Watsonsplace.com

San Diego Slideshow

2009-06-20T22:13:00.000-07:00

For those that want way more pictures...

San Diego Vacation

2009-06-19T23:57:00.000-07:00

We just completed our Watson family vacation in San Diego and it was a blast. We rented a house with four bedrooms and four bathrooms that fits all ten of us so well and we had a great time of relaxing and having fun.

We started the week off at Sea World and took Kiefer on the big roller coaster, he wasn't really ready for that much fun :)

We then went and watched Shamu and a few of us sat down real close and got wet in the soak zone.

The kids loved the Sesame Street themed water park area and had a great time splashing in the fountains. My favorite pics are this Cooper action sequence...

The second day we hit the beach for some sand castle building and playing in the water. That night we all went to a Padres game and sat in the benches behind the fence that had a play area for kids. They got some more sand time and also enjoyed playing on the kids baseball field and rolling down the hills, basically not much actual baseball was watched.

Here's Lexi and Kiefer sporting their new Padres tattoos.

Grandma put together lots of fun activities and crafts for the kids including a treasure hunt that the grandkids loved.

On Wednesday we went to the Hotel Del Coronado for brunch and met up with Elisa's parents for their anniversary.

The food was fantastic and we had a great time celebrating.

The guys then golfed the Coronado course and the women and children proceeded somewhere else to shop. The rest of the week included more beach time and some antique shopping (not pictured for fear of really boring you to death). We made sure to hit the lions for the traditional shot, the boys are getting bigger!

For the drive home we packed all the kids into the van and they loved being together for the drive, such a great time!

Albert Forbes Cameron

2009-06-12T17:06:00.000-07:00

On Friday morning June 12th, my grandfather passed away at age 85. It came pretty unexpectedly and we were sad to see him go, but he was ready and is in a better place now. He was a steadfast and honorable man who survived the great depression, fought in World War II and went on to father six amazing children, my mom among them. We love you grandpa, you will be missed.

Rockin

2009-06-11T22:50:00.000-07:00

Aaron and Brett came to town for a Showit coding week and I found the Rock Band stage kit on sale and couldn't pass it up, so we tried it out on the last night to get the full rock experience. It's a fog machine, strobe light and color spots and it plugs into the XBox and syncs to the music, pretty crazy. We took some fun pictures of us rockin out while choking in the fog :)

And what would an awesome coding week be without some fancy delicious brownies from Elisa.

The New Coop

2009-06-05T15:34:00.000-07:00

Well, we decided to give Cooper a fresh summer look and cut his long straight hair. He looks so different now but still so cute, Elisa cried a little to see him look so different. I don't think he notices or even cares but it's going to take a bit to get used to the new look.

Cooper Babblings

2009-06-03T22:21:00.000-07:00

I've used the recorder on my phone to catch Cooper saying the different things he says right now and his funny laughs and figured I would edit it into a little audio montage for the family to hear. Enjoy.

Wisconsin Slideshow

2009-05-30T16:09:00.000-07:00

Here is a slideshow from our trip!

First Fish

2009-05-24T21:45:00.000-07:00

We drove out to Birchwood to Anders' parents' house on the lake and did some fishing on a pontoon boat. Here is Kiefer and me on the drive getting excited to catch some fish.

Caught this pic while driving, I love the green grass and trees and red barns.

We pulled up to the dock in front of Anders' house and Anders' dad got a pole setup and Kiefer reeled in his first fish off the dock! He was so excited and it was so much fun!

The fish were biting like crazy so it was really quick and easy catching and tossing the small ones back. We ended up keeping a dozen and we're planning to cook them up later in the week.

I caught a few fish and here I am with my first one, notice I'm a little hesitant with the holding of the fish, Anders gave me a hard time and I'm going to need to work on that. What can I say, I'm an "Avid Indoorsman" so this is foreign territory for me.

Cooper really liked the fish and even gave them kisses!

The sisters had a great time on the boat relaxing and enjoying a perfect sunny day.

Cooper really loved being in the driver's seat.

We finished the day with an awesome fish fry at the Pine Ridge, so good!

Leinie Lodge

2009-05-23T20:58:00.000-07:00

We made a trip out to Chippewa Falls to the Leinenkugel Brewery which is a fantastic beer made in Wisconsin since 1867. We toured the factory and had a great time learning about how it's made.

Kiefer got to try his hand at being a bar tender.

After that we went to Olson's Ice Cream that makes their own ice cream that is amazing!

Later in the evening we had a picnic in the grass with Sammy's pizza. Kiefer decided to put dirt on his face and be a warrior, pretty scary!

First Flight

2009-05-20T22:40:00.000-07:00

We are heading out to Wisconsin for a week to visit Elisa's sister Emily and Anders. This was Cooper's first flight and he's at that age where you don't know what's going to happen. We gave him some "allergy medicine" in case he was allergic to planes (and to sedate him) and sure enough it knocked him out good but not before he screeched a little on takeoff.

Kiefer was great on the plane and had a great time, he just seems like such a big boy.

Cooper slept about 2 out of the 3 hour flight and was happy when he woke up, but then we had to circle an extra hour in the air because we couldn't land due to wind, so then it was pushing Cooper over the edge and he got a little cranky toward the end. For a little bit we watched movies on the iPhone with Snoopy holding it :)

He was happy to land and on the drive home Kiefer finally fell asleep, he sure can sleep at a funny angle.

We were greeted at the Helquist's with a fantastic raspberry pie!

Flight of the Conchords

2009-05-19T23:35:00.000-07:00

Before our trip out to the Midwest, we went down to Tempe and had a nice double date with Aaron and Kiley to Flight of the Conchords. It started with Sushi and then we rode the new light rail into downtown Phoenix for the show. It was a great time and exciting to use Phoenix public transportation for the first time.

