Baby Gronseth

Tribute to Chili Dog

2011-07-17T22:18:00.014-05:00

Yesterday we said goodbye to a precious, beloved member of our family – Chili. Chili had a heat stroke while running with Susie, and it took him quickly. He was doing what he loved – running, riding in the back of the truck, and being with his “pack” when his time on Earth concluded. We have shed many tears since last night and have appreciated the words of encouragement and prayers that so many friends and family members have extended our way. We thought we had much more time with Chili; he had just turned eight years old and seemed to be in great health. This post is a tribute to “Chilidog”, the loyal, patient, loving, honest, and warm-hearted member of the Gronseth household. We would like to share some memories about and pictures of our canine friend from the past eight years.

This memoir will definitely have a bit of a rambling feel. Both of us have been working on this throughout the day, passing the computer back and forth when we think of things to say. So the grammar might not be pristine, the third and first person will go in and out, and the flow will be choppy at times, but this has been extremely therapeutic for us, and we hope you appreciate a few stories about a true candidate for the title “man’s best friend.”

Chili is from Magnolia, Texas, a small town just north of Houston. He was the largest of his litter and the gentlest. We both read The Art of Raising a Puppy by the Monks of New Skete prior to searching for a dog, and the book provided much guidance as to how to determine if a dog will likely be successful as a family pet. The book suggested several quick “tests” that we did on prospective puppies to observe their levels of aggressiveness, pain tolerance, and trust of humans. Though it was hard to walk away from other litters that had very cute dogs, we waited until we found Chili, because he passed all of these tests with flying colors.

Chili was born Memorial Day weekend of 2003. We located him through a local flyer, and he was actually on “special.” His mother was a family pet that had been bred with a stud, but there were no papers available to prove that he was full-blooded golden retriever. He certainly had the look and temperament of a golden, and not having papers on him was never an issue with us, though we often joked that he was part “hound” due to the prominent white spot on his chest. Purchasing Chili was by far one of the best ways we’ve ever spent $150.

When Matt spoke on the phone with the mother dog’s owner, he asked if there were any females available, since they tend to be gentler in temperament. The breeder mentioned that he had one male that he really wanted to keep, but he told his little girl she could pick the puppy they would keep and she wanted the cute little runt. When we showed up to see the litter, Chili came bounding over stomach-deep grass straight to us, and there never really was much of a decision after that. We ran him through some of the tests we’d read about, but we’d have taken him even if he failed one of them.

As we drove home with him, we talked about how “chilled out” he was – how relaxed he was with us, riding contently in our laps. So, we decided to name him “Chili,” and it stuck. We are goofy with names sometimes, making up silly nicknames and songs that go along with the nicknames. One of our nicknames for Chili came to be “Chili-rico” (as in the Spanish word rico for “rich”). We often walked around the house chanting, “Chili-rico” then two short claps and three long claps (like at a baseball game), “Rico suave” then two short claps and three long claps, “Chili-doggie” then two short claps and three long claps. It was so fun to see Chili get excited when we’d say his name or sing one of the silly songs that we had made up.

Chili was Susie’s first experience with having a dog. When we got Chili, we had just bought our first house, and it was in the south part of Houston where Matt was working as a plant engineer for Air Liquide. Here’s a picture of Chili as a puppy, and you can see that he was playful and full of energy.

One of Matt’s early memories of Susie and Chili was leaving for work the day after we’d picked him up. Susie and Chili were sitting on the front sidewalk kind of looking at each other, both with a look that said, “What the heck do we do now?” Chili was about 7.5 lbs. at the time, his collar was still too big, and the shackle on his leash weighed his head down, but they managed to make it halfway down the block before Susie had to carry him back home.

Susie was doing educational technology consulting at the time and was home three weeks every month. This meant that Susie and Chili had lots of bonding time during his first two years. Going on runs was something that Chili really seemed to look forward to, and Susie and Chili ran together quite often during his entire life (even when she was pregnant). Though it was heartbreaking to have to say goodbye to him yesterday, we find it interesting that he went out running. When we lived in Houston, we often met at a park between our house and the plant for lunch. There was a bit of distance between the parking area and the picnic bench where we usually ate lunch. We usually didn’t arrive at the same time, so it was always fun to see Chili run to Matt as soon as he could recognize him. We called it his “third gear,” which was a kind of gallop that his cadence would break into once he saw Matt across the park. He would initially start trotting in the direction of the figure to sort of check it out. When he realized it was Matt, his head would fling back, his tongue would flap out to the side, and his legs would start going two at a time – front then back, front then back (like a horse). What a greeting! Chili was awesome at showing others how excited he was to see them.

As we looked through some our pictures from the past eight years and talked with our church family this morning, it is apparent that Chili has not only been a vital part of the Gronseth household, but he was also a substantial part of our churches and local communities (see the picture below of our actual church pictoral directory photo before Cade was born for a good laugh - yes, we were smitten with our dog). In Houston, Spartanburg, and Owensboro, he attended youth functions and co-hosted sleep-overs. He hiked to Patoka Lake, Indiana, one spring with a group of students, many who were new to hiking. Here’s a video of Chili playing fetch with the students in Patoka Lake.

When we moved to Owensboro, we discovered an incredible local annual event that Chili seemed to look forward to every year – Combest Pool: Gone to the Dogs. On this day, the public pool celebrates the last swim day of the season by opening up to dogs of all ages and sizes. “Who Let the Dogs Out” plays on repeat over the sound system about every fourth song! Chili enjoyed jumping into the pool and swimming around to chase tennis balls. He also was a repeat champion at the large breed swim race and the biggest wet shake contest. Matt and Chili were even featured in the city’s advertising for last year’s Gone to the Dogs day.

Really, there are too many individual memories to list here, but there were certain mannerisms and behaviors that stick out in our minds when we think of him. First off, he was a gentle and patient dog. Cade had been less than angelic in his treatment of Chili recently, pulling his ears, pulling his tail, trying to ride him, and kind of being a general pest when it came to Chili. But Chili was loyal and loving, occasionally chiding him with a growl or a bark like a parent dog to a puppy. Even though we saw him get frustrated and go to another room to get away, he really didn’t get to the point of lashing out in anger at Cade. Golden retrievers are known for their good temperament with families and kids, and Chili proved that absolutely correct.

