Simple Randomness

Rollerblading!

I remember as a kid rollerblades were the hot thing to have.  I remember zipping around the neighborhood on them, playing roller hockey and all sorts of fun stuff.  In fact, I remember one year we went trick-or-treating on rollerblades and that was the year we got the most loot!

Has anyone noticed that you don’t see people on rollerblades as much anymore?  Well, now my wife and I are going to be some of those people that do have them!  Last week we decided to each get a pair of rollerblades.  This way instead of just going for a walk with the kids we can make it a little more fun.

In fact, if the weather holds out we’re planning on going rollerblading up the canyon tomorrow morning.  I’m excited to go, since I really haven’t done something like that since I was a teenager.  Hopefully I still remember some of my old ‘moves’ .

By the way, this picture is the actual blades that I got, and my wife got the girly version of them.  Pretty good price on them too!  I guess one good thing is that rollerblades are overall a lot cheaper now than they used to be!

My Parents Went to China!

So this last weekend my parents got back from their 2 week trip to China.  I haven’t been able to get all of the details from them yet, but it sounds like it was a really awesome trip.

I have to be honest: one place that I’d really love to go to sometime is Japan.  There’s just something about the Asian architecture and culture that I’ve always thought was pretty cool.  Maybe sometime I’ll make it over there, but I know it isn’t going to be any time soon.

My mom did say that the coolest thing that they saw there was the Great Wall.  That has to be an impressive thing to see.  So I guess in a sense I’m a little jealous, but not too much… I’ll make it sometime.

Kids Are Great…

One thing my wife and I agreed on this weekend is that my oldest son, who’s really only 2 1/2, is already showing a lot of qualities that he’s very much like me.  My wife even said that our other son is showing signs as well.  Here’s what she means:

• Both of them will randomly just think they’re really funny, but no one else is sure why…
• Our 2 year old could be happy in a locked phone booth with a broken phone, I’ve said the same of myself at times

Well, those are the only two that I can think of right now.  But really, kids are great.  We’re lucky to have two very happy little boys that are so cute with each other.  Our oldest son Brennen will walk up to our other son and say, “Oh hi Marshall!  Marshall’s awake!  Haha, Marshall funny!!!”  Then he’ll give him a kiss on the nose or something.

I have to admit that I’m really not very close to any of my brothers.  I’m sorta close to my younger sister, but all of this really makes me hope that my kids grow up as good friends and true brothers.  I don’t have much experience with that myself, so I’m hoping that we can teach our kids to be that way.

Baby Sleeping More Consistently

A week or two ago I wrote that my baby had slept through the night. Well, it turns out that was a fluke. But now he’s sleeping through the night much more consistently!

It’s amazing how much sleep really affects you, and I’ve found that I don’t really appreciate that until I don’t get as much! It’s true what they say that the first 3 months of having a new baby are the hardest. After that you get more sleep so you can better deal with everything else!

He’s a cute little guy though. Very smiley and happy, which also makes things a lot easier.

So anyway, that’s the baby update for today!

Really Cool Botanical Gardens

Ok, I have to first admit that I’m not an environmentalist in any way shape or form. But I really do appreciate the beauty of the planet that we live on. I enjoy a nice walk outside, going for a nice hike, or even walking through a well-designed and maintained garden.

Well, in Orange, Texas there is this place called Shangri La Gardens and Nature Center. It looks like a really cool place! The size of the place is pretty impressive with 252 acres and houses within that space over 300 different plant species. Being that I live basically in the desert, I always like seeing some of the plants that exist in other ecosystems. Admittedly, I’m a little sick of sagebrush! Maybe I should make a trip down to this place…

For those of you that are into the whole ‘green’ thing, you’ll find this place really cool, too. Shangri La Gardens and Nature Center was the 1st facility in Texas (and the 50th project worldwide) to earn the U.S. Green Building Council’s Platinum certification for LEED®-NC. This is the organization that verifies design and construction to see how ‘green’ it is. Shangri La reached the highest standards that they have. Nice work! So I hope that encourages all of you extra green people to want to check them out.

Another cool thing about this place is not just the plant life that they have, but the animal life as well. They have a heronry that is home to as many as 17 species of birds that nest there during various times of the year. And to give their visitors and up close look at these birds they have developed a state of the art bird blind. This would be great for the kids!

Sounds to me like this place would be great for a family outing. Check it out!

The Baby Slept All Night Long!!!

Last night was something to be remembered: our newborn (well, technically he’s over 2 months old now) actually slept through the night! Now admittedly he’s done this one other time, but I figured it was just a fluke. Now he’s done it twice, so I’m getting some hope that more normal nights are on the horizon!

For anyone that has never had a baby, I would have to say that the first month and a half to two months are probably the hardest. It gets really tiring when you have to get up every 2-3 hours to help your wife with the baby. Not fun. But after about 2 months things seem to normalize a little bit more.

Who knows, maybe sometime soon I’ll actually get a whole 3 days of normal sleep! Now that would be awesome!

We Got a Jogging Stroller!

Ok, so we really got this jogging stroller about a week ago, but I’m just now getting around to writing about it. We had been looking at getting one for some time, but needless to say with my wife having the baby and then gallbladder surgery it really wasn’t at the top of our priority list!

In fact, before she even got pregnant we had started jogging rather consistently and were even planning on doing a half marathon. Who knows, maybe we’ll pick up that idea again. I know I’d like to, but we’ll just have to see.

Honestly, I’ve never been much of a runner. I played soccer until I was 14 (then I almost tore my ACL and stopped after that season), and since that time I really didn’t enjoy jogging or running. But then when we started doing it last year I started to enjoy it again. I don’t know that I’d ever be a marathon type guy, but its nice to get out for a jog.

But to be honest, I enjoy thinks like rollerblading and biking even better! In fact, that’s probably the next thing my wife and I are going to go for. So there’s a random update for today!

New Baby and Power Outages…Adventure???

On Friday our new son was born, Marshall!  He was considerably smaller than our first kid (7lbs 12oz vs. 9lbs 1oz), so it’s been a little different that way.  But he’s a cutie and its been fun seeing the little guy become more and more alert to the things going on around him.

Last night was a bit of an adventure too!  Where we live we tend to get really high winds that will cause the power to flicker a little bit here and there.  But last night the power company had to do an emergency shut down to fix some broken equipment or something.  So the power was out from about 5:30pm to 12:30am.  I’m just glad that there are people that are willing to go work on the power when its really cold outside with winds whipping by at 40+ mph!

So that’s the adventures I’ve been having the last couple of days.  Happy Valentine’s Day everyone!

My Son is 2 Today!

Just a quick announcement that my little boy turns 2 today!  He is my only kid right now, and it’s crazy to think that my wife and I have been ‘parents’ for 2 years now.  My does time fly.  I’m sure all of the other parents out there will tell me that it just gets faster, and with all that has gone on in the last 2 years I can only imagine how fast it’s going to keep getting.

So Happy Birthday Brennen!!!