We looked like tourists taking pictures of our train experience :)

I'd never been to the Dodge Theater and it was pretty big.

Bike and Planes

2009-05-16T18:05:00.000-07:00

Today Elisa went garage sale hunting and scored this awesome bike for Kiefer! He is just starting to get the hang of pedaling and it's amazing to see him riding on a bike!

Later in the day Kiefer and I went to "Aviation Day" at the airport and got to see all kinds of planes and helicopters. I think he liked the "helicopter ambulance" the best.

While we were there, we ran into Sam and Evan so Kiefer had a great time looking at the planes with them.

The airport fire truck was pretty huge!

The airport snow plow was also massive, they said it goes 60 mph while it's plowing and the blade was easy for Kiefer to walk under!

This plane is more Kiefer's size.

Lava Tubes

2009-05-12T22:37:00.000-07:00

We made a trip out to the lava river cave outside Flagstaff with JT and he took some family photos of us after we hiked around the cave. Here are some of the fun ones or if you are a grandparent you can check out the whole gallery.

Awesome Mom!

2009-05-10T21:22:00.000-07:00

A Happy Mother's Day to Elisa, a wonderful mom to our two cute little boys. We let her sleep in a little and the picture below is when the boys woke her up. We went to church in the morning and lunch downtown at the Mountain Oasis. We all took great naps in the afternoon and then let Elisa relax while I took the boys out for some shopping and to pick up pizza to bring home for dinner.

Notice Kiefer's nice band aid, he fell in the backyard last night and his head landed on a rock. I ran out to get him and brought him in while he was curled up and crying and said, "OK, let me see what happened". He pulled his hands away and his face was covered in blood like a horror movie. It turned out to be a pretty tiny cut that was just gushing and we cleaned it out and it stopped bleeding and he hasn't complained about it since.

JT joined us in the evening and will be visiting for a few days, the boys were so excited to see him and loved having him read them a story.

Toddler Fashion

2009-05-08T14:57:00.000-07:00

Cooper is definitely making his own fashion statements, he's going to be a trend setter. Enjoy!

They sure are cute boys

Full Table

2009-05-07T21:46:00.000-07:00

Hannah is a student at NAU and a friend of ours through Joel and Jen Schuler at Hume (cousin of Joel) and we have become friends over the past two years while she's been here in Flagstaff. She's going to be staying at our house this summer and her parents and family came out for a visit and to bring her back to Bakersfield for the first week of her summer break. We had a BBQ with their family which made for quite a full table, but this is still minus the two oldest behind Hannah that didn't come on the trip. They have a total of nine kids, the youngest are twins, and we had a great time as their family is such a joy to be around.

Easter

2009-04-13T15:45:00.000-07:00

We had a good Easter that started in Tempe with Elisa's family and then we went down to Tucson with my family.

We made easter cookies that you leave overnight in the oven and when they are done in the morning they were hollow on the inside to represent the empty tomb.

Our little Gremlin:

Flying SB

2009-04-09T15:42:00.000-07:00

Matt and I made a trip to Santa Barbara to meet with the Showit team and discuss plans and direction. Matt got to do his longest flight in a Cessna 172 and it was quite the adventure, you can tell he was pretty excited :)

April Showers

2009-04-03T17:48:00.001-07:00

uploaded from my iPhone

Yikes!

Spa

2009-04-02T22:34:00.000-07:00

Well, the dream finally became a reality (and a little early on the agreement but I'm still finishing it off) on the last hour of the home show, got a great deal on a new Bullfrog Spa. From there it was a whirlwind with Matt and Joe helping to level an area, put in rock, and run the electricity. All is working well and the kids love it! We've been in the spa almost every day since we got it :)

Home Show

2009-03-27T14:26:00.001-07:00

uploaded from my iPhone

Joe, Matt and I are at the Flagstaff Home Show having a good time
meeting people and watching Joe paint.

Spinning

2009-03-10T19:49:00.000-07:00

More fun with the kids spinning them on the floor inspired by Matt doing this to his kids. Somehow they love it and keep asking me to do it again.

Cooper Performs

2009-03-05T07:03:00.000-08:00

Cooper has learned a few party tricks which he doesn't do too well when people are around but will do for just us so we took some video. He does a "Mad Face" and his "Funny Laugh", check them out:

Played Hard

2009-03-01T11:16:00.001-08:00

uploaded from my iPhone

We're leaving Oma and Opa's and the boys are a little wiped from
playing at the park in the valley heat.

Renaissance Festival

2009-02-28T13:11:00.001-08:00

uploaded from my iPhone

We came down to the valley for the Renaissance Festival today and
Kiefer loves all the knights and swords, but for some reason the tree
guy is his favorite and the one he remembers from last time.

WPPI

2009-02-21T12:19:00.000-08:00

This last week was a little crazy and I realized I haven't updated the blog, so in case anyone is wondering, Cooper is doing really well, the antibiotics, IV and oxygen did wonders did get him back to his full self and he was able to come home Sunday morning. Here he is on the recovery path as he had fun playing in the play room at the hospital.

I had planned on going to WPPI in Las Vegas and it was a little up in the air with how Cooper was doing, but once he was recovering well I decided to go ahead and go on the trip. It's a photography convention and we had planned to have all of our full time Showit crew come which is rare for all of us to be together since we all work remote. This meant we had people coming in from LA, Santa Barbara, Fresno, Mesa, Flagstaff, and Chicago.

It was great to have everyone in the same room and have a chance to go out to dinner and get to know each other outside of work. We had a couple suites in the MGM Signature and had set times throughout the day where we were meeting with customers and getting feedback and providing training. A couple of us even ventured to the top of the Stratosphere to try out their new rides. Jason did the X-Scream twice and here he is on the front of the ride while we were watching, it was crazy how they have this cart that hangs you off the building at almost 900 feet up and keeps sliding you forward and tilting you down.

