February 19, 2009 at 10:25 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment
In light of Mizzou’s big Monday night win over KU and the fact that KC area radio sports talk shows are still talking about it, along with a lot of what I would call whining by KU fans, I thought I would relate the following story.
Everyone knows I’m a big Mizzou fan, my whole side of the family, mother, father,brother, sister, uncles, aunts, and cousins are for the most part Mizzou fans and most of them have graduated or are tied to MU somehow. That’s not true for Shantel’s family, in fact my 17 year old sister-in-law, Mariah, is a huge KU fan and is under the delusion that she wants to go to school at KU.
For Christmas this year Mariah thought it would be funny to get Macen a KU onesie and stocking hat. Now for the record that kind of “crap” I mean stuff is not allowed in my house. So Mariah put all of her KU gear on and put Macen into the onsie and put the stocking on his head and got her mom to take a picture of the two of them together. Here it is.
OK look closely at Macen. That is one UNHAPPY kid. You’ve all seen the video where he didn’t like the jeans he was wearing, but we’ve never had a problem putting a onsie or stocking hat/beanie on him. The tantrum he threw after Mariah put the outfit on him was crazy, the picture doesn’t do it justice, I wish we had video of it. He was crying and screaming, pulling at the onsie trying to get it off and pulling the hat off. It didn’t stop there, his cousin Haillee was there too and Mariah picked the hat up after Macen had thrown it off and put it on Haillee, Macen ripped it off her head and continued screaming until my mother-in-law, Lori, got the outfit off of him. Then he calmed down and was as good as could be.
What can I say the kid has taste and he’s predisposed to hate KU.
February 16, 2009 at 5:00 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment
OK, Many of you have heard by now that I’ve started training for triathlons again and you have been asking me “Why on Earth do you want to do that? Don’t you know you’re not 18 anymore?” Well the answer to the second question is easy. Yes I know I’m not 18 anymore, my body reminds me everytime I get done with a long ride or a run. The answer to the first question is a little longer.
I woke up one day last summer and realized that I was fat and out of shape. Now those are relative terms, I could still pass the PT test and I was under my maximum body fat percentage, but I wasn’t happy with myself. So I asked myself what I could do to get back in better shape. At the same time I happened to be emailing back and forth with a couple of friends who knew that I would be in the KC area this summer and were looking forward to getting together with me. Both are fairly active guys and I’ve done either a triathlon or an adventure race with both them and both guys individually suggested doing another one together this summer. Viola, my fitness plan came to me all at once.
So I’ve set a couple of goals for myself for this summer. One I will complete two Half Ironmen triathlons, for those of you that don’t know what that consists of it’s a 1.2 miles swim followed by a 56 mile bike ride followed by a 13.1 mile run, that’s a total of 70.3 miles. I did one of these when I was 26 which gives me my second goal. I decided that I wanted to do two because I want to complete at least one of these faster than I did when I was 26. That means I have to complete the race in less than 7 hours 33 minutes, hopefully since I’m older and wiser I’ll be able to do both faster. Finally my third goal, which shouldn’t be too hard with all the training I have to do, is to get down to 185lbs from a high of 220lbs in the spring of 2008. I’m almost there now at about 193lbs
So I’ve scheduled some warm up races all summer with the two Half Ironmen, Ironman 70.3 Kansas on 14 June and the Pigman Half Iron distance on 16 August. Standby for pictures and race reports.
Shantel has been ultra supportive of all this with comments like “Well, if you want some of the free beer at the end of the race you need to finish faster” and “I’m glad you think your new bike is faster, that means we can go home sooner” Geez, thanks babe. No seriously she’ll be there cheering me on taking all of the pictures you should eventually see here.
James
February 16, 2009 at 4:59 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment
Well, I have finally gone back to work and what that really means is that I’ve gone back to school. For those of you who didn’t know I’m attending the Army’s Command and General Staff School, which in a nutshell means that the Army is teaching me the skills that they think I need for the majority of the rest of my career.
