Friday, November 24, 2006

The Grand Illumination, Downtown Chattanooga

Thanksgiving was fast. Polly cooked. We ate. We were thankful. Polly went to work. I had the kids the rest of the day. She....was thankful. HA.

No pictures worth putting on here for the day though, because we were a little rushed and the pictures ...way to forced. So, instead of showing the backs of people’s heads and the kids watching Blues Clues, here is what we did over the weekend.

We went downtown to see the Grand Illumination Ceremony.

So, the whole "illumination" spectacle was basically this. There are stairs that lead 100 feet or so down to the Tennessee River.









All of the republicans or "have mores’" as Bush Jr. calls them, dress their yachts up as Christmas floats. Here are some pictures of this..































Right about here is where Jonathan started to get ornery. When he gets like this, he's been known to BOLT! So we headed back up before he did a cannonball into the river.You will notice that I got a couple of pictures of Valerie on here as well. This as about as rare as seeing a Gray-crowned Rosy Finch doing a back flip in Antarctica. No, I don't know allot about birds. I do however, have Google..

After we got topside, we went over to check out the nativity scene. Here, there was a shepherd handing out candy canes. Jacob somehow managed to get a hold of one in record time. Jonathan was unable to snag one and he was adamantly screaming it into my face....so, in the spirit of good discipline I trumped his behavior by fetching him one. I have a feeling the guy playing the shepherd kind of wanted to be somewhere else. I mean his peers were playing Joseph, Mary and the wise men and he was doling out candy for cripes sake! Anyway, I snagged one...situation averted..











After the nativity scene we kind of just.. ended up in the right place. We weren't all to sure where we were supposed to be. We only knew there was some big spectacle with allot of lighting and so forth that most probably took place toward the end.

So, we followed the crowd and ended up right slap in the middle. Santa was on stage firing up the crowd and then this happened..

































Here are more Finches. Not of the Grey Crowned family mind you. These are Robert Finches. So far as I know they are not endangered and the one on the far right can do a summersault. They followed us through the whole thing. I think they wanted Jonathans candy cane.


(From left Chris, Carston, Robert, Calen, )
And while unawares...Valerie.






That's all Folks.

Baby Pasko!

I do have some pictures of Thanksgiving to put on here. I will be getting to that on Saturday. For now...check out Teresa's new blog for Baby Pasko. I just got off the phone with her and added the link to the page (upper left, Baby Pasko!).


I'll get the Thanksgiving pictures on here soon..

Sunday, November 19, 2006

Coolidge Park - Downtown Chattanooga

Here are the videos we took at Cooledge Park over the weekend. It's my first try at video editing so ...lets just say it's raw. Hopefully I'll get better at the Steven Speilburg-ology or ITS BACK TO PICTUR TAKING!


Coolidge Park, Downtown Chattanooga - Part I



Coolidge Park, Downtown Chattanooga - Part II


Sunday, November 12, 2006

Blast from the past.

Here are a couple of older videos..

Calen, Jacob and Jonathan at Chris and Roberts house - 2005





Christmas 2005


Cooking out.

We do alot of cooking out. The boys are big fans of th'e "setup". They get their chairs, they get outside... they sit...setup complete..."MOVING ON"! Here I'll show you...



Now scroll down to see them in action.....post "setup period"















TRAITORS!!!

The Bean Bouncer

Here are some videos of the boys in the bean bouncer. Actually it is a video of Jacob in the bean bouncer. Johnathan, while nearabouts, was unable to attend on account of he is officially against ANYTHING his father asks him to do! If it means missing out on a little fun...SO BE IT!!!





Saturday, November 11, 2006

A Tennessee Coffee Table



In Tennessee, we have a different approach to furniature.

Here are some really bad pictures of Valerie and the boys. I KNOW there is a good setting for indoor pictures ... but I dont read manuals. In fact I would rather just take bad pictures than submit to reading that freakin thing. Drives Polly crazy...but I have my pride...

I was going to take some video of them playing, but by the time I got all set up with the camera...BEDLAM. Polly yelling at Valerie to stop pulling the sides....jake screaming for Jonathan to give him the soccer ball....Jonathan screaming at Jake...and me yelling at everyone to be happy for 5 FREAKIN SECONDS SO I CAN TAKE A MOVIE AND SHOW WHAT A GREAT FAMILY WE ARE!!! NOW SHUT UP AND HAVE FUN!







Saturday, November 04, 2006

October 31st, 2006. The Real Deal!

October 31st, 2006:

We've been to the Enchanted Maze of Corn. We've been to the Fantasy Maze of Hay. We have even gotten our picture taken at the "picture taking place" to make things official. We have practiced and our skills our pollished... Halloween baby! This is the real deal.

At this point the kids are pro's at the candy gig.

Even there concentration levels seem to be elevated. There is absolutely nothing that would sto........ooh, look a spider!.....














We decided to take them around our neighborhood this year. It was nice to have a neighborhood to go around in. This time last year....well for those of you who know...it wasn't exactly easy in the fixer upper....to say the least.





................................i know your in there lady.....i see the tv on. How bout you bring the ceramic bowl of candy over to the door and we call it an evening......













.....your going to have to do better than a WalMart scarecrow on bench to scare me away folks....Oh, and I saw the 2 for $5 pumpkins on display as well, so don't think I'm falling for the haunted pumpkin bit...I'm here for the tootsie roll.








...yes were elephants....no we don't like peanuts...and yes we have great memories ....so NO WISECRACKS!












Here we have Jacob. He's starting to get tired and his pumpkin is getting full. At this point were asking them if they want to go on...Jacob mumbled something like ...."i can go for day's...DAYS...im telling you..."









We'll have you know that we are NOT tired.....our dad just likes picking us up.













PAYDIRT!!!!!














Tomorrow we are going to trade in the Maxima for a pickup truck. If for no other reason, but to get all the hey off the front porch. At the time of this posting is actually Nov 4th and the neighbors have somehow found the time to clean up all the halloween decorations from their yards.

We will NOT be the "Christmas lights in July" people....I can promise you that.

So, yeah we're getting a pickup.