Chili had impeccable timing. He seemed to have a knack for knowing right when we’d sit down for a meal. If he was outside, he wanted in. If he was inside, he suddenly had the urge to go out. It was pretty much clockwork, and we laughed in frustration many times, but as we sat down for breakfast this morning, we missed it. We had just gotten into the habit of sitting down for breakfast and then getting up again to let him in or out. Also, when we open our dishwasher, it blocks the access from the kitchen to the pantry where we keep his food and water dishes. And without fail, whenever we opened the dishwasher to load it after a meal, he’d be standing there panting as if to say, “I’m starving, and I just realized it, and I have to eat now!” So we’d close the dishwasher, let him in, and he’d get one bite or one scoop of water with his tongue, and then stand on the other side of the now-reopened dishwasher as if to say, “It’s boring in here and I really need to get out.” This would go on back and forth as long as we’d let it go on. Chili would always take one kibble from his bowl and go to another room to eat it. He’d then return and eat the rest. We thought it funny at first, but then we just got used to things being this way.

When we were first housebreaking him in Houston, Susie would have to go to Arizona for one week each month for work. Since Matt didn’t trust him inside yet, he’d leave him in his crate and go home at lunch to let him out and check on him. At one point, his mom gave him a hard time about how cooped up Chili was and how he needed more space than just a little crate because he was a growing dog with a lot of energy. So the next day, ridden with guilt, Matt left him in our bathroom. Safe bet, right? Uh….not so much. Below is a picture of the bathroom when he returned at lunch to let him out. When Matt walked into the bathroom, the shower was on, the soap was gone (probably swallowed), magazines and toilet paper were shredded and pulpy on the floor, the toothpaste had bite marks all over the tube, the toothbrushes were chewed up, and Chili was soaking wet. Other than that, he didn’t destroy anything valuable or chew a hole in the wall or cabinet. We would have loved to have been there to see him prop up on the shower wall and pull the handle down and get a face full of water. Matt was laughing too hard to really be mad at him, and we haven’t yet let Matt’s mom live that one down.

He also had a thing for toilet paper as he was growing up. Most dogs grab the end and run with it, trailing a path throughout the house, and he did do that once or twice. But the thing we remember the most is how he’d walk by the roll and just take a chomp out of the side. So then as you unrolled the roll, one side would have a nice scalloped design, compliments of Chili. When that roll was gone, we’d put a new roll on and shortly later we’d have another scalloped roll.

Another growing up story: even after he was housebroken, we would still leave him in his crate when we left the house. One weekend, our friends Tim and Cari were visiting from out of town. We decided to head out to the Houston museum for the day. When we returned, we walked into the kitchen from the garage and there was Chili, just waiting and wagging at the door like that’s how life was supposed to be. The crate had a split line around the middle that was fastened by screws with wing nuts. Somehow he’d shaken the crate enough to wiggle enough screws loose that he could escape. We definitely kept a better eye on those wing nuts in the future, and we already miss that now-familiar enthusiastic greeting at the door when we return home from anywhere, no matter how long we were gone.

We faced another challenge when he grew tall enough to put his front paws on the counter and help himself to anything close to the edge. One evening, he ate an entire loaf of banana nut bread that was sitting on the counter cooling (the next day included, uh, we’ll just call it a big mess in our car). Right after his first Halloween, he swiped a large bag of candy from the counter, and the chocolate made him pace the house panting all night. At least one piece of candy made it all the way through him with the wrapper still intact. Snack anyone? We started running out of ideas for how to get him to stop swiping things off the counter until one night we were cooking some brats on the grill and accidentally burned one. We had something to go to that night, so we purposely left the brat on the end of counter, except we garnished it with chili powder, Tabasco, cayenne pepper, hot salsa, and everything else spicy we could find in our cupboards. When we got back that evening, the bratwurst was gone, and Chili was looking up at us with extremely watery eyes, a healthy drool trail, and an empty water bowl. Guess what? He never got up on the counter again!

We talked in another post [here] about Susie’s labor and delivery of Cade. But, in thinking about our special times with Chili, a sweet memory involved him staying by Susie’s side as she unknowingly was in labor in the tub. When Matt came home from work, he found Chili kissing the tears off Susie’s cheek and looking very concerned. He may not have known what was going on, but he knew how to care for a friend in need. We feel like we can learn a lot from the way that Chili seemed to intently listen to us and be a friend to everyone that he met. When we brought Cade home from the hospital, Chili immediately went to his carrier to check him out and appeared to quickly embrace him as a welcome addition to the pack (and disposer of dirty diapers, as told in this post).

Anyone who spent time outdoors with Chili knew that he was a water dog through and through. From the time he was a puppy, he loved to swim in anything from a small stream to a lake to the ocean. You would sometimes literally have to drag him out to get him out for good because he’d be unendingly ready to fetch anything you threw. There were a couple of times when we thought one of us was going to have to jump in to keep him from sinking. When he was still pretty young we visited Susie’s aunt and uncle in Sargent, TX. They had a couple camp houses off the intracoastal waterway near the Gulf of Mexico with a nice dock. We just couldn’t get Chili to take the leap off the dock (it was only a couple feet above the water). We’d get him to take a running start, but he’d always put on the skids before the edge, even if we threw the stick/ball/etc. in. Finally, we figured he just needed a push, so that’s what we did. One time when he got to the edge, Matt just shoved him off the dock. He looked so surprised (and a little insulted) when he resurfaced, but after that it was game on, and that game has been on ever since. Here’s a picture of him only a few minutes after we pushed him in for the first time.

Chili had a way of making himself comfortable wherever he was. When he drank a lot of water or ate, he would lay down with his paws surrounding the bowl. His posture generally meant that he blocked major kitchen area walkthroughs whenever he ate or drank. Though we probably could have found places for his bowls that were more out of the way, we think we just wanted him to be able to eat when we were eating and be near where we were. We tried to be very careful about giving him table scraps, but if a suitable morsel fell, it could easily be placed in his food dish. And he was usually very much appreciative.

