Another random pile of pictures

So here I am again after several months of neglecting this website, uploading a bunch of pictures at once and wondering what to say about them. It’s been a very busy summer, and we have so much going on in our lives right now it’s hard to decide where to start. So I think I’ll just type and see what happens.

Whiteman held an air show back in June. They didn’t do one last year, and with the economy in the crapper the way it has been coupled with free entrance, the turn out was .. large. It took me and the boys at least two hours to get from our house to the flight line on base where the air show was being held. We met up with Grandma and Grandpa LeBaige once we were at the show. It was fun, although I have to say I think I’ve been to enough air shows at this point that I’m losing interest. The boys were mostly bored with the whole ordeal too after an hour or so. Lesson learned for next time!

We had a nice 4th of July party with a ton of borderline legal fire works. I had no idea you could even buy explosives this powerful without a license. I wish I had taken some pictures now that I look back at it, but at the time I was too busy blowing things up and cooking food to think about it. I smoked a pork roast that that was about two hours over done. It was a bit .. chewy. I also made some red beans and rice and sweetened green beans that turned out well. We had some folks from work over and the turn our was decent. I think next year I’m going to be scaling the 4th of July plans down a bit though The clean up just isn’t worth it anymore!

Logan and Conner both went to boy scout camps with Erika in early July. I really need to go to one of these next year, they always look like a lot of fun. Personally I’d rather just take the boys camping myself but realistically we don’t have any other families up here we could really invite to go with us. And that’s half the fun of camping. Then again I seem to recall entertaining myself just fine when I was a kid no matter who was there. I’m considering a camping trip this September. Whether it happens or not depends on a few things that I’m working right now falling into place. It would certainly be a nice to just escape off into the woods for awhile.

I turned 32 in August. I suppose it’s somewhat obvious to say I’ve never felt older but it’s the truth. I’ve let my fitness routine slip and it’s starting to show. On the bright side I have quit smoking again. Chantix is a hell of a drug. You take it and you don’t want to smoke any more. There’s certainly a lot of bad press out there surrounding this medication, and I suppose there could be some merit to it. But for me all it did was make me not want to smoke. I’m going to try to refocus myself going forward and get back into some version of a better shape, before that shape becomes round. Exercise really is an amazing thing, and now that my lungs are going back to normal I’m looking forward to being able to use them properly again.

After years of harassment, the boys finally broke me down and I adopted a dog. His name is Jim. He is a mutt of some sort. I think he is at least partially Beauceron, a French herding dog. He probably also has some German Sheppard or something similar in him. He’s an amazingly well behaved dog, especially considering we found him in a shelter. He’s completely house broken, never barks, isn’t aggressive at all (even to the cats) and in general is just about the perfect temperament for us. Unfortunately he has been diagnosed with Heart Worms AND some tick born disease who’s name I can’t recall. We’re having him treated and it’s costing us a small fortunte but it’s worth it. The boys love him, I love him, and he loves us. What more could you ask for?

The long days of summer are just about over for us at this point. Logan and Conner go back to school in a week. So do I actually. We’ve got some big changes coming in other areas which I don’t really want to go into right now; suffice to say it’s a big year for the whole LeBaige clan. I’m looking forward to the future, but I’m apprehensive about it as well. Life doesn’t pull any punches, that’s for sure. More to come soon!

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Conner’s American Idol Debut

Ok, it’s not exactly American Idol yet, but it’s a start! For the last couple of months Conner has been in the honor choir at school. He came home every day singing some new song or another. He took to it much better than I thought he would, normally if it’s not watching TV or playing video games he’s just not all that interested. The choir had their concert finally the other day. Kudos to Ridge View Elementary for having mastered the art of making their various performances just long enough to be satisfying but still short enough not to bore you to tears. There are some videos in the video section as well.

We were supposed to get a huge snow storm today, but so far all it has done is rain. I was a little bummed as I wanted to pull up some old weeds and bushes out back, but gardening can wait for another day I guess. The end goal is to completely redo the back landscaping around the pool and under the deck like I did the stuff out in front of the house, i.e. put down some weed guard, rocks, and plant some low maintenance stuff that doesn’t require continual tending to. I love looking at the spring flowers and stuff but lets face it, there’s a reason old retired people tend to have the best gardens.

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There’s always the St. Louis Rams

As luck would have it, I ended up with two free tickets to the Kansas City Chiefs vs the Phoenix Cardinals pre-season football game the other day. Now, I’m not much of a football fan, but Conner is playing this year so I thought it would be a good opportunity for him to see what he was getting into. I would’ve liked to have brought Logan as well, but the darn tickets are normally almost a hundred bucks a piece. Logan definitely does not have a hundred dollars worth of interest in football. So off we went, just me and the boy.

