Saturday, November 10, 2007

Summer at Tahoe

Yeah, yeah, I know I am posting in November and showing you some summer pics. I got a little busy when we decided to sell the house. If you don't like it, deal with it, or skip to the next posting ;)

Now that we are in escrow, hopefully in between getting the house ready to move I will have time to post a few things on the blog. As usual, we had a fun summer up with family and friends up at Tahoe. Some have already seen some of the pictures on the Blackburn's blog. We had a lot of fun up there with them. We were so used to having them close by to us up here. It was good to see them again and have the kids play together. It also gave us the chance to know baby Libby a little better. What a sweet heart. I think it was after that trip that my kids starting to ask about getting a baby sister. If only it were that easy!


Some fun pics with the cousins!
Charlie, you are a friggin' stud for making it up this post. It's not like I wasn't strong enough to make it up the post myself, I just didn't want to chance the slivers otherwise I would have been right behind you.
The week we were up there was right after that big fire in Tahoe. We were on the opposite of the lake from it, but even we saw evidence of the fires. Here are some burned out embers of the fire that washed ashore. From one vantage point of the lake, we could see smoke and steam from the area of the fire.
This picture of Jesse cracks me up and sums him up well in just this photo. He is laughing while holding an animal that wants to do him physical harm. By the way, that little guy did get his finger. He did drop him, but did that keep him from picking him up again. Noooo. I wish this was all that Blake was teaching him. (Mom, if you see this picture, it isn't a regular thing to let crawdads in your house. They are to stay outside, but since they were there, I snapped the photo.)
Slip-n-slide in the meadow is pretty fun when we don't have time to get to the beach or don't want to schlepp all the stuff down there.
Here are the kids with their friend, Lexi. The girls have so much fun with all the wild flowers that grow in the back of the meadow. I left the one out of Blake with one in his hair, figured he might get mad at it hitting the internet.
It seems like every year we have a birthday celebration up there. This time it was our friend, Jenn's. You will notice that Jesse decided they were having a lot of fun. Wonder if he was looking to join their family permanently?
Here is a great shot of Jesse and his nursery buddy, Calista (or Lissy for short). The lone blond Poggemann. This is the shot that official earns Jesse the nickname Linus. That fargin' blanket is with him everywhere, and of course if the blanket is not, the thumb is. (I know I ended in a preposition, too lazy to change it.)
This is the picture of the stick that my friend Felix said that I needed to check out, and I quote, "Dude, you got to check out the picture I took of this stick. It looks exactly like doodie." Ahh, one of the many reasons why digital cameras are such a dream, otherwise this dreamy shot would have cost me a couple of bucks. Nothing like guilt free picture taking!
I don't know what Jesse is thinking here, but it is either, "This is better than my bed at home," or "Hey, there is a duck up there, maybe he knows where my blankie is right now."
Jenn's birthday present was a Wii. We all had a lot of fun with it. Jesse liked to get in a comfy spot and watch, and yes, with is blankie and thumb. Felix and I would actually be sweating by the end of our boxing matches. You need to check out the video of the two girls boxing. I doubt they knew what they were doing (especially Cece), but they sure looked cute boxing.








Monday, August 20, 2007

Kitchen Remodel

As some of you may have known, we are doing a little kitchen remodel at this time. It is nearing the end and even though quick by remodel standards, I am glad it is almost over. Life without a kitchen kind of stinks, which is why I guess we all pay more for good kitchens than we do for other parts of the house. I know a lot were wondering how it looked so I am taking the time to show before and after shots. We did our master bath too, but I don't have it to show, but it looks good, we used a different piece of slab for that one.

Before

You will notice that we had a two level island. Although we have only had one level island for a week now, I have to say, we love it. Before, it was like we had two counters in the middle, now, just one huge one. Also, now we can have stools on the island if we want. It was too tall before, and now we are adding tile.
We are very happy with it. Our friend, Shawn (see below) has been doing on this nice work. For those interested in his services, I am sure he will be glad to help you out. His company is Pueblo Stoneworks, out in Rancho Cordova.

After



Thursday, August 9, 2007

UFC in Sac Town


Here is a picture of Randy Couture, current UFC Heavy Weight Champion. My friends and I went to the weigh ins to see if we could get some pictures with some of the fighters. Too bad we didn't realize the sport is soooo popular now that you have to practically camp out early in line to get the chance. Still, I managed to get an autograph picture of Randy, a photo and actually shook his hand. This guy is a stud, let me tell you.


Here is one of the friends that came with us. His name is Shawn. I would tell you a little about him, but I think the picture says enough.
It was a little sunny outside so when he found a pair of sunglasses for free...I think you get the point.
Shawn figures on being a MMA fighter someday. I don't know if he actually gets a sponsorship from Tap Out (click on the picture to see it bigger) by writing their name on the sunglasses with a sharpie, but that fighting stance just might! Randy (above) is one of his idols.


Boating with the Carruths

We hadn't seen our friends the Carruths for a while so we decided to go boating. I think the time the kids enjoyed the most was just getting out of the boat and swimming. They also really loved the tube. I was driving, otherwise I would have gotten a great photo with Jesse on his brother's lap with a giant giggle mouth. That was how he looked the majority of the time that he was out there.



The kids liked it when Scott would throw them the rope and then pull them in real fast.







This is the view that I had every time that I stopped the boat and moved to the back to either help someone or go swimming. This boy LOVES the water. Any chance he gets, he goes in. It is fun watching him trying to keep up with his older siblings. He will actually fall in face first off the side of the boat, about a two foot drop, because he sees his older brother learning to dive in. He always comes up lauging.