Speaking of table scraps, when we first got him, we refrained from giving him ANY kind of human food crumbs or scraps. That is, until one day that Susie was making tuna salad. She opened the cans of tuna in spring water, and Chili sat beside her staring longingly. Since his bowls were right beside her, she obliged him by pouring the tuna “juice” over his kibble. He devoured the kibble and lapped up the tuna water, and his food bowl was sparkling clean! Thus began a tradition that whenever we got out the can opener (for tuna cans or something else), Chili came running. And if we did happen to be having tuna fish, well, let’s just say that we didn’t have to wash his bowls that night. Here's a picture of how clean those bowls were after the first taste of tuna juice.

As is probably the case with many dogs, Chili found a way to chew on or ingest unusual things. Around our first house in Houston, we had some landscaping with small lava rocks. We laughed so many times because we’d come outside and he was either literally chewing on the dirt from one of our planters or he’d just be gnawing on a lava rock. This became even more funny when we took Chili to a temperament test in order to be available as a therapy dog in local hospitals. During the session, one gentleman started talking about how he only bought “pet” tennis balls since they would normally bring tennis balls for patients to play with the dogs. We asked why and said that we’d never heard of “pet” tennis balls. He sort of chastised us and told us that normal tennis balls have abrasive felt and would damage a dog’s teeth. We were like, “Uhhh, please, our dog chews on lava rocks.”

One evening when Chili was still a puppy, we left him out back to play while we went to the gym. We had several garbage bags full of old pillows that we had used in moving left near our garbage cans, which were inside the fence. Being new dog owners, we didn’t think anything of leaving those there, and Chili had quite the hey day while we were gone. It must not have taken him long to find the bags of feather pillows, shred the bags, and then proceed to shred through all of the pillows. When we returned from our workout, it looked like we had snow in Houston. Feathers were everywhere! We tried to clean them up the next morning, but we found feathers in that part of the yard the rest of the time that we lived there.

A friend of ours gave us a great idea for house breaking. We hung a bell on the back doorknob, and would then help him ring the bell with his paw before we let him outside. He was a pretty smart pup, so it didn’t take him long to put it all together in his mind. Before long, he was letting us know when he needed to go out, and shortly after that (since we rewarded him with treats for a successful tinkle), he learned to ration his bladder so he’d literally be going out every ten to fifteen minutes. One night, Matt was watching TV while eating dinner. He was curious about Matt’s food at first, but then kind of left him alone. Matt heard Chili ring the bell, so he set his plate down and got up to let him out. As he got up out of his seat, Chili snuck around the back of the easy chair and was ready to take a big chomp out of the dinner. We don’t know if he had planned that or if he just realized the opportunity he’d just created, but we all watched our food around him much better after that.

Chili didn’t always display it, but he was a fairly bright dog. It didn’t take him long to learn new tricks if we worked with him consistently. As a puppy he quickly learned sit, down, and rollover. And it didn’t take long to teach him to do a half roll with his paws extended up in the air if you pointed at him and said “Bang!” like you were shooting at him. Pretty cute. A couple years ago we decided to see if he could learn his right and left. Matt would extend his right hand like for a hand shake and then ask for his “Right Paw!” The idea was to get him to shake like a human would with his right paw. Then Matt would repeat with the left hand, saying “Left Paw!” After a number of weeks, it still seemed like Chili was guessing and not really making much progress. Matt asked Susie about it and she proceeded to demonstrate the same mechanics of teaching this trick, except that when she extended her right hand and said “Right Paw,” she was teaching to Chili to shake with the same side of his body (so actually his left paw). Poor dog. He must have been so confused and frustrated. He was always so eager to please us, so it must have been hard to not know which paw either one of us was asking for.

For the last few years, Chili has been a great companion to both Matt and Susie as they’ve had to spend some time apart due to Susie pursuing her Ph.D. at IU. Matt has especially appreciated the companionship during the weeks alone at the house. This last winter especially, he would let Chili sleep in the bed with him when it was cold outside, and then change the sheets out on Fridays before Susie got back so she wouldn’t have to sleep on a bunch of dog hair. Also, Matt broke his ankle last December. He was out of commission for his regular runs, and as he started building his mileage back up he had to take it slow. Chili was a loyal and able companion as Matt gained miles and speed back this last spring. This is part of why we are so perplexed with his inability to finish what seemed like a fairly easy run yesterday. But Matt really appreciated his buddy as his ankle gained strength this spring.

Chili made over 100 trips between Owensboro and Bloomington, as Susie worked on her degree. For the first year, he made the trips stretched out comfortably in the back seat of Susie’s Toyota Camry. Then, Cade came along. We tried different combinations of car seat and Chili in the back seat, including putting one of the seats down so that he could possibly stretch into the trunk. But, what actually happened is that Chili got moved during the second and third year of Susie’s IU commute to sitting upright in the front seat for three hours each way. This was certainly not the most comfortable for Chili (or Susie, as Chili often breathed in Susie’s face most of the way). So, for the fourth year, we bought a Toyota Rav4, with the thought being that Chili could have the whole back cargo space. Chili not only completed the weekly roundtrip Owensboro-Bloomington trips in this arrangement, but he also made two trips out to Colorado and several trips down to Alabama. Cade loved looking up and seeing Chili rest his snout on the top of his carseat or the seat back next to him. Cade often would reach up his hand and say, “Kisses, Chili,” hoping to get a few licks every now and then. Chili was there every step of the way as Susie strived to reach her dream of getting her doctorate. He was there to protect her as she slept alone in her 286 square foot apartment the first two years. He slept at the foot of her bed (and often smacked his lips) as she read until the early morning hours, slept a few, and then got up to start the next day. He was in the passenger seat when she broke down south of Bloomington in the middle of nowhere with Cade as an infant. He didn’t seem to mind that the food bowl we used in Bloomington was actually a cat bowl, and it was small and had to be refilled repeatedly to equal what he would get in one scoopful at home. Chili was a big part of Susie’s success in getting her doctorate in four years, and he deserves a nod of recognition for his faithfulness and flexibility during this time.

