Sully Recycles Blankets

Sully's favorite toy is his "blankee" and this is how he treats it. He "recycles" it...you can see it dispersed throughout our back yard. Once this one is done, he will want another one.

Day At the Aquarium

Each year during our church's annual Missions Conference, the staff takes a day and goes out with the missionaries. This year we went to the Dallas World Aquarium. I hung out with the prettiest staff member.


The Aquarium had more than just fish...there were monkeys, bats, birds, crocodiles, a black panther, snakes, spiders, GIANT millipedes, turtles, a manatee, otters, sting rays...

...and penguins!

Amanda's Story Homework for the Week

My Mom and Dad planned to go to San Antonio. We packed and got on the airplane.

After we got to the hotel, we unpacked and went swimming. Next we went to Seaworld. After we put our stuff in our lockers, we went to a water park. I slid down the water slide into a big pool. While I was there, Daddy bought me a handsome penguin.

The next day we went to a zoo. It was terrific! My favorite animals were the zebras.

The last day of vacation we went to the drive-thru zoo. The funniest thing was the ostrick pecking on Mommy's window and the zebra stealing my food.

The airplane took us home. We picked up our dogs, ate our dinner and went to bed.

Geocaching on Saturday - Find #400!

The Gospel According to Oprah

Caching In

Here is geocaching story from the Decatur Daily...from Decatur, AL where Brooke's parents live. Amanda and I have done some of the caches described in this article while caching with here cousins there.

I Am Sad Tonight

It's not like I'm depressed or anything, but I am sad. Spring Break is over and Amanda has to start back to school tomorrow. I am a family guy. I like doing stuff (racquetball, shooting, geocaching, etc), but all of those things are secondary to my family. We had a great time camping at Cedar Hill State Park on Thursday night and doing family stuff the rest of the weekend (like cooking our left over Smores in front of the fireplace). So tomorrow, it's back to the routine: Amanda to school, Brooke and I to work, home from school, dinner, HOMEWORK, play time, bath time, bed time...same thing next day.

But enough sad. Here are some happy pictures from our camping trip:

Amanda enjoyed playing in "her room" in the camper

You may notice that Sully looks slightly paranoid. He did not know how Mr. Stan felt about doggies on the furniture and asked me to set the record straight that this was a posed picture...Mommy made the dogs hop up for a picture because she was worried we did not have a picture with Sully in it since he was not as adventuresome as Boo.

Grilling chicken for Thursday night dinner. Sully would not have wanted to be by himself, so he was glad to be along for the ride. Boo, on the other hand, showed she LOVED being camping dog.

Hollywood...in a camper

Here's the one geocache we did at the park while camping

Stopping at Sonic for lunch on the way home from camping

Cooking our left-over Smores in front of the fireplace on Friday night

I Had to Laugh

Some may think this is not funny.

Some make think this is "gross".

I thought it was funny enough to laugh out loud.

We were on our way to Cedar Hill State Park to go camping and stopped by QT on the way (of course). We got our Cokes and got into the car. I found some trash on the floor of the car, so I hopped out and went to throw it away. Since there was not a trash can near the car, I had to walk in front of the store and down the sidewalk to the trash can. As I did this, I noticed Brooke and Amanda watching me, so I sucked in my gut just to see what would happen. Holding my breath all the way, I tossed the trash, walked back to the car and got in.

"Wow Babe, you must be losing weight. Your stomach looks smaller," Brooke said to me almost immediately.

I had to laugh.

An A+ Weekend

I had a wonderful and relaxing weekend. On Friday, I took Amanda to school, came home a chilled for a while and then went for a bike ride. Didn't know if I could make it, but I tried a 10 mile ride. Made it. Came home, relaxed, picked Amanda up from school, ran by Quick Trip as a family, grilled steaks for dinner, relaxed more and went to bed.

On Saturday, we went to a park in Mansfield for a family picnic. Amanda and I rode the bike trails (5 miles) then we ate our picnic lunch. After lunch, Brooke and Amanda played on the playground while I biked some more. Came home, took a nap, grilled chicken for dinner, relaxed and went to bed.

Today, we went to church and the second iGrow class and then had lunch with a family from church. We ran by Academy to buy a t-ball wiffle ball set for Amanda and some worms for Grace (the turtle). When we got home, Brooke took a nap, Amanda played in the back yard and I went for another 10 mile bike ride. When I came home, Amanda was playing with the t-ball set. Brooke woke up from her nap, so we all played some wiffle ball in the back yard. Ran by QT again then Brooke went to Life Group. Amanda and I watched Funniest Home Videos then she read while I worked on the computer. At 9pm, Brooke came home, Amanda went to bed and we watched Stranger Than Fiction.