All I can say is the Chiefs are pretty sorry. I’ve had at least one person describe the Cardinals as the most irrelevant team in the NFL short of the New York Jets, and even they have Favre now. The Chiefs managed to lose 17-27. I only know that because I read it on their website the next day. Conner and I were more than a bit bored and left around half time. Highlights included Conner hoping he would end up on the Jumbotron thing, some fireworks, and me trying to convince him to pose with the cheerleaders. I completely failed on that last count. Apparently cheerleaders are icky.

I uploaded a bunch of other stuff, including some videos of various things. As usual, click on the Recently Added Albums link on the right to see them. My personal favorite is Logan receiving an outdoor shower after refusing to use the indoor one. He hasn’t tried that particular stunt since then.

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New Orleans

We had a much needed vacation this weekend. There was a big concert down in New Orleans called Voodoo Fest that a few of our friends down in Arkansas were going to and when we found out who was playing we just had to go. There was a bit of a hick up at the last minute when I discovered the flight I scheduled a month prior was for 7PM and not 7AM. Oops. To make matters worse there were no other flights available. We sucked it up though and made the fourteen hour drive all night long so we could get there on time.

The concert was great, stock full of the usual hippies and other people from random walks of life you don’t normally run into when you’re in the military. We also spent some time in the French Quarter, which was much more laid back then the last time we were there. It was pretty eye opening just seeing the coastal area. It’s still in shambles from Katrina nearly two years later. And when I say shambles I don’t mean stuff lying around here and there, I mean there are still entire neighborhoods lying around in piles completely abandoned. We drove by what used to be an upscale coastal village of home on stilts on the north shore of Lake Pontatrain and the entire thing was just swept away. Not one house remained. It was humbling.

We spent way more money than I planned and spent way too much time driving, but had a blast all the same. I wish life let us get away more often like this. No wonder rich people’s children are so happy.

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NerdFest 2007

Every few years I get talked into going to the Kansas City Renaissance Festival. For the uninitiated, imagine an outdoors Star Wars convention populated by hippies and D&D players. You more or less wander around yee olde English Village watching shows, buying food, and shopping. The entire thing is a fund raiser for various not-for-profit organizations. When I was younger I was really into this sort of stuff. I’ve found these days I enjoy it mostly for the people watching opportunities, and the boys have fun so it works out. Much like any sort of themed gathering like this, some people come out dressed up. The level of sophistication in said dress up varies greatly. You have anything from very expensive looking period costumes that are truly impressive, to “elves” that appear to the untrained eye to be escapees from a pokemon convention, to teenagers wearing a sheet carrying around a light saber while they talk on their cell phone. There was even a Ghostbuster and a guy dressed like a taco. It’s an odd experience for sure. However, the beer stands serve Fat Tire, which made my day. Logan got some marbles from Uncle Don for his birthday. All things considered it was a good time.

Speaking of Logan’s birthday, he turned nine on the 4th of October. Nine. One more year and I’ll have a child in double digits. My God, he’s almost a teenager .. how did this happen? Riki organized an overnight party thing at a place here in town called “YES”. It’s a sports themed youth center. They had a big basketball court and batting cages as the main attractions. They also had a game room with a couple XBOX 360’s and a Nintendo Wii, which I have a feeling dominated most of the night. Logan purportedly stayed up until 3am, finally passing out on the couch. He had about four or five friends there, although only one actually stayed the night. Still, it was good enough for him. Riki bought him a little cheapo digital camera which he has been sneaking around the house taking stealth pictures of things with ever since. Maybe he’ll be a paparazzi reporter one day and can stalk the Brittney Spears of his generation! A father can only hope. We have a bunch of pictures from the party but I haven’t downloaded them off the camera yet so they’ll have to wait.

Fluffy has been replaced. We are now the proud owners of a baby rat named Brian. Not named after me mind you, but rather Logan’s uncle Miller. Thanks son! The thing is actually a great little pet so far, rats are very calm and people friendly. It will happily sit on a shoulder for hours. They’re very intelligent too, they can be liter trained and can be taught tricks. Some people even walk their rats around on leashes. We’re probably going to go back to the pet store later today and pick up another one as Brian seems somewhat lonely and everything I’ve read says they do much better in pairs. He appears to have a bit of a flea problem which isn’t surprising coming from a pet store. I’m going to need to talk to a vet and get a prescription for a product called Revolution. All the online rat forums claim it’s the bomb. Here’s to hoping this pet lasts a bit longer than the last one.

Finally, I upgraded a bit of software on the website. The picture gallery has a new feature called “Lightbox”. It’s basically a fancy way of displaying pictures, they pop up in a neat little overlay when you click on them. I’m not sure if I like it or not though, so please let me know if you have any problems with it.

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