Part of the difficulty of the last 24+ hours besides the suddenness of it all is the empty feel our house has. Susie and Matt have been married for over nine years now, and eight of those years have been with Chili in the house. He felt like more of a fixture than even Cade does yet because for nearly all of our married life it has been the three of us. We know we’ll eventually get another dog. It’s only a matter of time before the pain of the loss will translate into a longing and desire to have a furry companion in our home again. We’re definitely not there yet, but we can’t see going the rest of our lives without another dog. We know the stakes going into it (and knew them when we got Chili), but there isn’t really a match for the love and warmth a doggie friend brings. Our good buddy Tim put it well. He said that a relationship with a dog isn’t the same as with other people. You love them just as much, but they just take you relationally to a different place. That place is just as deep and important as your human relationships, but their lifespans are so much shorter than humans, which is why it’s so hard to let them go. We will miss you, Chili. Our hearts hurt so much, but we know that you lived a happy life in our household. We hope to take the lessons you taught us about unconditional love, personal sacrifice, unquestioning acceptance of everybody, and undying loyalty and apply them to our lives going forward. You were a great friend who will never be forgotten. We love you buddy.

Korea Memories - Tuesday, May 24th part 1

2011-06-12T21:57:00.005-05:00

Note: Sorry for the delay in posts. I've been trying to load the videos from our hike on Halla-San for the last couple weeks and for some reason Blogger hasn't been accepting them. But it looks like they're loading tonight....so back to it!

The last post was a little long, so I didn’t describe our accommodations in Jeju. We stayed at Hwang To Mae Ul (http://hwangtomaeul.com/). Hwang To means orangish dirt, and this dirt is full of minerals and is supposed to have healing capabilities when you stay in the huts made out of it. Worth a shot, right? At the very least, it was a really cool, picturesque, unique, and authentic place to stay for a couple nights.
Tuesday was our hiking day. Our goal: the Halla-san volcano rim. This volcano is nearly 2,000 meters tall and hasn’t erupted for probably about 1,000 years, so we figured we were pretty safe. Hiking in Korea is just a little different (should I just create an autotext in this series of posts for “a little different?”). The mountains are definitely steep and challenging, but most of the trails aren’t what I grew up hiking on in the Rockies. They are actually boardwalks and steps made out of wood or stone.

Before we began we had received a number of well intended warnings from locals about trying to hike all the way to the top. People said it was extremely long and difficult. The trail to the top was a little over 6 miles, so we were prepared to do more than just a short walk around the block. But I wasn’t sure how to take the warnings, especially since both Susie and I have pretty extensive hiking backgrounds. The guidebook and locals said to prepare for 8-9 hours each way.

It turned out to be a challenging, but really fun hike. The scenery was beautiful, and it was the best weather day in quite some time to hike up to the rim. Susie was wearing shorts and a jacket, and I was wearing jeans and a cotton shirt. We (especially Susie) got quite a few comments about our dress since most of the Koreans were outfitted in super technical gear with hats, gloves, balaclavas, nice boots, and hiking poles – everything name brand. The North Face is very popular in Korea. I bet some of them had a thousand bucks tied up in what they were wearing.

I don’t know if it’s because we have longer legs, or because we’ve hiked quite a bit in the past, but Susie and I generally hiked quite a bit faster than most of the Koreans on the trail. But we were impressed at the number of senior citizens making it to the top. They took it slower but they still had the stamina to pull it off. We finished in about 5 ½ hours, and to hear some of the comments in the parking lot you would have thought we’d just won Olympic gold.

We couldn’t see the summit from the trailhead due to quite a few clouds, and we spent a lot of the day hiking up and back through the clouds. Despite the boardwalks and stairs, there were a couple of challenging sections to the trail.

This next picture is the beautiful Halla-san volcanic cone. Pretty impressive, huh?

We didn’t stay too long at the top since it was super windy. We figured that we needed to keep moving to keep from getting cold. The air wasn’t cold by itself, but because of the high winds, we didn’t want to take a chance. These are our best “Hold still in gale-force winds for one picture” faces. And then I don’t think these videos do the wind justice, but I was holding the camera right next to my face and hollering into the mic and you still can’t really hear too well. Welcome to Jeju!

At one point just below the summit, the clouds whipping by suddenly broke for maybe twenty seconds. The view down to the ocean was stunning, and I was able to get a couple quick pictures. Then it closed back up and we were in the clouds again for most of the way down.

This is what a lot of the hike down looked like. It was kind of an eerie setting, but still beautiful the whole time.

After we got back down and were driving around near the water, the clouds opened up briefly once more. Here’s a picture of the volcano from below. During our few days in Jeju, this was the only time we could actually see the top. We later discovered that we were extremely fortunate to be able to get up to the top, since the recent weather hadn’t been very cooperative at all. As someone who grew up in Colorado, this was really one of the highlights of the trip for me.

Since this post is a little longer, I’m going to finish up the 24th in a different post. Later that afternoon I got a great picture of a phenomenon that I hope never makes it to America. (at least that I have to take part of). But it was something that was humorous for us to see while in Korea.

Korea Memories - Monday, May 23rd

2011-06-10T13:22:00.006-05:00

On Monday morning we packed up and took a short flight south to Jeju Island. Jeju is one of Korea’s provinces, and it is a volcanic island just south of the mainland of Korea. Jeju is a huge vacation spot for Koreans and Japanese. Like Hawaii for Americans, many Koreans go to Jeju on their honeymoon. Jeju is legendary for a plentiful supply of three things: rock, wind, and hardy women. The rock is pretty self-explanatory since the island is volcanic in nature and made of lava rock. They weren’t kidding about the wind either: lots of it, and consistent. And the hardy women? There is a group of Jeju women that dives for sea creatures year round. They dive pretty deep and they stay under for over two minutes. We didn’t get to see any demonstration while we were there, but I guess it’s pretty entertaining.

The flight down was interesting because it reminded me of flying out of Owensboro in that nobody acted like they’d been on an airplane before. The flight attendants at the front were constantly on alert to jump up and tell people to sit down when they were supposed to. I saw quite a few people wandering around the plane before the flight looking for their seats. It was kind of amusing.

The first stop we made was at O’Sulloc tea farm. Jeju has perfect conditions for tea growing (porous and mineral-rich volcanic soil, plentiful rain, and proper temperatures), and in Korea and China they don’t speak of drinking tea – they talk about the rich and historical tea culture. These cups were from the three kingdoms dynasty, so probably about 1000 years old.

This is a roaster. They roast the green tea leaves, turning them over by hand in this basin that is heated from underneath.