We also did the Insanity which hangs you out over the edge and spins in circles until you are facing down while spinning, it was definitely insane.

We had a great time and even went and saw The Blue Man Group which was a great show and pretty entertaining. Another fun part was having Matt come along from Flagstaff as we had been talking to him about working for us managing some of the business operations and some sales for our company, so it was a good chance for him to meet the crew and see what we are all about (mainly having a good time). He plays the guitar and stole this one from one of the wandering mariachi players to show him how he's got better skills, I don't think the guy was too happy about that :)

Pneumonia

2009-02-13T14:19:00.001-08:00

uploaded from my iPhone

Cooper hasn't been feeling well so Elisa took him to the doctor and
they said he has an ear infection and pneumonia. We're in the ER now
and waiting for a room to open in the hospital so pray for the little
guy, isn't he so cute :)

More Snow

2009-02-08T06:28:00.001-08:00

uploaded from my iPhone

We woke up to about a half foot of fresh snow but rather than take
pictures of it, I think Cooper's expression while looking at it is
better!

Super Bowl Recap

2009-02-04T09:32:00.000-08:00

Well, we made it back to AZ after a long travel day on Monday. If you were watching the game and wondered if you saw us, in HD you could barely see us on field goals :)

It was such an exciting game and we had a great time cheering for the Cardinals, they almost pulled it off! I even got interviewed by Biff from Letterman, but it didn't make the final cut, oh well :(

The NFL Experience was pretty fun and Jon is definitely the one with the quarterback arm, but after knee surgery he couldn't kick so I was the winner in the field goal kick :)

Although Dad still throws a nice accurate spiral:

You can see more pictures from the weekend over on Flickr.

End Zone

2009-02-01T11:31:00.001-08:00

uploaded from my iPhone

We just walked into the stadium and our seats are awesome! We are
sitting 17 rows behind the "R" in Steelers and we are totally
excited! Notice Dad is down meeting people :)

Super Bowl Day

2009-02-01T05:28:00.000-08:00

Florida

2009-01-31T09:58:00.000-08:00

We flew into Orlando last night and drove down to Clearwater which is just south of Tampa to stay with the Burtons. Rhonda was Jon and my first grade teacher and we haven't seen her in probably 20 years but it's been so fun to reconnect. Her husband is Doug who was the worship pastor with my dad when he was the youth pastor at Redeemer so we have lots of old ties and it's been great catching up. Here we are on the beach having a good time, can't wait for the game:

Me - But Buff

2009-01-29T08:21:00.001-08:00

uploaded from my iPhone

Joe sketched this caricature of me for my birthday, but I think he exaggerated a bit on the muscles. It's probably because I beat him in arm wrestling so he's projecting how big I must be in order to be able to overcome his massive arm strength. As you can see, he captured that I am a ripped, Rock Bandin', Cardinals lovin', Showit t-shirt wearin', computer geek that's plugged into the Matrix. Yup, that pretty much says it all.

NFC Champions!

2009-01-18T22:30:00.001-08:00

My brother and I went to the Cardinals game today and it was insane, my throat is going to hurt for a week from all the screaming and my hands are practically bleeding from all the high fives. It was the loudest craziest event I've ever been at and it was amazing to see the Cardinals upset the Eagles and make it to their first Super Bowl ever! I got tickets on eBay and they were in the "Ring of Honor" which were amazing seats because they were at the bottom of the upper level without anyone in front or behind you so you could stand or sit without being in people's way (we stood pretty much the whole game). Here's a view of our seats before the game.

There were a ton of excited Cardinals fans with all kinds of costumes and painted faces, check out the guy that sat next to us.

The view of the game was fantastic, you could see the whole field really well and I think I liked these tickets more than some of the ones we have had in the lower levels.

My friend Josh drove down to the game with me from Flagstaff and my brother car pooled with Josh's friend Tom from East Mesa and they sat on the opposite side of the stadium.

We also had a great time meeting and celebrating with the Jeff and his dad who were the season ticket holders that sat next to us.

Flying Over Flagstaff

2009-01-17T10:36:00.000-08:00

My friend and business partner David Jay came to Flagstaff for a little visit this week and we both keep talking about learning to fly and getting our pilot's license. I also have a friend Matt who has his license and loves to fly so we called him up and asked if he wanted to go flying. He was awesome and arranged everything and took us on a flight over Flagstaff and Sedona that was so much fun. You can see three of us below:

It was funny to see all our random connections because Matt's mom is the midwife who delivered Cooper and his brother Josh married Kristin who Dave and I were friends with in college and Dave had done one of his first modeling photo shoots with her when he was just getting into photography. Anyway, you can see more pictures and video from the day here on SmugMug.

Sledding with Luke

2009-01-09T16:38:00.000-08:00

Luke came up to visit for a few days and caught a nice storm, so we headed out for a little more sledding on Monday. We went back to the big hill and it was looking pretty nice with one of the really steep runs ending in a big jump. I tried it out and actually landed on my feet, then Luke when full on and ended up backwards laid out horizontal mid air at least 5 feet off the ground to a solid drop on his back. He laid face down in the snow for a while not moving so I ran down the hill to check it out. He was sputtering and could barely breathe, then proceeded to blow chunks. It was a little scary and I thought we were headed to the emergency room, but he said he was fine and that he just had the wind knocked out of him. So we headed home and he's been a little sore all week but doing well, and now with that story check out the video of all our fun sledding clips:

The boys have been having a great time playing with Luke this week including rides on a towel and other fun games.

Playoffs

2009-01-04T11:49:00.001-08:00

Yesterday the Cardinals played their first home playoff game since 1947 and to support them we even got Cooper dressed in his new Cardinals romper he got for Christmas, he kind of already looks like a football player.

My Dad, brother and I returned to Cardinal's stadium yesterday to watch their first playoff game against the Falcons.

