Another winter has come and gone. Not without a fight I might add, as evidenced by the nearly foot of snow we received just days before spring started. It’s all gone now though, things are turning green again and we’re all ready to get out of the house and start enjoying some global warming.

Logan made his transition from the Cub Scouts to the Boy Scouts about a month ago. He has a new uniform and a new troop and seems pretty excited so far. He’s going to be doing a ton of camping this summer with them which he is looking forward to. It’s odd seeing him with the group because he is so much younger than most of the boys, but they seem to be decent enough folk and I’m sure he’ll grow into it soon enough.

Logan and Conner have both started their baseball seasons as well. Conner has the same coach he had last year, who also happens to be his Cub Scout pack leader. He’s great with kids and seems to have just the right mix of patience and “coach voice” the keep the boys in check. Logan’s coach is a young airman from the base who has never done anything like this before so I suspect it’s going to be a bit rough going at first. He seems very enthusiastic though and it’ll be interesting to see how the kids react to him. I suspect he’s going to quickly discover that coaching and playing and two VERY different things. Coincidentally, both boys have practices on the same day at the same time every week, but in different locations. That should be an interesting juggling act.

Not much has changed for me personally. I have plans to go to a couple concerts this summer, make a trip to Arkansas, and put some more time in hiking and camping than I have the last few years. I’ve even thought about buying a hand held GPS device and fooling around with Geocaching a bit. Anything to get me off the couch and out of the house. It’s time to start using some of this free time I’ve found myself with, that’s for sure.

P.S. I posted a few new pictures albums .. Conner’s 9th birthday, a few pictures from my recent trip to a Kevin Smith Q&A in Kansas City, and some shots from Conner’s Pinewood Derby.

Logan and Conner have adjusted to their new surroundings pretty well. They do get a bit lonely over here as there aren’t many other kids in the neighborhood, but we’re finding ways to keep each other entertained. Having Jim around helps a lot, he’s quickly becoming best friends with Logan and Conner. It’s surprising how easily people become attached to a dog and vice versa. I can hardly imagine life without him now. Jim’s heart worm treatment went well. He’ll be going back to the vet in January to see if the worms are completely gone. We’re keeping our hopes up, both for him and for my wallet (vet fees are ridiculous!).

I uploaded a few videos of the house, as well as a photo album I took right after buying the place and some pictures from Logan’s 11th birthday. As usual, clicking on the “Recent Albums” link on the right side of the screen is the best way to find them.

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!

Things have been .. hectic around here lately. Without going into details, 2008 was a rough year, and 2009 isn’t shaping up to be much better. Hopefully it will all work out in the end, but who knows.

This will be a short update, as it’s hard to type with splints on both hands. I took leave last week so I could do some studying for my finals and get a bit of time away from work. The finals went all right, and the time off was very relaxing. So relaxing in fact, that I decided to use some of that fancy new economic stimulus money the President was kind enough to hand out to stimulate the economy down at Lowes. I dug up all the flowers / weeds that were growing in the flower beds on the front side of the house, planted some new bushes and a pine tree, and laid down some creek rock. No more weeds! Unfortunately it seems I also over worked my delicate wrists a bit. I’ve had really bad pain in both arms since then, and a weird grinding sensation that started a few days ago. It got to the point last night that I just couldn’t take it anymore, so I made a doctor’s appointment to have it checked out. The short version is I have a pretty nice case of De Quervain’s Tenosynovitis. The Air Forces solution? Slap on some splints and give me some “anti-inflammatory medication”, i.e. motrin. I don’t think I’ve ever walked out of an Air Force clinic without motrin. They really love the stuff.

There’s not much else is going on around here. The weather is finally warm enough that I think we’ll be opening up the pool here soon. Maybe this weekend if my little girl wrists can handle it. I uploaded a few albums of pictures that we had sitting around. If you click on the link I stuck up in the sidebar on the right called “Recently Added Albums” it will take you directly to a listing of the newest stuff, so no more fishing around looking for things.

