Just happen to have my iPhone 3Gs rolling when Warren Peters came in and put a good hit on the other team. And, in my opinion this was the game changer that put Grand Rapids on their heels and Texas scored the game winning goal shortly after this hit.

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To finish up the summer we took a couple of days and went to Sea World in San Antonio. Well, guess what? Krystal is now tall enough to ride the 2nd largest roller coaster, The Steel Eel. This is a pretty intense coaster and the largest one she has ever ridden on. She had a blast and at the end of the ride she made statements such as, My stomach felt funny, and my bottom came off the seat

This pic says it all… (Krystal is front left, next to the goober with his hands up that covered mommy’s face, while no fear big brother is behind Krystal )

We went to Okmulgee, Oklahoma for the 4th of July this summer and while staying Grandpa allowed us to “help” him burn his brush pile. Needless to say his brush pile was only about 10 feet tall and the fire was a little more intense than I expected. Enjoy this video preview

I took these picture on my iPhone since I got it in 2007. I was looking over the photos this evening and I just happened to notice how much both of them are growing…

Man, what a difference…

This weekend we went to Lake LBJ Yacht & Marina to try the water park. We were very pleased with the blow-ups on the water and the slides. The kids had a blast and they have a nice shaded patio next to the water for the parents to hang.

Ryan had a blast jumping off the trampoline to catapault Krystal in the air. Both of the kids struggled to get on the tall blow up mountain but they get to go more times this summer to build arm strength!

I guess it is that time, Ryan is now 11 and it is time for him to learn how to mow. This spring we started off with our yard and leanring how to go into a straight line. Uncle Mike A. was in town and got to see this comedy at the beginning of the spring.

He learned quickly and took care of the house.

Then one afternoon we saw the person mowing the yards in our neighborhood yards that are realtor maintained and Ryan asked us if he could see if he could mow those yards. We said, sure…

So off he went to go ask the realtor if he could mow the yards. Now near the end of the summer he has mowed 5 yards for the realtor.

Now for the ultimate in learning to mow Grandpa Whitlow took some time with him while we were in Oklahoma to show him how to work a riding mower. See the video below of that fun.

Spring is here!

Day after Easter and the weather is wonderful and the wind is just right for Krystal to fly a kite.

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This week is spring break for the kids. I was only able to take (1) day off from work this week and we wanted to do something special with the kids. I was looking online for stuff to do and ran across the Segway tours in Austin and thought, man that would be fun. I then looked at the site and it said that the kids had to be 12 years old. So, I tossed the idea aside.

Well, I told Jeanee about the idea and she performed her magic on the phone and talked to the company and found out that the 12 yr old statement on the web site was purely a guidance statement not a policy. So, we booked a tour for later on that day.

We went to the tour company in downtown Austin and went through the training class. Jeanee did the best on initial balancing and of course I did the worse. Ryan and Krystal both passed the initial driving test with ease. The Segways are amazing machines and can do so much. Once you get used to the balance aspect of the machine turning and shifting your weight to go backwards and forwards comes almost naturally.

So, off we go on our tour, we suddenly realized that we picked probably one of the worst days for 6th street to put a family of Segway newbies on the street. HELLO, it is St. Patty’s Day at 6pm during the SXSW festival. We made it off of 6th street just fine and the kids did fantastic controlling the Segway through lots of pedestrian traffic..

We stopped at the Capital building for some pictures and the guide let us go on the Segways a little bit, 12 MPH on a Segway is really fun! On the way back, 6th street was very crowded and we ended up having to stop a bunch on the sidewalk for pedestrians. We heard a few comments from the mis-informed about how they thought we should not be allowed on the sidewalk. The owner of the store educated us that Segways are sidewalk legal. At one point on the way back the group was split and Jeanee and the kids were around 100 feet and a stop light in front of me because of the volume of foot traffic.

But in the end we all made it back safely and had a AWESOME time.

…Pictures…

Yesterday was a big day for the kids as they got to go to the bank and open up their own bank accounts. Both Ryan & Krystal were amazed at how many questions they had to answer and the notebook of paperwork they took home. On the way home Krystal said, “Dad, do I have to read this legal agreement too?”. Of course I told her yes and then we all laughed.

Below are some good pics of the kids: