We're Back!

For some reason beyond my understanding, I haven't been able to log onto our blog for awhile.  I think it had something to do with Google taking over the blogspot site (and the world).

I've probably forgotten all the funny stories that have happened these last few months so I'm going solely on what memory is jogged by the pictures.

I remember this!  Kevin caught his first real fish.  He'd actually caught another fish twice many years ago in NM.  And I really mean another fish twice.  It was a small catfish that we threw back only to have Kevin catch it again a few minutes later.  I chucked it much harder that time and never saw it again.  Other than that, Kevin never had much luck.  He did catch one other small fish the first year we were here but it was hardly big enough to fight.  Not only did catching this whopper make up for all that but it turned poor Hunter (photobombing in the background) green with envy.  Kevin used Hunter's pole and bait and even rode with Hunter to the pond. 

Easter was quiet this year with just the 5 of us. Well, quiet in a relative term. It's never really quiet with these boys.

 Dana got to join Cade in his class' Easter Egg Hunt this year.  As a side note, Cade's teacher, in the yellow shirt, retired at the end of the year.  She taught for 20-something years and retired immediately after having Cade in her class.  Coincidence?

Egg coloring! 

Cameron combined two holidays to make a vampire egg.

Kevin going for plaid.

The annual family picture which inevitably leads to a fight.

You're never too old to hunt for Easter eggs.  A word of advice though, don't hide camouflaged eggs.  They tend to disappear and forgotten.  Just yesterday (7/15) I found one under a bush.  A colony of ants appeared to have made their home in it and were enjoying what I believe was at one time Starbust candies.

Time for a Moto Update

 Cade seriously outgrew the PW and is now on the KTM.  Rides it pretty well, too.

Cameron airing it out on his 65.  He seems to enjoy riding the most of the 3 boys and he certainly gets our money's worth when we go to the track.

 Who says old dudes can't learn new tricks?  This near-geezer finally got the nerve to huck one of the triple jumps!  Moments later, some twerp on an 85 whipped it sideways over the other triple making me seriously consider t-boning him with all my might.  (But I couldn't catch him.)

Kevin didn't go riding that day because the he's way outgrown his 85.  Poor boy needs a bigger bike.

 Cam and Cade wanted to work on something.  Never passing up the opportunity to encourage a new generation of gear heads, I had them take apart their old bicycle and showed them how to remove the brakes from the hub. 

Soccer season finally ended!  Kevin's middle school team, who was expected to bomb this year after all the talent went to HS, made it to the Northern Alabama championship round.  They went toe-to-toe with the other team and lost in a close game.  Very proud of those boys.

 Candid shot of the kids waiting for their game.  Kevin's on top.

 Because of his size, we moved Cade up to the 7-8 year old league.  You'd never know he was so young as he played right with those kids and even scored.

 Undefeated!

(Mostly because of the little Mexican kid on the lower right - but still, it's a team sport)

 My littlest buddy and me

 Somewhere along the line, Cameron turned into a bad little soccer dude.  Here, he just powned #6 who pretty much ran over the rest of our team. 

And in April, Cameron turned 11!  As the middle child, he just seems to sneak up on us.

Dana made his favorite "cake" to celebrate.  It's actually ice cream sandwiches with crushed Butterfingers on top.  His dinner location of choice was... McDonald's.

 

This was taken by one of the ponds in our neighborhood as the sun was going down.  I really like this picture. 

Cell Phone Picture Dump

I finally got around to downloading the pictures on my cell phone so just like the old days where it would take months to get film developed these pictures are a bit outdated.  But that's ok.  I still like 'em.

We had a lot* of snow last year and Cade spent every minute he possibly could out in it.  No hill was too small to slide down.   This is a small rise behind our house that provided hours of fun.

*Don't laugh, Kansas!  It was a lot for us.

Happily eating a chunk of snow bigger than his head.  The best part of the snow was it gave Dana a reason to break out her totally 80s snow gear.  Tragically, she isn't wearing her pastel green jacket, purple goggles or pink headband in this picture.  If she was, I'm sure blue eyeshadow would have made an appearance too. Totally!



I might have posted a smiliar picture of Cade dressed for his pre-school graduation but he looked so darn cute I'm doing it again.