The atmosphere was intense and we all received towels at the entrance so the entire stadium was on their feet waving them for most of the game.

We sat in the corner in the 15th row, so they were great seats when the action was on that half of the field.

The roof was closed and it was so loud, it was crazy to see that many Cardinals fans after being a season ticket holder in the 90s when opposing teams always had the home field advantage :) This game the Cardinals definitely had the home field advantage and made it really tough on the Falcons' offense. The Cardinals won 30-24 and it was definitely a fun exciting game. We're rooting for the Eagles to win the next two and the Cardinals to win their next one so we can have one more playoff game in Phoenix, and then on to Tampa for the Super Bowl. A Cardinals fan can dream ;)

Sledding

2009-01-02T18:29:00.000-08:00

We did a bunch of sledding today in the backyard followed by sledding "the big hill" which was pretty fun. Check out the video for the action and a few of the pics below.

I piled snow down the stairs off the deck which made a great ramp and then Jon and I built a jump to make it a little more interesting.

Coop and Jace

2009-01-02T16:16:00.000-08:00

It's been fun having Jon and family here and Cooper and Jace are getting to be so cute playing together.

Cooper still isn't liking bath time :)

Tammy and Elisa decided to start a band, so here they are practicing.

Cardinals

2008-12-28T16:16:00.000-08:00

I went to the Cardinals vs Seahawks game with my brother and dad as part of my Christmas gift to them. We had great seats and it was fun to see the Cardinals win their last regular season game and go undefeated in their division. We decided to extend the fun by going to their first home playoff game since 1947 when they were the Chicago Cardinals so I'm pretty excited for that game this Saturday!

While I was down for the game, Cooper fell and hit his head and Elisa had to take him to the Emergency Room so now he's got a nice band aid on his forehead and will probably have a scar the next time you see him, poor little guy.

Christmas #5

2008-12-27T16:50:00.000-08:00

Elisa's parents and Anders and Emily then came up to the snow for us to spend some time together for Christmas. We had a white Christmas in Flagstaff with lots of snow and ice, here is Emily and Anders next to one of the massive icicles coming off our house.

Emily and Elisa made these awesome baked donuts for the morning.

Kiefer got some puppets and a stage from Oma and Opa, so Elisa and Anders put on a little puppet show for him in the afternoon.

He was so excited and did his typical squirmy-flappy hands.

Elisa, Emily and Oma did a sing along to Mama Mia which was pretty funny, notice my awesome new inflatable dear head mounted on the wall.

Christmas #4

2008-12-26T16:09:00.000-08:00

We drove back to Flagstaff on Christmas day and then woke up the day after Christmas to celebrate our own little Christmas where we gave gifts to each other. We also opened some gifts that had arrived in the mail from friends including some delicious cookies, some great books, and some candy pooping animals.

Christmas #3

2008-12-25T16:04:00.000-08:00

Our third Christmas was on Christmas day with the Watson clan. This includes the huge gift exchange with all the Watsons scheming and working to get the best gift, although it was adults only so Kiefer and Cooper just played and basically sat this one out :)

Cooper shocked by all the stealing of presents from grandparents.

In the end Grandpa scored this sweet hat.

Christmas #2

2008-12-24T22:45:00.000-08:00

Our second Christmas was on Christmas Eve at Elisa's uncle's house. It was a great time seeing her family and a great time for Kiefer and Cooper. They switched the "rules" this year and decided to get presents for only the grandkids, so with ours and then Brian and Vanessa's new son Robert being the only grandkids, they made out pretty well in the present department.

Cooper got this awesome Panda rocker, so fun!

Christmas #1

2008-12-23T16:23:00.000-08:00

My brother and his family also came down to Tucson on Saturday and Sunday for our whole family to have a time together.

Kiefer got a pitching machine from Uncle Jon and here is Grandpa teaching him how to keep his eye on the ball.

Elisa opened her present from me because I had it shipped to Tucson and I couldn't wait, so now she has a guitar and is learning how to play.

Cooper was a little sick and here he is hanging out with Grandma, who he then got sick so she didn't make it to the big Watson family get together.

Kiefer also got to make a gingerbread house with Grandma which he was pretty excited about.

Christmas Break

2008-12-20T14:06:00.000-08:00

This Christmas has been broken into a few different events over the week. We started off by going to my cousin Bre's wedding on Saturday and here she is walking down the aisle with her dad.

They also had this awesome Krispy Kreme wedding cake, yummy!

We then proceeded to Tucson to visit my parents. We met up with the Lundgrens who were also visiting parents and went to the Winterhaven neighborhood to look at lights.

The Kelleys

2008-12-19T14:08:00.000-08:00

Wow, I've taken a break from the computer which means I'm also way behind in the blog, so I'm posting a few to catch up. We headed down to the valley for a lot of our Christmas and on the way we stopped and visited with Scott and Amanda and their new baby Claire, she is so precious. It was fun to see them as I keep up with their blog and pictures of what they are doing, but seeing Claire in person was so fun because she is so cute and at a really great age. We had lunch at Fuddruckers and a great time visiting.

Sketch

2008-12-18T22:03:00.000-08:00

We love this awesome sketch Joe did of the boys for us for Christmas!

Charlie Brown Tree

2008-12-17T14:05:00.000-08:00

This tree didn't quite withstand the onslaught of snow, kind of reminds me of the Charlie Brown Christmas tree.

Snow!

2008-12-16T09:45:00.000-08:00

Well, it's coming down pretty good, it started on Saturday night and on Sunday I got to try out my new shovel! It's like pushing a lawn mower that gets heavier really fast but it worked really well.

We just got almost a foot last night and I'm about to try the shovel on this snow, don't think it's going to work because there is just so much snow!

Here is Kiefer and Cooper about to enjoy their first snow play of the season, Cooper did not like it and did not last more than two minutes whereas Kiefer played and played while I shoveled and shoveled.

