Field Trip & Easter

It's been awhile so here's our last month's worth of activities.

No pictures to show for it, but we're a little more than 1/2 way through the soccer season. Cameron's team still has 2 "wins" while Kevin's team is now 1-1-3. After tying 3 of the first 4 games, they finally lost a game this last weekend. Kevin was awfully upset because the goals the other team scored were on him but, truthfully, he only had a chance of stopping one of them. The other 2 were shot from the outside and Kevin's defense left him hanging out to dry both times. He didn't have much of a chance. The week before he had his best game as goalie with several diving catches and he even punched one over the top. Of course, I missed it all because Cameron had a game at the same time across town. Win or lose though, these games are much more fun to watch than most of his games last year (they were in a lower ranked division) when they were beating their opponents 9 or 10 to 0.

Baseball is also getting some momentum around here. Kevin's team moved from the Christian league to the city league (bleh). His games start next month. Cameron's team is moving up to machine pitch this year. We'll start those games in May. For now we don't seem to have any free time as something, either games or practice, is going on every day.

Last week, Kevin's class took a field trip to Carlsbad Caverns. Here are a couple of pictures from that trip.

Kevin and his friend Gustavo.


The entrance to the caverns. Right about the place where it starts to get dark is where a stupid bird pooped on me. I might have blended in with my white shirt and not been too noticeable if not for the fact that my shirt was BLACK! Of course, the kids thoought it was hilarious.



This was one of our favorite formations. I believe it is called the Whale's Mouth. Looks more like a shark to me.



Just a cool stalagmite that spirals upward.



Oops! I lied. I had to include one soccer picture of Cameron. Here's the story. My boy likes to take his shinguards off in the car because he says they bother him. To do that, he has to remove his socks and shoes too. Anyone that has or had any small boys knows they tend to leave things where they lie until you make them pick it up. When it was time to get ready for the game last week, Cameron's socks were nowhere to be found. I found one of them in the car. My theory is that he left them both in there and knocked one out in a parking lot somewhere without realizing it. So for the last 2 games, Cam has been playing with one black sock and one of Kevin's old orange socks. I doubt he'll learn his lesson.

Ok, on to Easter!


Generic picture of the boys coloring eggs.



The Easter Bunny gave Kevin some Tech Decks (miniature skateboards). I just noticed something. Dana will kill me for this, but take a look at my lovely wife. You can tell it's waaay too early in the morning for her.


Cameron got a Legos Star Wars set.

I didn't get a good picture, but Cade got a little dump truck with Legos.


Hunting for eggs. Cade was actually pretty good at finding the hidden eggs.


Mad dash to collect more than the brothers.



This has nothing to do with Easter but I like this picture of Cade showing his muscles.



Cade walking Abbey around the yard.

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Here's the latest from the Reynolds clan:

We finally made time to go riding again last weekend. Kevin was riding more aggressively than usual and he looked pretty good. Too bad he's outgrown his bike.

Cameron was riding well too. What's with these boys all of a sudden? You'd think they would be more careful after not having ridden for so long.

Soccer is in full swing. Last week, Kevin's team tied 1-1 to a team they really should have beat. Today they won 5-0 against a team that was bigger and more physical than what they're used to playing. Kevin didn't score any goals but he had 3 really nice assists. His one shot at the goal was blocked but his teammate was able to run it in.

Cade was in a good mood during Cameron's game today. Cam's team won 14-5(!) and Cameron scored 5 goals. That's 2 wins in 3 games. They've already tied their win record for last season.

Check out dis grill, yo! Is this like anti-bling when you don't have any teeth instead of having gold caps and diamonds?

Here she is. I don't know what all the fuss is about her. She has 4 legs, floppy ears and a tail. Dana is just happy to have a female around the house. Her name is Abbey but I call her Betty - as in Ugly Betty. Just wait until she's fully grown. You'll see.

This is what happens when Kevin puts Cade to bed. They're both out cold. We wondered what was taking Kevin so long.

