What's the deal with.... the Gerbers?

Last Month In Pictures!

2011-11-07T17:17:00.001-08:00

So the last month blew by pretty dang fast. Rather than bore you with details here are some pictures of the highlights. Enjoy!

Sydney turned 3. Here's her "Cake".

Loving her Presents!

Her Pretty New Dress.
When she saw her new shoes she said "Oh my gosh! I love them!".
It was funny

Her favorite gift from her buddy Mikayla!

Took My Gun On A Two Day Walk (AKA Unsuccessful Hunting)

Carved a Pumpkin. Daneen thinks it resembles me and my mad face......hmmmm

Halloween Night (If you can't tell, Syd is scared to death of her brother)

Carson The Skeleton

Syd the Princess Ballerina...or something like that

The Loot!

Dancing Queen

2011-10-10T21:28:00.000-07:00

The Bionic Arm

2011-05-22T21:16:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the delay our faithful readers, but life has been busy. Not really. We are just LAZY. As for the update the title speaks for itself. During spring break Carson broke his arm for a third time. At the park no less and his story went as follows: "I was jumping off the monkey bars and a boy with orange hair ran by and bumped into my legs and made me loose my balance." The story has changed many times and of course I always tell it wrong so don't quote me.

This arm was set in the hospital the night it happened and was suppose to stay put and recieve a cast in about a week. He got a full arm cast but it slipped to much and Carson had to get pins in it after he had already got his cast on. Uh! So two months later after three splints and two casts we now have just a brace on. I say the Bionic Arm because it has cost over 10K to fix it. With that kind of money being thrown around he should have a Bionic Arm. As you can tell I'm having a hard time grasping it still.

That's about all that has been going on for the past two months. Oh and to top it off Carson asks, "Can I ride a horse when we go to Texas." With some restraint and curse words going off inside my head. I said "no way." Also last week in Target I caught him trying to trip his sister. He succeeded and I watched the whole thing happen. He tried to deny it and say it was an accident.
Lets just say I was furious. He was lucky we were in a public place. So this is what I told him.
"If you make your sister get a broken arm no one will get any birthday or Christmas presents for a whole year because all our money will have to go to doctor bills." I was serious.

Here are some pics.

The day of the broken arm.

This was the first cast. It was waterproof which was awesome. The second one was orange and not water proof. BOO!

We went to the Portland Zoo for Spring Break and this was the day after his broken arm. He's a trooper....thanks to pain killers.

-daneen

Latest & Greatest

2011-02-20T18:09:00.000-08:00

So we already failed in our attempt to blog once a week. Dangit! Oh well, I think we've already blogged more this year than we did all of last year so that's something right? Anywho. Paul is on some really good pain killers right now due to a snowmobile accident. He's really o.k. Nothing broken.
On superbowl weekend I had a big dance showdown with a friend of mine. More to come on that.Valentines Day was really fun. We ate dinner with the Jemmets. It was really fun. No pictures though. I forget the camera all the time. But here is some pics of the kids.

Winter Blues

2011-01-31T20:33:00.000-08:00

It seems that sometimes winter can get the best of us. Even me. I hate feeling angry and depressed just because the sun hasn't shined for one day. Despite it all there is no time to sit around and feel sorry for ourselves. To many family things and church activities get in the way.

Syd: Crazy and all up in my grill 24/7 it seems like. Talking way to much. Tries to discipline Paul and I. I think that is why she is so cute. To make up for the rest and still wanting us desire more children.

Carson:Knows everything apparently since we hear about it all the time. Mr. Smarty Pants. I think his school grades have gone to his head because he sure is confident. This is not always a good thing especially when we try to discipline.

Daneen: Gym hungry. I signed up for a 21 day trial for only $9. I will be sad when it is over. Its hard core budget year since we are planning our 10yr anniversary and a summer vacation. It is so nice to just go and do something by myself for myself.

Paul: Work goes well and its slow right now. Just went to the dentist. Only few cavities. Not to shabby for not going to the dentist for 2 years. Plays his beloved Call of Duty almost every night.
Since we are on the subject of video games here is a funny video that shows how I feel sometimes when he plays it. And no I don't like to play it with him and probably never will.

That's Right, Three In A Row!!

2011-01-17T21:52:00.000-08:00

So not to many Gerber happenings this past week but we are still going to try and stick with our goal of blogging once a week. Everyone is trying to get over a cold or avoiding getting a cold. We really enjoyed a lazy three day weekend. Daneen and I went on a date on Saturday. We were going to go watch a movie but at the last second changed our minds and went bowling instead. It was pretty pathetic! Daneen felt like she pulled something in her leg after her first roll and when we were done my hand was killing me. What the heck! Isn't that stuff supposed to happen like ten or fifteen years down the road??? Shame on us for not being more active I guess. Maybe that's the wake up call we needed.......bowling injuries. We will see I guess.

Anyway, Here are some pictures from last weekend. We went and checked out a fish hatchery close by. It was pretty neat. They had some huge Steelhead in a stock pond that you could feed. The kids got a kick out of that. And we stopped by the fish window at McNary Dam. Didn't get to see anything cruise by that day though.

The Fish Hatchery

The Fish Window

That's it for now. Hopefully we will have something a bit more exciting to blog about next week...

-paul

New Year...WHHHAAATT?

2011-01-09T18:17:00.000-08:00

2011...barf. The year I turn 30. I can't believe its here. I was suppose to be done having kids and already written my first novel by now. Well that ship has sailed. And no I am not pregnant. Apparently we are destined to have our kids decades apart. J/K Syd is a maniac. Carson is Mr. Smarty Pants. Paul is Awesome and I'm the Most Awesome.

So Christmas afternoon we packed up our bags and headed down to the desert(AZ) to a family reunion. Little did we know what was coming. We decided to try a new route and at Twin Falls went south through Nevada. Our car started acting up and we weren't sure what to do. At Wells (aka middle of nowhere) we filled up the car and said what the heck well just keep going. Twenty miles later the engine light came on and so we turned around and spent the night in Wells. The next day we traveled 50 miles west on I-80 to Elko, NV because it was the nearest bigger city. But not by much. Stopped at a few car places to see if they could do diagnostics. NO LUCK. Stopped at the park popped the hood and tried to look like we knew what we were doing looking under the hood. I wiggle a few things. Paul touched a few things. Got pack in the car and it was running fine again. Hurray. Little did we know is wasn't us but prayers were answered on our behalf. Got to Las Vegas that night and stayed in our most beloved hotel, Holiday Inn Express, and woke up the next day and actually made it to AZ. Let me mention that our kids did so great during the trip. They are the best. And so is the DVD player.

We had a great turnout for our Brown Family reunion. By the way its a lot of work to put on a reunion. And I didn't even do as much as my sisters. And once again they proved how Awesome they truly are.

All Seven Sisters:
Diane,Donna,Deena,Jackie(In-Law),Darlene,Me,Delora

Can't forget my only brother. David.

Cousins: Zack,Kaden,Carson. Kaden is only 6 mo. older than Carson. Maybe I'm not feeding him enough?

Our imitation of our cousins who are really professional singers. They have a show in Branson, Missouri. They are called SIX. They are awesome. If you are ever there you should check them out. My brother introduced us and Jackie was the choreographer. AHH reunion talent shows.

New Years Revolution

2011-01-03T18:06:00.000-08:00

This year will be different! Or at least that is what we are telling ourselves. Neither one of us can write in a journal often enough to record our awesome family adventures and happenings. So this year we decided to be dedicated bloggers.
To start things off here is a little video to recapture last year. Oh and don't forget to turn up your speakers! :)

What's Going On

2010-03-28T17:50:00.000-07:00

So, the last couple weeks have been pretty busy at our house. This last week was Carson's spring break so we decided to try and get out and do something fun. There's a really cool waterfall that you drive by on the way to Portland so we decided to go there and check it out.

View From the Bottom

Daneen & Carson at the Bridge

Carson in the Roots

So we decided it would be fun to hike all the way to the top of the waterfall. We thought "It's just 1.1 miles, how hard could it be?". So we all started off, the four of us and Grandma Kennedy. Well, after we got up the trail a ways we got to the sign "Switchback 1 of 11". Not sure what we were thinking but we kept on going. Not sure which switchback it was, but Grandma said she had had enough and started back down. The four of us kept on and made it to the top, after quite a few breaks.

Us at the Top!

We were all pretty dang sore, at least me, Daneen, and Carson. Sydney enjoyed the whole ride from her stroller. And of course, to top that off, Carson started coughing and has been coughing since. So the rest of the spring break was spent at home playing video games (we just got Wii Sports Resort and it Rocks!). So it wasn't that bad of a spring beak for Carson.

The week before last, Daneen's sister Darlene and her son Zach came to visit. Daneen had a great time with Darlene and Carson loved having his cousin here to play with.

My sister Celeste was in Oregon that same week so against my own good judgment I decided to take Carson, Sydney, and Zach on an overnight trip to Portland to meet up with Celeste and Rebekah and spend the day with them. We met up at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. It was pretty cool. The kids liked it. I think I would have liked it too if I didn't have Sydney to chase down the whole time...

Carson & Zach

Syd Hard at It

The Drive Home

We made it there and back all in one piece. All of the kids still have all of their appendages and we had no accidents so it was a successful trip. And Daneen and Darlene were able to have some time alone with their mom so that was good.

Fun With Aunt Darlene

The Boys

So yeah, we've had a fun couple of weeks. Back to the grind this week. And what blog post would be complete without Sydney getting down! She has incorporated instruments into her dancing (Grandpa Gerber will like this!).

Sydney Shakin' It

2010-03-14T23:01:00.000-07:00

Here's a quick video of our little Sydney gettin' her groove thing on...

Let's Try This Again

2010-01-26T19:01:00.001-08:00

Hopefully this youtube video will work for anyone who wasn't able to watch Carson riding his bike.

I Am The Greatest Bike Riding Teacher!

2010-01-22T22:13:00.000-08:00

Okay, maybe not the greatest but after MLK Day I think I'm pretty good. We had really nice weather on Monday and Carson has been on me to take the training wheels off his little bike since Christmas so he can learn to ride on his little bike and then ride his new bike. Well, I finally got around to it and I'm not even kidding, in less than 45 minutes the kid was riding around the cul-de-sac like he had been riding a bike for years! Needless to say I was one proud papa and I'm pretty sure that Daneen got a tear in her eye. Our "little" Carson is growing up!

I'm just glad there were no freak accidents when Carson learned to ride his bike, like there was for me. My older sisters tried teaching me how to ride a bike when I was around Seven. The only thing I learned from them was how painful a broken arm can be when it get's ran over by a ten speed....

Anyway, here are a couple more pics of the munchkins.

Carson & I went bowling on MLK Day too, just the two of us. It was pretty fun. You know your out of shape/getting old when you get sore after bowling...

Here's Daneen's latest masterpiece. That puzzle was a beast. Can you see the piece that our dog chewed up??? I'll give you a hint, it's in a balloon.

And of course, here's a random silly picture of Sydney. She is obsessed with the plastic storage bins. She puts all kinds of junk in it and then she climbs in it and just lays and sits there. Weird.

All you teeth freaks will appreciate that picture :)

Paul

Happy New Year

2010-01-03T22:45:00.001-08:00

Here are a few pic's from Christmas and what not.

So the Carson finally lost his first tooth...well his mom yanked it out of his mouth. He was so excited to finally lose one.

Christmas morning

gotta love it

He finally got his "real" Harry Potter wand and glasses.

Syd with her new cell phone.

Daneen made an AWESOME Christmas Dinner!!

Training our singstar

Bye GiGi & Grandpa...

Fun in the snow

Our snowman the dog mistook for a fire hydrant...

Cute kids

Cutie

Hope you enjoyed.

-paul

It's Beginning to Look alot Like Christmas...

2009-12-16T21:42:00.000-08:00

Okay first off, the results are in for the dance competition. Don't have the numbers exactly but I think it's safe to say we funky colmadina'd the sweats! And on that note, I didn't realize what the lyrics were saying toward the end of our video. I was so intrigued with the movie maker stuff and making my credits etc. that I didn't notice where the lyrics were at. And in my defense, Daneen picked the song...hehe.

Now, back to the boring old blogging business. Here are some of the new experiences we've had over the last week or so:

The joys of decorating your own house for Christmas!

The not so joy's of owning a house!

The joy (or pain) of owning a dog.

So yeah, we've had a lot going on around here. We are excited about Christmas and look forward to having GiGi & Grandpa Gerber come spend it with us (if the weather cooperates). We've got our tree up and Carson is really excited. As for Sydney, she just wants to take everything off the tree. We will see if she gets excited opening presents.

As for the dog, his name is Zeke (or Zeek I guess). He is a German Shorthair Pointer and he is 18 months to 2 years old, not sure exactly. A guy I work with gave him to me. He's a hunting dog and is pretty well trained but on the downside he is a big baby. But he is good with the kids and wants to do nothing but please me. It's kind of sad really, he listens better than the kids.

Here are a couple more pictures. Hope you all have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, and the next couple holidays too (just in case we go on another blogging hiatus).

-paul

Dance Competition

2009-12-05T22:16:00.000-08:00

Okay, before you click on the video below know this, this was ALL Daneen's idea. She decided to challenge my sister and her husband to a dance competition and being the great guy that I am....(hehe)..... Here it is. Watch ours and then go watch my sister and her husbands, Andrea & Andrew's (click the link). Pick your favorite between the two videos and leave a comment on one of our sites voting for your favorite.

Hope you liked it. More importantly, I hope you don't think any less of us!!! hehe

-Paul

Drum roll please....

2009-11-17T21:41:00.000-08:00

Okay, I can't bare the thought of all our blogger fans (and I use that term loosely) losing sleep at night over the fact that we (and by we I mean me) have not updated this blog FOREVER!!!! So in consideration of all fans (all two or three of you....) here is an update on our crew since the last time we posted anything big back in June.

What better way to update than through pictures? Here goes.....

Went fishing with Grandpa Gerber in June

Got to see Grandpa Kennedy one last time in July

Crawdad fishin with Uncle Joel and Carlie

Carson hit the big 6!

The pretty gals

The Fam in August

Bought Our First House in August!!!

Lovin the big back yard

Carson's first day of school!

Standin' on a corner in Winslow, AZ.......

Mark and Taylor's big day

Carson catching his 3RD garter (don't think he'll have any trouble tying the knot)

Syd turning 1 (not as messy as we were thinking)

A birthday pic

Paul turning....old

Carson getting Student of the Month Award

Salmon in the Columbia River at McNary Dam (pretty cool)

Carson lookin for fish in the fish ladder/window (he should have put on his harry potter glasses)

Carson and creepy clown at the corn maze

Halloween '09 (no Andrea, we didn't take your idea!)

Sweet Pumpkins (daneen did the star wars and I did the avatar)

Syd trying to be like her brother (she'd get mad if you took off her backpack)

Syd with an awesome shirt on an awesome hair day

Well, I think that about sums up the last 5 months or so. We are doing great up here in Oregon. Grandma Kennedy is here staying with us for a while. It has been great to have her here. It's getting colder though so I'm not sure how much longer she will want to be here. She walks around the house with a coat on all the time while I want to crack open a window... Daneen is keeping busy with Sydney. Now that she's walking she is a handful and a busy body. Daneen has also been doing an awesome job of finishing up with the unpacking. We can actually park our car in the garage now! I am still enjoying my job. I work with some great people and I can't complain about my work environment either. Since we've been here I have seen whitetails, mule deer, elk, antelope, rocky mountain goats, bighorn sheep, a bear, turkeys, pheasants.... I can't wait to start hunting again.

So, if I missed something, oops. If you need some filler material or a better timeline, let me know. I'll see what I can do. Hopefully we (and by we I mean me) will do a better job with the blog now that things are getting to a normal, well regular, paced life.

Paul

Made You Look

2009-10-20T23:28:00.002-07:00

Here's a little teaser for anyone who cares..... Daneen doesn't feel like blogging at the present time so you will all have to wait until I can find the time to do a better post. At least there is a new cute pic of Sydney on the side..... More to come......hopefully. :)

paul

call me crazy

2009-06-18T09:35:00.002-07:00

I watch Fox News Channel quite a bit and my favorite shows are the O'Reiley Factor and Glenn Beck. So call me crazy. Well last night on the Glenn Beck program he read a letter he recieved from one of his viewers and it was a long letter but he said most of us probably feel this way. This letter was right on the money with my feelings. So here is a link. Check it out. And you can sign your name after the letter on his website if you agree with it. http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/198/26742/?ck=1

Here Are a Few Pics

2009-06-14T17:44:00.002-07:00

The Fam

The Kids

C & Beaver

The Arch

The Munchkin

We Are Alive!

2009-06-12T11:22:00.003-07:00

We made it to Utah and Paul left us here and took of to Oregon for work last Sunday. We put an offer in on a house and they accepted it but the Pest and Dry Rot Inspection came back no good along with some other pretty major issues. My advice; beware of Flips. Cosmetically they might seem sound but you never know.

Paul is still looking at houses and has found a couple potentials but we will see. He is liking his job so far but of course misses us. Hopefully we will see him on Fathers Day because we havn't been with him on Fathers Day the last two years.

Of course we are having a great time at the Gerbers. Carson is loving Petunia(thier dog) and Gigi and Grandpa are loving every minute of Syd and Carson. Last night at a local barbegue that U-Bet (a communication company) put on Carson entered a raffle and won an XBOX 360. I couldn't believe it. He was very exicited. So was Paul. I'm thinking, "Like we need another gaming system on our house." I've been trying to talk Carson into giving to a cousin or leaving it here at G&G house so he will have something to play when we come to visit. I don't think he is buying it. Well that is about it. NO pictures. Paul has the camera.

Somewhere In Kansas

2009-05-30T22:05:00.002-07:00

Just a quick update. We are alive and well......well, as well as can be going cross country with a 7 month old and a 5 year old. We are currently somewhere in the middle of Kansas. The kids are being troopers, and Daneen is trying her best too......hehe. We are hoping to get to Utah in the next couple days, depending on when Sydney is ready to call it a day.

You know you are on an AWESOME family road trip when both you and your wife end up with wet shorts on, courtesy of the baby. We were eating lunch today and Sydney relieved herself all over my shorts (defective diaper). And then at dinner tonight she decided to dump all of Daneen's rootbeer in Daneen's lap......gotta love it!

Hopefully when we get to my parents we will put some pics up of our trip. Later for now.

-Paul

More to Celebrate!!

2009-04-20T06:58:00.002-07:00

We are so excited. Paul just accepted a job in Oregon. He had to pick between a couple of job offers but we are both sure he picked the right one. YEAH!

Celebration!!

2009-04-08T08:53:00.006-07:00

About two weeks ago we took a trip back to AZ to attend my nephew Nick's wedding. We are so excited for him and we totally love his new wife. Their reception was gorgeous.

And of course we got some family pics in:

My sibs and parents.

Carson loving his little "sissy"

Best looking girls.

Carson got lots of cousin time in with Zack. They had a blast together.

Happy Anniversary! We also celebrated my parents 50th anniversary while we were there. It was awesome. Saw a lot of cousins I had not seen in a while.

Aren't they cute. Way to go.

I have reason to celebrate even more. My sister Delora put a slide show together for my parents and we each contributed pics and I helped Donna get her pics together and I stumbled on this
Drum role please.

This is me. I'm not sure how old I was but not the point. Guess who looks like me?

Sydney

I could not be more happier that I have a child who actually looks like me. I feel like I've won a battle or something. Paul was astonished to say the least. But Hurray!!!!!

Gettin Lucky In Kentucky

2009-03-16T18:07:00.010-07:00

Allrighty then. It has been forever since we posted anything on here so here is a quick recap of what has happened since the last post. Little Sydney went in for her 4 month appointment in February and the doctor told us her weight was in the bottom 5th percentile for her age. So we were told that the little girl needs to bulk up a bit (probably one of the few times anyone will be told to gain weight). Daneen felt pretty bad and disappointed about the whole thing. Here she thought she had got the whole nursing thing down and then she finds out she was only producing 2 oz's a feeding. So, needless to say we started supplementing her with formula. Sydney hasn't had any real problems with the formula and actually seems more content now throughout the day. Daneen is still nursing too, so at the very least she is getting more than enough now!!

Other then that, let's see, Carson started and finished pee-wee basketball. He enjoyed it. He really picked up the whole dribbling thing. I'm keepin' my fingers crossed that we have the next Steve Nash or Chris Paul on our hands!!! We are currently back up in Kentucky for work. I have been here for a week and the rest of the posse strolled into town on Saturday. We will be here for another week and then we are headed to the AZ for a week. Yeah!!!.....I think....

Anywho, the whole reason for this post was to share some funny video clips we just took at the little cottage we are staying in. Without further ado, here you go (and some more pic's too).

ummm.....apple

don't take away my apple!!!

carson hoopin' it up

family game night

papa & the babies

cutie patootie

Anyway, that's about it for now. Hope you enjoyed. Hopefully it won't take us this long to put a post up (just don't hold your breath...).

-paul

Where does it all go?

2009-02-06T17:38:00.003-08:00

Where does the time go. Sydney is 3 1/2 months now and she is smiling, laughing and always sticking her hands in her mouth. She doesn't take good naps during the day but she sleeps from 9:30 to about 8 in the morning with only one feeding at around 3 or 4. And I'm not to anxious to stop feeding her at night because she seems tiny to me. I'm still breastfeeding. Surprised? So am I. The downsides to it now are that she is totally attached to me and sometimes she doesn't want to have anything to do with Paul. When six months rolls around the weaning might begin. Here is some pics:

I Love happy babies in the morning.

Go Cardinals!!!

Carson loved giving her a bottle, which will be a rare occurrence.

Its all about how many fingers she can get in her mouth

This is where all the money goes. DIAPERS!!

Bad Hair Days...

2009-01-23T18:18:00.007-08:00

So Do you like Flock of Seagulls ?

Sydney does.

Seriously

We try to comb her hair to the side after we get her out of the bath and this is what always happens! It is too funny and we love it!

Happy New Year!!!

2009-01-01T20:11:00.008-08:00

Yes, we are still alive and kicking. It has been a busy month. We flew out to AZ a week before Christmas and have not gotten around to blogging for a while. We had the opportunity to bless baby Sydney while out there. My parents were able to come down for the blessing so that was an added bonus, seeing all the grandparents. The blessing was a great experience and it was awesome to have so many family members and some friends there.

GiGi & Grandpa with Sydney

We spent Christmas at Grandma and Grandpa Kennedy's. Carson was worried for most of the week that Santa wasn't going to know where to find him. Then he realized Grandma and Grandpa didn't have a chimney. You can imagine what kind of concerns that brought up to the little guy. After we convinced him that Santa would know where to find him and know how to get in the house, Carson's concerns were somewhat put to rest.
Since we were going to be in Az for Christmas, we figured it wouldn't make sense to do much Christmas shopping at home. We thought we could get everything taken care of a few days before Christmas day. We should have realized that everyone and their brother was thinking the same thing. We knew what we wanted to get Carson and when it wasn't at the first store we went to, we started sweating bullets. Thank goodness the next store we went to had it and we didn't ruin a little boys Christmas. He thought it was amazing how there was no presents for him under the tree on Christmas Eve and then when he woke up on Christmas morning there was "a million presents" for him! Gotta love having little kids during the holidays.

One of His "million" Presents

One more quick note, and then I'll share some random pics. I was suppose to fly back home Saturday after Christmas. The key words to that sentence are "suppose to". Well, I thought I was ahead of the game when I was checking in online Friday evening. Well, when I put in my confirmation number the computer comes back with a message "your flight has already departed.". Uhhh.....yeah. I am brilliant. Apparently I booked my flight on Friday instead of Saturday. I thought I did it on Saturday so I could spend more time with the fam but no, I think I went for the cheaper ticket, and it ended up costing me. I freaked out and in panic mode big time and it didn't help that I was on hold for half an hour trying to talk to someone from the airline. Well, thankfully the lady I talked to on the phone had a little holiday spirit left over and saved me like $100 big ones. On the downside, I had to fly home at midnight on Saturday and didn't get home until around 7:30 Sunday morning. So the moral to the story is don't assume you know when your flight leaves, check!!!

Now, here are some random pics, enjoy.

-Paul

Superman

2008-12-03T12:54:00.004-08:00

You wake up one night tumble out of bed and fall to the floor in excruciating pain. Tears come to your eyes instantly. You've never felt such pain. Your thinking why, what is going on with my body. Standing seems impossible and thoughts float into your mind about never being able to walk or your body breaking. This is what I woke up to Thanksgiving night when I was getting up to feed Sydney. My back went out. Whatever that is suppose to mean. My body didn't work right and I was sobbing crawling to get to the rocking chair so that I could feed her. Paul was doing his best to try and help. I've never felt so vulnerable and helpless. After a chiropractic visit I now have to wear a back brace and use a heating pad. Things that make you feel old.

"I don't feel like Superman anymore."

So heres to the ones who don't feel like Superman anymore. To the ones that are young and feel old and to the ones who are old that feel helpless and weathered. We can only imagine what it feels like to have your body let you down. And all of us will experience that some day. Making everyone aware of those that may need us more than we may want them to. We wish there wasn't any kryptonite.

Mommy

2008-12-01T07:47:00.005-08:00

We had lots of help when Sydney was born. Paul's Grandma and mother both came out. It was so nice to have all the help. We really got spoiled. But a surprise was that my mom got to come out. My siblings decided to watch my dad so that she could come. I'm pretty sure she enjoyed herself.

Her and Sydney liked taking naps together.

She actually played the Wii with us. She was really good at bowling. A little too good. I wonder if she leads a secret life.

Thanks for coming out mom. And thanks to all my siblings for making that possible.
By the way my mother has a new blog. http://www.thekennedykluster.blogspot.com/

High Maintenance and Germs!

2008-11-14T16:50:00.007-08:00

After five years Paul and I forgot how much work it takes to care for a newborn. We are getting used to it. Hopefully we don't have to wait that long for the next one. If there is another one. :) This last weekend we had a really good time with Paul's family. His parents and grandmother where here. And Andrea and her family came to. Carson had a blast playing with his cousins.
We all made it to church on Sunday. It was the primary program and Carson did so awesome at remembering his lines. Paul and I got all teary eyed when he got up to do his part and didn't need any help.

GERMS!!
Well I'm going kinda of crazy because my house isn't nearly as clean as I usually keep it but I just don't have the energy. And of course I'm a snob and I think that there are very few who would do a better job cleaning my house than myself. Paul and I have been such germafobs since Sydney has been born. I'm sure that Carson has been so happy lately because of his blood alcohol level. All due to the Hand Sanitizer. But the Pediatrician freaked us out about RSV season. She told us not to take the baby out until spring. I'm pretty sure I will go crazy. So in our defiance we took her to church on Sunday. Carson is on Germ patrol of course. We walk in and one of the members wants to see the baby and so I show her and then she touches Sydney's hand and Carson says "don't touch the baby you have germs." He is so his parents son.

