Happy Birthday, Nikki!

But I don't have any pictures from this weekend of her. :( Our camera's battery died and I didn't bring the back up. So, others have pictures, but not me.

Instead, I do have a description of what we did. Saturday was Nikki's 4th Birthday party. She had a beach theme and it was cute. There was 3 pools, the largest was 2.5' deep, the smallest was about 24" in diameter and about 4 inches deep. Guess what pool Keagan, Cassidy, and Raegen went in? :) Oh, I wish I had a picture of it.

Nikki got lots of gifts. Shannon, Jenette, Chris, and I got her Kids of Catan. I want to know how it works out. It looks pretty good.

Here are some pictures of Keagan, looking cute.


She's stylin' in a Student's t-rex onesie. :)


She likes to chew on things and drool and suck. Things like pacifiers, her hands, her clothes, Shannon's fingers. Like this:

Meeting 37 People

Last Tuesday Shannon and I took Keagan on her first long trip. We drove through Wichita to Garden City. Driving time was about 7 hours. And she was good for all but 30 minutes of those 7 hours. She got hungry but we were close to my mom's so we just drove through.

So what did we do? Well, Tuesday we left around 3:00 and ate dinner with Mom, Jayme, Maria, Charles, and Nikki at Hanger One Steakhouse. It wasn't bad. The knives to cut the steak sucked a lot, though. After dinner, we headed to Garden City. We got there around 2:00 am and met Gary, Michelle, Jenette, Chris, and Cassidy at IHOP. That is significant because Michelle got back from England the day before. We hadn't seen her in about 6 months. And it was the first time we got to meet Cassidy! She is a cutie! (Number of people met: 4)


Wednesday we went to a funeral reception for one of Rhonda's friend's father. We knew him also from church and hockey. It was nice to see people we havn't seen in a long time (and some I've never met before). (Number of people met: 5 + 4 = 9)


We did a lot of hanging out. We had food, watched World Cup soccer, did some shopping at Sam's Club, played games, went on a walk to a garage sale, and other such things. My mom worked in Dodge City last week, but had a hotel in Garden City. So, she spent the evening hanging out with us too. :)


Friday, Grandma and Grandpa in Lakewood came down! They brought with Randy, Jonathan, and Major (Randy's beagle). That was awesome! So they ate dinner with us and and hung out on Friday too. (Number of people met: 4 + 9 = 13)


Then Saturday was the main event, Grandma Fuller's 91st birthday party. We went to her house around noon and were there till around 11:00pm.


There were a lot of people there! I'm not going to try listing them all, but Rhonda and all her kids and their families were there (1+1+3+3 = 8 people), Marsha and all of her kids and their families were there (2 + 6 + 3 + 10 = 21 people), Grandma Fuller, my Mom, some of the Dick family (3 + 1 + 1 = 5 people), and a bunch of Grandma's friends that I don't know! So, there were about 40-50 people? (Number of people met: 21 + random + 13 = 37)


We had lots of food and cake. More games were played. And I got to meet Mason! He is a cutie.


We put together the pirate kite that we got from Newgen a while ago and tried to fly that. The kite is sweet, but the wind was not good enough for us to fly it very well. Shannon got it up a few times, but it wouldn't stay up long.


We had a party of people go out to fly it and had some come out to Grandma's driveway to watch also.


Then Sunday (yesterday) we did our last day of hanging out. It was Father's Day and we had two first time dad's with us, Shannon and Chris, and 3 other father's too (Grandpa Dick, Gary, and Kevin). So we ate at Lone Star and they did a great job this time. Which means it will likely suck next time, that's how they roll. But it was really nice to eat a meal with everyone (there were 15 of us there).


I'm so glad that I am a part of two great families and that these two families basically act like one big family. I am very lucky to have been close to my mom's family growing up. It stinks that we are so far apart now, but I always feel loved by them and going back to see them never feels like I'm a foreigner. And now, I have Shannon's family to be a part of (and have for the last 9ish years). They are all great people, too!

I'm glad Keagan gets to have so many great family members!

Easter Weekend with Mom

I never take enough pictures to actually show-off my weekends.

But this past weekend, my mom came down for Easter. We had fondue Friday night and then woke up around 11:00 on Saturday. That day was full of more food, looking at Lowes for grills, playing games, and dying Easter eggs.


In an effort to make a purple egg, we ended up making a crazy black egg. It turned to blue spotted as it dried.
The Sunday, we chilled and looked at bbq grill reviews. Shannon's birthday is this coming weekend, and Mom wanted to get him a gift. So, we were looking to get him a grill. We originally were considering this Char-Griller Duo but decided against it. Instead of spending 300$ on one grill that does charcoal and gas both at an average to below-average level, we decided to just get a better gas grill for less, and then invest in another charcoal grill later, if our little baby isn't good enough.

So we did some researching via Consumer Reports and watched some videos on fireboxes that melt down and delicious looking steaks. That was it, we decided to buy a Grill Master for 200$ and then get some steaks. And that made our Easter dinner! Steaks, potatoes, salad, and grilled veggies. Yummy.

Happy Birthday to Me!

Yesterday actually. But still, a happy time none-the-less.

As I'm sure you've heard before, we celebrate birthdays in our household with week of festivities! Well, the festivities are usually just the giving of gifts, but it's happy still.

