Coming Home on Thursday

If everything works out Pumpkinhead will be home late Thursday night. With the wonderful work of my wife and the help of my friend David, Pumpkinhead will be flying out of Atlanta this Thursday afternoon and after a layover in Houston arrive in Minneapolis Thursday night.

AJ

Pumpkinhead is coming home!

Continental Airlines will be transporting Pumpkinhead from Atlanta to Minneapolis sometime this next week. We need to take care of some business first...getting him a kennel, food for the trip and someone to bring him to Atlanta's airport. We'll pay whomever is able to do this task for us, we just need to get this done. He'll be home this week!

How do you transport a cat?

Now that Pumpkinhead has been found, how do we get him from the North Georgia Mountains to Estherville, Iowa? There are companies that specialize (or so their websites claim) in transporting animals and pets across the country and all over the world.

The problem is some of their prices are extremely high and others have not responded to our email inquiries for price quotes. So our options are...

1. Drive to Georgia and pick up the cat ourselves;
2. See if a friend from Georgia or South Carolina would be willing to meet us half way in between;
3. Using one of these companies online to transport Pumpkinhead; or
4. Or paying for someone we know to bring him here.

Eitherway we have promised the family taking care of him that we would get Pumpkinhead by next weekend. So we need to find a solution soon. Any suggestions?

AJ

Our Day at the County Fair

We took the kids to the Emmett County Fair Thursday night. Kallsen had a great time, Joseph was a bit embarrassed to be out in public with his family and Parker just was along for the ride.

Pumpkinhead has been found

Hallelujah!!!!!!!!!! The cat is safe and being taken care of. I contacted our former landlord in Georgia this morning in order to ask the new tenants if they had seen Pumkinhead. It turns out that Pumpkinhead returned home and they have been looking after him. We are sending a friend over tonight to see about us getting Pumpkinhead back. (It shouldn't be a problem since the couple didn't really want a cat.) Hopefully everything will work out and we can go down next weekend and pick up our cat. I guess things are really working out after all. We will post later with more news once we have spoken to the couple in Georgia.

-Sara

Big Birthday # 2

In the above picture, Kallsen enjoys his ice cream cup.

Below, Parker is so excited for his brother's birthday that he attempts to get "The Wave" going around the kitchen table.

We celebrate Kallsen's birthday with family on Saturday and we'll also be celebrating Joseph's 10th birthday that same day.

Update: My Boys

I just love my three boys more than I can express in words. Each of them has special things about them. We'll start with Parker. He is the youngest of my boys at nine months old. Parker is the one that gets babied because he is the youngest and because he is the victim of Kallsen's antics. This first picture of Parker I like to call "potato Free Parker." This picture was taken right before dinner on Tuesday night. Notice how clean and happy he is.

In this next picture, you notice that he is absolutely covered in mashed potatoes. He's not yet to the point of eating table food but he can handle some of the softer foods. He liked mashed potatoes so much he couldn't get enough of them with his hands so he picked up the plate and dived face first into the potatoes. As you can see, that seemed to do the trick.

Some of you may notice in this picture of Kallsen that his hair is about as short as it has been in about a year. We had his bangs and the back trimmed. We've heard people tell us stories how their child had really nice curls like Kallsen has and one day they had their child's hair cut and the curls never came back...we would hate if that happened. So we try and keep his hair long enough to always have curls. He's so darn cute with his curls. He's a handsome boy who turns 2 years-old tomorrow.

This next picture was taken during dinner tonight. Kallsen, who loves corn on the cob, tackled his first full size cob tonight. We've been only giving him half a cob until tonight. He ate the hole thing. No problem. No problem at all. I'm guessing that our move to Iowa is just fine with Kallsen. He justs loves corn on the cob and Estherville is the home of Sweet Corn Daze, which is next week. On the first Saturday in August there is free sweet corn for anyone and everyone. I'm told that the town is overcome with people from all over for the day. And with free sweet corn all day, I'm sure Kallsen will just love it!

