April 22, 2009
April 21, 2009
Grandparents Day
Sydney’s school held a special Grandparents Day today celebrating these old coots. Since Sydney’s Grandparents live 1000 miles away and I didn’t see an RV pull up this morning with them all, I figured I better attend and play substitute grandparent. This was a surprise for Sydney — I didn’t tell her I was going. Luckily, the first activity was recess. I can handle that one!
Then we went back inside for a performance!
I asked Sydney to give me a tour around the room and show me everything she uses to learn. Then we stopped by her desk for an action shot.
What’s a class without a great teacher? Smile, Mrs. Mees!
Since the grandparents couldn’t make it, I shot the whole thing on HD video. This is a big one. If you Internet connection is slow, I suggest that you hit play then pause it once it starts going. Go eat a snack then come back and it should be buffered and ready to go. Enjoy!
April 20, 2009
Follow Me
Sydney is always messing with my iPhone — games, typing notes, taking pictures. So I am going to try and put her to work documenting her own life. Not letting her write blog posts yet. That wouldn’t be pretty. However, I think she can handle some tweets. So come on over to Twitter and follow Sydney!
April 18, 2009
Wedding Dance Party
It has been a few years since Sydney was a flower girl. This wedding was Reagan’s turn. However, this allowed Sydney to spend her time socializing, getting dolled up and cutting a rug!
But that didn’t stop Sydney from constantly wanting to catch up with the bride, Lauren, for a photo.
When it was time for the Father/Daughter dance, we showed them what we had! All that practicing for years before bed.
Let the dance party begin!
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April 16, 2009
Cousins
For Sydney, one of the highlights of any Indiana trip is hanging out with Christian. They spent this day running around the yard for hours. Christian kept wanting to race Sydney all over the place. And Sydney is competitive and has been training a bit so Christian had his hands full.
The start!
Syd takes the lead.
Dirty tactics employed so the girl cannot win so easily.
The rest of the time was spent looking at the 5 day old baby kitties. These guys are Zelda’s new brothers and sisters. Their mom gets around. We took ZERO home.
April 15, 2009
How’s Mimi?
We are in Fort Wayne this week for a wedding on Saturday.
One of our first visits was with Mimi, the girl’s great grandmother. This is the only great grandparent the kids have remaining. It is great that they are able to spend sometime getting to know her.
The girls walked Mimi to dinner and were very interested in holding onto the walker and helping Mimi along.
We just let the camera roll for a while in her room to capture some of the visit.
Mimi Visit Spring 2009 from Brandon Fuller on Vimeo.
April 14, 2009
April 13, 2009
Show Off Day
The kids went to open gym a few weeks ago and were able to demonstrate their expertise for you.
Open Gym from Brandon Fuller on Vimeo.
April 12, 2009
Easter
The kids were up at 6 ready to find eggs. Good thing I told Mrs. Easter Bunny that the hiding must be done the night before. You can’t beat these kids to the door anymore. However, they had to locate their Easter baskets that were hidden in the house first. Gotta have something to put the eggs in!
Then it was outside for the egg hunt. Luckily, it wasn’t too cold so they were able to enjoy the hunt. There sure were a lot of eggs!
Can you feel the excitement?
Easter 2009 from Brandon Fuller on Vimeo.
After the eggs were collected, we headed to “the ranch” to enjoy an Easter buffet and other activities. We did this last year and the kids became the poster children for the event so we had to return. We had to do face painting and then hold any little critters we could.
Another egg hunt. You know what to do.
It was raining at this point so the fun level was decreasing. However, we still made our way to the the barn and saddled up for a quick ride.
Live action of the horse ride.
Horse Ride from Brandon Fuller on Vimeo.
I hope you enjoyed our Easter coverage. I am worn out.
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April 11, 2009
The Hunt Is On
These kids love their holidays. So does their Mother. We hit all the neighboring towns egg hunts today. The biggest and best one is always down in Fredrick. You better get there on time because it is over in about 3 minutes. Show us the loot!