Now I've tried to figure out why I'm such a clean freak. I wasn't always this extreme. I mostly blame society and some of my sisters and my father. He is an organization freak. I remember looking forward to my parents being gone, when I was in High School, so that I could really organize and clean the house. I always cleaned my room and my bathroom without having to be asked. I loved scrubbing the kitchen floor when I was in elementary school. My mother says she missed me when I left home because then she didn't have me to help her clean anymore. So I have always been this way but I've just got more extreme over time. And I've taken Paul down with me. Sometimes he is worse than I am. But I know I do have supporters. Lani and Diane I know your with me.

On A More Cheerful Note....

2008-11-03T19:14:00.008-08:00

We had a ward Halloween party the Saturday before Halloween. Me and Grandma took Carson while Daneen and Sydney got some "alone" time.

Was there any doubt Star Wars would be involved in Carson's costume?

They had dinner and then a quick trunk'r'treat. Then they had a bunch of games for the kids to play. Carson was having a good time getting little prizes and candy. We even got snow cones! But then he got in line for the game where you could win a gold fish. Can I just say I have never seen the kid get so crazy about trying to win a prize. You have to try and toss a ping pong ball into a cup with a fish in it. If you do, you win a fish....obviously. After about three or four tries Carson was in tears over not winning the game. He started yelling and screaming, making a scene and everything. I finally calmed him down and convinced him to keep trying. By this time the party was almost over and there were only like 8 fish left and only like 8 kids still trying to get one so he was pretty much guaranteed a fish. But he finally stepped up to the line and actually tossed a ball into a cup. He was so proud of himself.

Can you see the little thing?

Carson & Mason's Fish

If only we could have had a happy ending...

nope, that's a goldfish....

The funniest part about the whole thing was that when the fish died (less than twenty minutes after we got home from the party), Carson could have cared less. He thought it was cool that we flushed the thing down the toilet, just like Little Nemo. Little boys will be little boys I guess.

Here are some pics of Carson and Sydney on Halloween.

And last but not least, the little old man in his long johns feasting on the spoils of a hard night trick'r'treating.

-paul

Postpartum & all that entails

2008-10-29T09:32:00.002-07:00

Well I have to say postpartum is pretty bad. (If you haven't had children yet you might not want to read this). Sorry, this is a complaint post. First of all the stitches. They are feeling better but for a while I thought "the next time I have to go to the bathroom it just might paralyze me." In a meantime I can't figure out why all these people tell me that "breastfeeding isn't suppose to hurt" yet they also say "it takes a couple of weeks to get used to." It seems obvious that it can be hard on some to breastfeed otherwise why do they have all these support groups and leagues. It seems like its two steps forward and one back with it. I'm almost two weeks in and I'm starting to think that I'd rather pump every two hours day and night but I'm trying to stick it out. On another note on top breastfeeding, I have to give myself shots in the stomach twice a day and it burns and leaves bruises. I'm running out of places to give it. And of course the postpartum blues. Also good days and bad. I know its normal but I'm on the verge of going to the doctor to get on some happy pills. Despite it all it is worth it.

and more pics...

2008-10-24T20:58:00.004-07:00

Here's some more pictures of the newest Gerber baby. Sydney is doing great. She had two doctor's appointments this week and between the Tuesday appointment and the Thursday appointment she had gained 3ozs! The nurse had to weigh her again to make sure she had gained that much. Daneen is being a trooper with the whole nursing gig (yet another reason men should be thankful to women for). She appreciated all the nice comments about how good she looked after the delivery but now she'd like to know what everyone thinks.....

Sydney & Sleepy Momma

Big Bro Hard At It

Cutie Pie

Talking To Carson

Sleepy Girl

My Favorite Pic (so far)

Guess that's all for now. Hopefully Daneen will get to feeling better soon so she can let everyone really know what's going on and return some folks phone calls.....

-paul

more pics...

2008-10-18T13:51:00.003-07:00

Sydney & Big Bro

Great Grandma Cuca & Sydney

Already helping...

Introducing...

2008-10-17T23:08:00.004-07:00

Sydney

Grace
Gerber

Born: 11:50 pm

Weight: 7lbs 3ozs

Length: 19in

Daneen did awesome!!! She only had to push for like 15 minutes and our little cutie was here. She has the cutest little lips and a full head of thick hair! Mommy and Sydney are doing great!! More pics later...

COUNTDOWN.......

2008-10-17T16:52:00.003-07:00

Well, Daneen had a check up today and the "midwife" sent her to the hospital since the baby didn't want to move. So now, we are here at the hospital just waiting....

Can you tell she's excited???

The doctor broke her water, she's dilated to a 6 (eww, didn't want to say that), and the epidural is on the way. Keep Daneen and the baby in your prayers!!!

-paul

Things that make me Happy!

2008-10-10T09:31:00.006-07:00

Lately I haven't been entertained as much as I would like to be. Meaning, not enough laughs. And its mostly due to the fact that I am in my last month of pregnancy. aka(think of a word). So I'm trying to focus on things that make me happy and laugh a lot.

1. Happy: I'm a 3-4 (if you know what a mean. Baby is on her way)
2. Laugh: Paul got a Wii fit for his birthday. I love watching him do the hula hoop game. So hilarious.
3. Laugh: SNL has been really fun with all their spoofs on the politics and issues.
4. Happy & Laugh: Today I found this on my nieces blog. Its my nephew Jarom and I think he's awesome along with all my nieces and nephews. By the way did I mention I'm gonna be a Great Aunt. Anyway. It totally made my day. Check it out.

"Watch and Learn"

2008-10-02T16:21:00.003-07:00

Carson's new saying. I don't know where he picked it up. Anyway I thought I would do a quick update on the whole pregnancy thing and just vent. I'm gonna be 37 weeks and now I have to go to the doctor twice a week for a NST. So pretty much I have to be there an hour and 1/2 every few days. Its irritating. Darn my Leiden Factor 5. This last Tuesday I spoke to much because I ended up with an ultra sound and a Doppler that same day. Paul didn't get to work until almost 3. I was at doctors appts from 8-2. I had told the doctor that the baby didn't seem to be moving as much as usual and that I had leg pain. So of course get the ultrasound and the baby is o.k. thank goodness. They told me she has a ton of hair and she already weighs 6lb 6 oz. Then the Doppler. Well its just like an ultra sound that they do up and down your whole leg to see if you have a blood clot. I had so much of that ultra sound jelly on my legs it was gross. Anyways thats it for now. Paul's grandma is coming next weekend so I'll do my best not to have the baby until then. P.S. I would take a picture of myself to show how big I am but I'm just to depressed about my body right now.

Only Child Benefits

2008-09-28T17:01:00.007-07:00

Being the only child for so long has great benefits. Like getting to celebrate your Webkinz birthday. Your mom actually making cup cakes and everybody singing happy birthday. Oh and having your dad help you make him a dog house. Yes we did all that for Carson. I guess it comes naturally to me because I was pretty much an only child, being the baby of the family, and my parents especially my mother went out of her way to do things like that for me. Anyway a funny story. I asked Paul to start making the cup cakes and I come into the kitchen right when he is turning on the blender and the batter goes flying everywhere. He hadn't melted the butter before he put it in. I was laughing because I just didn't know what to say. Luckily the cupcakes turned out good.

Another benefit of being the only child is that your dad goes out of his way not to miss one practice of any kind for you and he stands on the sidelines during all of practice and the games, encouraging you and giving you advice. Carson just got done with flag football. He really liked it but he's a little timid when kids start running at him. But he's got the hang of if for next year. Right now he's doing swim on saturdays and in a week he'll start Soccer.

I wonder...

2008-09-16T08:39:00.004-07:00

I can't tell you how many people (moslty family members) tell me "I wonder who she'll look like." In case you can't figure it out were talking about the baby. Well Paul and I have been wondering the same thing. Who will she look like:

Like Paul?

Again, like Paul?

Or like Me?

I can only pray that my genes will be dominant. Mostly because a lot of people don't realize that Carson is my son. Maybe subconsciously that's why I colored my hair back to brown. But seriously at my last family reunion, and I didn't know this until later, people were wondering who Carson belonged to. Paul wasn't there so ya I could see why people were wondering. But come on.

So after some great work done by Paul we came up with this photo of what she might look like.

Is It Halloween Yet???

2008-09-10T19:27:00.004-07:00

That is the question that Daneen will be asking on a regular basis shortly.... But trust me, I have the up most respect for women when it comes to carrying a child for 9 months and then getting to go through the lovely process of labor & delivery. There is NO WAY that I could do that, NO WAY! So yeah, big props to all the moms out there bringing little ones into the world. We owe you! The least we as guys can do is change some dirty diapers and get our better half a bowl of ice cream every now and then...

-paul

p.s. Daneen your looking great, no matter what you think!

Keep Up Gerbers!

2008-08-27T07:08:00.006-07:00

So things that we missed to share with you. Carson had an awesome birthday. Well how much fun can you have with just your parents? We took him to Chucky Cheese and bought him two Wii games amongst other things. Do we spoil this kid or what? We probably need to lay off the spoiling or else when we have this other child were gonna go broke. But he loved his presents and everything. Paul really likes playing Carsons Wii games to.

On another note we've been skeptical about our baby really being a girl. How could we get this lucky, right? Well when we got back from AZ Paul and I had been having doubts that our baby was really a girl. But at my last appt. they confirmed it. Relief, because I've been buying lots of girl things. Names. An argument that we have with Carson. Yes I said Carson. If we don't name this baby Sydney then we will have one disappointed boy on our hands. We like the name we are the ones who came up with it but we are open to other options. We want to see what she looks like before we name her. I thought Daneen was a great name but Paul is not having it. To confusing I guess. He's probably right.

Anniversary. So we didn't really celebrate our Anniversary. Which I think was o.k. this year due to the fact that Paul bought me a new bed. King sized. Now we can go all night without saying "scoot over" or "Honey your touching me and its making me hot" Don't take the last one the wrong way. Paul is really like a furnace. Its like sleeping by an oven. But our bed is one that your not suppose to feel the other person move. Its a Simmons. Which comes in handy for Paul because I get up a lot to go to the bathroom. We love it. I can tell this is definitely going to help our marriage. J/K

Vacation. We took another vacation. Well me and Carson did. Paul had to head to Kentucky for two weeks on a work detail so we went with him. We stayed at a State Park Lodge. It reminded my of the place in "Dirty Dancing" because they have activities during the day and we were right on the lake. It was awesome. Carson and I played all day while Paul went to work. Overall we all had fun. We went to see buffalo and other nature places on the weekend. We got pictures of this vacation but not of our anniversary or Carson's birthday. We are lazy.

I love how Paul tries to quote the native Americans in the movie "Dances with Wolves" any time we talk about buffalo. If you can see the baby behind the mom. It was trying to feed and the way it was tugging on its mom's utters made me not want to breast feed.

Carson and I taking a picture by a turkey. We'll see him at Thanksgiving.

The view of the lake at the lodge.

Doing Paul's ultimate favorite thing. Cane pole fishing.

Is this a vacation or what? Part 2

2008-07-28T11:48:00.007-07:00

#4 So after AZ and I'm sure some of my fam was ready for me to leave. A quick thank you to all who let me suck up there air conditioning, drove me places, let us eat their food and watch their TV's.(What does it feel like to be homeless but have a great family?) Anywho, Carson, Paul and I headed up to Utah for Destiny's wedding. Mark and Taylor were to kind to give us a lift. Especially with all the potty breaks. And no not for Carson.

They happy couple.

Carson and Whitney

Carson just got hit by a family member. You gotta be tough to be a Gerber.

Probably our last family photo before Baby sister comes.

We had a birthday bash in Utah also except my birthday wasn't included. No hard feelings. (tear) Carson got hooked up again.

A Birthday present from G&G Gerber.

We took a trip to Vernal and went to the Dinosaur Museum. Carson loved it.

This picture explains itself.

Oh and don't let me fail to mention that Carson is so excited to have a baby sister. This is Caroline, (Andrea's baby) so cute. Carson just loved her. I can tell he'll make a great big brother.

#5 One Las Hoorah
After Utah we had to fly back to Phoenix for 3 days before we flew back to Georgia. So Paul got to see my fam. Which I think is great because some of them probably thought I was lying about still being married. They hadn't seen him for a good year and a 1/2. We had a get together for family home evening. We swam and had a cookout. The food was delicious. And it was awesome because mostly everyone came to see us before we left. Thanks.

These are my notorious parents.

All the girls there.

All the boys

And of course Carson the Fish.

Is this a vacation or what?

2008-07-26T17:21:00.007-07:00

So there are about 5 parts that are gonna be about our summer vacation so Ill do them in two posts.
#1 Birthday Bash.
My family is notorious for Birthday Bashes. I think they have about every three months. But I was excited that we were there for this one because the bash included our birthdays. My sister Delora made Carson an awesome Spider Man Cake.

His cousin Zack got one to.

It was an awesome birthday Bash me and Carson got hooked up.

#2 The 4th of July.
So I decided that Carson and i would take a little vacation on our vacation and head up to Winslow to see some old friends and hang out with Aunt Marilyn at her Cabin. But some of my sisters couldn't get enough of me so they decided to come to . We hung out at the Cabin while everyone but me and Seven rode quads.

Carson and Zack

Everyone having fun quading in the rain .

And we got some creek time in. I'm glad nobody died at the creek.

A picture of everyone before we headed to the creek.

But the best part was going to see the fireworks at the stadium. I wasn't feeling the music but overall its always a great fireworks show. I got a little homesick.