This year, Shannon found me some super awesome stuff that I didn't' even know I wanted (well some of it). I got new shoes, cute little face stickers (see above lamp shade), a scrolling LED belt buckle (sweet!), the expansion to Pandemic ri(On the Brink), a Broncos scarf, a dinosaur t-shirt, a frickin' sweet staple free stapler, and a lego-type desk calendar.

And if that isn't enough, he said more is coming, it just shipped rather late. Right now, I totally love the staple free stapler. The idea is amazing!

Proto-Hagus

Lookie whose home and on the computer! Here are some pictures of what I've been up to.

There was Thanksgiving with Mom, Jayme, Maria, Charles, Nikki, Tommy, and Shannon.


Then there was Thanksgiving at Rhoda's with about 17 other people.


The following weekend, Shannon and I returned to Wichita for the Trans Siberian Orchestra concert. Awesome.

The next day (which was 3 days after my mom's 50th birthday), Jayme, Maria, and I threw a surprise birthday party for Mom. At Laser Quest. Yes. That was awesome. Mom had no idea and everyone (almost 30 people) seemed to have a good time. Jayme made some foods, Maria got some drinks, and I brought the cake (with 50 candles). It was great fun and Laser Quest has their show organized. I mean, there were I think 3 parties going on and it never got annoying. Plus everything ran on time and was fun! Not to mention that Wichita's Laser Quest is the best laser tag I've been too. I've also visited one in Olathe and one in Colorado Springs.

Mr. Doctor

Happy Birthday, Nikki! Jayme made funfetti cupcakes into groovy flowers. It was cute and Atari didn't eat them!


Maria, being the girly-girl, bought Nikki kids make-up. Nikki loved it and looked very pink, because everything was pink.


Shannon and I found a neat little wooden veggie/fruit cutting set. She seemed to enjoy it. "I cut." And then she'd cut. :)

Lumpy Party

This past weekend my niece turned 2. Jayme threw her a good party on Sunday and then Shannon and I drove home. Nikki took a nice fall out of one of her new birthday chairs and slammed her head into the bricks for the fireplace (which can be seen above). She has a nice lump behind her left ear. She hit hard and cried hard. But after she realized everyone loved her and that she would be okay (about 3 minutes) she stopped crying and played with a different toy.

8.517

Yesterday Shannon and I went to Central Tag Agency to get our new Oklahoma license plate. Here in Oklahoma the process is taken care of by private agencies, not by the DMV. It was an annoying long and stupid process. We do now have an Oklahoma plate, but I will not claim to be from Oklahoma. I simply live here now. I would probably have to say I'm from Kansas, although I lived in Pennsylvania about as long. I made a lot of really big life changes in Kansas (college and marriage).

In other Oklahoma news, the sales tax down where Shannon and I live is 8.517%. That is a lot and I don't really know what it's used for...

And for some cute news... Happy 2nd Birthday Nikki!

1800 Square Feet

This last weekend Mom, Jayme, and Nicki came up for Jayme and Maria's birthdays. Went out to eat a few times, sat around and played the Wii a bit, and saw Matt's house. Matt (Maria's boyfriend) has been building himself his first house. I think that is really cool. He and some buddies work on it, about all the time. This was the first time I got to see it. It's not done, but there is a lot of it done. Here is a picture Maria took of them laying some tile in the kitchen. When we saw it on Sunday, the cabinets were up in the kitchen too.

Matt is on the left with his dog Zeus next to him.

On Sunday we ate at La Fiesta for dinner. Yummy quesadillas there! Nicki ate some lemon and it was rather entertaining to watch her. She appears to like it though. She throws a few smiles in there between the silly faces.

Happy 21st!

Yesterday was my little sister Maria's 21st birthday. (I would post a link to her blog, but she hasn't posted in about a year.) She isn't really that young anymore. She is still little though. So, Happy Birthday Maria!

Food and Games

Shannon has been giving me many fun things for my birthday week. So far I've gotten nifty-gifty "The Office" pens, Big Brain Academy, blueberry almond oatmeal, yellow curry rice mix, asparagus risotto mix, My Sims, dark angels green paint, and a garlic press.

Now some of it is just stuff we needed/ran out of. But some of it is purely fun! The two games are very fun to play and I have put in about about 11 hours between the two since Monday evening.

School on the other hand, has been rather hard. We have a really nasty STAT 860 test on Wednesday that was last Wednesday moved to Friday moved to Monday moved to Wednesday. Jeepers. I just want to get it over with.

Oh, and the weather has been real nice lately. It's cooling off and raining a bunch. We have finally had reasons to make soup and our new Hot Apple Cider Tea. That stuff is good.

To New Jersey and Back

I went to New Jersey to visit may family about a week ago. It was great fun! Everyone looks really good and seems pretty happy. I finally got to meet my cousin's son, Tommy. He's a pretty cool kid. He's almost 2, and a cutie.


My cousins threw a birthday party for Nicole. That was cute. Half-way though singing to her, she started to "sing" with us.


My grandpa looks good. My cousin Kat is having a baby boy in about 2 months. She looks pregnant, but good.


It was a good time. I have a lot of pictures from it, but my internet connection is quite slow so the pictures are taking forever to upload.