You hear a lot of things from friends and peers who have gone through the year long class about how this is supposed to be a great year to reconnect with your family, maybe take a break from the break neck pace that has been the Army since 9/11, maybe take the opportunity to get yourself back in good physical shape, getting any medical procedures done that you might not of had time for at other places, and other things like that. Well the faculty here has done a great job during the inprocessing week to disabuse us of those notions, letting us know that the year will be academically challenging and there is a lot of work and reading required, although they do mention that it is a great time to find some balance. Their comments have been backed up by friends of mine who are in the August class who say they have had a lot of reading to do and just because you are done with class at 2pm, doesn’t mean you are done for the day, you still probably have 4-5 hours of reading to do that night. So far, I’ll have to agree with the faculty and the guys in the August class it does seem like a lot of work and reading and maybe those graduates are just “misremembering” how much work they had to put in. Of course I’ve also been told that it’s only a lot of reading if you do it. Luckily for me most of the topics so far, I’ve covered while working on my Master’s so it should just be a little brushing up.
It has been a little bit of a shock to get back into the swing of things after being “off” for almost 50 days but it is good to get back into a rhythm and with me being gone most of the day now, Macen seems much more interested in playing with me when I get home. Although he is still a Momma’s boy if he falls or bumps his head, and bath and bed time still remain a Mom and Macen time, although he is letting me give him a bath and I have gotten him to go to bed for me once with out help from Shantel, it’s not much but it is a start.
OK time to go get caught up on the readings for tomorrow.
James
February 11, 2009 at 2:29 am | Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment
Okay so hopefully we can get back into the swing of this again. It’s been pretty busy and it looks like we have a little down time right now. Lets see in the first 5 weeks of moving here, we’ve had company each weekend, James went out of town for a few days and we have each attended a funeral out of town.
I’m sure you are all wanting some pics of Macen. The new house as offered new games for him. He loves when we play the ball game. James and I sit at the bottom of the stairs and he goes up to the landing where we throw the balls at him…I mean to him. He throws them back and we repeat. He could play this game all.day.long. He is usually grabbing one if not both of our hands and leading us to the stairs while saying ball.
No has become a favorite word. Everything is no. He is saying several words on his own now like eat, nose, night-night, please and juice. James has been working with him alot on signing please when he wants something as well as thank you. I had mentioned his fake sneezes before and he still does them but now when he is in trouble or we ask him to not do something, he immediately throws in a “sneeze” in the attempt to get a positive reaction and smile out of us. And if you are wondering if it works, it does. He still loves numbers. He can now recognize each number from 1-10 and say each one by name. They don’t need to be in order to recognize them but he does need them in front of him except for 1-3. The pic of him and James are of them counting. James has him count 1,2,3 with him and then throws him in the air. James starts with 1 and Macen use to repeat each one but now after James says 1, Macen says 2. The pic is when Macen says 2 – with very curled lips. And the first pic is of him with his fingers in ears. He didn’t like it when we turned to look at him and apparently he didn’t want to listen to us talk either.
February 10, 2009 at 3:14 am | Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment
So James ventured out with his new bike this weekend…and broke down. Macen and I had to hop in the truck and drive to post to get him. I thought it was a kodak moment. Hopefully all the breakdowns occur in training and not during the triathlons.
February 2, 2009 at 4:49 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment
Who knew pebbles could entertain for so long? We have a big playset in our backyard now. A playset that Macen is too young for – he is a little afraid of it right now and there is no where he can easily climb on it. But underneath it, the owners put pebbles instead of sand (Thank you!). Macen played in it for a long time when we had a really nice day last week. So long that he didn’t even muster up any jabbering. He was so engrossed in picking up, raking and pouring the pebbles.
January 20, 2009 at 1:54 am | Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment
Old news to most of you but in a couple of months you’ll understand why we post some of the things we do. Have you missed us? 🙂
New town, same state. You can’t often say that with military moves. It was the easiest move we’ve had because of it though. We’ve gone full force since we moved and as of this week, all is calm. We just may get bored! We’ve had no issues with Macen adjusting other than the fake sneezing he has picked up since we got here. Maybe he is allergic to the house. Actually his “sneezes” are pretty funny. Some of them have a huge build up before the “sneeze” comes. He still loves to count and look at the alphabet. He can now say the sounds of each letter in his name without any help – but not in order. The animals have adjusted as well. Maggie rejoined us last week and it kinda made Myles a little mad for some reason. But we caught him cleaning Maggies ears tonight so he must have decided to like her again.
December 26, 2008 at 3:28 am | Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment
Macen wasn’t interested in opening his gifts at first but he was beyond excited each time James unwrapped something for him. He made this face each time.
He wasted no time crawling into his dump truck.
He finally got interested in opening a present.
Next Page »
Life is a Scrapbook 