#3 Lake Trip of course
I asked my doctor if I could go jet skiing while on vacation. She looked at me like I was an idiot. Hey at least I know now that pregnant people shouldn't go jet skiing or any extreme sport.
But I was a trooper and headed to the lake with my family anyways.

Look how brave Carson is. Not even scared of the fish.

Carson and I just swam and hung out and ate snacks. Carson was braver this year and went on a few rides.

Carson, Uncle Dave, Kaycie and Kaden

Hes not drowning here hes just checking out the fish.

He became a fish when we were in AZ.
I put on his life jacket and hes a fish. He's pretty much obsessed with swimming now that he knows how much fun it is. The next day after the lake Carson and I had a big surprise. Paul wasn't suppose to come in until 8p.m. that night but he showed up that morning at 11:00. My brother-in-law said that he had to go to the bike shop and he wanted to take Carson. Well they were gone quite a while and when they got back he told me that he had bought Carson a small motorcycle. I'm thinking "how in the world am I gonna get this back to Georgia." But we went outside and there was Paul. aka the motorcycle. Anyway more later.

Man I Am Excited!!!

2008-07-08T14:00:00.004-07:00

Tomorrow is the big day!!! I get to see Daneen and Carson finally!!!! Let me just say, when your day consists of coming home to those two and then you go without seeing them for over a month, you start going through withdrawals. I’m surprised I survived this long without them. So with that in mind, here are some pic’s of my two favorite people and some random pictures from before they went on their hiatus to AZ.

We got to take in a Braves game with my parents on Memorial Day. We grew up Braves fans, thanks to TBS, so it is always really cool to get to see them play in person especially with GiGi & Grandpa. It was really cool taking Carson to his first game to see my favorite teams, they were playing the Diamondbacks (in case you were wondering, the Braves whipped the D-Backs).

The Hallowed Ground of Turner Field

Sweatin' Out the Game

Die Hard Fan In The Making

While GiGi and Grandpa were with us we went Geo-caching with Grandpa. For those of you who don't know what that is, it's like a high tech game of hide and seek. People go and hide their "cache" somewhere and give you the latitude and longitude and you go try and find it using a GPS unit. My dad is into that and it is really fun. Carson called it hunting for treasure, so if what I said above doesn't make sense, think of it as hunting for treasure!

Carson & Grandpa Gerber Hunting For "Treasure"

Well, that's about it for now I guess. Next stop AZ and then onto Utah with my family!!!!! I haven't seen a picture of Daneen since they left so I'm excited to see how she and the baby "seven" look. She is like 24wks pregnant now! Wow! Can't wait to give her and the little guy a great big squeeze!!!! I know, I sound pathetic but you know what? I don't Care!!!! :)

-paul

Wedding Time

2008-06-23T11:33:00.006-07:00

My niece Lauren got married in the Mesa Temple on Friday the 13th. I'm not sure but I think she was one of few who picked that day to get married. But it was everything but a disastrous day. She was beautiful, the wedding was beautiful. I'm so thankful for temples. How can you beat Eternity.

Lauren and Baldo.

The reception was awesome. Great food and dancing(as you can see from the previous post). The place they had it at was beautiful.

Carson and his cousins.

Some family members and I made up a dance routine to perform for everybody. Front row:LtoR Lauren, Jackie, Brandon Backrow:LtoR Baldo, Darlene, Me,Caitlin and David (in the grey suit). Some other guy tried to worm his way in so don't pay att to him.

Wedding of the Year? You tell us.

2008-06-15T15:35:00.006-07:00

A Glimpse of the reception. Carson is in the white and his cousin Zack is the blue.

So I wonder where Carson gets his dance moves from?

Fathers Day

2008-06-10T11:15:00.002-07:00

The big one is coming up and I feel so sorry for Paul and Carson and I won't be there to honor or pamper him on Fathers Day. I seriously couldn't ask for a better Husband and Father. Him and Carson always have their little things they like to do only with each other and no MOMs allowed. So Paul, just for you a list of why your a good dad:
1. You love spending time with your family and you treat us like your #1 priority.
2. You always encourage Carson to keep trying.
3. You have patience with everybody and their antics.
4. You go out of your way just to be there for Carson because you don't want to miss a thing even if it means missing work and making up for it later.
The list could go on. Just know that we love you and your the best.

Finally

2008-05-31T18:04:00.003-07:00

Well my birthday was awesome. Paul and Carson got me a cute Dora Card and presents inside a princess gift bag. I'm a cheesy person so I really loved it.

One of my most favorite things on my birthday is the phone calls. The ones where they are singing happy birthday to me. The best song of course is sung by my mom who pretty much makes up her own tune and different words. But the list went : Mom, Maria and Lynn, Diane, and Darlene. It totally made my day. Hopefully more people will call to sing happy birthday next year and the list will keep growing. Hint, Hint. I don't need presents.

Finally I'm in AZ. But I miss Paul something awful. He is the best. I love him so much. But i won't get to mushy. Carson was awesome on the plane except when we landed he hurled. I'm pretty sure he has motion sickness. its not to hot here yet. My parents look older but healthy. I was so excited to see them. my first stop though is my brothers house. I'm watching his kids while his wife (Jackie) is at girls camp. Carson is having a blast with his cousins. And I'm getting in some quality time with my bro.

Finally, i came to AZ with a surprise but SHH not all of my fam knows yet.

Its a girl and she is coming Oct. 31 I'm showing but could definetly pass as extra fat.
We are so excited especially Carson. He has been talking about a sibling for over a year and Paul and I longer than that.

That's about it. Hope you all are doing great! If your in the greater Phoenix area give me a call.

-daneen

But I don't want to be 27!

2008-05-16T06:52:00.003-07:00

Imagine me saying this like Jerry Seinfeld during the puffy shirt episode when Kramer tells him that he's gonna be a pirate. Jerry in a whining voice: "But I don't want to be a pirate." Well folks the inevitable keeps coming. One more year closer to 30. When I was 18 I couldn't even imagine myself being 30. Yes I know most of you are saying that 30 is young. And I'll probably feel that way when I'm 40 or 50. But for now I'm just a little depressed and here is why. I was at the dentist office about a month ago and the hygienist says "ya you look pretty young like your my age" (pray tell i ask myself what is her age) "like your 31" WHAT? There you have it. I look about 4 years older than I really am. So happy 32nd birthday next year. I'll let you know how my birthday went when I download my other pics.

Daneen Gerber May 14 2008 just turned 27 a.k.a 31

Update

2008-04-30T17:55:00.007-07:00

First off, this is what we saw in front of our (or my) favorite place to eat the other day.

notice anything weird?

Apparently you don't need to know how to spell to make the best Taco Bell food I've ever had. Let's just hope the person in charge of reading and interpreting the health code isn't the same person in charge of writing up the temporary closed signs........

Carson came home from school on Monday with this:

According to this sheet, he tripped over another student. According to Carson, that "other" student tripped him on purpose. I don't know if it was Emilio, Cornilio, Angel, or whoever but Carson was not happy about it.

Ouch!

For a while there he was acting like he was going to lose his arm. He is a very dramatic little guy. But of course, like all little boys, he now thinks it's cool that he is going to have a scar. I blame myself for that though. In my infinite parenting wisdom I thought if I showed him a couple of big scars on my leg and say they were cool he would stop crying about his battle wound. Oh well, nothing wrong with a sweet scar.

Finally, Carson has been playing T-Ball for the last three weeks. It is a city league and is a lot like the Smart Start T-Ball he was in last year in Blairsville. I myself am not to impressed with this one though. There are way too many kids compared to the number of coaches. And there are some kids that are just out there. I could go on for quite a while about what I've seen from some of these kids, like one little kid eating grass and another one hitting the coach and throwing his glove at her, but I wont..... :) Here are a couple of pics of our stud ball player. (sorry they aren't that great; took them with the cell phone). And no, he is not wearing a dress out there! It was the smallest shirt size they had.

yeah, he's the little guy on the mound....

rounding 3rd

Alrighty then, that's enough for now. Hopefully we will be doing a better job of staying on top of the blog thing. And yes, I will try again to get Daneen to do this next time. I'm a sucker I guess.

-paul

Has it Been a Month????

2008-04-20T16:23:00.005-07:00

Wow, I can't believe that it has been a month since we posted something! You'd think we fell off the face of the earth or something. One of the reasons is that I was at training for two weeks in Columbus, OH last month. Daneen didn't really want to blog about how scared she was at home alone with Carson. So ha ha scary blogger stocker, tricked you!!! Daneen gets very ancy when I'm not here. I'm sure she checks that everything is locked at least ten, probably closer to a hundred, times before she goes to bed when I'm home, so I'm sure she wore the locks out a bit more when I was gone. To give you an idea of how worried she was that something was going to happen while I was gone, she actually had me call every morning to make sure that she had woke up every morning.......yeah, weird :). Here are a few pics that we took around Easter time and obviously failed to share. Better late than never right?

If Looks Could Kill.....

Bring On The Easter Eggs

There's The Happy Guy

Gotta Love the Dye!

The Mop Chop (he didn't even cry this time!)

Another good reason for our absence in the blog world was because Carson had spring break a couple weeks ago. I decided I needed to take that week off and that we were going to try and go do something fun. Well, trying to think of something fun at our house is a task all by itself. I don't know how many nights Daneen and I spent on the computer looking for something fun and inexpensive to do for a week. I think it wasn't until the Thursday before Carson had off that we finally decided what we were going to do. After considering Myrtle Beach, Six Flags, Charleston, and even Dolly wood (look it up on the web if you don't know what that is!), we decided that it would probably cost just as much, or less, to go visit my Grandma in Texas. So, we called Grandma on Thursday night and told her we were coming, double checked with my boss on Friday, and hit the road on Saturday morning. We left at 6:00am Georgia time and got to Grandmas at about 10:00pm Texas time. Let me just say, 17 hours in the car is a LONG TIME!!! Thank goodness we have been exposing Carson to long road trips all of his life and and a couple good long trips before he was actually born. He is an awesome traveler. We had a great time with Grandma. I think it's safe to say we all gained a few pounds eating some yummy home cooking. Since the whole trip was such short notice we really didn't have anything planned. We just hung out with Grandma and visited with relatives. It was great not having to worry about work. Before I lose you all again, here are some more pics.

Daneen's sister Diane lives like 45 minutes from my Grandma in Texas so we got to spend some time with her and her family while we were there too. The little cute blondie in the slide show is Claire, Diane's youngest. She came over to play while we were at Grandma's. She stayed with us for three weeks last summer and we all got attached to her. I thought she wouldn't remember me but apparently she has a picture of the three of us and she talks about us a lot. But instead of calling me daddy like she did last summer, she was stuck on calling me grandpa this time. It was pretty funny. She's got me wrapped around her little finger. She actually convinced me to go grocery shopping with just her and her mom. Go figure. And she was breaking my heart when we left their house. She wanted to come home with us and she was just crying and crying. If we weren't crammed full we probably would have brought her home with us.

Okay, that's enough for now. Daneen will have to fill in the rest of the gaps. She was actually suppose to be doing this post but decided she "doesn't want to blog" today. So After seeing Tausha and Sister Booth's comments from the old post I decided someone (me) should at least let folks know that we are alive and well. Hopefully I can get Daneen to put another funny post up or something, and some more pics.

-paul

Funky Chicken

2008-03-17T16:04:00.007-07:00

Gainesville Georgia is the Chicken Capital of the world or so it is posted all over. I have the delight of smelling something that i presume is chicken being processed when I drive Carson to School every morning. And no its not just one plant its Two. I get two good whiffs. A total of four for the whole trip. Eight during the day. I drive with my hand over my mouth while Carson is in the back saying "MMM smells like a Chicken Biscuit" And I have had the opportunity to drive next to or in close proximity of many foul smelling, probably disease infested, feces filled Chicken trucks. Warning: don't get too close to the truck you might get hit with chicken crap. Paul has actually witnessed a Chicken suicide. He was following one of these trucks and a Chicken

somehow managed to get loose. Well Mr. Chicken decided it would be better to die now then later. As he plunged for the ground, thinking I'd rather it be done this way, he landed and got ran over. Well I can't blame him. Today I was behind the chicken "transporter" and right there in one of the pens was a chicken dead on its back, feet sticking up in the air. And all of his buddies were nudging him hoping to revive him. So poor chicken My heart goes out to you and the family you never knew. After this experience and as a tribute to you, I'll eat more beef. I witnessed to much to turn back now.

School Blues

2008-03-11T12:35:00.001-07:00

A spot finally opened up at the preschool. SO Carson has been attending for about 4 weeks. I can tell that he likes it but is not enthused. This preschool doesn't even compare to the last one. His classroom is full and very diversified (and there is nothing wrong with that). His last preschool was nothing like that. They were needing students and he was getting a lot of attention and I had 30 min window of when I could drop him off and pick him up. Now I only have a fifteen minute window. You can't even come into the school before 7:45 but they lock down at 8. And after that you have to be buzzed in and explain yourself. It feels like a prison. School has definitely changed since I attended. There is always a line of parents and kids waiting to get in for drop off and pickup. And did I mention if you don't walk fast enough you get ran over. Anyway I only have to do it like two 1/2 more months.
And last I have the school blues because Carson is going to be attending school for 14 more years and hopefully 4 more after that for college. Its like he's starting a career. I only get to see him 3 months out of the year when he has nothing planned. I can't even believe it. I remember counting down the years I had left until I graduated high school. And that was in elementary. Once I got to junior high and they started mentioning college I stopped counting. Its seems to me there could be a more efficient way to get all the schooling in faster. But I don't have any brilliant ideas but if you do please share.