Here are a few pictures of the tea fields. It was peaceful, beautiful, and the smell was exquisite. Mom, I know you would have been in paradise.

Ok, it’s time to interrupt with a story. The first couple of days, I was a little self-conscious because people really stared at us a lot. I only saw one Korean person my height the whole time I was there, so I literally stuck out because of my size. And Susie’s blond hair is really a rarity in Korea, so she stuck out as well. At first I was very aware of it, but after a few days I kind of got used to it. Near the end of our trip I occasionally had one of two thoughts: “Come ON, we can’t be the only white people you’ve ever seen.” Or: “We’ve been here 10 days, and this country is so efficient, so I know some kind of government notification memo had to have been sent out about us to the entire country, so we really shouldn’t be that much of a surprise.” Still, it was definitely a different feeling being a true curiosity everywhere we went. It was usually little kids or old people who stared at us, and occasionally people would ask to take pictures of us or with us. I will say, though, that it wasn’t a feeling like we were intruding and the Korean people made us feel unwelcome. I definitely didn’t feel unsafe at any time because of our difference. And there was no feeling like we were being singled out in requests for handouts or assistance like what you may encounter in some Latin American countries. It really felt like a genuine sense of innocent curiosity, nothing more.

So it didn’t really get under my skin when we were walking around the tea farm gift shop and I noticed that Susie and I were being followed around by a few people with high end photo cameras and a video camera. After a bit, one of them approached Sungwon and asked her in Korean if we were uncomfortable. We said no, so they asked if we would look at specific items or areas while they took pictures/video. No big deal so far, right?

Then they asked if they could take pictures and video of this place down the road that was a bonsai garden. As we walked out of the tea farm the leader said we could follow him in our car. Then he said he could just drive our car for us since he knew the way and his associates would follow. Then he just said that we could ride with them in their bus. Keep in mind that all of this is in Korean with Sungwon and we were getting loose, rapid translations. I couldn’t decide how concerned I should be, especially when they loaded us up in their bus and gave us snacks and drinks (some preopened). I leaned over to Susie and asked her jokingly if this is how foreigner abductions usually begin?

The whole story is that they worked for a travel/tourist part of the main Korean Broadcasting Company (KBC), and they preferred to have foreigners in their shots of popular tourist attractions for their ads. There was a British guy in the bus as well, but he actually had been living in Seoul for some time and could speak Korean and was helping us translate as well.

We were bused to this bonsai garden and our admission was taken care of. The place was beautiful, but it was windy and raining. Here are a couple pictures. In the first, you can see the cameraman filming the British guy, Susie, Sungwon, and myself walking across a stone bridge.

Because it was raining, and because it was right around lunchtime, the crew took us inside and bought us lunch at the park’s main hall. It was a huge Korean buffet and was outstanding. After eating for a while, they came back to us and said that since it was raining they couldn’t do any more shooting and offered to take us back to our car. As we loaded onto the bus, they told us that since some of their crew had to fly back to Seoul we were going to stop somewhere so they could pick up their bags before dropping us off. Once again, that kind of got my feelers up, but I didn’t want to let that on at all, and we were already committed. Turns out, they dropped us off, and we got to see the bonsai park and had a free lunch, all for playing interested white tourists for a few frames. Can Susie and I put model/actor on our business cards now?

After the tea farm we went to visit Cheonjeyeon falls in south Jeju. It was a series of three falls that emptied out into the ocean. Here’s a picture of us in front of the middle of the three falls. Very lush, tropical, and green.

To top the evening off, we went to dinner at a famous seafood restaurant near the beach. When I say seafood restaurant, please understand that the Korean version and the American version are two different things. At their roots, they are the same – serving things from the sea, but the presentation of those things are where they differ. I never actually saw this, but I heard that at some seafood restaurants you can actually choose your fish from the tanks in front of the building. Quite a few restaurants in Jeju and elsewhere in Korea had these tanks.

The other difference is that many times in Korea you just eat the whole fish. I’ll be honest. This was not the culinary highlight of my trip, and I think Susie would agree. But we both tried it (we have proof of Susie here). I think they want you to eat the head first because it would just be creepy if the fish got to watch you eat the rest of him. Luckily for us these fish were cooked, because it would have been a lot harder to do this if it was raw. We ate some raw whole fish as part of a kimchi, but they were much smaller.

Crunch!

Korea Memories - Sunday, May 22nd

2011-06-05T21:25:00.006-05:00

Sunday morning Susie had to do some work when we woke up, so I took off down the hill to see what I could find for breakfast. I am happy to report that Koreans are world leaders when it comes to waffles. Take a look at this next picture and tell me that doesn’t look good for any meal. They generally make their waffles from scratch (no Bisquik), then pile them high with ice cream and a ton of fresh cut fruit (no canned pie fillings, take that IHOP!). Sooooo good. All I know is that at least one house in Owensboro will be changing their waffle routine for good.
After I had breakfast, we headed to the Hanok traditional village to see what life was like in ancient Korea. On the way in we stopped at a traditional tea house and had a traditional tea setting, complete with Korean goodies. Another thing Koreans set the bar at is tea. We tried a number of different teas while in Korea, and even visited a tea farm on Jeju Island (that’s what those in the biz call “foreshadowing”).

As you can see, traditional homes were constructed very similarly to temples and palaces. The major difference, aside from size, was that only temples, palaces, and shrines were painted for the most part. In the front left of this picture you can see the chimney. More on that later.

The Koreans were very efficient with their indoor climate control from a very early time. See the hole near the ground in the picture below? Koreans used what is known as “ondol” heating, which is locating the furnace under the house at one end, then passing the flue gas under the house, which heats the floors, then passes out the chimney at the other end of the house. This picture shows wood, but most of the time coal was burned as the main source of heat. The floors were generally made from paper that was soaked in sesame oil. Koreans were historically light years ahead of other cultures when it came to making paper, so it wasn’t like curly fax paper on the floor. It was sturdy paper, and you can see it in the picture below as well.

This is a typical traditional Korean kitchen. Actually, this is a very large kitchen. You can see that they also routed the flue gas from the cooking fires out through the ondol system for home heating as well.

