Wednesday, December 31, 2014

Happy New Year 2015!!

Happy, Happy New Year 2015!!!

Well, this year will be the year we forgot about the blog...:(

Big things happened and not a bit documented in this great resource...I'm trying to get us caught up so hang in there!

As crazy as 2013 was, 2014 was even crazier!  A new job, more travel, growing boys and lots of fun!

So...how 'bout the Top Five of 2014!

#1  Travels!  As a family, we visited some awesome places this year:
  • Phoenix and Sedona, Arizona
  • San Juan, Puerto Rico
  • Another Amazing trip to Walt Disney World
  • Ohio (Cincy and Dayton)
  • Ohio (New Philly and CEDAR POINT!)
And on business....no travel for Mommy, but lots and lots and lots of travel for Daddy...India (3x, thru Qatar, twice....and getting to see the Taj Mahal), London England (after missing a flight), Mesa, Arizona (10x), Dallas, Seattle (2x), Philly, Lancaster PA, and El Paso, TX!   And made Southwest Companion Pass...so more travel for free in 2015!!!

#2  Mommy and Daddy's Eleven Year Anniversary Trip!!

A wonderful trip for Mommy and I to get away and see beautiful Maine, Vermont, and New Hampshire!   The lobsters were amazing!  And we got to catch them!

#3  Mr. Aidan Matthew continues to marvel us with his talents!
  • Aidan continues his awesomeness in piano this year, competing in a piano competition and scoring a 92/100!  Only two points from Superior level!!
  • Aid started in Second Grade and is doing exceptional!  His testing results showed an amazing reading ability at a seventh grade level!  Way to go Aidan!
  • Lots and lots of soccer fun this year with Indoor (League Champions!), Spring outdoor and fall outdoor....he did one practice of baseball, but unfortunately his broken arm put him on the DL for the season :(
#4  Mr. Ethan takes on school (like a boss)!  :)
  • Ethan started up this year at St. Joseph Cottleville as our big Kindergartner! 
  • He has started to read and is loving it!
  • Our big guy has found quite the talents in cooking and baking!  He and Mommy are chefs extraordinaires!
#5  Having the Perfect Summer with Megan!

Biggest summer fun ever with our nanny, Megan!  She was absolutely awesome with the boys this summer and we couldn't ask for a better person to watch our two priceless family members.  She was safe, engaging and amazing with them...we are so lucky to have had her this year!

Other Notables:
More amazing family pictures by a real photographer!
Our Basement is D.O.N.E...done!

Awesome experiences viewing professional sports and entertainers:
  • St. Louis Cardinals
  • Seattle Sounders
  • St. Louis Rams and Denver Broncos
  • Bruno Mars
  • Justin Timberlake
  • St. Louis Ambush
And now, the New Year's Tradition...pictures through the years, EIGHT years running now!



2007....


2008....



2009....
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2010....



2011....


2012....


2013....


2014...



Happy New Year  Everyone.  Have a great 2015!

Tyler, Emmy, Aidan and Ethan

Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Coming back Online....

So we left off with a great trip to Puerto Rico, and our big guy was able to swim, play in the surf and build sandcastles all with his cast on...what a relief!

This leads us into June....

So if you recall, we had a major family deal back on May 31st 2013 when a EF3 tornado hit our house and tore up all sorts of things down the street.  Fast Forward to June 2014, we were all hanging out in the basement because it was too cold to go to the pool one Sunday when no kidding, our house alarm starts going off telling us that there was a tornado warning issued.  There were no sirens, so I didn't know what was going on...so I grabbed my iPad, pulled up the radar and did what any normal person would do...go outside and look for it!  And it I found, the picture below is the storm and the tornado (you really can't see the funnel) but this was an EF0 tornado that was doing damage to houses about 1 mile north of our house.  I could not believe that our area got hit by ANOTHER tornado, only a year after the big one.  CRAZY!!

Pretty tell tale tornadic supercell, very vertically with a slight forward slant aligned.  The tornado would be about where that light pole is.  Nuts.

June is also awesome because we have a birthday!  Mr. E turned 5 on June 12th!


Presents :)


Mommy and Daddy took the day off for all of us to go to one of Ethan's favorite places, the Zoo!


What's up orangutan?


He's five!


Petting the manta rays....


Even Aidan and Mommy tried...it was a no for Ethan :(



Fun Brother time...and hey!  The cast is gone..yeah!! Only a brace now :)



Ride those Tigers!


The elephants are great at the STL zoo...they are always out playing.


Takin' the train...


Mama Lion up in a tree looking around....


Happy 5th Birthday Ethan!


Make a wish!


You're awesome buddy!

OK!  So June is off with a bang...

We had some good things in June and some not so good things. 

First the good things, we had a trip to Ohio planned for Mommy, Grammy T and Aunt Natalie to go and see Bruno Mars in concert in Cincinnati.  Off we went on a drive and met them at one of our favorites...Entertrainment Junction.  I had a Groupon to get us into the fun house, and it actually was kinda fun.


Step right up!


Big room with a little kid?


The hall of mirrors.....


It was actually pretty darn tough!  They kept the mirrors really clean so we literally had to put our hands up as we walked.


The Spider Web room!


And now on to the trains...lots of trains!



Ridin' the train!


Modern city... 

Complete with a subway!

Mommy said that the Bruno Mars concert was awesome!  One of the best she'd ever seen ever!  The singing and dancing was fantastic!





The next day the weather was so so, but we still got up and hit the Cincy Zoo. In all the years we lived in Cincy, I had never visited their world renowned zoo...it was pretty good!


Rhino rider!


Their elephants have a toy!


The biggest reason why we wanted to go to the zoo was for Ethan and his favorite animal in all the world, the giraffe!


Our friend TR told us that they recently had a baby at the zoo...so it was pretty darn exciting....


There's the baby!


A happy Ethan!


You definitely now can see the baby!




Looks pretty happy to me :)

The Cincy Zoo also has a cheetah that performs...here he is at full speed...awesome.


Cheetah Boys.


It was hot and muggy, but even the polar bears came out to say hi.


Ride that shark....

Before we left to come back home, we headed up to Dayton and saw some jets at the Air Force Museum...that place is awesome. 




The boys are a little bigger this time posing by the B2 :)

So the not so good thing in June was the passing of Emmy's Grandpa Bud.  He lived a long and good life, so off we went back to Ohio the next weekend to attend his funeral.  

Being back in Emmy's hometown, we met up with Grandpa John and went out to Tuscora Park to ride the rides...the boys had some serious fun!





The next day Emmy and Johnny Bingo took us to this putt putt place that way out in the middle of nowhere and was really one of the wackiest that I'd ever played. 

First off, it was huge. And the holes were LONG!


One hole, loops around and jumps over the start!


Look how long this one is!


Needs a little fix up, but nice design!


This was a moving platform you needed to hit it across.  If you didn't it would fall into a stream and take you way out of the way.


Yes Aidan, this hole is quite confusing!


Really, hole 13?  What are you supposed to do?  (you had to tee the ball up and hit it like a real golf shot.  The hole was about 30 yards away)



That is one massive dip.


Well, the time came and we needed to pay our respects to Grandpa Bud.  Lots of nice people spoke highly of him.  Afterwards we had a luncheon for him at the Masons..here's the whole crew.



Two monkeys in ties :)

That's all for June.   Fun times indeed!

And that's all for tonight!  Have a good one!

Tyler, Emmy, Aidan and Ethan