And the results of all my shoveling was this blister on my sensitive "programmer hands".

I spent a lot of Saturday and Sunday cleaning out my office, I had boxes from Hume that were still just stacked and so I finally unpacked everything! Now that all the computers for building DVDs are down in Queen Creek I was able to clear out the office and it actually feels kind of cozy.

And here's one fun picture from the week, Cooper was on the stairs and just decided to lay down and relax, so cute.

Sumralls

2008-12-12T18:06:00.001-08:00

uploaded from my iPhone

My friend Luke who I have been friends with since high school came up
to Flagstaff yesterday and I hadn't seen him in three years. It's all
thanks to his sister Kristin who found me on Facebook of all places,
gotta love it! It turns out she was coming up to NAU for graduation
from her Masters program that she had completed via online and
correspondence courses and so Luke came up to see her graduate. It
was great to get a chance to catch up on Luke's world travels and we
went to her graduation and got to see their parents and had a great
time catching up. Luke is a beach bum so you can tell in this picture
he isn't enjoying the cold.

December!

2008-12-02T19:34:00.000-08:00

December is here and with it brings the cold. I love Cooper in this jacket that Kiefer got from the Schulers on his first birthday.

The Saturday after Thanksgiving was our time to get all the lights and decorations out and make the house more "Christmasy".

Cooper preferred to watch and liked the candy canes best.

We let Kiefer put the star on the tree and here is Elisa explaining the complexity of how the whole star thing works.

Attempt number 1:

Number 2:

Finally the ladder came out and we got it up there:

The finished front room.

December first marked the beginning of opening the advent calendar which is this awesome cabin filled with little clay sculptures that Aunt Emily made for each day of the month. They are so fantastic and Kiefer is so excited each morning to open the next one.

The first day started with Mary, isn't she great!

Train Park

2008-11-28T18:15:00.000-08:00

We went to the train park in Scottsdale for Black Friday with Oma and Opa and rode the mini train. Kiefer loved it and we also ran into the Tomiches who also had the same idea.

We had lunch with the Jays so we had a great time catching up with DJ, his parents and Jon and his wife.

Thanksgiving

2008-11-27T18:24:00.000-08:00

Today is Thanksgiving and here is what I am most thankful for:

I'm also pretty thankful for these two little boys:

We went to a big feast with about 30 people from my mom's side of the family and enjoyed a great meal. Cooper loved the fountain in the backyard and took a dive head first into the very small pool.

He loved it and kept trying to go back for more.

Here's Cooper and Jace, they are so cute together!

Mom did an activity with the kids making turkey looking cookies that turned out really cute.

Happy Hallowthanksmas

2008-11-27T09:36:00.001-08:00

uploaded from my iPhone

I saw this at Walmart and liked how they could combine three holidays
so that the decoration could last half the year, that's efficiency. A
pilgrim turkey Christmas tree with witch broom legs = AWESOME!

Lep Kuchen Day

2008-11-22T17:13:00.000-08:00

Today was Lep Kuchen day and we made two batches with the Davies who were visiting from Hume. New to this year, we let the batter sit for two weeks instead of one since we were traveling and Damon rolled the second batch out into one big area and cut it with a pizza cutter which went really fast. Here are some pics including the first bites and Cooper's first Lep Kuchen!

Elisa also made these fun snacks with the kids the next day that include a pretzel with a melted Rolo and a happy face cracker on top.

The kids also enjoyed some more fun taking the Thomas tent for a ride around the house.

And Connor tuckered out from all the fun:

MAX

2008-11-18T10:22:00.000-08:00

I'm at Adobe MAX in San Francisco which is a developer conference (or special guest Maria Shriver described it as looking like a Star Trek conference) and I'm here with the Showit guys. We spent the last week in Fresno and then at Hume but I don't have pics with me so I'll post them later. Anyway, here are some of the pics:

There were over 5 thousand people and the general session is huge with these wrap around screens. Here is the CEO of Adobe talking to the group.

Here's Nate with his brand new purse.

And here is my awesome swag including 8 shirts, two boxers, a free book, water bottle, software and all kinds of little toys. I won the book drawing in one session and got a golden ticket in another place so I had a pretty lucky day :)

Hume Visit

2008-11-16T19:29:00.000-08:00

I realized I posted these pictures on Facebook but forgot to put them on the blog, so here are some of the fun pictures from our visit to Fresno and Hume.

Bakersfield

2008-11-11T15:32:00.000-08:00

We headed out on our trip to California on Sunday which started with a stop in Bakersfield with the Simpsons. Cooper did great on the drive and even took two good naps, here he is in la la land:

We got to see Eroc and his new church The Bridge which just opened their new building and was AMAZING! Here we are standing in the youth building in "Discovery Field" which is decorated like a baseball field and includes fake grass which I thought was so cool. It was very different and fun to see that grass used indoors and even more fun to see what Eric and his family are up to these days.

Here we are with the family at breakfast watching the final video from the Sees since they have been sending Kiefer a video every day for the last 14 days counting down the days to our visit.

We are now in Clovis with the Sees having a great time but we found out that we missed the FIRST SNOW in Flagstaff. JT was staying at our house on Sunday night and took this photo in the morning. I'm sure it'll all be melted before we get home but Elisa was a little disappointed to miss it.

We're here in Clovis now and here is my view from the lazy-boy in Nate's office of Nate working at his desk. I guess he likes having a really tall desk that he can stand at, but when he wants to sit he has this stool which isn't tall enough, so he stacked some books on the stool. It's a little interesting to me, I'll take the reclining lazy-boy any day of the week.

We Voted!!!

2008-11-04T12:15:00.001-08:00

uploaded from my iPhone

We took the kids to the polls today and had no line at 10:30 AM which was great! Gotta love Flagstaff. I caught Kiefer here trying to copy Mom's answers but we told him he has to make his own decision.