When I stop the boat after they are done tubing, he will quickly head to the side of the tube and drop in.


I don't know how these adrenaline junkies ever get started. Hmmmmm.

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Cowgirl and Cowboy


We were shopping at a Safeway at Tahoe when Cece found the hat rack (schocker). She does look very cute even with the ketchup on her face still. Blake not to be outdone shows us how rugged he looks. After the picture, Cece says, "Dad, can we put that on our blog when we get home?" Well, here you go girl.

Nostalgia

I was buying fireworks at this parking lot when I spotted this boat out by the stand. What memories this image brings, however, ours was more of a disco orange color and later instead of brown and later it was closer to fire engine red. Even the trailer is the same. Notice the flat bottom on that boat. That made it super bouncy on the lake. Kidney belt anyone?




Take a look at the inside. We had an "eight ball" gear shift knob and our pedal had an outline of a bare foot. AWESOME.







See that? That is not a propellor, that was a jet boat and there was lots of bubbles coming out of there. Not the smoothest skiing to go behind, but it still was fun. You might notice the small bump where the engine was. A Chevy 454 that was so loud that we were always noticed. We even went fishing with this boat once. No trolling motor needed. Did we catch anything you ask, well no. guess that proves that fish are scared of loud noises. I think the other fisherman already knew that and were very glad that we left.

Wednesday, July 4, 2007

Blakers loses his first tooth...make that teeth


Blake called me at work at the end of June and said, " guess what dad, I have a grown up tooth." Sure enough, when I looked into his mouth I saw that he had his new tooth coming in. Too bad it didn't come up under the other tooth since that meant he had to have it pulled. Although, now the dentists don't pull teeth, the wiggle them. When he went to the dentist they could see from the x-ray that the one next to it was also having a problem dissolving the root, so he might as well wiggle them both out.
.
Before
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The tooth fairy came and took his teeth and left some pixy dust behind. Apparently she gave Blake a kiss because there was pixy dust on his cheek.
After

Cecilee's pretty dress and Clown Jesse



Cece wanted everyone to see her fluffy dress.

Can you guess who got into the markers?

Baseball Blake

Blake had a lot of fun with baseball this year. Ok, maybe it was a long season with a lot of games and not a whole lot of action during innings, but at least he got a trophy like Porter, or as Blake calls them Troophy.


Cece with her friend Josie. Josie's brother Andrew played with Blake on the team.






Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Disneyland

At the beginning of May, we put our season passes to Disneyland to good use. We went with our friends, the Fifes, who were there for the annual CDA (California Dental Association) convention. We were originally going to go for three days, but we were having too much fun to stop so we made it a full four days worth. We were going to go for a partial fifth day, but poor Jesse's asthma started to act up, and it turned out that he had pneumonia. We made it back in time for him to get medical treatment and he did much better the next day. I made some of these pictures smaller due to the number of them, but if you click on them, you can see them full size.







Here you see Jesse just chilling out in front of the door in Toon Town. You will notice his little friend on his back. I used to think that parents that had their children on a leash were guilty of cruel and unusual punishment of the children, treating them like animals. I no longer feel that way. He didn't like having the harness at first, but he got used to it. We didn't have it the first day and we worried so much more. The moment we tried to help the older two kids, he was running off into the crowd. We weren't the only parents in the park to use them. Also, Jesse was fond of the Carousel, but not so fond of characters, they had to be on the other side of daddy.




Cecilee was very patient during what I call "Princess Day." She waited for about 1 1/2 hours for hair and makeup. Then she waited an additional 2 1/2 hours for a place at the Ariel dinner party, where she got to meet Ariel and four other friends. You can see she got pictures with some of her favorites. By the way, don't be surprised if you see this same dress on her for Halloween.





Blake was a little more interested in meeting characters and getting their autographs this year. He didn't even get scared off by Cruella DeVil. She was absolutely nasty to all the little kids that came to her. Many of them left the picture from her crying. She asked Blake if he had any dogs, we don't, so she asked him to bring the neighbors dog. Also, Blake was one of the 30+or- kids that was chosen to train to be a Jedi Knight. They let him borrow their robe and light saber, taught him a few moves, and then he fought Darth Maul. The kids on the top of the stage got to battle Darth Vader. At the end the Darths were scared of all the young Patawans and left. Blake got a certificate to prove he is trained. He told his mom, "I am a Jedi Knight now!"


Here are a couple of cute pictures of the two. They are sticking their tongues out to show that the gum I gave them did indeed turn their tongues blue.


You noticed each of the kids getting a little more tired as the days went on. Blake and Jesse decided to take a nap during some down time when mom and dad went on a ride. Don't worry, our friends were watching them. You will notice Jesse still has his blanket. I had to tie that thing in a ball every day so it wouldn't drag on the ground. Lucky we have a 2nd blanket that is identical to it so he could have a clean one for bed time.

Blake's and Cece's favorite ride was probably Space Mountain. Blake had to act a little older to be able to ride alone, but he was not scared. He always seemed to have a smile on his face before and after.




When we came off the Star Tours ride, I noticed some posters for sale, but they didn't have the faces of the Star Wars characters in it. Then I noticed the camera. It was free to try (of course they encouraged it), so we did it with Blake and Cecilee. In case you didn't notice that really isn't Harrison Ford and that is not Carrie Fisher. Kind of weird seeing our little 5 year old with chest hair. Of course, now you see why it was free to try, we just had to buy.