fam fam family

This weekend was my fall break for school, so my original plan was to spend the weekend in Columbus visiting my two sisters that live up there. As I was getting ready to leave, I thought that it would be perfect to kidnap my mom and bring her along. Of course, she was very hesitant, saying that her house was a mess and there was lots of work that needed to be done. After coaxing her and reminding her how much she needed to see Owen, she caved in and packed a bag (or 7) while I was at class. I swung by the house and picked her up, and we were on our way.

For anybody that is living in the Midwest, you know how gorgeous the weather has been! I mean, really?! 80's in the middle of October?! That's absurd! But I'm still enjoying it! Fall and spring are really hard on my allergies, so if it is just summer all the time then I should be okay, right?! But the car ride up was enjoyable! It takes me back to all the road trips with my mom when I was younger. We had some quality mom-son bonding time. Yeah yeah yeah... "Aw Cameron is a little mommas boy!" DON'T make me smack you! :)


Amanda and Ben were still on vacation, so we hung out with Marnie for Friday and Saturday until they came back. Friday included a fun, eventful visit to a Thornton gas station that did not have the best location, but DID have great soda's! Some people feared for their life during that visit, but growing up in the streets of Fort Wayne, it was like ice going through my veins. I was ready to power drive somebody through the counter if they wanted my money!


Anyways... back to the vacation! Saturday, we visited some fancy craft store in the middle of a ritzy suburb city that had white picket fences surrounding the entire place. I felt out of place in my t-shirt and shorts, but they didn't chase me out of town so I think I was alright. As non-boyish as the store was, it was pretty neat to see all the nick-nacks for fall season. It makes me a little giddy sometimes, because the fall time is my favorite time of the year! There seems to be way more family gatherings during this time, so overall it seems to be pretty high up on the totem pole of excitement for me. After the crafty store, we went to the Easton mall, which is GINORMOUS! I've been there once before a few years ago, but it seems to have grown since then. It's pretty much like it's own city with street after street of shops that you can walk in. We only had a short time there before Marnie had to head to the airport to pick up Amanda and company. That night, we sat around and ate pizza and watched football for the evening.


Sunday was a pretty relaxing day. Too much disapproval of Amanda, we sat around and watched football for most of the day, and feasted on a delicious spanish meal that she provided! Monday added a fun trip to a sweet park just outside of Columbus that looked like it had lots of fun trails and paths that you could hike on. Owen and I conquered the big boy slide a few times, but the top was really narrow and squeezed your butt, so I only could do it a few times before I had to give up. Sadly, Owen kept asking for "MMMO" so I would have to trek the long strenuous climb to the top and squeeze my fat butt through a kids size hole (seriously, look at the picture!) and plummet to a giggling decent. 


I know Amanda hated the fact that we didn't do much "exciting" stuff this weekend, but in all honesty I enjoyed just relaxing and taking a break from the crazy busy schedule and just putting my feet up. It was a blast of a weekend! I'm so grateful for the family that I have! Ninety three plus is enough to fill my toes will love! Thanks again to Marnie, Amanda, Ben, Owen, and Shiquanda for opening up their homes and for the hospitality!

the baby trend

So, I haven't blogged about anything in a while, so what better topic than to blog about babies! No, I am not pregnant (thankfully!), but there is a trend of babies in the fam. Let me throw down some cold hard facts for you folks.


James and Tam
Meghan
Braden


Scott and Lisa
Aidan
Clara
Jack


Melissa and Ryan
Kayla
Trevor
Savannah


Amanda and Ben
Owen


So, who notices the trend going on here? Not only do the children alternate, but the first of all the families have alternated as well! So, based on the simple statistics, Amanda is carry a little Shaniqua, and Grant and Katie should be expecting a Shabooboo of their own in the near future! No need for those silly expensive ultrasounds, just take my advice! It was free too!


Tune in next week, as we debunk the theory of "gravity"!