Enough typing for now. I need to get one of those Steven Colbert wrist stong bracelets to show my solidarity for the wrist challenged out there. Together there is nothing we can’t do! As long as it doesn’t involve lifting anything over about five pounds.

I’ve been a bit remiss about this website. I know my two loyal viewers are probably pretty bummed about that. So here’s an update! I uploaded a few pictures we’ve taken in 2008 so far. Nothing ground breaking, just random bit and pieces from our daily life. There’s also a few pictures from a local college basketball game my father took me to. Yes, I’m aware most of the pictures are of cheerleaders. It’s not my fault, I have a new camera and was testing it out. Really.

It’s finally starting to warm up around here after a very long winter. I’m hoping the snow is past us, but I won’t feel confident of that until we make it out of March for good. Missouri weather is pretty unpredictable. That means the usual spring chaos is coming. Baseball (if the boys choose to do it this year) should not be too far off. I’m planning on digging up all the flower beds out front of the house and redoing them with some more aesthetic and less work intensive rocks and shrubs. The pool will need to be opened in the not too distant future, although if all goes well it will not be the monumental task it was last year. We really should have a garage sale at some point to clear some clutter out of the basement. There is a huge patch of dead grass out front that I have a feeling is parasite related and is going to need to be dealt with. Erika is creeping ever closer to finishing her degree, and I’m back in classes now. And of course Whiteman has a full plate of work in my future. I’d like to sneak in a trip down south at some point too, although I’m not entirely sure how that is going to happen given the schedule coming.

I’ll leave it at that for now. Perhaps I can finally do what I’ve been telling myself to do since I made this website and use it regularly, instead of just uploading pictures every few months and telling everyone “we’re still alive!”. I wouldn’t get your hopes up though!

We woke up this morning to more bad news. Logan found his guinea pig Fluffy dead in his cage. He seems to have passed some time over the night. We’re not sure what happened, I have to assume he was sick but it’s very hard to tell. He wasn’t displaying any symptoms and had no visible injuries. From what I’ve read guinea pigs are a prey animal, and instinctively hide signs of illness or pain to discourage potential predators.

Logan got Fluffy last year while I was in Korea still. He was his eight birthday present. He was about one year old, and was his first real pet. He was heart broken but took it pretty well all things considered. We buried him out back under the deck this morning. Logan left him a goodbye note which we buried with him, along with some of the grass he liked to play in and some of his favorite food.

Logan desperately wants a new pig but I think I might wait a bit on that to give him a chance to think about it. We loved the little guy very much but he did require a lot of care and I’m worried if we get another one it will just meet the same end. We’ll see how he feels in a week or two.

In other news I uploaded a bunch of pictures from 2007, and a few videos. Check them out of you’re interested, they’re mostly kid related but there’s a few others tossed in.

Three weeks ago, Conner’s gerbils (BJ and John .. don’t ask, we had an unfortunate gender mix up at the time of purchase) had their first baby. It was tiny, hairless, and resembled nothing so much as a jelly bean with legs. He named it Chewy. Conner was absolutely delighted, and who wouldn’t be at that age? His pets were producing more pets! A potentially endless supply of pets! Interestingly enough, I was a bit dismayed for the exact same reason; an endless supply of pets.

We read all about raising baby gerbils on the internet. How to feed the parents while they are child rearing (high protein and plenty of water). When to wean them (around four weeks). How to make sure they are safe (take all the extra stuff out of the cage). Sadly, the last one didn’t quite get followed as diligently as it should have, and it appears Chewy paid the price for our mistake. Conner found him dead in the corner of his cage yesterday afternoon. We suspect foul play on the part of the hollow coconut the gerbils use as a little shelter. If I had to guess I would say he got stuck between it and the aquarium glass. It’s a shame too, as he was very healthy and his parents were taking excellent care of him. He had a full coat of brown fur and had recently opened his eyes for the first time.

