Long time no blog

Here's some recent pictures of the boys...

Austin and his new violin.

The boys out sleding with Papa!

And Noah's helping Nana clean!!

Garden of the Gods

I just returned from the Central States Forest Soils Workshop in Carbondale, IL. Was a great conference and we had beautiful weather. Here's a few pictures from the Garden of the Gods Recreation Area in the Shawnee National Forest. Great rock formations and amazing views.

And here's a recent picture of Amanda and the boys, Austin and Noah are getting so big!!

I'm a BIG Brother!!

Baby Noah has arrived!!

Here's a few pictures of Noah Daniel. He arrived at 11:18am, July 19th. He weighed in at a hefty 8lbs 10oz and was 20.5" long. I'll post updates as they come!

Been a while...

It's been a while since I've made a post, ok...a long while. So, thought I'd give you an update. I'm an uncle! (times 4) My newest nephew arrived Wednesday, June 20th. Isaac William weighed in at 8lbs 1oz, 21" long and a head full of hair. You can see my brother Jason and his wife Katie with Isaac at http://www.pchmo.org/Babies/June/062007.htm if interested. This is their second kid, Aiden is 3. On another note, I kind of have two new nieces as well. As of yesterday, my oldest brother Shannon and his wife Tracy are foster parents of a 2yr old and a 1yr old. They are sisters and Tracy used to watch the 2yr old at her daycare until the mom had to pull her out because of losing her job. The state has since taken both kids away from the mom and the rest of her family, because nobody wants them. Isn't that horrible! Anyways, Shannon and Tracy are the foster parents now, next step is legal guardian and hopefully soon after that happens they will adopt them. That will make 4 kids, holy cow! Mariah is 8, Rhylan is 4, then the 2 and 1 year old. Poor Rhylan is going to have his hands full with all those girls. I'll get to meet them this Saturday.

So...as if there wasn't enough going on, Amanda has reached the last month of her pregnancy. With the due date of July, 26th, she has now moved to four weeks left today. She has her next appt tomorrow morning. I'm starting to feel a little more prepared for the baby to arrive...oh yeah, we decided on a name, Noah Daniel. Austin helped pick out the name, he's come a long way. First he wanted it to be Spongebob, then he was stuck on Cooper which was our other choice and then settled on Noah. Anyways, I finished painting the nursery last night at about 10:45pm. Of course since I did special paintings of Peanuts characters in Austin's room, I felt obligated to do something for Noah. We decided on kind of a Jungle/Safari theme, so I did a mural of some animals. Turned out pretty good. Took a day and a half to paint the room and the grass border around the bottom. Another night to draw the animals, a night to paint the tree, and I painted the animals last night. We also finished all of the remodeling that we had been working on since November. We're very happy with the way it turned out.

Well I better get going. Have a lot of work to do these days. First Rod leaves me hanging back in March (just kidding!), and now Kevin is gone for around 4 months. He'll be on detail in Wyoming until the middle of October. So, it's just me and Dan in the office. Talk to everyone soon, I'll keep everyone updated when Noah finally arrives!

Our Waterfront Property

The latest storm to hit the Cape Girardeau area dumped 8-10 inches of rain on our subdivision according to doppler radar. Here's a few pictures showing what that much rain does to our backyard. (notice the culvert on the other side of our neighbors, about 5 feet deep) We do have drains installed in our yard next to our neighbors fence, but they evidently don't help too much!

Busy summer and a new adventure!

Been a while since we've posted anything. Just had Amanda's 25th birthday this past week on Wednesday. Had a party for her on Saturday with the family. Austin's 2nd birthday is coming up really fast, July 23rd. Can't believe he's going to be two already, except he definitely acts older. We've got a busy couple of months coming up. Well, I guess they're actually already here. Started with the July 4th weekend with a couple of parties, then Amanda's party this past weekend. Got another birthday this coming weekend. Then Austin's birthday party will be the next weekend. Then 2 birthdays and a baby shower the last weekend in July. Then, the first weekend in August I've got some friends coming into Missouri from Chicago that I haven't seen since our wedding back in '03. At the same time, Amanda's sister and brother-in-law are coming in from KC to see Amanda's aunt, uncle and cousins that are coming in from Switzerland. They try to make it to the states every couple years. Then, Amanda and I are going on a float trip the next weekend. As of now, we'll have a couple free weekends in August.

Then comes the interesting month, September. I have recently volunteered and have been accepted to go on a detail for four weeks to Louisiana. I will be assisting with the Emergency Watershed Protection (EWP) that has been going on since hurricanes Katrina and Rita went through the area. I will be heading down to Mandeville, LA September 3 and coming back on September 30. Mandeville is on the north side of Lake Pontchartrain. It's the city where the bridge outlets on the north side. I'm really excited to help out and at the same time gain some experience in a different part of the country. Needless to say, Amanda is excited that I get the opportunity, but not looking forward to me being gone for four consecutive weeks. I won't have any time to come home during the detail. One because it's around a 10 hour drive. Another, because we'll be working Monday through Saturday, 10 hour days. Hooray for overtime!!

So, that's about it from down here in southeast Missouri. A little wet right now with a couple days of rain, much needed. I'll try to update our webpage more often, especially if I get computer access while down in cajun country. Talk to you later and take care!

Brian's First Post...

This past weekend was my birthday. The ripe old age of 26. I actually had two birthday weekends. Amanda had a party for me last weekend. We were going to have it this past weekend, but my brother Jason was scheduled to have surgery for his sleep apnea on Thursday, May 11. So, we wanted him to be able to be there so we made it for the weekend before my birthday. But, about a week later they called and said his insurance went through and everything so they could get him in sooner, two weeks earlier. We just kept the party the way it was.

Jason's surgery went good, they removed his tonsils, uvula, and scrapped his soft palate. I know right, ouch. He was pretty sore the whole week after. The night before my party, he was sitting in his recliner and all of a sudden his mouth started filling up with blood. It eventually quit after gargling with cold salt water as suggested by his doctor. Then it started again at my house as we were all getting ready to eat. It went on and got worse for more than 20 minutes. He started getting really pale and was having trouble breathing because of all the blood. Amanda rushed him over to the ER and waited for his doctor to get there, well, Katie and Jason waited. They kept him overnight for observation and was released in the morning. He's been fine ever since. They think it had to do with him not taking his blood pressure medication for a couple days and drinking a lot of caffeine. Anyways, enough grossing you out. I hope you're still reading this and not passed out on the floor. Believe me, I could have been a lot more explicit! Ughh....I still get a body chill thinking about it.

Austin's doing really good, he's a jabber box. He kept telling me "Happy...Birt-day" almost every morning last week. Then towards the end of the week he would start singing happy birthday to me. It's hard to believe he isn't even two yet, he's doing so much. He can count to 10, sing the majority of his ABC's, and sorry, kind of gross, but pooped and/or peed on the potty three times in the last week. He's getting so big. Amanda's also doing really good. She really likes her new job. I think it's really good for her to get out of the house more, I think she agrees. We're coming up on summer which means that Austin won't be going to his sitter anymore. She doesn't watch kids in June or July, she likes to spend the summer with her kids. Isn't that a bunch of crap. She's with them EVERYDAY!! Oh well, we have him enrolled in a "Preschool" daycare. He starts next Monday, I hope he likes it. It's actually going to be cheaper, $92/week instead of $100/week. Plus, they'll provide breakfast, lunch, snacks and drinks. We have to send our own food to the sitter we have now, what a hassle. So, Amanda's looking forward to that, not having to make a lunch and feed him breakfast every morning before she leaves for work.