictures.. lol.
We went Geocaching one evening.. Found this face hidden in the woods.
Rockwell had a dance at his school.. He ended up being quite popular behind the cotton candy machine.
The girls wanted to go to a Bernie Sanders rally in Columbia.. We ended up bing the ONLY people to bring a sign! They let us in, but only if we “removed the stick”..
While I did not see the local news, I know we were in multiple shots that evening!
On the way home, we stopped at a McDonalds that had an automated Kiosk. It was not that pleasant to use.
Young Makers! Charles showed how he made a program on A Raspberry Pi. THe kids wre really interested! More than this picture shows. 🙂
Posted on 30 September '15 by admin, under Activities, kids. No Comments.
Rockwell and I hit the Fork Area Trail System (FATS) this weekend. Got a little (ok, a LOT) wet and muddy. By the middle of the 8 miles, it was raining pretty hard and some of the trails were streams.. I’m surprised the trail holds up as well as it has.. you would think it would be rutty. The sun was shining by the time we exited though! We also came across two people from Columbia with really nice rigs.. single wheel trailers that held their, what looked like 2/yo and~4/yo kids behind them, while they navigated the (not always easy) trails. Impressive, dedicated riders! 
Posted on 31 August '15 by admin, under kids. No Comments.
Hannah got to attend her High school prom this year!
So beautiful..
She invited Amber as her date. Amber did not get to go to her HS Prom, so this was a first for both of them.
The tickets! It was Vegas themed.
Turns out she made the front page of the local paper the next day.. She is the one walking out of the building with a giant Die.. lol.
Melinda went to the 8th grade dance with her friends.
She wont admit it, but I can tell she is popular.
Group photo!
I volunteered to make cotton candy at this dance, so I got an insider view. Rockwell did not get to go to any of these.. He was disappointed.
🙂
I found a huge collection of Calvin and Hobbes books. About 12 of them. I wanted to give them to Hannah and I was thinking about how awesome it was. I was hoping she wound just say thanks and blow them off.. After all, it’s Calvin and Hobbes, right?
So I walked in to her room and asked if she had any homework to do. She replied “no, why?” And I have them to her, and said, “they are Calvin and Hobbes.. ” and she replied incredulously “All of them??” And when I said yes she began crying a little. And so did I to be honest. It was really a pretty special exchange.
🙂
Posted on 1 April '15 by admin, under kids. No Comments.
Last night Melinda and Rockwell attended the “Redline Flightschool” BMX clinic. It was taught by Jason Carnes, the USA BMX champion from 2002 to 2007. This guy is in his 40s now and is still built like a rock, and still races professionally. He talked about the gate, the rhythem section, and jumping. Here he is giving Rockwell and Melinda some pointers on the gate. 
Here Jason is, teaching how to work the gate.
And here is a group photo, of the kids after 3 hours of “flight school”! (Melinda is not in there.. The ever vigilant student she is, she asked to go home bofore this photo was taken, so she could get ready for school. Gotta’ appreciate THAT.
And, realizing how imporortant the gate is, I built a practice gate for the kids (..and myself..lol) to practice on.
Posted on 9 October '14 by admin, under BMX, kids. No Comments.
The last 24 hours has been pretty Amazing. It’s going to be hard to beat this run of events. We did a Zombie walk last night with Makeup (Rockwell was feeling sick and did not want to go), we did the color run this morning, We did a “Improve Everywhere” MP3 Experiment this afternoon at 6pm, and then we went to the BMX track and competed there till quarter to nine. Great timing of events.. It was Awesome!
Zombies! We actually found a place down town that would put zombie makeup on for cheap! I should have had more done for what they where charging.. students learning makeup techniques i guess.
Watch out!
Melinda cant help being pretty, even as a zombie! lol.
The group! There where some really good costumes!
The pre-walk meeting.
At the end, the zombie leader thanked his minions.
Then, this morning, we did the Color Run!
This is quite fun.. Especially for 9am in the morning! Melinda about to enter Pink!
In the Pink gauntlet!
Melinda and Dad at the end.. This was after the color throws.
Clearly the best picture of the day!! Isn’t this an awesome picture of Melinda??
Check out this video of one of the “color throws” at the end.. they give you packets of tempra to toss in the air. fun!
And here are all of us later in the evening after the MP3 Experiment.. the kids had a BLAST doing this.. it was so much fun!
Nice picture of Melinda and I, right before hitting “play”!
Good looking kids, right after hitting play.
Rockwell. Need I say more.
We ended the night with some BMX. Melinda and Hannah’s race. This is the race where Hannah, Melinda’s friend, took a pretty nasty spill. Scraped up her hand, her elbow, her side and her knee.. but she STILL finished!! No one can say these girls are not tough!!
One of Rockwell’s heats. This was the very first race he used clips on his pedals. In the final heat he took a pretty nasty crash.. I think melinda was wondering it came in three’s at this point!! Everyone was OK in the end.
🙂
Posted on 4 October '14 by admin, under 5K, Activities, BMX, Events, Friends, kids. 1 Comment.
I realize this is simple stuff.. but I am still impressed. This was a project for English.. Melinda had to compose a 6 word “story”. Hers was: “I’m a lion, hear me ROAR”. But the cool thing is, she used a picture from when she was 6 years old. She actually went to the blog and searched it out and found it.
Posted on 21 August '14 by admin, under kids. No Comments.
For everyone..
Here is Hannah’s first day at school in switzerland. Here she is meeting the Principal, Herr Schmid and her homeroom teacher, Herr Speigel.
Here is Hannah’s first day minus one. The day before she vistied the treeline in the alps with her Uncle and cousins! Her Uncles name is Jeurge, and her Cousins names are Liv and Lars. Remember that, you will be seeing a lot of them for a while.
🙂
And here is Rockwell and Melinda.. Not quite as excited about school this year. I’m happy in that they got excellent schedules, Both of them are in all the best classes. Melinda was even included in the Spanish class. If I’m not mistaken, they only had 24 spaces, and they only took the top 24 people in her grade.
Here are their schedules for this year.
Posted on 18 August '14 by admin, under Events, kids, school. No Comments.
Walking it out from the shop! I gave them no quarter.. lol.
Tori just manhandles stuff. She is going to make a great boss some day.
Attaching the “Little free library” sign that they made yesterday.
Mounting it onto the post! They did it all.. I did not even help them carry it over. I was too busy taking pictures and video..smile.
Screwing it in!
Proud Accomplishment!!
Meredith designing the sign.
Tori was the first to try the Plasma torch! The others where a little leery, but Tor just jumped right in. To be honest, I was wondering how they where going to do.. but they were Awesome!
Melinda’s turn. They actually enjoyed doing it.
Mere’s turn. tehy all got to practice before they cut.. but they hardly really needed to, the really did well right off the bat.
Rockwell’s turn!
Rockwell grinding the excess off of the nuts holding the hinges. I smithed the hinges.. I meant to have the girls do that also, but we did not get a chance.
Here it is! I think it’s Awesome in all its rough beauty!