Reformation Day

2008-11-01T12:19:00.000-07:00

We had a great Halloween, I mean Reformation Day, including a visit to Thorpe park for the city event, our church Fall Festival and about 7 houses of Trick or Treating that still had candy left. Note to self, everyone starts running out of candy by 8 pm so it was literally a ghost town in our neighborhood with no lights on and nobody answering their door. Kiefer dressed up like Bumblebee from the Transformers, Cooper was Tigger, Elisa was "Little Miss Scary" and I was a bull rider.

Crazy Hair

2008-10-26T20:02:00.001-07:00

uploaded from my iPhone

Cooper loves being upside down and it shows off how long his straight
hair is, time for a hair cut...

Dinosaur Cake

2008-10-26T10:32:00.000-07:00

Elisa's parents came to visit for the weekend so we had another birthday celebration with Kiefer including making a dinosaur cake. Kiefer had fun decorating it with Opa and it was a great weekend.

Kiefer is Four!!!

2008-10-23T18:17:00.000-07:00

I can't believe it but Kiefer turned four today, crazy. We had a lunch birthday party which was great fun. He loves dragons and knights right now so we got him a castle that he came downstairs to see this morning. At his party we did a little knight theme that turned out a little crazy but a lot of fun (and thankfully no one poked their eye out). Anyway, here's a quick slideshow of the day.

Fall Catchup

2008-10-20T13:30:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted in a bit so since I was working on Showit Web templates for an upcoming update I decided to use all the pictures from the last two weeks. It starts with an afternoon with the Cornelius' up to Lockett Meadow which is near the top of the peaks. The next day we took a family trip to the pumpkin patch but it was crazy cold and windy. We did the hay maze and scavenger hunt and got a pumpkin but that's about it. Then the week after my parents came for a visit and we had a great time with them beginning the celebration of Kiefer's fourth birthday!

Warning: There's a ton of pictures because I was trying to fill up the four minute song for the template. Also, the music does not match these pictures, it makes a fun time feel a little over dramatic. But hey, that's what you get when I'm working on a timing template for TJ Hill's awesome new music.

Tiny Dancer

2008-10-20T13:12:00.001-07:00

Cooper loves to dance and when he hears music he starts bopping. We caught him on video during the Veggie Tales theme song and it cracks me up because he bops so hard that he almost falls over a couple times. Enjoy!

Bro & Fam

2008-10-04T17:37:00.001-07:00

uploaded from my iPhone

My brother and his family are here visiting and we decided to go watch
a little NAU football action while Tammy watched the babies. It's fun
watching NAU where anything can happen including blocked field goals
and a fumbled punt in the end zone resulting in a touchdown.

Momless

2008-10-01T10:46:00.001-07:00

uploaded from my iPhone

Elisa left today with four other moms to go to the MOPS convention in
Texas so it's us three boys for the next 5 days. We had fun this
morning playing and Kiefer even built this cool house all by himself.
I'm getting a little help babysitting today and Jon and fam will be up
this weekend.

Jason & Kara

2008-09-27T23:28:00.001-07:00

uploaded from my iPhone

Jason (former summer staff at Hume and current Showit support guru) and Kara got married tonight and it was awesome! Most memorable moment: Kara was reading her vows to Jason and he gets a gushing bloody nose, tries to deal, finally leaves, the band does a song, Jason not back, father of bride starts to tell joke, Jason back, saved! It was a great evening and Elisa and I are having a great kidless weekend (thanks Oma and Opa!).

The awesome church:

The first dance at the reception:

Check out more pictures from the photographers Christopher Wren and Tira J.

The Circus

2008-09-18T23:08:00.000-07:00

The Circus was in town tonight so we headed over since the fairgrounds is right down the street. We met up with the Cornelius family and started out sitting in the stands which are way far back separated by a big asphalt area and then a patch of grass and then the horse track where the circus was setup.

We went walking down to check stuff out and realized a bunch of people were sitting in the grass right next to the fence really close, so we moved and had the most amazing close seats so we could see everything!

Here's a fuzzy picture of a black bear riding a scooter, if you cross your eyes and squint you can kind of see it, the bear is wearing a red collar.

Kiefer liked the dancing poodles and the black bears but by far he LOVED the motorcycles, he was giddy to the max with his pushing of the back of his hands into his mouth as he makes gurgling sounds. They somehow managed to get three dirt bikes into this circular cage and did all kinds of loops, crazy! Elisa could barely watch, I can't even imagine what an accident would look like inside of that ball but they did it perfect and came out unharmed.

The guy on the tight rope tried a back flip and fell off, but he was only about six feet up so he didn't get hurt and got back on and successfully did the back flip. We also got a family picture with the black bear, you had to pay for it and it's on a polaroid so I took a picture of it:

I forgot my camera so all these pics are from the phone, Joe had his camera that got much better pictures, so maybe I'll have part two if I ever get those.

Blackberries

2008-09-06T17:20:00.000-07:00

Joe and Christy told us there were blackberries in Oak Creek this weekend and the first thing I thought was, "Dude, I'm an iPhone guy!" but then I realized he meant the actual blackberries that you pick and eat (not the phones like the one Elisa inherited when I got an iPhone). They were camping there for the weekend but we decided to go this morning and pick blackberries and swim in the creek, maybe next time we'll have a tent and actually camp with them. The berries were amazing and it was quite fun to scout them out and pick them, especially since there were so many ripe ones! I carried Cooper in the backpack so I couldn't really get deep into the thorny bushes so I just enjoyed taking a bunch of pictures. Here is a slideshow of the day followed by a few of my favorites:

Nature Walk

2008-08-30T18:31:00.001-07:00

uploaded from my iPhone

I'm finally home after two and a half weeks on the road and I was so
ready to be back! We took today as a family day and just went driving
out of the city. We headed out past Snow Bowl and found a nice
walking trail that made a loop through an Aspen grove. We then had a
picnic, did some more driving and just enjoyed our time together as a
family. It's great to be home!