Joseph had his hair cut really, really short this week. This first picture was taken about a month ago at my sister's house. The picture, taken by my Mom, is one of my favorite pictures of Joseph. It captures his sweetness (just the thing every boy wants to hear) and it also captured that inner light that Joseph has always had. If I can only learn how to keep it lit as we enter, for what I'm told, will be his more difficult years.

In this next one you can see how short he had his hair cut. It gives him a whole different look...in fact, it makes him look much older than he is. He'll turn 10 on August 7th.

My boys are all very special boys. I'm a lucky man to have such a fine family.

A reason to go back South...

No restaurant in Estherville serves RIBS! And I love RIBS! While our search has discovered some restaurants in the greater Estherville area serve RIBS, none of them are known for RIBS. My guess is for decent RIBS! we'll need to do a weekend trip to the Twin Cities or Sioux Falls. This is no good. No good at all.

Things to come...

These aren't my kids...but when I saw the picture, it was like I was looking into the future. And I got scared...

University Link

A university Web Site has linked to Find News Fast's Travel Page. I noticed today when checking my stats (which I haven't done in weeks) that I have been receiving hits from Sullivan university. They have our travel/tourism page linked under their research/destination page.

For those fans of Find News Fast, we'll be completely overhauling the site sometime in the near future. I've been doing some research and I have found a better way to keep streaming news on the site and hopefully will find a more reliable news source other than AP.

One thing we'll be adding is travel blogs to our travel page. This will be an open forum to anyone who wants to submit their travel blog. I'll be doing a travel blog on my family's cross country trips and I have one being done by a traveler going to Ireland later this year. Plus a bed and breakfast from Vermont will be encouraging their guests to submit travel logs to our site.

Other changes will be announced in the near future.

Iowa Rock-n-Roll

On Thursday night this week I was the Master of Ceremonies for the Iowa Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame Rock the Roof concert. The Iowa Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame is in Arnold's Park, which is a community about 30 minutes from Estherville and every Thursday through the summer months that have concerts in their Pavilion. Each Thursday a different DJ or radio station employee from an area radio station gets to be the MC for the night.

They had two bands. The first band was the Coachmen 4. They had played together on and off since the early 60's and were once called the Hooterville Fire Department before they changed their name to the Coachmen 4. The second band, 2004 inductees to the Iowa Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, The Senders, were really good. They have been playing together for 44 years. My guess is they're still as good today as they were 40 years ago.

Not only is the Hall of Fame in Arnold's Park it is also adjacent to an amusement park called Arnold's Park. While I was busy doing the MC thing, Sara Beth took the boys to the amusement park for some fun...

They let Parker ride with Kallsen on this slow moving children's ride. You can't see in this picture but Kallsen held on to Parker's knee the whole ride...just like his Mama told him to do. Sara said both boys laughed and laughed the hole time on the ride.

I just hope Joseph understands that bumper cars and real cars are two different things. I guess we have six years to make sure he figures that out...

Needless to say, these are things that just were not available to us living in Georgia.

Friday Night Disc Golf

Kallsen and I played disc golf tonight. I think Kallsen is getting the hang of the game. Here he is sinking a putt...

As you can see in this next picture, he has good follow-through...

Normally Joseph comes with and I pull Kallsen in the wagon as we walk the course. Tonight Joseph choose to stay home and ride his bike. I was going to sit outside as Kallsen rode his trike but Kallsen in stead pulled his wagon out of the garage and stood behind the suburban saying, "beep, beep," which means he wants to go somewhere. And the only place we go where we are consistent in pulling him in his wagon is the disc golf course. So one can only assume he wanted to play disc golf. He is a good boy.

Kallsen got tired after walking five holes and decided that it was time for Daddy to pull him in the wagon again...

Just think...by the time spring rolls around I'll be pulling the wagon with Parker in the wagon the whole round and Kallsen part of the round. Maybe by the end of next summer, Kallsen will be able to walk the whole nine holes.