Latest and Greatest

2008-02-23T09:14:00.005-08:00

First Off do you like the new play list? Does it bring you back to your childhood? We love Sing Star and Paul gave me this for Valentines Day. What a sweetie. So thats what we do on our free time of course. At first I was beating him at most of the songs. Then of course when we put in Sing Star Amped he really shines. On that note we decided to give him a Mohawk to go with the punk side of Paul.

On Valentines Day Me and Carson made cookies. Me and him have such an awesome time together at home. I'll be sad when he goes back to school. But I forgot that I didn't have any Love Day cookie cutters. So here is what they looked like. We had Love trees, love stars, and grab your love hooks (i.e. valentines day candy canes). Oh and don't forget the Valentine stockings. The hearts you see I did them by hand.
When Paul came home we went on our 2nd annual FAMILY Valentines Date Night. Of course we picked chili's, our Favorite . After that we went to Dairy Queen for desert. We were gonna go to the movies but it grew to late. So the next day we all went and watched Spiderwick Chronicles. And we all really liked it.

Then the weekend came and we went fishing. We live right by the lake. Our apartments have their own dock. So we took advantage. Except that dock was locked so we had to jump in the car for a 5 second drive to another part of the lake.

Carson had fun of course playing with sticks pretending to dig for snakes and fight off Sith Lords.

See those apartments in the far off. Thats where we live. Our house is actually one of those that you see. Awesome huh? We are excited.

The first Sunday in our new ward Carson didn't have any trouble leaving his parents behind to go to Primary. As for Paul and I it took us awhile to adjust. Carson has been crazy lately. Yesterday morning he came into my room and said "Mom I have a zip on my chin" He meant zit of course because he sees mine on my face and I always have to explain. One more, yesterday we were watching Animal Cactchers on Animal Planet and that afternoon he came out with his golf club with a rubber snake on it and said he had caught it in his room. He is such a character. Lately he's been obsessed with Legos Star Wars for Playstation. Yes he's got the video game thing down. Thanks to his Father. His world revolves around it. As far as he's concerned we live on Tattooine and he's Luke and we are R2 and C3Po.

Happy Trails!

2008-02-06T18:29:00.000-08:00

Well, we are almost settled into our new place.....finally. The last few days have been a challenge but Daneen has been up to that challenge. The movers packed us up on Thursday and unloaded us at our new apartment on Friday. Can I just say that if you have a garage DON'T TAKE IT FOR GRANTED!!!!! We were not prepared to be garage'less at our new place. We, and by we I mean Daneen, felt a bit overwhelmed with all of our junk/crap/whatever. She has been the one doing most of the unpacking, and doing an great job by the way. But we are making due and the apartment is starting to really feel like home. It's nothing great and it's not as nice as our last place (especially with no garage) but we keep telling ourselves that it is only temporary. After I am done with my training period at work we will look for a permanent spot, or figure out what we are going to do with ourselves in a year or so. Daneen or I will share some pics of the new apartment later, when we get around to taking some I guess.

Here's a little slide show of our last little home

What We Will Miss in Blairsville

On a side note, here is what Carson and I did on one of our last days in Blairsville:

Breaking in a Christmas Present!

Some Off Road Action!!!

Green Goblin not wearing his seat belt

Funny Little Clip

Well, I guess that is about enough for one post. Hopefully we will get back into a routine with the blog now that we are almost all settled in. Hope you all are doing great.

-paul

The Joy's of Moving

2008-01-25T19:02:00.000-08:00

Okay, so for those who don't know, we are moving next week. Since we are only planning on being at our new stop for a year we went ahead and just rented an apartment, Goodie....... I just wanted to share a couple pro's and con's of moving:

pro's -
1. My work is footing the bill to have professional movers move us!
2. We are going to be in a bigger city with more shopping choices and just more stuff to do, period (and don't forget about the Super Wal-Mart and Target!)
3. We will be in a ward again (nothing against our current branch, just hoping the new ward will have more kids Carson's age)
4. The rent is a lot less at the new place
5. The apartment is right on the lake with a swimming pool and boat dock (hoping that the lake fills back up soon, dang drought....hehe)

con's -
1. Pulling Carson out of his pre-school. One of his teacher's continues to tell us she is mad that we are moving and that she is going to miss the little guy. I don't think he quite comprehends that after next week Miss Brenda and Miss Holly aren't going to be his teachers.
2. Having to deal with land lords and checking out of the current apartment, having to deal with checking into a new apartment, and trying to connect/disconnect utilities. The disconnecting wasn't bad. It was trying to set up the phone, cable, and internet. I have spent a total of probably THREE HOURS on the phone trying to get this stuff set up. The first person I spoke with said I needed to get something with my new address verified and gave me a different number. They didn't have a clue what I was talking about. So I was transferred over and over again until I was about to go insane. I hung up the phone, took a deep breath, and tried the first number again. The new person on the phone was able to set me up without any problem!!!!! What the heck is that about???? Anyway, just a little venting I guess.
3. Leaving our little branch. I know, I'm contradicting myself a bit from my pro's list, but we have made some good friends up here and we were really feeling at home. Most of the older ladies just love Carson.
4. Leaving our neighbors. Right now we have a widower living next door to us and another widower living below us. We never hear them and have never had a problem. They just love Carson too. Now we may have to deal with rowdy neighbors or who knows what else. Just as long as it's nothing like the different neighbors we had at NAU (whole other story...) we should be alright.
5. Moving is just stressful, no matter who is doing the moving. I will be happy when next weekend comes and all the moving business has been taken care of and all we have to do is unpack (before and after the Superbowl....).

Anyone have a good moving story? Let's hear 'em.

-paul

Where have you been?

2008-01-18T07:28:00.000-08:00

O.k. So I really can't blog during the winter because I have a circulation problem (I think) . Its either my hands or my feet. For the life of me I can't get them to stay at body temperature. They are always cold. And of course nothing helps. I've tried. Three pairs of socks:No good. And I'm not walking around the house with mittens on. Thats just crazy. Some days when its bad enough I'll go lay down on the bed and cover myself with whatever I can find. I just lay there waiting for a miracle I guess. Because even though I have two pairs of socks on and two blankets and a pillow over my feet ... They are still Freezing cold. I thought old people get cold. I'm only 26. Come on. ...........................................................................Oh sorry I had to take a brake to warm my hands up so I could keep typing. Its Humiliating when Paul calls and asks "whats up?"....Me: "Oh just soaking my feet in the tub to warm them up". Whats that all about? Any suggestions. I'm trying to talk Paul into letting me take a trip to AZ to visit the Parents . At least it would be worth it to just go for a day and sit in the sun and BE WARM and of Course see my Parents. Any suggestions on keeping warm let me know. I'm desperate if you couldn't tell. I dislike winter strongly.
-Daneen (sorry no pics to cold)

2 For 1 Special

2008-01-14T17:54:00.000-08:00

Well, since Daneen has all of a sudden lost her ability to post I guess I will put up another one. She tells me just about every other day "we need to do another blog". Notice the key word there, "we". Anyway, rather than do two posts on two separate topics, your getting the 2 for 1 deal.

Daneen and Carson: The Bargain Shoppers

Okay, on Thursday last week we went down to the "big" city so I could go to a doctor's appointment. We took Carson with us because we didn't know what time we would be back and because Uncle Mark and Taylor got Carson a gift card at Toys R Us (thanks guys). Won't bore you with the doctor's appointment and just go straight to the good stuff. First of all, Carson thought it was so cool that he had a "credit card" to go buy toys with. But of course, like most kids, he wanted to buy the first thing he looked at. We convinced him to look around and then if he still wanted that first toy we would go back and get it. Well, that went on for about an hour and a half. I think he finally realized that he could get more than one toy with his "credit card". So he got some little transformer guys, the sword set (cheapo set), and a package of little green and tan army guys with tanks and planes etc (the cheap ones that are mounted on those little pieces of plastic or that are laying down or kneeling down, you know). So Carson thinks he got a great deal with his "credit card". Let me just say, he loves playing with the little army guys that I played with when I was a little kid. And it is great to see him using his imagination so much.

While we were in there Daneen noticed that all of their clothes (yes Toys R Us sells kids clothes) were like 50% off the already clearance prices. So she went into bargain shopper mode and found some great deals on shoes and clothes for the little guy.

We Scored on four pairs of shoes, a pair of flip flops, and a nike sweatshirt. The total came to like $35 or $40!!!!!!! I kicked myself when we got home for not buying a bunch of the $5 Chuck Taylor's and selling them on eBay......grrrr. So, needless to say, when you're in Toys R Us next time see if they are having a smokin' deal!

Fun Stuff

Tonight for part of Family Home Evening we played a very intense and heated game of Memory with Carson. He is getting pretty good at it. The first time he and I played the first card he would turn over was always the same one. Now he is catching on and can actually fend for himself. He has to because Daneen doesn't show him any mercy. Of course after Daneen won he got a little upset. So to cheer him up I showed him the magic of static electricity:

Yikes!!!!

Gotta love playing keep it up

Carson spent about 45 minutes laughing at his mom's hair sticking up. It was hilarious. Balloons have got to be one of the cheapest forms of entertainment available.

Hopefully Daneen's case of short term memory loss will subside and she will remember how to do this soon. Take care.

-paul

What We Have Been Up To

2008-01-06T18:51:00.001-08:00

Well, we brought in the new year with style. Daneen and I stayed up late playing guitar hero!!!!! Now that I convinced Daneen we needed another guitar, we have been wasting a lot of quality time together (after Carson goes to bed of course)!

Carson is finally getting better. We took him to the doctor a few days before New Year's and he ended up having an ear infection. We got some antibiotics for him, the yummy pink stuff that he actually likes, and he is pretty much running on all cylinders now.

He was suppose to go back to school on the 2nd but when I was getting into bed on New Year's Night I looked outside and we had like half an inch to an inch of snow on the ground! And for anyone who is not familiar with the south, if there is so much as a trace of snow, school is canceled and good luck trying to buy any bread or milk at the grocery store! I dragged myself to work that day while Carson got to stay home with mom for one more day......so we thought. They ended up canceling school on the 3rd and the 4th too. Kind of weird if you ask me. Carson doesn't even really like the snow. He and Daneen went outside for like 5 minutes the first day school was canceled and he said "I wanna go back inside now. My cheeks are cold". It actually did get pretty cold here for a couple of days. We got down to single digits a couple nights in a row. I told my mom how cold it was here on New Year's and she just said "wow. It's been cold here to at night. I think it got down to -20 a couple times". Thanks for the simpathy mom. :)

Carson has been real excited about building stuff with the legos he got for Christmas. Last Sunday after church we got to sit down and start building. Here are a couple of his first builds. I admit, I probably had more fun playing with the legos than he did. What can I say, Daneen is right she says she has two kids to deal with.....

And finally, here is something else that Daneen and I have been doing in our spare time:

As you can tell, we don't get out much. Since Grandma Cuca was here with us we have been addicted to putting puzzles together. Weird right? We enjoy it, and I think it is very relaxing myself (except for when you check a puzzle out from the library and it is missing pieces!!!!!). Not too sure if this is going to become a full blown hobby or just a faze we are going through. Hope it's not a sign of old age.....

-paul

Merry Christmas!!......a Week Later

2007-12-31T13:56:00.000-08:00

Well, we made it through Christmas......barely. This was the first Christmas our little family spent by ourselves. Since we have been married we have always been able to spend some time with either Daneen's parents, my parents, or sometimes both each year around Christmas time. Seeing how we are on the opposite side of the country and all this year, that made spending Christmas with our parents out of the question. So we made due with the situation and tried to have a fun Christmas on our own.

Just The Three of Us

A family from church invited us over to their house on Christmas Eve to eat dinner with them. We had a good time with them except for the fact that when we left Carson started coughing and his nose started to run. All day he had been so excited to put cookies and milk out for Santa but by the time we had read the Christmas Story and got him ready for bed he was really tired. Daneen asked him if he wanted to put out the cookies and milk and he said "that's all right, you can just do it". We knew then that he really wasn't feeling good. What four year old doesn't want to put cookies and milk out for Santa??? We thought for sure Christmas day wouldn't be fun with him feeling so bad.

To make for a real memorable Christmas, Carson did something he has never done in the middle of the night. No, he didn't wet the bed (knock on wood), he got out of bed on his own and came into our room. That doesn't sound like a big deal, all kids do that. Not Carson. We had him trained good. He would stay in his bed until we told him he could get up or we went and got him. We were always worried that one of us would wake up and Carson would be standing over us, which would freak anyone out I think. Well on Christmas Eve he almost did just that. He made it to our door when I finally woke up and saw him and he made me jump just a bit. Daneen heard him walking on the wood floor so she wasn't as freaked out as I was. He needed to use the bathroom so he used the one in our room and then he climbed into our bed, laid down in my spot and fell asleep instantly. We both looked at each other like "what just happened?". Daneen woke him up and told him he could sleep in our room on his futon.

Before he fell asleep again, Daneen asked him if the cookies and milk they put out for Santa were gone. When he got up to check and saw that they were gone, he freaked out and started asking who stole them. That was pretty funny, especially since he was kind of out of it the whole time....

The one good thing about him not feeling good was that he wasn't up at 5:00 or 6:00 in the morning wanting to open presents. When he did finally wake up he was able to rise above being sick to open presents! (go figure...)