Kiefer is still learning a little about "presentation" when picking flowers for Mommy...

Boston

2008-08-26T15:44:00.001-07:00

uploaded from my iPhone

Well, I'm at my final stop in Boston and I fly home tomorrow, I can't
wait to see my family! The tour continues 5 more stops and Brett is
taking that leg of the trip. Boston setup had a little drama with our
projector breaking and we had to rent a projector last second because
our backup projector was on the bus which was parked 30 minutes away,
oh the fun!

New York

2008-08-25T11:07:00.000-07:00

We're in New York enjoying the very overpopulated city :) Our hotel is in a China town type area and when we arrived, the bus driver Jay and I went to find something to eat. We ended up going with Kebabs from this Afghani place which was pretty good.

The rest of the crew showed up the next day and we went down and got to see over-advertising in Time Square, it's crazy how many LED screens are packed in there, no need for street lights when it feels like daytime from the light of the screens.

Jasmine and JD are here along with Allie and DJ which makes Shyla and me the "third wheels" (Shyla is nice but I sure which Elisa was here for a triple date :) DJ took this picture and you'd think being some kind of pro he would have figured out how to keep his finger away from covering the lens.

We went to Jasmine's favorite dessert spot, "Serendipity 3" which makes a $1000 sundae, too bad you have to order 48 hours in advance, next time we'll plan ahead :)

This morning Jasmine, Allie and JD went running but it was pretty hot out so I just watched from the bus window as I drank my coffee.

Ohio

2008-08-22T19:39:00.001-07:00

uploaded from my iPhone

We stopped in Ohio on the way to New York because Shyla is shooting a wedding here and this is also where Crystal is recouping from achilles surgery. We had an awesome time with her and her great friends that run the Alive festival. The Midwest has been so welcoming and great, we definitely have some great stops for when we do a family cross country tour.

Indy

2008-08-21T18:33:00.001-07:00

uploaded from my iPhone

We're in Indianapolis and this is about all the view I'll see of it.
We rolled in at about 1PM and I was still sleeping in my coffin/bunk,
so I walked out, had lunch, started setting up, and we'll be leaving
right after the show. It was nice meeting you Indy :)

Mac Party

2008-08-20T16:00:00.001-07:00

uploaded from my iPhone

We're at the Barlow's enjoying the high speed interweb and it turned
into a Mac party. Don't tell anyone the guy on the end is running XP
on his Mac.

Chicago

2008-08-19T21:55:00.001-07:00

uploaded from my iPhone

We're in Chicago with a packed house, over 150 people and a great show!

Here's me at our table talking to some people about Showit stuff that Kenny Kim shot.

Swing

2008-08-17T22:53:00.000-07:00

Oma and Opa are up in Flagstaff visiting while I'm on the road and celebrating Cooper's birthday. Here are some fun pictures of them in the back yard with Cooper in his new swing he received from my parents for his birthday.

Kansas City

2008-08-17T21:15:00.000-07:00

We're in Kansas City where Paul our videographer is from and so his family hosted us for dinner at their house. Paul is one of 12 children, six boys and six girls, so with all of them there it is quite a full house! We had such a wonderful meal and such a great time enjoying midwest hospitality.

It was also the 10 year old Joseph's birthday so we celebrated with him.

After dinner we played a great game of volleyball and somehow it rained directly over me and on nobody else, weird?

And then later we played some table tennis in the basement and a pipe leaked on me, totally weird?

One of the boys caught a firefly which is the first firefly I have ever seen up close in person and below is a video we took of it once we put it in a water bottle:

Mural Time Lapse

2008-08-16T23:29:00.000-07:00

Joe is finishing up the mural in Kiefer's room but I figured I would post this time lapse of the first wall, it's pretty fun to watch.

Here are some of the other pictures of the walls as they are coming along.

MadCap

2008-08-15T21:20:00.001-07:00

uploaded from my iPhone

There is an Improv theater called MadCap right next to where we are at
so Shyla, Paul and I decided to hit the show. It's been pretty funny
and right away we volunteered Paul when they asked for volunteers :)

Cooper is One!

2008-08-15T14:12:00.000-07:00

Cooper turned one today but we celebrated his birthday on Saturday before I left so here are some pictures of our fun time giving him a cup cake and getting his awesome presents. Happy Birthday Cooper!

Kiefer was pretty excited to give Cooper the duck he picked out.

Denver

2008-08-14T18:25:00.000-07:00

Rather than posting pictures of the room, figured I would post some pictures of the bus while we are parked here in Denver. We had a great turn out here and will be staying through Saturday before we head out. The following is a tour of the bus, starting with the driver's seat which includes two GPS units and a couple monitors that show the view from the cameras on the outside of the bus used for changing lanes and backing up.

The copilot seat has a recliner and I claimed that as my coding chair :)

The front area has a living room area with two TVs and a fridge and kitchen.

The middle area has four bunk beds and mine is that top one. It has black out shades that really keep it dark in addition to doors on both sides that lock out that area and keep it pretty easy to sleep in no matter what time of day.

There are two toilets along with a pretty nice shower.

The back room has a big bed and its own TV.

Salt Lake

2008-08-13T19:48:00.001-07:00

uploaded from my iPhone

We're in Salt Lake tonight and here's my view of DJ from the table.
When the show is over tonight we're driving all night for the show in
Denver tomorrow. Sleeping on the bus has been pretty good, I'm
surprised I can actually get a good night sleep while we are driving.
I'll post more pics of the bus later...