It was an A+ weekend.

Stranger Than Fiction

Hmmm. I'm trying to figure out how to describe this movie. Unique. Unexpected. Bizarre. Very good. All of these describe the movie, yet somehow say nothing about it.

This is all very odd because I am NOT a literature type person. In my required literature classes, I hated having to figure out symbolism, what the author was "trying" to say and all of that stuff. I like to read a book or watch a movie for the entertainment value...period. I don't search for meaning or try to analyze it.

So I'm not analyzing this movie or looking for a "deeper meaning", but it's not the typical kind of movie I would rent. Some friends of our just got it and offered to let us borrow it. I didn't know anything about the movie other than Will Ferrell was in it and I like most of his movies (sans "Talladega Nights").

The first part of the movie had me thinking, "What a hacker" (the word we use at our house for movies that are just a waste of your time watching). But I wanted to keep watching because I didn't "get it"...what was going on. And then I thought I figured out what was happening. After that, I wanted to see what happened next. And after that, I just started getting into it. In the end, I would rate it as a great movie. I'd love to buy it and make friends sit down to watch it with me just to see how they respond.

Not being a movie or literature person, I don't have a vast database of movies to compare it to. But watching this movie, I got the same kind of feeling I did when I watched Truman Show (one of my all-time favorite movies) and The Game. I guess because I am "literature dumb", I do not understand the "deeper meaning" of these movies, but something caught my attention and drew me in. Violent WWII movies cause me to reflect and stand in awe of a generation. Action movies somehow release stress. Kid movies are OK (sans Garfield I & II) and remind me I'm glad I'm a Daddy. I'm still trying to describe how movies like Stranger Than Fiction make me feel...but I like it. Maybe I should have taken more literature classes until I "got it".

I guess most people are going to feel I am "stranger than fiction" after reading this post. I don't know. If you're a movie/literature buff, watch the movie and come talk to me. Maybe you can tell me what it is I am missing but that has somehow managed to draw me in so.

Hangman - Day 8

Amanda was standing in front of the mirror this morning as Brooke was combing her hair for church when she suddenly blurted out, "CAMPING, that's my word. That's what we are doing during Spring Break." She was right, and so she's solved her hangman puzzle.

Hangman - Day 7

If you don't know the story behind this, click here.

The First Geocache Ever Placed

GPS Mapping Tools/Toys

I got a bracket for Christmas that allows me to put my GPS receiver on my bike, so now I track myself everywhere I ride. The GPS tells me where I am (small screen map), how fast I'm going, what direction I am traveling and how far I have traveled. Until today, I have not been able to find anything to convert the file created on my GPS into something I can put on a map and see where I've been. Today I found GPS Visualizer which I used to convert I file which I then uploaded to MTBGuru.com and created this map of my ride.


Since I just happened to have my GPS with me, and since my GPS just happened to have area geocaches loaded onto it, I did check to see if I was near any as I biked yesterday. I found one and then headed out to the one pictured above called Jeepers Creepers. This is a Google Earth screen shot of the pet cemetery I rode through to get to this cache (this area is the little "hook" at the bottom of the Google map drawn above). The white dot in the upper right corner of the screen shows where the geocache is, and the red line (the long, crazy, zig-zag red line) shows where all I went looking for it! The clue for the cache led me to believe it was in the pet cemetery, and there is a fence in the tree line. I did not think I would have to cross the fence to get to the cache, so I didn't spend much time on the other side of the fence. When I did cross the fence, the GPS kept taking me to the middle of a wide open field and I didn't think that was right, either. As you can see, I never found the cache, but I thought this crazy, zig-zag picture of my 20 minute hunt was funny. Now that I've seen the picture, I'll have to try for this one again, but I think I'm gonna post this picture on the cache's web site. I look like some drunk lost in the woods or something!

Another Turtle Update

No, not another turtle...just another update about the turtles. Grace O'Mally made it through the winter. Although she was the last of the three to make an appearance this Spring, she seems to be the first one who has determined hibernation is over with for the winter. She dug out yesterday and spent the night above ground, woke up and had some breakfast this morning. Grumpy and Little George are still under ground.

Does This Look Comfortable to You?

Sully will do anything for attention. He is not trying to crawl onto Brooke's lap, he is just stretched across there trying to get some love! He laid like that for 10 minutes.

Hangman - Day 6

If you don't know the story behind this, click here.

Where Did We Go Wrong?

Amanda said they were playing "gambling". Does this mean we are bad parents?

Open House

Amanda with everybody's favorite PTA treasurer...elected for a second term next year.

Amanda and her teacher, Mrs. Basa.

Hangman - Day 5

If you don't know the story behind this, click here.