So, as you can see from the slide show, we had a pretty good Christmas on our own. We had Christmas Dinner with some other friends from church. They were nice enough to invite us over and we had a great time with them too. But unfortunately Carson started running a fever and was kind of down and out the rest of the week. Here is what he looked like when we put him to bed on Christmas night (that's the floor in our room, we usually let him sleep in a bed....when he's good, hehe):

Poor Little Guy

Hope everyone had a great Christmas this year. It was great, as always, to get Christmas cards from family and friends and hear how everyone is doing. Hope you all have a great New Year!

-Paul

Tag Your It!

2007-12-13T15:43:00.000-08:00

O.k. So Andrea tagged me to share 6 habits or truths about myself that you might not know about me. And since you all would be so interested I'll lay it out on the table.

1. Food: First off I like peanut butter on my waffles and pancakes. I also like to butter my poptarts. I was a very picky eater when I was small but I think I've gotten better with age. I like cooked rice with season salt and butter. Butter, Butter, Butter. (It can't be the cause of my extra weight) O.k. just call me Paula Dean. I love that women. I used he watch her all the time when I had cable. (tear). But I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who likes these crazy foods. It runs in the family.

mmm.....butter!

2. You would never know it but I'm easily stressed and emotionally swayed. Meaning when people cry or feel stress so do I. But i like to think I keep it cool on the outside. I know I must be easily stressed because during my college career I had a suspicious rash. It suddenly went away when I graduated. Coincidence I think not. And to make it so corny I cry when people on TV cry. Like were all connected or something. NOT!

3. I'm on the verge of being classified a germafobe. Just the other day i happen to smell my hand and it smelled so good to me. Then I realized it smelled like bleach. I also constantly sanitize my hands along with anyone whose with me after being in public places. Mainly the grocery store and Walmart. Every time someone gets sick I go on a cleaning rampage and disinfect the house.The list could go on.

4. I've diagnosed myself with OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder). It was worse in High School. Bedtime is the worst. I have to check every door to make sure its locked but that includes touching it several times. I also, once in a while, will get up to make sure the sink is off or the refrigerator door is closed (also having to touch them) and then while I'm up I check on Carson a dozen times. One morning he told me that he had a dream about me. Surprise surprise. It gets crazier but I won't go on. If I come visit you don't be surprised if I make sure your door is locked even though I watched you do it or make sure you turned off your oven. (you probably think I'm crazy. So does Paul) I'm definitely getting a house alarm someday. It will hopefully alleviate some of my OCD.

5. I love to play Guitar Hero II. I'm almost done on the hard level and just started working on expert. I love being a stay-at-home mom.

6. I can't stand old people driving. I think they need to give you a driving test every 2 years after you turn 65. But seriously every time I get angered on the road its just an old person. I agree with JERRY. When you become old you don't look behind you when you back out. "Your seventy and your just gonna go for it."

So there you have it. Some weird little things you probably didn't know about me. Now I will tag Lani, Traci, Tausha, and Lisa. Let's hear it ladies.

Carson, Carson, Carson......

2007-12-09T17:50:00.000-08:00

Okay, so for the most part everyone who looks at our blog knows that Carson is quite the little character right? Well over the last month or two he has really started shining! Here are a few things that he has done or said that really got me and Daneen laughing.

1. Carson came home from school one day and Daneen started to go through the papers he brought home like usual. Well, when she came to one particular piece of paper she asked Carson what it was. Carson proceeded to tell her that Sarah from school had made it for him. Daneen looked at it a little closer and then asked Carson what it was. He said that Sarah had drawn him O's, like the letter O. Now that may very well be the case but take a look for yourselves.

Looks like Carson's first love letter to me!!

2. Okay, this next little incident happened over Thanksgiving. Like Daneen said in a previous post, we spent the week of Thanksgiving at my sister Andrea's house. Andrea has two kids Whitney(3) and Brandon(6). Well, on the way home Carson ratted out his cousin Brandon. He told us, with a big grin on his face, that he and Brandon had ate all the marshmallows in the bag in Brandon's room all by themselves. Daneen and I looked at each other, rolled our eyes, and just smiled. What are you suppose to say to that??? I know Carson is only 4 and he may have very well been telling a story but in Carson's defense when Brandon was around 3 years old and we were visiting he got up at like 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning, dragged his 3ft high toy pony to the kitchen, climbed up onto the counter, and was busy eating peanut butter M&M's when Daneen walked out to see what he was doing. So I wouldn't put the marshmallow thing past him or Carson for that matter. We ended up telling him "thanks for being honest" and told him not to do that anymore.

Partners in Crime?????

3. Carson just finished up basketball last week. One of the last things that the coach had the "team" do was race each other the length of the gym backwards. Now you can imagine how funny it would be to see 4 year olds trying to run the length of the gym and back backwards. Well Carson was doing all right going. Then when he realized that people were ahead of him when he saw them coming back he wasn't going to have that. He started running sideways and then he just decided he was going to win no matter what and turned around and ran the front ways. Just so he could win. Great! Not only do we have a ladies man with sticky fingers, we have a very competitive ladies man with sticky fingers! Keep Daneen and I in your prayers!!! J/K hehe

I could probably go on and on about all the silly things he does, like pretending he is married to his mom and calls her "honey", but I won't. Needless to say, our days are filled with laughs and entertainment thanks to Boomer (the nickname he decided to give himself??). Hope everyone is doing great. Don't be strangers!

Whats Up?

2007-11-28T08:19:00.000-08:00

Well Thanksgiving was pretty good. We went to Greensboro, North Carolina to the Sweats house. I was in charge of the mashed potatoes. And can I just tell you that I've never made them before. I called my mom and she just told me to boil the potatoes and mash them with butter and milk and salt. Well, I've never boiled potatoes but they turned out pretty well. Cuca was the only one who cared about my potatoes turning out good so she helped me out. So big props to her. We actually made it to the Raliegh Temple while we were there and got most of our Christmas shopping done. The week mostly consisted of noise, Guitar Hero II, Sing Star, and reading. One of the noises that we didn't want to hear was PSSSSSSS. Our aerobed got a hole in it. But luckily the Sweats had an extra one.
Update on Carson. His personality has changed so much since he started school. Every time I have a T-shirt on that says something he spells it out. He sings around the house all the time. He says the craziest things. One day he told me that he had eaten lizards for lunch. Well I looked at the menu and it was shrimp. He said it was good though. Lately he has been asking me if I want to drink blood. It must be a boy thing. Yesterday was the best.
Carson: We have brains in our heads
Me: I know
Carson: Do they talk to us
Me: Yes. They tell us to eat, sleep, walk and move our arms.
Carson: Do they tell us to shake our booty( this is where he turns around and starts shaking it)
And he can be so sweet at times.
Carson: Mom you wanna play with me?
Me: Oh Carson I have a horrible headache today. And I still need to clean and do laundry.
Carson:How bout I do the laundry for you.
And when we got home he really did help me with the laundry.

Now the the Christmas List (Daneen's Christmas List):These are things that are priceless. a.k.a not material possessions. (that list would be too long)
-a baby
-expert piano playing skills so I can quit humiliating myself on Sundays
-A girlie voice so I can actually sing the primary songs with out bringing the whole primary done an octave.
-Dad to become well again
-More sister time
-No more temper tantrums from anyone
- overcome my OCDs
-Size 10 feet so I can actually find a pair of Womens tennis shoes. I'm tired of having man feet
-More interesting stuff to say on our Blog
-Meet Mike Rowe (from Dirty Jobs)

The Holidays and Things

2007-11-15T14:33:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving is almost here and Christmas shortly following. The hardest part is being so far away from family. But right now I'm enjoying myself. Cuca (Paul's Grandma) is here visiting this week. It feels like I haven't eaten so good since I don't know when. My favorite is potatoes and eggs with beans and home made tortillas.

Doesn't this look good

She even made some Oreo balls. MMMM, so good. And of course Carson is loving it. Her and
Carson will just sit and have a conversation. They talk about anything. Its so cute.

Tuckered out from having fun with Cuca

Its cold here. To cold for me. I would give anything just to go outside and have the Arizona sun warm me up. Since its just me and Grandma at home I decided to go check out some puzzles from the library. She talks, sings and tells stories while we do them. We finished a 500 piece and now we are working on a 1000 piece one.

The sky was really hard to do on this one.

Since the shopping season is coming up I have an issue that I would like to discuss. I am so sick of commercials. They portray these "most willing" people to help you out if you want to go eat or shop at a certain store. Well I'm here to tell you its bunk. Ya I would probably have a better time buying a car if the sales person actually looked like they wanted to help you out. And the disappointment I have is never ending. When I order food and it never looks like it does on tv. The worst is when you go to Taco Bell and the beans suck. And one of the worst is the people at the oil Change place. And I love Walmart just as much as the next person but seriously the check out lines are always long and not everyone looks like the like their job. If you don't like your job then quit. I love the one-stop shopping but I can't go to Walmart without being there for at least an hour. They really suck you in.

Questionable Candy

2007-11-06T15:41:00.001-08:00

In light of recent events that have occurred, namely Halloween, Daneen and I got to looking through Carson's treasure (aka candy) and came across some very interesting and questionable items. Here are some of the more interesting gems we found:

mmm......jason popsicle.....

My favorite part of the witch....

eyeballs? yeah just dying for some....

Can't beat those healthy treats.
(although I am pretty sure Carson liked this one better than the apple he got)

Our favorite (and grossest) one of all.......the fake brain!!!! We are still building up the courage to try this one.....

So, did anyone come across any interesting treats last week? Let's hear about it.

-paul

BOO!!!!!!

2007-10-31T17:47:00.001-07:00

Happy Halloween!!!!

You knew it was coming, a post on Halloween!!!! Our Halloween celebrating started last weekend. Some friends from church invited us over for a Halloween party. Carson had a blast. We roasted hot dogs and played a bunch of games. We forgot our camera so we are waiting for a friend to get us some copies. So you might see a second post on Halloween later....

But for now this will have to do. Of course we had to carve a pumpkin. Carson thought it was cool when mom pulled out the pumpkins brains (aka the seeds and stuff). We didn't use any kit or pattern but we thought it turned out alright. And it looks pretty scary too.

We thought we would do something different for Carson's costume this year so we dressed him up as a surgeon.....again. This time he wasn't weighed down by that giant splint he had on after he broke his arm last October. He really didn't care what he was dressed up as. Maybe next year he will be a brain surgeon instead of a heart surgeon....

After making quick work of Halloween on the Square, the brave little surgeon returned home with his spoils..... (one of our neighbors did give him an apple Andi....hehe)

We tried going to a haunted house with the little man. He was real excited the day before and he told his teachers he was going to a spooky house. So I drove him over there, got out of the car, and we didn't quite make it to the front door when Carson gave my leg a death grip and was already "freaked out" as he said. We donated some cans to get in but once he heard the music inside and saw some of the scary characters he didn't want anything to do with that place. He kept saying "Dad I WANT TO GO OUTSIDE!!!!" He thought I was going to drag him through the spooky house or something because he wouldn't even let me hold him. Funny stuff. Don't worry I didn't make him go in.

But we had a great Halloween. I am sure Carson will be eating candy for quite a while. Don't worry we will make an extra effort to brush his teeth twice as good!

Carson's Big Day

2007-10-28T18:05:00.000-07:00

Last Tuesday was Carson's first day of basketball practice, that's what we told him it was. It is the same type of league he did for baseball called "smart start". They told us the intent of the program was for the kids to develop their motor skills.

But if you ask Carson it was basketball practice.....hehe. He got all dressed up in his basketball shoes and basketball shorts and he was ready to hit the hardwood. We showed up to the gym and Carson was grinning ear to ear. And to make things even better one of his little buddies from school was on the "team". Carson thought that was so cool!

They had five different stations set up: shooting, jumping, dribbling, dribbling while walking/running, and passing. They rotated through each station, spending like ten minutes at each one. Here are some pics of the big day.

All in all he really enjoyed his first day of basketball practice. He thought it was cool that he got to take home two basketballs and some cones. And he really liked the orange vest. We had to tuck it in or else he looked like he was wearing a mesh skirt....hehe. Once he figures out how to dribble.....you all better lookout!!!!! Hope you enjoy the pics.

-paul

Top 10 Reasons....

2007-10-15T18:14:00.000-07:00

Okay, I couldn't resist any longer. I know top ten lists can be pretty lame but after this weekend I decided I couldn't resist. We went to a parade in town over the weekend kicking off one of many fall festivals and that is where I decided I was going to put together this list. So, without further ado.......

Top 10 Reasons you know you are living in the South!!!!

10. More Churches per square mile than people. Okay, maybe not that many but the whole bible belt thing could not be more accurate. And Andrea, you beat me to the punch with the church marquee thing you did.....dirty!!

9. All of the wildlife......lying dead on the side of the road. We have seen more opossums, squirrels, raccoons, ground hogs, deer, dogs, cats...........lying on the side of the road than we have alive (maybe not the dogs and cats). It's kind of disturbing. Here's a joke Andrew told us: Q: Where are opossums born? A: On the side of the road dead! I actually think there is some truth to that!

8. You can't go a whole day without getting bit by something! Whether it's mosquitoes, chiggers, yellow jackets, wasps, ticks, fire ants, or any other creepy crawly critter, I don't think any of us have come home unscathed from the little monsters. Carson stepped on a fire ant hill and got tore up pretty good. I've been stung by a yellow jacket. And Daneen has had critters crawl on her at night. And we all come home with the mosquito bites. Gotta love it!!!

7. One of the biggest events of the year is the annual Sorghum Festival at Fort Sorghum! My first thought was "What the heck is sorghum?". Just in case your curious......