Winnemucca

2008-08-12T23:54:00.000-07:00

We stopped in Winnemucca on the drive between San Francisco and Salt Lake, when we woke up there was basicly nothing but casinos because it's in Nevada. David Jay and I decided to find out where they had live Hold 'Em so we could test out our skills. We ended up at Winners casino and walked away losers :) It was fun to meet the locals who were all coal miners and played there most nights of the week.

San Francisco

2008-08-11T23:41:00.000-07:00

I'm in San Francisco and had a busy day today meeting with Smug Mug and then setting up for the workshop in the afternoon. Smug Mug is an awesome company and it was just amazing talking with them about how they got started and discussing ideas for possible partnerships.
It was also great to see Nate and Erin Sees who came all the way up from Fresno. This picture was of Nate and me being friendly old men manning the table.

Treehouse

2008-08-09T12:29:00.000-07:00

A few months back Elisa decided she wanted to paint Kiefer's room blue, I objected and said I would just rather leave it as is or do something cool, like have our friend Joe paint it. We decided to have Joe paint it and got on his calendar since he's pretty booked up. When time came to decide what we wanted on the wall, we had a hard time deciding, but after a little brainstorming decided to do a "treehouse in a rainforest" type theme so that it feels like you are in a bamboo treehouse looking out on a jungle and animals. Well, he started last week and it is looking awesome! I figured I would post pictures on the progress since I'll be on the road when he finishes but this first wall is looking amazing! Check it out.

Hail Storm

2008-08-08T15:09:00.000-07:00

We had a crazy hail storm sweep through here and poured blueberry-sized pellets that blanketed the ground so that it looked like it snowed in August!

Nice View

2008-08-06T18:45:00.001-07:00

uploaded from my iPhone

Joe is working on a mural in Kiefer's room and it is looking amazing! Cooper decided he wanted a better view so he climbed Joe's ladder all by himself, I guess we are going to need to watch him around more than just stairs! (Don't worry grandmas, I spotted him the whole way ;)

Sickie

2008-08-04T13:00:00.001-07:00

uploaded from my iPhone

Cooper isn't feeling so great this morning, but he sure is cuddly.

Free to Succeed Tour

2008-08-04T12:33:00.000-07:00

We went down to the valley this last weekend to catch the Free to Succeed tour bus as it passed through on its stop in Phoenix. We have been planning this tour for months and it has really been David Jay's vision, so it was fun to see it in action.

We went out to dinner on Saturday night and then the workshop was on Sunday evening. This was the fourth stop and so far we have had great responses from all of the cities.

The bus is heading to San Diego, LA, and then Santa Barbara next week and I'm flying out to San Francisco on Sunday and will be on the bus through Washington DC. Check out the tour website to keep updated, Nate did an awesome job designing this and the Tour Map is fantastic! I'll post more pictures of the inside of the bus once I'm riding :)

Grandma and Grandpa Here

2008-07-30T21:53:00.000-07:00

My parents came up to visit for a week to get away for their anniversary and see the grandkids. Cooper has been loving having them here, but especially Rusty to chase around.

And they brought Kiefer two big dinosaur floor puzzles, one that is a T-Rex almost as tall as Kiefer!

Cooper riding his new bulldozer from Grandma and Grandpa.

Haircut

2008-07-27T21:48:00.000-07:00

Well, Cooper finally got his first haircut. We were holding out because he has such cute straight baby hair but we were finally realizing we were "those parents" with the shaggy haired kid so we decided to clean him up.

He did ok but moved his head quite a bit which made it hard to cut, and we tried a couple different techniques so he wouldn't have the straight line bowl but it pretty much ended up looking like that. He kind of looks like a different kid now, weird.

Training Camp

2008-07-27T17:47:00.000-07:00

Kiefer and I went down to NAU today to watch the Cardinals practice during training camp.

There was quite a crowd and it was fun to see Leinart throw a few passes like the picture below.

As we were leaving, we ended up walking right past a few of the players that stopped and got a few pictures like Boldin...

But Kiefer had his eyes on other things, there was an AMBULANCE right there waiting in case someone got hurt.

Right now ambulances are Kiefer's favorite, especially because the ambulance "Ratchet" is his favorite Transformer and so Kiefer even goes by the nickname "Kieferatchet". That's the one toy he takes everywhere and when we tuck him in at night, that's the toy he's holding. Kiefer was so excited that they let him see the back and get inside and here is Kiefer with his new friends Pete and Stephanie.

Why Are We Beating Up Dora?

2008-07-26T11:42:00.001-07:00

uploaded from my iPhone

We went to Zoe's birthday and she had a Dora piñata but Kiefer was a little uncomfortable beating a girl with a bat so he mainly watched.

The horrifying results, I guess little girls named Dora are filled with candy!

Tat

2008-07-13T16:39:00.000-07:00

Kiefer got a cool Flagstaff Firefighter temporary tattoo from the fourth of July parade. Right here he's showing off his guns and asked us to take a picture to show Uncle Jon because that's his hero and he wants a tattoo just like him :)

Code Monkeys

2008-07-12T16:27:00.000-07:00

After a week with the Sees, Aaron came up from Mesa and Brett flew in from Santa Barbara for a coding push on our software Showit Sites. It was a productive week of very late nights and of course Sushi :) A couple of the days got warm in my office and the AC wasn't keeping up, so we went outside where it was nice and Elisa snapped this fun picture. It's cool to see three developers in a row with Mac laptops, the ironic part being that two of the three are running Windows as the OS!

The Sees

2008-07-08T16:05:00.000-07:00

The Sees came to visit right after we got back from San Diego and were with us for a week. Nate and I worked a bit but it was great for Elisa and Erin to get to be together and it meant that the kids kept each other occupied playing together.

We had fun going to the 4th of July parade and for some reason Kiefer didn't like keeping his pants on in the backyard?! ...

Portraits

2008-07-07T16:00:00.000-07:00

One day we decided to snap a ton of pictures and I decided to pick one of each kid to post.