Food Fights

Kallsen decided to feed Parker yesterday morning. It seemed to be going well. Kallsen enjoyed helping and Parker was hungry...
I guess it was all going well until Kallsen decided to stop sharing with Parker. So Parker did what he thought best to do...grab the bowl with his mouth and hang on for dear life... Sara says Kallsen started screaming...'stop Parker, stop!'

You gotta love having boys so close together in age...

It's nice to know...

...that people are finding my blog because of their Yahoo! search for Overeater's Anonymous. I wonder what my support group will think of this new development...

Click here for the orginal post

Disc Golf Game coming around

Joseph, Kallsen and I took to the disc golf course Sunday. I'm proud to say that both my game and Joseph game are coming around and getting better each time. While this might not be noticeable in our scores round to round, it is noticeable in the way we learn to play each hole.

Kallsen's game consists of him throwing the disc over hand and running to the edge of the woods and throwing the disc into the woods. This is something that has to be worked on. We'll need to teach him avoid the woods at all costs (specially with Daddy's golf discs.)

On Sunday we met a man from Las Vegas that was in Estherville visiting his son and he gave me a disc (x-elite) because he didn't know how to throw it or didn't like it for some reason. I look forward to throwing my first new-style golf disc in more than 10 years.

In teaching Joseph to play the game and in teaching myself the game all over again, we are only carrying two discs each on the course. We each carry a driver (scorpion) and we each carry a putter. I figure better to learn to throw one disc many ways instead of many discs one way. It seems to be working.

The benefits of corn

We recently found out that our Suburban will run on E85 gas. That's a gas that is blended with up to 85% ethanol. Not only does it get about the same gas mileage it also costs .45 cents per gallon less than regular unleaded gas. And that's a savings of $13.00 per tank. And when you fill up once a week (which will be the case when school starts) that's a savings of over $600 a year.

Funny, I don't remember Georgia selling E85 blended gas.

A New Fascination

Kallsen has always loved water. But today he found a new way to play in the water. Kallsen was in the bathroom while I was showering today. He was happy playing with the brushes, hairbows, etc. As I turned the water off, I heard a horrible cry. I poked my head out of the shower just in time to see the water gush from the toilet. He was soaking wet, chest to toes. The culprit-the enormous wad of toilet paper he put in the toilet. As I was trying to mop up the water with towels, water continued to come out of the toilet. No surprise--he was trying to help by sticking his hand in the toilet to pull out the toilet paper. So now we have a wet mommy, child, floor and gross toilet paper on the already soaking wet towels. What a way to start the day. Now its time to get to work--doing LOTS of laundry.

Thank You

Earlier today Kallsen was showing me a new game he likes to play. When he was done I said, "Good Job Kallsen!" and he responded, "Thank You Daddy."

My Kids

I love my three boys. Along with my wife, Sara Beth, they are the ones that inspire me to do the things I do.

Parker Puckers-Up

Kallsen in a difficult situation

A Great Picture of Joseph.

He turns 10 years old August 7th.

(picture taken by Grandma Judy)

I Love this Picture

Birthday Boy!

My Nephew Davey celebrated his 3rd birthday today!

A Good Saturday

Today we traveled to my sister Sarah's house for my nephew Davey's birthday party. He'll be three years-old on Monday. Here's some pictures from the day...
(for some reason, blogger won't let me post a picture of Davey on this post)

Davey's Brother Derek

Grandma Judy in Party Hat

Joseph and Kallsen Wrestling

Parkering Doing what he does best...looking really cute!

Grandma Judy and Kallsen

Joseph looking long and lean

All the Grandkids

Me and My Saturday Morning Support Group

Love from a Child

I had to put Kallsen down for a nap today. Hes was not wanting to go down (maybe because we're at Grandma's house?) and was fussing and fighting the sleep. So I decided to go and lay with him for a few minutes. Just enough to get him relaxed so he would fall asleep. When I layed down next to him, he adjusted his blanket to cover me up as well. There's almost no better way for a child to say he loves you than offering to share his blanket. I love my kids!

AJ