Fifteen plus is enough to fill my heart with love!

chi city mayne

This past weekend I took the opportunity to do something I've been wanting to do for a very long time. The PSP (Paintball Sports Promotion) is one of the top paintball leagues in the world, providing tournaments across the United States with excellent cash prizes. For anybody that doesn't know, I LOOOOOVE to play paintball. If it wasn't so expensive, I would play every day! There's something about the adrenaline rush you get as five guys are hurling paint at you as you try to maneuver your way across the field that I just can't get enough of. And I'm not talking about the lame woodsball scenario paintball... this is confined 170 feet by 115 feet of pure madness. It is intense!

My friend Ben and I headed up to Chicago Friday morning to attend the tournament held up there. No, we did not play, but it still was a blast. The actual tournament was held in Joliet in pretty much the middle of nowhere, but there were thousands of people there all watching or playing. Friday was a little windy and didn't make it past 62 degrees, but people were still out in full force yelling for their favorite teams. Saturday was a beautiful day, as the sun was shining and we were pushing 90 degrees. With the heat though, they kept having to give the referee's breaks so that they didn't overheat in all of their gear. On that day though, the pro players would sign autograph's in between their games which was really neat. I got a couple of free posters with team autographs, and got to talk a little paintball with some of the game's best.


We stayed with James and Tamara's family for the weekend, and they were fantastic hosts! We had a pizza party with Braden Friday night, and had the missionaries over Saturday for some delicious food. James hooked up his surround sound and projector and we started watching Ironman, but after being in the sun all day we called it an early night. It was overall a very fun weekend, and had a blast spending time with family and friends.

ya, prolly

This past week was a blast for me! I know, I'm a big, tough, macho man... but family time has a special little spot in my  heart! It always seems like it never lasts long enough, but is always way fun. I feel like a fat lazy slob when family comes, because we always seem to have fun little projects that we work on all week. Usually I just come home from work and play video games all day, but not with Amanda and Owen here! Not that it's a bad thing, just a little different for me.

We did lots of fun things this week, and made some fun memories. We were able to find out just how dirty and disgusting sidewalks can get. We managed to test the limits of our balance and scale to the top of the house to clean the gutters. We filled up a fountain tub and used it as a pool for Owen. We braved the elements and got our feet wet at the park. Man, even thinking about all the fun things we did makes me tired!


I'm so grateful for my family though! Eight plus is enough to fill my heart... wait a second, wrong blog for that.

billy madison

Back to school... Back to school...


Yes, it is finally time for me to go back to school! I got my acceptance letter to IPFW last Thursday as well as finally getting my FAFSA figured out. All of my previous "speed bumps" are taken care of, and I'm ready to get my learning on! Since I'm not far enough into schooling, they are still making me attend SOAR which is basically orientation for all incoming freshman. Although I'm not really looking forward to hanging out for 7 hours with kids 3 years younger than me, but I think it will be a little fun. I'm not 100% sure what I want to do for a major, but I'm just trying to get the ball rolling right now. I'm READY though! Hopefully I will be as excited once I actually start going to classes...

shhh.....

my mom's my best friend.


happy mothers day!

la familia

This past weekend was a blast for me! We all headed down to Vincennes for two special occasions this weekend, but most of all it mean some quality family time for all of us. As I progress to be an old fart, these times seem to grow a little further apart then what I'd like, but that may just because I'm slowly getting busier. I mean, I did visit family just two weeks ago, so I guess I can't complain too much! But anyways, on to the weekend!

Friday was the beginning of the adventure for us. We headed out after Barbie got off work, and took the 4 hour drive south. It's always exciting to get away from all of your responsibilities, even if it's just for a short while. Before I knew it, we were climbing back in the car on this gloomy Monday morning to make the 4 hour trek back home and back to reality. But in between those days, we got to celebrate two pretty awesome events for our family. Sunday morning consisted of the blessing of Savannah, who is probably the tiniest baby and cutest little girl I've ever seen. I seriously wanted to eat her up! After that we headed over to VU and watched Melissa graduate. After her long journey, it was pretty exciting to watch her walk across the stage and officially graduate! Overall though, it was a fun weekend! Family weekends often go too fast, but they are always a blast!

(seriously, I could EAT HER UP!)

rain rain...