Syd got so many eggs that they were getting hard to open.
Medic! We have opened too many Easter Eggs. We need a band-aid, stat!
Since it was a live action day, I opted to do more video of all the egg hunts. Plus, when we got home, there were presents in the mail as well. Who are they from?
Egg Hunt 2009 from Brandon Fuller on Vimeo.
April 10, 2009
April 7, 2009
Cowgirl
Sydney had a cowboy/cowgirl celebration at school today. Turns out this is the first dress down day of the year — we think. I don’t miss my days in private school.
A Training Run
So I am working and Syd comes in and says “When are you running today?”. Shortly. “I want to go today. I am ready.” She is all decked out in her racing outfit with a new addition of a matching pig hat. Ok!
On the other side of the block, she asked me which way was the longest. I showed her. She decided that she just wanted to do “medium” today. No problem. Later, I was just jogging and noticed she wasn’t next to me. Turned around and she was jogging in place really fast. What are you doing? “Look how fast I can run in place!”, she says. Oh god. That isn’t going to win race — or IQ tests.
WE went 0.67 miles with an elevation gain of 21 feet in 8 minutes, which is a moving pace of 13:16. View OUR full GPS data.
April 4, 2009
Spring Break, Colorado-Style
Kim and I blew the Spring Break budget this year on the Costa Rica trip. Plus we are headed to Indiana this month for a week for our nephew’s wedding. Hence, Spring Break 2009 was to be played out close to home. However, we figured with all the warm spring weather we could do some cabin camping to get away for a day. So we booked the cabin in advance and were all set to sit on the porch by the fire and enjoy the outdoors.
Attention: The National Weather Service has issued a severe weather watch tonight which might develop into a blizzard and make your camping trip more interesting than you thought.
Should we still go? Of course! So we traded in the regular supplies for winter ones and set off to the mountains. It didn’t look great up there from down here but by the time we arrived, the sun was shining and it was nice out. What were they talking about? Forecasters are famous of getting about half of the storms right here. A blizzard warning could mean you are stuck for days or it might mean you might need gloves. We decided to go on a shorty short hike around the campground.
Little Miss Kidney Failure thought this was a good idea too after a morning of fluids.
Sydney claims she is thirsty and we forgot her water bottle so she is going to improvise.
Welcome to our new home!
First order of business: Try out the beds!
From there, this is how we would see the kids for the rest of the day. Up and down. Up and down. You would have thought the bunk bed was the most magical thing ever!
Peep spent much of her time instructing Slothy the Sloth on how to climb the beds.
Only one accident when Sydney stepped on a rail that was a “spinner”. She fell a little and proceeded to cry and say she wanted to go home right now. Minutes before, she wanted to live here. I kept asking about no TV but that didn’t seem to matter.
And then it started to snow.
Nobody wanted to hike up the snowy road in the middle of the night to the bathrooms. So we brought the port-o-pot and set it up. It has a trash bag in the middle — not seen here. So everyone took turns doing #1s on the porch while enjoying the snowfall. #2s were forced to make the walk of shame to the real bathrooms.
That wasn’t so bad because there was fun stuff to do along the way. Like hang out in the kiddie cabin.
Sleep went so-so. Sydney was out. Reagan couldn’t seem to fall asleep. And then randomly started bawling and wanting our cat, Zelda. Reagan never thinks about Zelda at home but from her crying, you would think that she couldn’t live without her. She finally passed out. When we got up, there was more snow! Not a blizzard but some fresh base to play in.
Time to sled! Oh. No hills. Daddy! Pull!
I got my workout in! Sprinting around at 9100’ with 2 kids on a sled in knee deep snow is a pretty good workout.
Our checkout time had come so it was time to pack up and head back home. The allure of the cabin for the parents was that we could just pack a few things and drop in. No big setup required. The cabin fit the bill nicely. If you zoom in, you can see Reagan not smiling — she is catching snowflakes in her mouth.
Take me back to Zelda!
So we motored back home to civilization. Enjoy the video!
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