Ever heard of kimchi? If you go to Korea, you will. It’s fermented vegetables, usually cabbage or radish, that is served with every meal, bar none. If you like it, you can make any Korean meal taste good. This picture is of a kimchi refrigerator. They would take the raw kimchi, add seasonings, then put it in large ceramic pots that were buried in the ground up to their tops. I think it usually took a few weeks for the fermentation to finish. Nowadays they just use refrigerators just like what is found in western homes.

You can’t tell from this picture, but this is the room where they would sleep during the summer. This room is cantilevered out so it has good air flow underneath it to help keep it cool in the summer. Another kind of funny thing is that hanging up on the back wall is what our tour guide called the “bamboo wife.” It’s like a big hollow oblong basket shape, and they would hold it to their chests. This created another passageway for air to flow around them during hot summer nights. (It should be noted that even though traditionally the husband and wife slept in separate rooms or buildings, those families were still generally pretty large.)

This is a traditional kids game. Susie and I looked at each other and said “Korean cornhole.” It had bamboo shoots that had dull weighted tips. Think lawn darts, but not as lethal.

The day we were at the Hanok village there was also a traditional Korean wedding ceremony, and it was open to the public. It was very interesting to witness, and even though it was all in Korean I think we still comprehended the basics. The groom was a white guy, and I don’t think he understood everything that was going on either, because he made a couple whoopsies like bowing at the wrong time or bowing incorrectly. That usually brought a bunch of giggles from all the old Korean ladies.

After the wedding we went to a traditional tea ceremony. The woman hosting it only spoke slightly more English than I did Korean, but she was a very peaceful and kind person, and I think eventually most of the important messages were communicated. The traditional Korean tea ceremony is very specific, and we enjoyed getting to learn the different parts of it. It's a very relaxing time. You can see a demonstration here if you want.

The final thing we saw at the traditional village was a group of Korean dancers. They were extremely athletic and it was impressive to see them flying around while keeping a steady beat. There is a leader, and he is one of the guys that has a two-sided drum (in the middle of the first photo). Apparently, this traditional drum leader is legally allow to be tripping on some sort of chemical enhancement in an attempt to achieve nirvana, or an altered state of mind while leading the rhythms. There isn’t a specific order to the rhythm/dance, and the rest of the group reacts to beat and tempo changes made by the leader. I guess if you ask a leader what was played during the last performance there’s a good chance they won’t be able to tell you. What is impressive is how seamlessly the ensemble reacts to the tempo and rhythm changes and how athletic they all are. Susie and I were commenting that they really resembled some of the traditional dances done by Native Americans. Makes you wonder if the northeastern Asians weren’t at least partially responsible for populating North America way back in the day.

We stopped by Insa-dong, which is a traditional Korean street market filled with lots of native things. If you can guess what the next picture is, I’ll figure out a way to order you some online and get it to you. I’ll give you a hint: it was the one thing I saw in Korea that I refused to try. Answer at the end of the post.

After the market, and after regaining our appetite, we went to eat dinner at Sungwon’s parents’ house. Sungwon’s parents were incredibly generous and hospitable and helped facilitate an extremely wonderful time for us in Korea. We are very grateful to them. Gamsahamnida! Sugo hashyeoseumnida!

(In case you were wondering, the picture up above is earthworm stew. Yep, imagine how bad you think earthworm stew would smell. Then multiply that awful smell by about two thousand. I didn’t actually see anyone eating it, but the smell honestly turned my stomach.)

Korea Memories - Saturday, May 21st

2011-06-04T16:35:00.003-05:00

Our third day in Korea was a busy one. Susie and Sungwon had conference activities to do, so I spent quite a bit of the day exploring Seoul on my own. Seoul public transportation is very intelligently set up. The subway system is easy to use, even if you don’t speak any Korean, and it’s very cheap.

The first place I visited was Nam-san. This is a small mountain right in the middle of the city. When Seoul was first settled, they chose the spot because they had mountains to the north and a river to the south. In fact, many Korean cities are situated in this same configuration. The mountains to the north help protect from invasion and block the cold winds during the winter. The river (or water) to the south is another form of protection and assists with travel and commerce. Now, the Han river runs east/west through the middle of the Seoul area since the city has expanded south so much. But just north of the river sits the small mountain of Nam-san, and on top of this mountain sits the Seoul Tower, sort of a mini version of the Seattle space needle.

I took the cable car to the top of the mountain, and it was great to see the city kind of unfold in front of me (looking north).
This is the Seoul Tower standing at the top of Nam-san.

This picture is looking south over the Han river. Unfortunately it was a pretty rainy/cloudy/foggy/hazy/smoggy day. The view was still pretty outstanding.

I sort of took this picture as a joke. Many times the English in Korea would be loosely translated, which would result in some humorous grammar at times. I figured I was in for a pretty cool bathroom if it was entitled PLAZA toilet and had it’s own dedicated elevator.

Well, the plaza bathroom turned out to have the best view while relieving oneself I’d ever seen.

After leaving Nam-san I headed for Deoksu-gung, a palace used back in the late 1500’s. There are a few large palaces right in the middle of Seoul, and the juxtaposition of this ancient architecture with a modern skyline backdrop is stark.

This picture is of the Deoksu-gung throne room. I was continually amazed at the attention to detail in the painting on the palaces and temples. The colors were beautiful and the craftsmanship was second to none. I’ll post some more close-up pictures in a later post. Not only was the painting impressive, but except for a few rafter beams, all of the palaces and temples were constructed sans nails. All the pieces were interlocking. Unbelievable.

After meeting up with Susie and Sungwon, we walked over to Gyeongbok-gung, which is probably the most impressive and largest palace in Seoul. The buildings, fence, residences, etc., were mostly the same, but they were just much bigger. Also, there was a beautifully manicured garden in the back part of the palace.

We finished up the day at a Japanese restaurant and then walked along the Cheonggyecheon stream in downtown Seoul. This was a waterway that was actually uncovered during some construction work. They turned it into a very nice waterway with walking trails and lights.

Whew. We did a lot that day. With that much walking I wasn’t having much of a problem falling asleep on the floor in the hotel room.