The Corn Syrup Incident

I meant to post this picture last time but I forgot. That's OK though because I think this is worthy of a entry of its own. What would you think if you walked into your pantry and saw this? I didn't know what to make of it at first but recent events made it pretty easy to figure out.

Here's the story. One evening after Kevin and I got home from running errands I walked into the kitchen and my feet immediately stuck to the floor. Grumbling, I took a wet paper towel and cleaned up the sticky area. Then noticed some more, and more, and more. Something was strung across the floor from the sink to the oven to the refrigerator to the trash can and back again. Dana denied knowing anything but I secretly accused her anyway. Cade was in bed asleep so it couldn't have been him and Cameron swore it wasn't him. So I cleaned and cleaned and cleaned until I thought I got it all but I still couldn't figure out what the mess was. That is, until the next morning when I opened the pantry and saw the corn syrup. As I took a step towards it, my foot stuck to the floor so bad I thought I pulled the skin off. I found two sizable puddles of sticky goo and some streaks down the wall. I also found part of a plastic cap that looked suspiciously like the corn syrup lid. So here's what I figured out. Cade used a popcorn can to stand on and inspect the shelves. Somehow, he was able to reach this bottle. Obviously he dropped it and broke the lid. Now the funny part. I figure he picked up the other half of the lid and threw it away. He also must have been running around in a panic trying to figure out how to hide what he'd done. That explains the trails back and forth across the kitchen. When he realized the lid was a no-go, he found the first suitable substitute, stuck it on and put the bottle back hoping no one would notice. Makes sense, doesn't it? Aside from the mess, I thought it was pretty cute and creative.

Back in Action

I tried posting these earlier but had trouble uploading the pictures. Oh well, it seems to be working now so here's our latest.



The Spring Soccer Season has begun. Kevin had the first week off. Cameron scored 2 in a crushing victory over the Pink Panthers. So what if it was an all girl's team? The Bad News Bears, er, Hurricanes will take a win any way they can get it.


Cade's protective gear for picking up blocks consists of an oven mitt and a spatula for the grill.


TV Buddies.



The sock monster (look closely at Cade's hand) caught and tackled Cameron.


Cade is learning how to ride his 2-wheeler. He'll be on a bicycle before we know it.


Gameboy buddies.



Check out these guns. Ahnuld has nothing on Cade.



Nor does he have anything on Cameron and his pythons.


Teddy wanted a ride and Cade was all too happy to oblige.

Here's a typical shot of Cade riding around the house on his 4-wheeler.

Random Photos

I know we're almost through January already, but I hope everyone had a happy new year. Things finally settled down around here and we're all back in our normal routines of work, school, soccer practice, etc. I don't have any excuses for not posting more pictures other than the fact that I've just been too lazy to do it. So here's a month's worth of photos.

Cade wants us to read to him all the time. He usually picks one of his Clifford books or this Barney book. I know them all by heart.

The idea here was to get a photo of me and my boys. We have a picture of Kevin and me about 7 years ago in a similar pose. This time we thought we'd include Cameron and Cade. The chaos began immediately. This was our best photo.

The trampoline had a little static electricity built up.

Cade has his chauffeur drive him around while he chats on the phone with his mom.

We went to Cloudcroft with our life group for another run on the hills before the snow melted. I thought Cameron looked cute in this photo.

I like photos like these too. Not really sure why.

I couldn't get one good shot of Kevin. It didn't matter which side of the trail I stood on because he always came down either facing away from me or he would be in the middle of a crash (facing away from me).

Just keep the camera on Cameron and you'll always get a good photo. Too bad I missed most of him in this one but I love his facial expression.

Proof that Kevin never came down the hill nice and straight. Here he's making sure Taylor goes down in flames with him.

Surprisingly, Dana didn't get on the sled this time.

Christmas!

Well, we hope you all had a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year (in about 5 1/2 hours as I write this). The photos below are more or less in chronological order.