6. Confederate Memorial Day and Robert E. Lee’s Birthday are paid state holidays. I didn’t know this till I tried to go get a shot at the county health clinic and they were closed in observance of Confederate Memorial Day. Good stuff!!

5. The "what did you say?" accents! I thought I was starting to get the hang of interpreting most peoples accents but today I found out that I still don't have a clue. I asked a gas station attendant where the Flying J was. He told me it was at the "recycling fed ex".......at least that's what I understood him to say. He actually said the Resaca-LaFayette Exit!!!! Where is The Yankee's Guide to Southern Accents when you need it?

4. One of your co-workers tells you about the time when he was asked to join the clan (yes, that clan) as a young man! Had to try hard to keep my eyes from bulging out of my head when he told me that!! Don’t worry, he told them no and he is a great guy to work with.

3. When your church holds a fish fry in place of a church thanksgiving dinner. Don't ask!!! But your all welcome to come and have thanksgiving fish with us.

2. The biggest response at the parade we went to was for this float. Long live the bars and stars!!!!!

Gotta Love those Sons of Confederate Veterans!!

1. When a business proudly displays something like this!

Hope you enjoyed!

-paul

Fun Filled Free Saturday!!!

2007-10-07T19:22:00.000-07:00

We had an awesome Saturday!! The Home Depot was putting on a kids workshop and having a Fire and Safety Day for kids. We got up early on Saturday thinking we needed to be there at 9:00 for the workshop. Carson wasn't the happiest of campers to be rushed out the door to get there. But when he saw that he would get to build a fire truck/crayon holder he didn't mind so much. And the best part (at least for me and Daneen) was that everything was free!!!! We built the little fire truck and then Carson heard someone say that there was hot dogs and beans. Of course that was what he wanted to do but we figured since it was still not even 10:00 in the morning he would have to wait.

This Boy Can Hammer!!!

So we went and looked at all the cool rescue trucks and police cars. He thought it was pretty cool. And they had a clown there as well doing the whole balloon animal thing. He got fingerprinted by a police man, got to sit on the front of one of the fire trucks, and got to sit in a helicopter too. One of the helicopter pilots showed him that the helicopter had a horn. When he got out he said to me "Dad, that freaked me out when he honked the horn". I thought that was funny.

Comparing His to the Real Deal

Not Shy at All....

The local electric company was there as well showing the kids the dangers of electricity on this little model of a house, power lines, and a transformer. That was my favorite part. They showed what happened if you got too close to one of those green boxes (a transformer). Lets put it this way, I don't think any of us want all that voltage melting us like it melted the little plastic figurine the guy was using.......hehe

After we had looked at all the neat vehicles and displays Carson reminded us that he wanted a hot dog and some beans. So we hurried up and ate a very early lunch and headed over to the movie theater. Every Saturday morning they show a free movie for kids. We figured we would keep with the free theme of the day so far. They were showing the old animated version of Charlotte's Web. Carson really enjoyed it and who cares if I was bored......it was free!
The best part was we spent all morning hanging out and part of the afternoon too. And we got home in time to watch part of the first session of conference and all of the second. And then I got to drive to the church for the priesthood session at 8:00pm. So it was a full day, a free day, and most importantly a fun day.

-paul

Food for the Soul

2007-10-04T16:29:00.000-07:00

"Please bless that we can go to Wendy's, Taco Bell, Domino's and Old Mc Donalds." These are words of a four year old saying his prayers. Namely our four year old. Carson is so hilarious. Today he told me that at school he picked his nose and tried to feed his booger to an ant. Then he went ahead and killed in anyway, with his shoe. Now thats funny. Anyway back to the prayers. I can't believe what we are teaching our kid. We don't eat out that much, maybe once a week and its usually Wendy's because they have such great value meals. I'm sure its all a bunch of cancer causing, artery clogging, eventual heart attack food, but its good.

"...mmmmmmm Wendys!!!"

I guess I'll have to start cracking down on the whole eating out thing. We are a little lucky since Carson dosen't like meat or french fries. But most of all I'm concerned that Carson will think that his prayers have been answered when we go out to eat at one of his special requested food places. But really we should all be eating more fish. (Low in mercury off course). Can I just mention that this fish looks like some of these fast food workers.

Finally.....

2007-09-29T20:55:00.000-07:00

As you can see by the sheer number of new posts we have put up, we are just full of excitement!!!..... Yeah, right. We have just been going through the motions in our neck of the woods. That would be get up haul Carson to school, haul me to work, then all the stuff Daneen does while we're gone, pick up Carson, pick me up......you get the point. That's not really fun to blog about.
Thank goodness Carson can take something so NOT exciting, like a new pair of hand me down pajama's from cousin Brody, and make it the COOLEST THING EVER!!!!!

Spiderman, Spiderman..... (notice the web he's shooting?)

And of course, can't forget the jumping!!!

Just thought we better share something before some people start calling to make sure we are all still alive....hehe

-paul

Whats the Word...?

2007-09-21T18:25:00.000-07:00

Carson is...well we aren't sure what word to use for him so maybe you could help us out. When he's talking and says something questionable Paul and I look at each other like "what was that?"

Here are some things that he's been saying and doing lately:

Carson:"Mom look at that cat over there"
Me: "He better not come over here he looks mean"
Car: "If he comes over here I'll cut him off" (He's trying to say "cut him up")

Carson wanted to go eat out last Saturday and Paul and I both told him we didn't have any money. So he told us that he had some in his Gatorade Jar at home(which consists of all nickels and pennies). We told him we needed dollars and that we didn't have any of those. So he says "Well you can use a credit card." What are we teaching our child?

At school Carson's class is learning about outer space and he's the only one who told his teacher that he wanted "to go to outer space to see the aliens." At school they sometimes serve sausage biscuits for breakfast. I asked him if he ate it and he said "No it was disgusting. there was a black thing (the sausage) on my biscuit." Two days ago he said "some boy pushed me on the playground so I choked him?" HMM?

Lately when were out driving around at night he pretends to fall asleep and when we try to get him out of his car seat he justs sits there doing a great acting job. He can keep it up for a full minute then he cracks a smile and starts busting up.

The other Sunday me and him were sitting in the Car waiting to go in to church, since we were real early and he starts talking about California. He wants to go to the beach. I told him someday soon we could go if we save up our money. Then of course he says again " I have money at home in my Gatorade Jar." I told him we needed dollars and so he said " Well maybe dad, me and you can go to dads work and the lady will give us dollars." This is funny because right before school started I had to take him to get his shots and afterwards we went to Paul's work to see him, because Carson was sad, and one of Paul's coworkers gave Carson a dollar so that he would feel better. SO now he thinks shes a source of cash.

THE BEST: Carson has an infatuation with old people. We were at the gas station and Paul was pumping the gas while me and Carson were chillin in the car and all of a sudden he practically yells "MOM LOOK!" So I look and I can't figure out what he's looking at and then he says "Theres an OLD MAN" "Why is he driving that truck.. cuz he's old?" Then one time we were at Walmart in the cheese section and an "OLDER" man was stocking the cheese and he was bald and all wrinkly. Well Carson happened to notice his neck and asked me "Mom whats wrong with that man's neck, is it broken?" Me: "No its just wrinkly" Car:" Cuz he's an old man, thats disgusting." And lately he's been reminding me that "Grandpa Kennedy is an old man." He'll get a golf club and turn it upside down and use it as a cane and walk really s-l-o-w-l-y. I ask him what he's doing and he say in his old man voice "I'm an old man" and then starts busting up laughing. Anyway just thought I'd share some of Carson's intriguing moments with you. Let me know if you come up with a good word for him.

-Daneen

Weekend Fun

2007-09-18T15:46:00.000-07:00

I figured I had better put something up so no one starts thinking we have fallen off the face of the earth..... :) This past weekend we tried our hand at fishing. We went just below a dam since they weren't releasing all kinds of water. I finally got to shake the dust off of my fly rod. It was funny, the first cast I made I hooked a nice little rainbow trout. I thought it was going to be a great day of back to back fish. No such luck. It was slow after that and Carson was having fun throwing rocks and playing in the water. At least he had fun. I think he actually might have upset some other fishermen there, but hey, what do they expect right?

Me and My Little Shadow

Carson......being Carson

Silly Man

So yeah, we had a pretty good weekend and we are alive and well!!

-paul

What A Night!!!

2007-09-12T19:40:00.000-07:00

WARNING!!!!!! WHAT YOU ARE ABOUT TO SEE IS A RE-CREATION OF EVENTS THAT TOOK PLACE IN THE EARLY MORNING HOURS OF SEPTEMBER 12TH, 2007 AT THE GERBER HOME. WATCH AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION....

*NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THIS RE-CREATION AND DANEEN WAS ABLE TO FALL BACK ASLEEP.....

Daneen thought it would be funny to re-create what happened early this morning in bed. You are suppose to be seeing the movie from my perspective....obviously. We thought it was funny, and worth sharing. Hope you like!!

-Paul

Quick Update

2007-09-06T17:50:00.000-07:00

Alrighty, thought I would give a quick little update of what we have been up to. This past weekend (Labor Day Weekend) we decided to stay close to home. Our town was having a heritage festival and a car show so we went to check that out. They had some farm animals and some civil war stuff. It was pretty neat. Carson had a good time. Here are some pics from our day. Sorry if they aren't that great. I forgot the camera and had to use my camera phone.

Don't worry, the hair has been trimmed!

Posing by the "Confederate Camp"

Panning for Gold!

I think I had more fun panning for gold!!!

I also wanted to try something new (for me anyway). Carson learned a little ABC's song at school that he is constantly singing around the house. He is so cute just singing away when he's in the bathroom, getting ready for bed, just about anytime..... So, here goes.

Sweet Dreams

2007-09-03T05:56:00.000-07:00

I know I'm not the only one who has nightmares. But I wanted to share some of the different types of dreams I have. #1 The annoying one: I'm driving in a car (don't know what kind) thats going fast. When I come to a stoplight I push on the brakes and they won't work. But somehow the light turns green right before I hit the car in front of me and nothing happens. When I come to another stoplight I try the brakes again and right before I hit the car in front of me I swerve and turn the corner really fast. I really do hate this dream. #2 I'm not sure if you could call this a nightmare but I'm crying the whole time in my dream because someone died. I won't go into details. #3 I'm having a crazy dream where there are a million things going on and I'm visiting a million different places. I have to go to the bathroom so bad so I keep using different bathrooms and never get relief. Long dream short, I wake up and really have to go to the bathroom. #4 Scary Dreams: I asked Paul and he didn't want to talk about his. HMM! Anyway, I usually dream about some creature chasing me or following me and I'm constantly hiding. These creatures have ranged from giant Bees to the girl from "The Ring." I really wont expound on that. Just thought I 'd share.
Feel free to share some of your dreams!

Daneen

Fun Weekend

2007-08-27T17:41:00.000-07:00

I decided I better hurry up and talk about the fun weekend we had with the Sweats before Andrea did! (HaHa, beat you to it!!) They came over on Saturday around noon. We had a quick lunch with them and then we went to explore the Alpine Village of Helen, GA (at least that is what they consider themselves, an alpine village). We parked and walked around the interesting little town. It is pretty much your run of the mill tourist trap. Just about every store was selling silk screen t-shirts with some sort of redneck, confederate, hunting, fishing, etc.... reference.

Carson was so excited for his cousins to come and play with him. He really enjoyed it and I think the three of them play pretty good together. It was fun to watch Brandon and Carson playing Star Wars together and of course, miss Whitney has her uncle wrapped around her little finger. We grown ups, and I use that term very lightly, had a fun time playing tetris on the Nintendo after the kids went to bed. We also had a real good laugh playing Battle of the Sexes!! You will have to ask Andrew what it means when a baby is in the vertex position......

This morning Carson had a real tough time getting ready for school. He did not want his cousins to leave. He was going to be "so sad if they leave". The poor kid needs some friends close by or a sibling I guess. We were glad to have the Sweats come and visit. We had a really fun time. Here are a few random pics from the weekend. Hopefully I don't steal Andrea's thunder. :)

-paul

Christmas in August!! (Christmas shop in Helen)

Chillin at the park

All Dressed Up

Quick Little Update

2007-08-22T18:44:00.000-07:00

It has come to my attention that if we don't put something new on here on a regular basis people start worrying about us, thinking something has happened to us. And Daneen starts to get ansy as well.... So without further ado, here is a quick little blog about what we have been up to in the last few weeks.

Carson started school on a Friday, like I had said in a previous post. The day before school started we decided to take him to the Creative Discovery Museum in Chattanooga, TN. Let me just say, that place is a kids dream come true. I don't really know how to describe it so just click on the link to their website to get a good idea of what goes on there. Carson had a blast! Of course, the battery in our camera died about 15 minutes into our little adventure in the "museum". So here are some pics of just a couple things Carson got to do.

Giant Jungle Jim

Looking at Bug Skeletons

Digging for bones

Pretty much everything in this place was hands on. What kid wouldn't enjoy that? They had music exhibits, art exhibits, electronic exhibits, inventions exhibits, etc.... They even have a tower at the top of the building you can climb up to and get an awesome view of the city. Carson really enjoyed everything but I think his favorite part was digging for dinosaur bones. He liked it so much he tried sneaking out about a pound of sand in each of his shoes! hehe

This past weekend we spent Saturday afternoon at Vogel State Park. They have a pretty good sized lake you can fish in and swim in. It has been so hot here so Daneen was up for going just so she could swim! I, on the other hand, was itching to go fishing. So everyone got what they wanted. It is a really nice park. I caught a few fish and Daneen and Carson had fun playing in the water. Around 8:00pm they had a live band playing on one of their pavilions. Carson really liked hearing them play and was dancing up a storm on the lake shore! That kid really enjoys music. Anyway, here is a pic from that fun afternoon. Enjoy.