Korea Memories - Friday, May 20th

2011-06-01T17:27:00.004-05:00

Day 2 started pretty early since our bodies didn’t know what was going on. Seoul is 14 hours ahead of Central Daylight Time, so it took a few days before we were quite right from a sleep perspective. We walked around a bit and sort of took in our surroundings. We were staying in the Nakseongdae area of Seoul, and there was a shrine in a park built to the General Gang Gamchan. He lived way back around the year 900 and the name Nakseongdae carries meaning. Nakseongdae means the place where the star fell to earth, and according to legend, where that star fell is where he was born. And that’s where they built the shrine. What I kept coming back to was the fact that as Americans, we really don’t have a long historical perspective compared to most of the rest of the world.

This is a pagoda that dates back to the time of Gang Gamchan. I was continually amazed to be around artifacts that were at times 1500+ years old.

That day for lunch I met up with some fellow Air Liquide employees in the Air Liquide Korea office in Seoul. It was very interesting to see where our experiences and practices line up and where they differ. For me, doing this at the outset of the trip was a great way to almost center myself and have a stake in the ground. It was reassuring to see that even though we were far from home and in a strange country, I had something in common with a number of Seoul residents. I even met a guy that had graduated from Mines a few years before I did. The world is truly small.

After lunch I met back up with Susie and Sungwon at the National Museum of Korea. You could probably spend 2-3 days in that museum and not see it all. The best part: it was all free. We focused on the three kingdoms historical artifacts. I won’t post all the pictures here, but I do want to point out a couple things I found interesting.

This is a pair of shoes for a warrior. They are made of bronze and have spikes on the bottom for traction. I bet Ty Cobb would have had a heyday with a pair of these.

This is the headgear for a warrior. Look at the piece in the middle. I can’t imagine wrapping that around my head. I couldn’t have been comfortable, but it sure had to beat taking a sword to the earhole.

This is a gold crown that is about 1000 years old if I remember right. Pretty ornate. And the gold is extremely thin, so it wasn’t heavy to wear.

This is a bronze incense burner and is one of Korea’s national treasures. It was made maybe in the 600s and is incredibly detailed. It’s hard to see the detail in the picture, but each of the bumps on the top half of the burner is a different figure or character formed out of the bronze.

The museum was showing a special exhibit on traditional Korean musical instruments, so it was interesting to see those. Here are pictures of a drum, a “bass guitar,” a “12 string acoustic guitar,” and scores of music from sometime in the 1500’s.

For dinner we went to a famous restaurant called Yangmani and had a very traditional Korean dish called tae chang. Most Koreans we talked to were surprised that we had even tried it. Depending on what I read, it’s either intestine or stomach from a cow. They marinate it, then bring it out and cook it on a grill set down in the table. It really had a pretty good flavor, but the consistency was just a little too rubbery for my taste. I wish I’d taken a picture of it…

Korea Memories - Thursday, May 19

2011-05-30T23:32:00.006-05:00

“Despite our differences we’re all actually very similar.” Or is it “Despite our similarities we’re all actually very different?” I don’t know if my mind is more simple than I like to think it is, but this is the debate that’s been bouncing around in my head since I took 2 weeks off and traveled halfway around the world to Korea with Susie. Now we’re sitting on our double-digit hour easterly flight across the Pacific Ocean, and I’m not quite sure about it yet. I think I have an inkling, but I’d like to explore it together over the next few days/weeks/however long it takes to walk through our trip here. I know this blog is normally devoted to Cade and our family, but it was set up to help keep our family and friends up to date on our lives, so I’m pretty sure this fits the bill. So Cade, I hope you don’t mind the blog getting hijacked (maybe not the best word to be using on a plane?) for a bit so we can record a number of the thoughts and stories we experienced on the other side of the world. And hopefully in working through the memories of our trip I can solidify my position on the question I lead off with.

I plan on writing about this trip in “chapters,” with each installment describing one or two days. We took over 550 pictures and videos over the course of our trip, and I think most fall into one of three categories: breathtaking beauty or craftsmanship, information about something, or they have a funny or interesting story behind them. I don’t think I’ll have the space or time to post them all, but I’ll do the best I can. I'll probably post a higher volume of pictures on my Facebook page for all of my Facebook friends reading this. Korea is a remarkable country with a long, fascinating history and is filled with beautiful, generous, and kind people. Susie and I would highly recommend Korea for anyone looking to expand their horizon (in food, in pace of life, of history, and much more). We were fortunate to have one of Susie’s classmates, Sungwon, a Seoul native, to help us communicate and show us around.

So this post serves as the introduction to this series of posts, as well as the description of our outbound trip. I hope you appreciate the stories and pictures and don’t mind a small break from Cade-centered posts.

In exchange for not spending a relative fortune on our plane tickets, we took sort of a roundabout route to Seoul, having layovers in Toronto and Hong Kong. Both were quick transfers, so of all the things I was a little concerned about, the transfer in Hong Kong was what I was thinking about the most. Our flights were fine, but we got into Hong Kong too late for us to make our transfer to our flight to Seoul. What made this transfer a little more interesting is that we flew Air Canada to Hong Kong and then were supposed to switch to Korean Air for the final leg. Well, the service and detail in Hong Kong blew us away. I was prepared for a steep learning curve in order to try and figure out where our bag would go, where we should go, etc. But as we walked down the jet way we saw a woman holding a sign with our names on it. She worked for Air Canada and escorted us to the ticket transfer counter. Air Canada had already transferred our ticket to a Cathay Pacific flight that got us into Seoul only an hour or two later than anticipated, and was in the process of confirming that our bag had also made the transfer between the airlines. After the tickets and bags were processed and everyone had a warm fuzzy feeling our escort pointed us in the right direction of the gate and everything was great. Unbelievable. And I was glad, because one of the first signs I encountered with flight information looked like this:

Of course, it also cycled to English, but it just reinforced the fact that we weren’t in Kansas any more. The assistance was much appreciated. Thanks Air Canada! And that’s something we noticed Korea (and, apparently, Hong Kong): service companies don’t seem to every skimp on service personnel. At each hotel, airport, store, heck, even in the subway, there were always multiple people directing people, assisting people, helping people enjoy their time. It was a very pleasant surprise, especially compared to the belt tightening in America that has seemed to squeeze the customer service right out of existence.