Dana and I wrapped presents while the 2 older boys were in school. Cade was our official present put-under-the-tree-er and insisted he do each and every present. Dana moved them before this photo, but he had carefully stacked the presents on top of each other right up into, and on, the tree branches.



Cade and I visited the Santa in the mall a week or so before this photo was taken. Of course, I didn't get any pictures, but Cade walked right up to Santa, hugged him, and talked to him like an old friend. When I took all 3 boys to have breakfast with Santa, Cade wanted nothing to do with him and refused to get anywhere near him. Go figure.


We spent Christmas with Dana's family at Inlow this year. Follow along on my photo journal of the several days we spent there.


It snowed several inches the day before we got there. Cade loved playing in the snow. Here he is picking up snow balls and throwing them at me or in the fresh snow.



As you can imagine, all the kids were about to pop with all these unopened gifts around. The presents were sorted and stacked more times than I could count.



We spent a large portion of our Christmas Eve sledding down Ron's Suicide Run. The hill is about 30 miles long at about an 80 degree angle. Right about the time you break the sound barrier you launch off the dreaded Jar-Your-Bones Jump before crashing down 1/2 a mile later on Spinecrunching Slope. At least that's how I explain it. The kids didn't seem to think it was all that bad.



Kevin says his hand slipped off the handle on this one. I think he was just trying to pull a motocross inspired nac nac. Watch the video below to see how this one ended. You have to click on it twice to get it to play.











Here's a sequence from one of Cameron's better jumps. The look on his face was even better in another picture but it was blurry. This rather mild "Mommy!" look will have to do. I especially like the way he bends his legs backwards and flattens his nose on the sled on landing.



If you can't get a good shot of a good jump, get a shot of a good crash. Here's Kevin hitting the eject button.



Tyler jumped out of the track and almost took out Ron. I love the look on both their faces.



I'm not as flexible as Cameron. I also kept my head up. I thought I was going to die during the run on this video. Those trees got awfully close.






Speaking of nearly dying, check out these photos and video of Dana. She thought the sledding looked like fun so she wanted to try it. I told her to go on her stomach and use her arms to absorb the landing. I also told her to start from about half way up the hill. She didn't listen to any of my advice.


Dana also made her one and only run later in the afternoon when the sled run was getting faster and faster. Here she is at Mach 2 with her hair on fire. She looks just slightly nervous.

Fortunately, Dana couldn't hear everyone laughing because HER EAR WAS PACKED WITH SNOW!!!

Ah, here's a photo of me showing what a loving, supporting husband I am (I'm showing her the gnarly picture I got as she came off the jump). That isn't a smile of laughter on my face. No sir. That is pure grimacing. I was in pain after seeing my lovely wife crash. Watch the video and I'm sure you'll be in pain too. Everyone else just about wet their pants from laughing, er, from being so frightened.




Poor Dana dug a 5 foot trench with her face on that one.



Here's a nice photo from before "the incident". It would be the last time Dana smiled all day.



Ron says, "I'm getting too old for this."




It's hard to get a good photo with everyone smiling when you have this many people.




OK, so now it's Christmas morning. The Samp and Reynolds boys were all in one room and weren't allowed out until someone came to get them. As I approached the door (shortly after 6 am) I heard some muffled talking and movement. When I opened the door it was dead quiet. After a moment, I bellowed, "Rise and shine!" There was an immediate explosion of energy. I blocked the door while we waited for the Slugas to get up and the boys were about to pass out with anticipation. This was an unposed picture but I think it shows the excitement in that room.




Santa brought Cameron a new bike!




Kevin got that Ripstick he's been wanting!



Cade got a wagon! How did he fit all that in the sleigh and how the heck are we going to fit it in the Expedition to get it home?



Let the carnage begin!



It's amazing how easily some people are fooled by cubic zirconia.

We came home the day after Christmas. The boys had a few more presents to open when we got home. Kevin finally got that darn Xbox 360 and Cameron got a Nintendo Wii. Sheesh! Later that evening, my parents came over to exchange gifts. The gave us a new camera! I guess they were tired of us borrowing theirs. ;)