-paul

Dad fishing, and Carson.....being Carson!

"Lets Blog About It"

2007-08-14T18:29:00.000-07:00

I have random thoughts sometimes, and usually my mind wonders off on tangents. So this post should be a regular occurrence. For instance, the other day I was thinking about how foods that taste really good are usually unhealthy for you and most of the time contain a lot of fat right. So in other words fat makes food taste good. SO...If you were stranded and there was no food to eat, I mean NO FOOD PERIOD, would you eat a human if that was all there was to eat? I asked Paul this question and he said "well I wouldn't kill them just so I could eat them thats just wrong." So my next question was:What if they just happened to die? Paul said "I don't know." I proceeded to tell him that if that was the case and you would eat a human, wouldn't you want to be stranded with someone who had a lot of Fat so that it tasted good? Then after that I turned to him and said "Honey would you like some more cookies?"

-daneen

Carson's First Day of School....

2007-08-12T19:30:00.001-07:00

Friday was a sad day for Daneen (and for me to, but not as much). Her little "baby" started school. We signed Carson up for preschool and his first day of class was on Friday (which by the way blows my mind. why start on a friday???? all of the kids started on friday in this county. weird!!). He has been so excited about going to school. I guess when both of your parents have been in school your entire life it grows on you....

We went to drop him off and I decided it would be better if just one of us took him to his class. So Daneen did. I guess I am a worry wart because when she didn't come right back I thought for sure Carson had changed his mind about things and wanted to come home. But a few minutes later Daneen came out a little teary eyed and said he was doing great. One of the ladies I work with told me to be nice to my wife that first day of school because it is hard for mama's to let their babies go. Sure enough, Daneen did not disappoint......just a good sign of a great mom. :) I asked her how it went and she said he was okay. But she did say some other kids were having trouble. Like one kid hanging on to the door frame for dear life, not wanting to go in.

Throughout the whole day I was expecting to hear from Daneen that Carson had to come home because he missed her or didn't like school. But the little guy proved me wrong!! He made it through the first day and it sounds like he had a blast! Hopefully he keeps that attitude this coming week!!

-Paul

Mom & Dad at the finish line

Carson at the starting gate

Off he goes.....

sorry, got a little picture happy

The big 4!!!!

2007-08-06T19:54:00.000-07:00

Well, sadly, our little baby,recently turned four. His cute chubby cheeks are long gone now. He's grown into quite the big boy now. Daneen is going through withdraws knowing her little "baby" is all grown up now. We decided to take him somewhere for his birthday this year rather than have a big party with just the three of us. Daneen did make him a cake though and he opened presents but we saved the big surprise for the Monday after his birthday. Here he is with his favorite present.

Thanks GiGi!!!

Arrrr!!!!!!!

His big surprise was a trip to the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga. We got a package deal with aquarium tickets, IMAX movie tickets, and tickets to the Creative Discovery Museum. First stop, the aquarium:

He had this thing for turtles the whole time we were there. He was looking for them in every tank we walked by and he would ask us about them in every exhibit. I guess we know what kind of pet to get him! After an hour in the aquarium we took a break and headed over to the IMAX movie.

For some reason, in our parental brilliance, Daneen and I both thought Carson, the little boy who had a phobia of penguins for crying out loud, would like a 3-D IMAX movie on dinosaurs!!!!! Well, you can imagine how that went....... We did get a cute picture of him with his 3-D glasses but I don't think he kept them on longer than 15 or 20 seconds. He caught on that the glasses were making the movie "freaky".

After our interesting experience at IMAX we headed back to the aquarium to finish walking through everything there. Here are some random pics from that.

He's not scared one bit!!!!

Obviously over the penguin phobia (just thought the picture looked cool)

Can't get much closer!

When we finally got done with the aquarium it was around 3:00 in the afternoon and it was HOT!!!! Carson needed to cool down so we walked to these steps where the city has water rushing down. He got down to his shorts and had a blast playing around.

Okay, I better bring this post to a close. Carson had a blast on his little birthday trip. It was so fun to see him excited about everything we were doing. We are really lucky to have such a great kid! If, and I mean a big if for most of you, you are in Chattanooga, TN you should really think about going to the aquarium and playing around downtown. We didn't have the time or the energy for the last stop (this kids hands on museum). We will have to make another trip for that......dangit! Hope everyone is great!

-Paul

Swimming Lessons

2007-08-01T19:02:00.000-07:00

Okay, I decided that it is my turn to "blog" about something. Last week was a busy week for us so we have lots to talk about. We signed Carson up for a week of swimming lessons last week at the local public swimming pool. It was the mom(or dad)/kiddie lesson where the instructor never gets in the pool. She just stands at the edge telling everyone what to do. Well, Daneen thought it would be a good idea if the both of us got in on the action so I went with Carson the first two days, she went the next two days, and Carson chose me to go with him on the last day. Man, I felt lucky.....
Daneen and I were both worried about how Carson would react to the whole swimming lessons idea and he did not disappoint!! I think he left scratch marks on my back from where he was gripping onto me so tightly. I don't know how many times he said it but one of his favorite phrases throughout the week long lessons was "I'm gonna drown". Bless his little heart. He screamed so much the first two days (of course the days I'm in the pool with him) that I felt like I needed to get my hearing checked. Of course, when mom gets in the pool with him he was like a little angel....sort of. He still had his moments of course but to me I could see a night and day difference in him with Daneen in the pool. He actually seemed to have some fun. Go figure.
By the end of the week he had made some great progress. He can stick his head almost all the way under the water to get a dive stick. He can actually go across the pool on a kick board (with mom or dad helping of course) without screaming his head off. And he conquered his biggest fear, jumping in. He can now jump to mom and dad without having to hold someones hand. Let me tell you, that was a big step!!!
We are going to try and take him swimming as much as we can before it gets to cold here so he doesn't forget all that he learned. Hopefully we can get him in some swimming lessons again next summer so he will be ready to raise some havoc with his cousins next time he gets out to AZ or over to NC. Here are some pics, enjoy!

-Paul

Definitely not hanging on for dear life....

Actually trying for Mom

Becoming a daredevil?

Perfecting the "shoot, flip, and pull" technique

Enjoying the noodle with Dad!

Calling it a day

"Can I just tell you"

2007-07-30T20:25:00.000-07:00

O.k., so can I just tell you one of my pet peeves is people who are cellphone-drive-and-talks and most of all cellphone-drive-and-texts. Now, by all means I am guilty of this, but hate doing it. And from time to time I do find it necessary. But while Paul and I were down in Atlanta driving on the freeway, we passed this lady who was holding an open Sharpie in one hand and trying to read a Blackberry in the other while stearing with her wrists. Paul:"O.M.G" Daneen: "Ya, thats gotta be safe". We hurried and pasted the lady. We didn't want to have to stop if there was an accident.J/K But seriously, I'm really craving some monkey bread right now.

Last AZ Adventures

2007-07-27T12:27:00.000-07:00

Ah, Lake Pleasant. Might not be so pleasant if you find a dead body. One of our last adventures or many occurring ones was going to the lake with my sister Deena and her family. She has jet skis. I was weary at first, of losing my life, but now I would actually think about owning some. They were a blast. I got to go four times while I was in AZ. Took Carson two of those times but he wasn't impressed as much as I was. But he liked to sit on the jet skis when they weren't moving.

Deena and Carson at 7:00a.m. Lake Pleasant

The funnest part is tipping over the jet ski especially if there are people with you. I tried wake boarding but wasn't successful unless you consider wake boarding under water good. Got a real good tan. The first time I went out there I got badly sunburned along with my nephews. "We were bakin like bacon" , sorry dumb joke. I polluted the air with my peeling skin for about 2 weeks. It was gross.

Me and Carson

The last lake trip was with my whole family even though not all attended. But still fun. I went with my brother David and his son Kaden. I love that I got to spend time with them. The day before we actually got to hang out with all of my brother's family. We swam in their pool and had a good dinner at their house. It was awesome. Here are some pics.

Our day with the Kennedy's

Carson looking as cute as ever!

Dave(brother-in-law) He is a cool guy.

David and Kaden snorkeling. Trying to find dead bodies.

Faith, Ashley, and K-man

Pool Party: We had a Birthday Bash, again, for everyones birthday in June, July and August. Happy Birthday All. Its a tradition we have.

Zack(Star of Waterworld II).

Brody doing a back flip

Kenny, hes going on a mission.

My sisters just chatting away.

David's notorious cannon ball.

I really do adore my family. I miss them. It was a great summer vacation.

THE BROWN FAMILY REUNION

2007-07-23T20:14:00.000-07:00

Howdy! So Carson and I were lucky enough to be out west the same time my mom's family reunion was. We weren't gonna go but my lovely sister Diane convinced me that it would be a shame if I missed it. Overall I think she was right.

Funny Story: One afternoon around lunch time the "Ranch" (location of the reunion) decided to serve PB&J, Tomato and Tuna Fish Sandwiches. Now for most people this would be an acceptable lunch. My poor niece came up to me with her tomato sandwich, with french fries on the side, and said "I hate tomatoes but I think I'm hungry enough I might eat this." I, being the loving aunt that I am, told her to put it in the trash and her, Carson and I headed for the nearest restaurant. Now this town had two places to eat so we didn't have a lot of choices. But we found a nice burger joint up the road. It was a big restaurant. It could seat maybe 20 people. Well, we made ourselves comfortable and ordered our food. No more than 5 min. later we watch my sister Diane and her husband Scott and Little Claire (2yr), pull up to the same place we were eating at. And 1 min after that my other sister pulls up with her husband and MY PARENTS, whose car I had taken with out asking. When they pull up my father said "Hey, that looks like my car." Surprise! Everyone from my family had the same idea. Let me note that before everyone pulled up I had just got done telling my niece, Lauren, that Diane would be freakin out about the Mercury in the Tuna and my other sister Donna about the bread being white. Right when everyone sat down,
Diane says "I can't believed you left without telling us at least I went to look for you"
Me: "We weren't impressed with the food selection and obviously all of you weren't either" Diane : "The tuna probably has mercury in it"
Meanwhile Donna is in the corner ordering and says: "Do yo have whole wheat buns cause if you don't I've brought my own is that O.K.?
To say the least I know my sisters. And... Who ever said we were picky eaters is Crazy!

Carson and his "Best Friend/Girlfriend" Lauren(my Niece)
He actually told me I couldn't be his best friend cuz Lauren is.

The Rodeo We had a family rodeo during the reunion and it was fun. Although I volunteered for a position on my team that i never would have if i had known what it was. I was the laddle holder on horseback. Trying to bring back as much water as I could to fill my team's can. Can you say saddle sore.

Lauren pulling me on the horse.

My Nephew Bryce pulling my on the horse.

Bryce pulling me on the horse again.

It was a lovely experience. Don't worry more to come from the our adventures. (You've just been webbed!) :)

I've got something

2007-07-22T11:56:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone sorry I've been lazy about the trip blogging. Ive been sick. But Paul has been taking good care of me lately. I don't know what dieing feels like but i think this might of been close. I slept half the day and all of the night. But I'm still tired. Anyway, Feeling better now. I got to watch a movie in bed. Pride and Prejudice. If you haven't seen it then your missing out. Although I have to admit it is more of a chick flick. And the more you watch it the more you can understand what they are saying. Kinda like Pirates of the Carri bean. No one can really understand what they are saying but its still a cool movie. But hey, every time you watch it you hear something new.

Anyone Need a Traveling In-House Babysitter?

2007-07-18T18:49:00.000-07:00

Paul had to live without me and Carson for a month because I accepted a babysitting gig all the way in AZ for my sister Donna, which only lasted 4 days but I extended it and stayed a while so that I could have fun with my five moms (my sisters). To make the long story short: everything melted and my skin turned to leather J/K. The big bonus was that I got to hang with my parents. SO thank you Donna for providing me with a chance to create some unforgettable memories. It will take a few days to blog about it all so just chill.

I stayed with my folks for a while. comment: They keep their thermostat at 80 DEGREES! But I enjoyed my moms healthy cooking and my dads routine of waking at five and finding something in the back yard that makes noise.

mom AND dad

Then I watched my enthusiastic nephews, and was gluten free for a day or two. Got to take Mikey to a swim meet. His team got second place on the relay. Brody mostly played and had fun with his friends. "its all about the friends."

Mikey: He's too cool!

Brody was bored to death.
Wondering what he was thinking.

2007-07-10T19:35:00.000-07:00

So I don't have anything really new to talk about. Daneen and Carson are still on vacation. I just thought I would add some more pics. Especially for those who haven't seen us (and when I say us I mean Carson) for a while. So enjoy! When the fam gets back we might have something more interesting to share.....

Carson and his buddy Austin just before we left Az

Carson at mom and dads graduation

Getting down with Grandma Cuca

Cruisin on the new bike!

Our Coming Out Party

2007-07-01T20:26:00.000-07:00

Alrighty, as much as it pains me to do this, Daneen and I have decided to start a blog. Why? Well, that's a good question. The number one reason is probably because we are to busy, or maybe to lazy, to stay on top of staying in touch with family and friends. So, forgive me in advance if you don't like the whole blog scene but it's the easiest way to share pics of Carson! And for all you bloggers (Andrea), if you have any helpful hints I can take the constructive critisim. :) So let the picture posting begin!!

Carson & his hog

Carson's First T-Ball Practice

The little gardener