Cross eyed pictures are always fun to take.

You never knew Cade had a mullet, did you?  Or maybe Dana was sitting right behind him and I fluffed her hair over his.  Nah, I'll stick with the mullet story.

My littlest MXer.

 And my former wrestler before his first ever match.  He's in the stance and in the zone!  Dang he was cute.

Showing the big guns after getting his first pin and earning his first medal.

I just realized my camera takes better pictures than I was giving it credit for.  Maybe I should use it more often!

1st quarter of 2012

Sooooo, I'm not doing such a good job of keeping up on the blog anymore. I still blame it on the iPad. Anyway, here's a quarterly update on the happenings in Athens, AL. The pictures are a little out of order but I don't feel like fighting with the blog anymore so deal with it.

Our tree is even rinky dinkier than it looks in this picture. We've always wanted to buy a live tree and plant it in the yard after Christmas to enjoy for years to come. We found out the hard way it's quite expensive, difficult to handle, and you're not supposed to have it indoors for more than a week. We bought ours the day after Thanksgiving. I don't have a picture of it right now but imagine this tree in our yard and totally orange. Like dead orange. I'm not sure it's gonna make it.

Christmas morning!!! Spoiled Kevin got the Foosball table and the other two spoiled boys each got a Nintendo 3DS from Santa. I think back to my first hand held games and how cool they were. Kids nowadays wouldn't give them a second glance.

Cameron couldn't help but "reorganize" the presents every day or two. I think he secretly untaped the edge on some of his presents and peeked when no one was looking.

Cameron and Cade also got these nifty electric scooters. These, along with the foosball table, are one of the few non-game gifts that the kids actually use on a regular basis. Score one for Mike and Dana!

On the last day of the year, Dana traded our beloved Expedition in on a new-to-us Explorer. This sucker has everything under the sun including the park assists where it parallel parks itself! I'm way too much of a cheapskate to normally buy something like that but we got a good deal on it and, most importantly, Dana absolutely loves it.



Here we are in the church pew waiting for Cade's basketball awards ceremony. More on that later. I looked over and all 3 of my family members had their faces buried in some kind of electronic device. Just like in the commercials but worse! Am I the only one who still interacts with the real world around me?


Dana and the boys bought this recordable book for me for Christmas. They each took turns reading a page. You can tell by the doofy look on my face that I'm enjoying listening to it. What a great Christmas present.


The boys checking the contents of their stockings on Christmas morning. Notice their new Christmas pajamas that they received the night before.

Sort-of-annual picture of the boys with the sleigh and reindeer. This might be the last year Cade sits in the sleigh.

We tried to take a nice family picture but with 5 people it's next to impossible to get a good one. After 30 poses and 1200 pictures, this was about the best we got.

Cade's Valentine card box. Dana got the inspiration from Pinterest. Pretty cool if you ask me.

And playing for the Bulls, #14, Caaaaaaadddddeeeee Reynolds! (Audience roars)

Cade had no problem getting the rebound most of the time. Being the tallest kid on the court didn't hurt.

We had some excitement of a different kind in early March when a tornado came through our neighborhood. Our house was mostly spared, the pickup not so much. As of this writing, we're still working with the insurance to get the holes in our roof repaired.

Kevin is on the school's soccer team again this year. He's looking more like a young man than a little boy.

Speaking of Kevin, we recently discovered he's basically blind in his left eye. Not really, but his vision is 20/200 so his brain has quit using it. He had been complaining of not being able to see so we got his eyes checked and that's when they found that. He now has a contact (for his good eye) and we're pursuing a second opinion on trying to improve his left eye. The optometrist says there's nothing that can be done and it's something they would have had to catch when he was a toddler to have any hope. We don't understand why it wasn't caught 4 years ago when he first started complaining and ended up getting glasses - which he never wore.

Other than that, all is well. Cameron and Cade are playing soccer for the city league and their games start the week after Easter. Dana is substituting for the pre-school at our church on a somewhat regular basis. She really seems to be enjoying it. She has also become a Pinterest freak and has made some pretty neat crafty things (and food!) I'll try to catch up on pictures soon but no guarantees. That is, unless I can figure out how to do it with the iPad so I don't have to walk all the way from the couch to the computer desk.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year, everyone!