SERIOUSLY RAIN! GET OUT OF MY FACE! It honestly has rained all but two days for the past two weeks, and the forecast calls for more rain until Friday! Disgusting... doesn't mother nature know this is my favorite time to golf?! I've only played one round all year... cut me some slack! But with the rain came a new discovery this past week... Apparently the weather seal along my car decided it no longer wants to be efficient at preventing water from entering my vehicle. I ran in to Meijer's the other day and came out to notice a waterfall happening right in the middle of my roof. Along the car ride home, I discovered more leaking happening along the door! I should look at it on the bright side though... I have my own mobile swimming pool!


Last week Target offered a free health screening to all of it's team members. I signed up for my slot, only because I heard there was free food attached to the deal. The process took about 10 minutes, and all they needed to do was prick your finger and get some blood. They put your blood on this little tray and inserted into this machine and it would calculate all kinds of different interesting numbers. When my results came out, I was expecting to just be average... middle of the pack type stuff. I don't really eat super healthy... not too many fruits and hardly any vegetables, so when my numbers came out I was pretty shocked. She said my numbers were phenomenal for my age, and that if I just maintained my eating habits that I would be healthy for a long time. Kind of funny, since my diet often consists of mom's cookies and junk food... but I'll take it!

Last Saturday and friend from work and I went to the zoo on opening day. It was the first nice day in a few weeks, and not a more perfect day to open the zoo for the year. The place was packed, and it took quit a while to even get in to the park. Once we did, we made our way around the park. It's been probably a good 4 years since the last time I have been to the zoo, so there was a lot of new and exciting things I haven't seen before. The African exhibit has expanded big time. They added this cool sky lift ride where you get to go above the entire African area and see all the fun animals. (You can see the chords that support the ride behind the lion in the picture) They don't take you over any scary animals like the lions or tigers, but it's still really neat. A lot of the animals weren't out yet, since it still was pretty "chilly" out. The giraffe's were probably the coolest, and for the low price of a dollar you could feed them lettuce. They have this fun little platform that you stand on, and the giraffes will just come right up to it and take it out of your hand. It's so crazy to see some of these animals so close!

I really should probably appreciate the zoo a little more than I did. Apparently we have one of the top children's zoo in the nation! Who knew?

...

So... how are you guys? Good? Ahem... yeah, this is a little awkward. Yeah yeah yeah... SHUT UP! I know I sucked it up with that whole "GET FIT!!! ARGH!!!!!" blog, but oh well. I'm still avoiding soda and fast food, so that's a bonus! Right?! Well, I'll keep telling myself that... So I decided to transform this into a traditional "blog" instead of a themed blog that I've had in the past. Weird, right? How interesting can a 21-year-old life be? I know I'm not married or have any kids like the stander blogger blogs about, but we'll see how this turns out. If there aren't any posts for weeks, just assume that absolutely nothing has happened... :)

Last weekend we had the chance to go up to Columbus to spend the weekend celebrating Owen's first birthday. Let me tell you, I put together the best looking cracker tray I've EVER seen! Catering companies have actually already been in contact with me to come to weddings and graduation parties to put together cracker trays. It's a tough life I live, I tell ya... But the kid is so stinking cute! I seriously want to eat him up every time I see him! The weekend was too short though, and it seemed like we left just as fast as we came. Thanks to Marnie though for being such a good host! It is so much fun being so close to family and to have the chance to see them so often. I'm pretty sure it's your turn to come see us now Goates' family! We've been there the past two times, now it's your turn to come see us!

Yesterday I figured I would use my manly ways and be a handyman around the house. As some of you may know, the bathroom fan in the main bathroom has seen better days, and recently sounded like a Boeing 747 taking off any time you turned it on. I headed off to Lowe's having no idea what I was doing, but I pretending like I knew what I was shopping for. Who knew that bathroom fans came in so many shapes and sizes? I just picked up a pretty decent looking one off the shelf and figured it was going to just slide in... hah! My fan was the wrong size, so I took it back and Eric picked one up from Menards. The installation process was a PAIN! We had to go from the top, which required climbing in the attic above the craft room and laying on 2x4's while hammering out the old one. The nails they used to secure it were all mangled so just pulling them out wasn't an option. After about 3 hours of rough manliness, we managed to get the new one up there. There's still some "work" to be done, but at least we have a bathroom fan!

You better step ya game up mom! I'm going to be writing about all this stuff that you planned on blogging about!