Horray for shark week

Today marks the start of one of my favorite weeks of the year. Shark week on Discovery. It should be a national holiday!!! Enjoy some of the pictures of the stars of the week.

Here is the Great White doing a full breech out of the water. Originally found doing this aournd South Africa as they would hunt seals.

Here is the Tiger Shark, the unofficial garbage can of the ocean. Found in all sorts of water temperature, including around Hawaii. They have literally found garbage inside these giants of the ocean. Known to have one of the most devastating bites of the big sharks.

Here is what shark experts have voted as the #1 most dangerous shark, the Bull Shark. They can grow up to 10 feet, but what makes them truly dangerous is their ability to swim into fresh water. Some have been found in the Mississipi as far north as St. Louis and some have even swam the cooler waters of the Illinois river and have been found in Lake Michigan.

Broadbent Family Reunion

For the week of 4th of July, our family flew to Missouri for Rebecca's family reunion. It was fun tiring, and HOT. Being a CA boy, I am sure not cut out for the humidity, but it sure was green. Gas prices were cheap, relatively speaking, and there are plenty of bugs around. Here are a few of the photos I took while we are there highlighting the trip. The cousins sure had a blast with each other as you can tell from the photos. Thanks to those in MO that helped organize this event, especially Emily and Cammie. Thanks to the Ben Broadbent family for putting up with us in their house. Thanks to Grandpa and Grandma and Uncle Jesse and Aunt Emily for being the host houses and putting up with the army of kids that took over their houses. I know that they didn't leave them any cleaner. Also, thanks to Grandma and Grandpa for paying for the super activities, we enjoyed going on them.

One of the kids favorite things was to run and roll down the hill behind Uncle Jesse and Aunt Emily's house.

Here is a video of Little Jesse trying it out.




These are the kinds of fireworks you can buy in Missouri! For a pyro like me, it is like Christmas. I didn't even have to worry about running from the cops. This was our grand finale, but there was plenty where this came from. Funny that the kids just prefer to play with sparklers than to watch the show. I don't think the fathers cared if there was an audience.

Here is a little sample of the show. Photo work by Big Jesse.




Some of the parents took the kids fishing. It was hot and only the true fisherman were catching anything worthwhile, but I think the kids had fun. With catches like these, there was no need to buy dinner.

The family went to six flags and spent most of the day at the water park portion. Needless to say 92 is not the same there as in Folsom. I admit, I am a wimp when it comes to humidity. After we went to Steak N Shake for dinner, a few of us went back with the older kids to do some rides. Here is one of my favorite shots of ALL TIME. I love the looks on the kids face.

On the way out of the park, we got a chance to hang out with the characters and get some photos. Here is Aunt Cammie and I along with Cecilee, (going clockwise), Jeremiah, Chloe, Porter, Blake and Brigham.

Here is the watermelon crew.

Here is Jesse getting some time with Grandma Kathy and Grandpa Steven.

Here is Uncle Ben with daughter Ali, nephew Garrison and Little J. I call him the baby whisperer.

I think Garrison could fit one more finger in there if he tried. This is Aunt Miriam's oldest. He is a little character.

This is towards the end of our stay. I think we finally wore their batteries out. Here is Quinn and Jesse sharing some nap time together.

He is so tired the thumb isn't even staying in.

Easter Break at Tahoe with the Cousins

We had a lot of fun with the Rebecca's sisters and their families that came to visit us over Easter break and her mom. Grandma brought the kids some bouncing balls. All the kids like to do was eat oranges and race on the bouncing balls, and we were all out of oranges. I think the girls were glad to have the noise outside of the house for at least a little while.

The kids took turns on the tire swing. It was kind of like a roller coaster for them. Too bad I was the motor. Here are the oldest boy in each of the families: Porter, Blake and Drex

Here is Ellie, Chloe and Cecilee having some fun.

Mary Jane, Quinton and Jesse having some fun.

Libby and Jesse both had a hard time not having the swing. Charlie and I found a solution to that. They actually seemed OK with it and what a fun photo it made.

With all the snowfall this year there was still plenty left, although not the best quality. That didn't stop the kids from playing in it and having snow/ice ball fights. Charlie was even cool enough to dig out this tunnel...

...and make this slide.

Snowy Days

Don't the kids look cute getting ready to play in the snow?

Jesse had a hard time walking up the sleding hill, so he mostly just sat and ate snow. I wish it was cleaner snow, but I tried to put him in a clean pile, you know, no yellow snow was around.

Blake had the most fun of all. He did it without complaining about walking back up to. Not even I wanted that much exercise



Here is what happens when you sled on crusty snow and have a wipeout. 4 month later I can still see part of the evidence on his face. He kind of wore it like a badge of honor and seemed a little happy about the attention it brought him. Oh boy!

Doesn't Cecilee look cute in her glasses. I took her and Blake with me skiing. Cece just preferred to lean on me as we skiied down the hill. I think she will do some more lessons next year if she wants.

Blake really enjoys it so we went one more day on our way home from Tahoe. Cece and Mom went to the Princesses on Ice show. Blake's favorite part of the run was going through these trees. He never missed the opportunity, even skiing around people to get there. We really had fun together.

Swim Team

So, we had our first year of swim team with the kids. We just thought we weren't busy enough on Saturdays and I got to sleep in too much. Fortunately 6 and under (both Cece and Blake are in that age group) get done around 11, so there is still some time. We are very proud of our two very good swimmers. At the beginning of the swim season they didn't even know how to swim the strokes and by the end of the year they were competitive in their age groups. Of course, they have fun still just free swimming.




Here is Cece swimming and her post-race smile. It's a winner.




Here she is ready to start back stroke. Despite a late start she took the lead, but lost it at the end and came in 3rd. Gotta work on the conditioning!!!





Here is Blake swiming in his relay. You can just see him on the other side ready to start and in the other one, his arm is poking out of the water. I know, it is like National Geographic quality photo work.



Here is Blake swimming the backstroke. He was sick today, but toughed it out. Way to go!


Here is Jesse jumping in. I just wish he would not jump so close to the steps. The other one is a swim position I like to call, "The Jesse".




I swear I saw this as a movie poster shot. Who doesn't fight evil with oversized squirt guns?

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.