Conner was devastated. He told us he could not go on in life without his Chewy. He begged him to come back, please come back! He’s never really dealt with death before so it was all very hard on him. Fortunately he mostly forgot about it about a half hour later and was back to his usual mischief. The gerbils were also very upset, I don’t think they really realized what happened and were searching desperately for their little son. As it turns out gerbils have a memory just slightly longer than Conner’s, and they seem to be back to normal now as well.

It was a very sad day. Give it a few weeks though, and mother nature will fix everything when the next batch of little jelly beans comes along.

Life .. lemons .. lemonade. Yada yada yada.

I’ve been trying to keep a positive outlook on this move to Missouri ever since I got orders to Korea two years ago. We requested it. We wanted to get out of Arkansas and it’s horrible school systems. We wanted to be closer to family as they get older. We wanted to buy a home. Personally, I wanted to get back to a base that I remembered as a good if not challenging work environment. All these things, we now have.

Unfortunately, as has become a reoccurring theme in my life, I failed to properly take into account the things I was giving up. A family friendly work schedule that didn’t rob my weekends and free time day after day, month after month. A state with so much natural beauty and potential for the stuff we enjoy doing that it seemed nearly limitless. And most importantly, a good group of friends that cannot really be replaced.

I have to say, I’m not enjoying things much right now. I feel trapped up here. I miss having a social life. Neither one of us has really met anybody we’ve clicked with. I’m starting to wonder if I’m just too old to make new friends at this point.

I’m rapidly getting sick of working as much as I have been, with no payoff. Not making tech this year was a real blow to my motivation factor, and I have nobody to blame but myself for not studying harder.

Riki and me really need to get away from here for awhile and just have some “fun” time, but every attempt some how gets thwarted. It’s so dang frustrating, and in the end there’s nothing you can really do about it but say “oh well, we’ll try again another time”. In the mean time life continues to tick on by. Grr.

There’s an awesome concert down in New Orleans that I would just about kill to go to but it’s not going to happen because of child care issues. I’ve been wanting to see one of the bands that’s going to be there for the last fifteen years. Why can’t children just be placed in stasis or something for a weekend? A big freezer perhaps? I’m sure we could some how incorporate laser beams and make it super high tech and safe. Wouldn’t that be a money making bonanza.

Oh well. Time to go to work.

We went to a concert up at War Memorial Park in Kansas City last weekend .. a little thing called Rockfest. It’s a fairly large festival thrown on by one of the local radio stations, an all day sort of thing with a bunch of different bands. Now, I guess it’s a sign of my ever advancing age that I really couldn’t tell you much of anything about who was playing. Honestly I didn’t know who a good portion of them were, and I don’t listen to the ones I did know really. I guess I’ve mellowed over the years. However, the atmosphere itself was a blast. There were 40,000+ in attendance and it went on for about twelve hours. I made the mistake of wearing sandals and came home minus a toe nail. Riki crowd surfed. It was wild. We’re both battered, bruised, and worn out. And I’m sure we’ll be going again next year. Unfortunately the pictures were taken on a disposable as there was no way I was going to bring anything of value to that mad house. I stuck in a couple I found over on the 98.9 The Rock website as well.

The summer has been going well, work has slowed down a bit which is a nice change. I started the graveyard shift last week and am still adjusting to my new nocturnal schedule. The boys are in summer school for the next month or so and seem to be enjoying themselves. We’ve been working feverishly to get our pool cleaned up and ready to use and I think from the looks of it this weekend might be the one. Pools are expensive and annoying! Hopefully this is a one time thing and I won’t have to go through process this every year, the previous owners left us a pretty big mess in there.

I uploaded a bunch of other pictures from this year, they’re all in the 2007 folder if you’re interested. I know I’ve neglected this site lately and unfortunately it’s probably not going to get much better, time is just very hard to come by anymore. I hope everyone is enjoying their summer!