I realized after my last post that I left off a couple of pictures that I meant to include so I'll start with those. Go with me back to October.

I like this one. Too bad Cameron has his slightly frowny face on.

And I really like this one. Looks like a gang of white boy bullies. "Whatchoo say? Me and my posse gonna shut yo mouf!" Ok, I know that doesn't fit with the whitey appearance but they look like bruisers nonetheless.

And I have to include a picture of their Halloween costumes. Except, a day or two later, Dana and I realized we didn't even take a picture of Cameron or Kevin. We're terrible parents! This was Cade before heading off to school. Apparently, he didn't think it was scary enough so he fell off a scooter in PE and split his chin open. We took him to the ER where he got 4 stitches. Then it was right back to school because he didn't want to miss his party. Dude never shed a tear through the entire ordeal.

Cameron was a reaper this year (comlete with black mask and flashing eyes!) and Kevin insisted on buying a new scary mask that he refused to believe looked almost exactly like the one we bought for him last year. Kevin took off with some friends so we never saw him that night and Cam hit a few houses then came back home to help me scare more kids. We had a blast! The best one was a girl trying to figure out if I was real (I also have a reaper costume). She didn't see mini-me walk up behind her. Screamed when I moved, turned around to run and screamed as she met Cameron face-to-face. Ah! Fun times. Lots of other terrified people too that I could go on and on about. If you don't make the kids coming to your house work for the candy, I highly recommend you start.

I don't remember much about November. Kevin's soccer team narrowly missed qualifying for the state cup as the #1 team. When tournament time rolled around, they floundered and just couldn't get it together and lost their first (and only) 3 games. Just like that, our soccer season was over.

We spent Thanksgiving home alone again this year. That sounds sad when I write that but it's really ok. We had a great day together. Dana made a fabulous meal and we played a family game of soccer in our neighbor's yard (it's flatter than ours) before watching the Dallas Cowboys stomp their way to another victory.

And then, the big news for the month... Kevin got his first girlfriend. She'd been strongly hinting and came just short of telling him to ask her out but he resisted for reasons known only to him. And then, like women always do to us poor, susceptible men, she got her way. She's a really sweet girl and hit around our house.

See? This is Madison and Cade at Kevin's band concert. Notice Cade's right arm. I said "a hit" not "hit on", Cade.

All 3 boys had a Christmas performance of some kind in December. Kevin's band concert was first.

See that eye in the center of the picture? This was the best view I got of Kevin playing his sax. Good lookin' kid, he is.


Cameron's school had a Christmas play. Here's Cameron and his buddy Ally after they finished singing.


Cade was an elf and a darn cute one at that!


At the North Pole. Cade really liked his costume so he wore it for pajamas and around the house for several days after the play. We had to pay for it so why not?

We went on a limb this year (get it? ha ha ha!) and bought a live tree. Dana has always wanted to buy one so we can plant it after Christmas and watch it grow. Turns out, it's pretty darn expensive and quite the pain to put in the house. We emptied out a toybox and stuck it in that to hold it. We used a Christmasy tablecloth to cover the whole thing. After getting it home, I read on the internet that you shouldn't have a live tree in your home for more than a week because the roots will start to grow. Oops! We bought it the day after Thanksgiving. I'm gonna be upset if it dies on us.

Our best Christmas present this year is one we got a week early. Mom had a company meeting to attend in TN the weekend before Christmas. We drove up to spend the weekend with them, then brought them to our house to visit for a couple of days. While we were in TN, they treated us to a day at Dollywood. It's like a mini-Disneyland except a lot colder. We'll be sure to dress warmer next time.

I didn't take many pictures since it got dark shortly after we got there. I wasn't trying to be fancy with this shot, it just turned out that way. The place was decked out in Christmas lights. Absolutely beautiful.

For the record, Dana, Kevin and Cameron tried to kill me on a roller coaster. Twice.

The next day, before leaving Pigeon Forge, we stopped at a go kart track to scratch that full throttle itch.

Trash talking before the big race.

Cade and I were handicapped with the only 2 seater car (read - slowest). Kevin and Cameron drove like wrecking balls. Pa hung out with us for a couple of laps then split to chase the others. It was so fun, we turned around and did it again.

Reynolds Family