With tickets in hand, we were able to relax in front of a beautiful view of the mountains of Hong Kong. Just that glimpse made Susie and I want to come back and visit HK.

Seoul is a city of over 10 million people. That’s just within the city proper. If you include the entire metro area, you’re looking at nearly 21 million people, the second largest metro area in the world. Susie and I have spent our fair share of time living in and traveling to large cities, but neither of us had experienced a city quite as expansive and massive as Seoul. During our nights in Seoul, we stayed in the HoAm faculty house at Seoul National University. Despite being in such a large city, we were treated to this view out of our balcony.

Korea is a very beautiful mountainous country, and Seoul is no exception. It is a very hilly city, and there are pockets of green in various sections of town. Seoul National University is in a newer area of town, so we had nice clean mountain breezes coming down on us and loved the chance to sleep with the windows open every night. Speaking of sleeping, this is what a typical traditional hotel room looks like in Korea:

Beds are typically a thin mattress on the floor with one blanket and a pillow. This allows you to fold your bed up and use the space more efficiently. In traditional houses it also maximizes the effect of their traditional heating and cooling systems (more on that in a later post). I’ll be honest. I didn’t sleep great every single night, and I’m looking forward to my own bed at home, but I definitely appreciated the spartan décor typically employed in Korea.

You’ll hear me reference the little differences a lot, but there are so many. This picture shows the Korean outlet next to the American-style outlet. Fortunately, this hotel had some that our plugs worked with. That was rare, but many places had adapters available.

Here’s another thing: pushing this button guarantees a call to your room within 1.8 seconds.

And it’s just inside the bathroom door, where you would expect a light switch to be. Which brings me to another little difference. Korean structure normally puts the light switch on the outside of a room, so you can turn on the light before you enter it. So shortly after arriving, Susie walked past the bathroom light switch on the outside of the bathroom, reached into the dark bathroom, felt around the wall for the switch, and pushed the button. No light, but the phone immediately rang. In her defense, there were light switches all over that half of the room, so I would probably have done the same thing. I apologized to the man on the phone who spoke broken English, and we wondered if the desk employees had some sort of over/under on how long it would take the white couple to hit that button on accident. We both nearly hit it a few other times during our stay, but we managed to catch ourselves.

Even though we were sleeping on the floor, we were both so zonked from our travel that we had no problems falling asleep, thus ending day 1.

Thoughts on Seoul, Day 1

2011-05-20T16:36:00.002-05:00

I'm terrible at sleeping on an airplane. I'm not sure if that's fortunate or not, but by the time we got to Seoul a couple nights ago, it was 11 pm and I was ready to sleep. I think the fact that I was ready to sleep at nighttime has helped keep the jetlag somewhat at bay, but I'm still waking up before 6. Since we have a while before we have to be anywhere today, here's a sort of mind dump from our first full day yesterday.

Seoul is an amazing city. Sorry America, we think we're big, but we don't have a city in the top ten. Seoul puts even New York to shame. It's huge and it just keeps on going. But what's astounding is how clean it feels. I saw a number of what must have been city workers going around a sweeping up what little trash there was on the ground. Also, the people are very friendly and walking around feels very safe.

I'm still not used to the fact that we are in a definite minority. Not only that, but Susie and I stick out incredibly. I've yet to notice someone as tall as me, and you don't see much blond hair, so I feel like we're a little bit of a curiosity here. I've noticed some people blatantly staring at me in the subway. We went to the National Museum yesterday and there were a number of school groups there. Twice we had middle schoolers come up and ask us where we were from. One girl wanted her picture taken with us.

Being a big city, the traffic can be a little crazy, and I'm not merely referring tot he roads. One thing I find interesting is that motorcycles and scooters drive on the sidewalks here. So you have to kind of keep your head on a swivel even when you're walking around.

The public transportation system here is incredible. It's huge and ongoing, yet it's very easy to use. Even though we don't know much Korean, the signs are easy to follow and there's enough English to make transfers uneventful. I made quite a few transfers on my own yesterday and didn't get on any wrong trains, so that's doing ok, right? The buses are a little trickier since there's a lot less English on the bus signs and there are multiple types of buses, but we did alright there too. Another thing is that it's very cheap to use the public transportation. You could easily live here and not need a car.

I'm convinced that one would have to make an effort to be overweight in Seoul. Heavy people are just not the norm here. In America, you have to make the effort to find healthy foods that are fresh and not prepackaged with tons of preservatives. It's kind of the opposite in Seoul. Korean food is quite healthy for you, and very delicious as well, but since it's not loaded with starches and white flour and sugar, you don't feel bloated, even after a big meal. Now, after saying all that, not all of the food is what we'd eat in the US. Last night we had something that is pronounced dae chang (or tae chang, I'm not sure). It's either the stomach or intestine of a cow, and it's marinated in a lot of spices, then grilled at your table. Very interesting flavor, but kind of rubbery. But we didn't come to Korea to eat burgers and fries, so we're enjoying trying new things.

These are just a few of the many interesting cultural differences we've already noticed. I could go on about how interesting the National Museum was and how cool it was to see artifacts that were so OLD. But it's time to get ready for day 2! I don't have time to post pictures right now, but hopefully I can get some up in the next few days. Annyeong!

Spring Break

2011-03-27T22:26:00.005-05:00

Well, this March marked Susie's final spring break as a student. Since she had just finished her dissertation draft she and Cade came along with me on my business trip to Charleston, SC. I know, it's a tough place to go on business, but someone has to. With all the traveling I do, it was so fun for me to have them come along with me one time. There's a big difference between coming back to an empty hotel room and coming back to your family.

I may have alluded to this in past posts, but Cade is a super independent kid. He rarely wants help, and usually gets cranked when you try to help him. He's very headstrong and wants to do it himself. Guess where this quality was put to good use? We had a small suitcase and he loved getting to pull it around just like daddy with his big suitcase. This killed two birds by alleviating the need to pull one suitcase and carry one child all at once. It had been a while since Cade had flown. We fly a lot less now that Cade's over two and we have to pay for his ticket as well. He had a blast seeing all the different airplanes. I'm becoming more and more of a Southwest guy as they continue to do such a better job of making the customer feel important than other airlines (a whole post in itself...or just follow me on Twitter for a month or two). In the Southwest wing of the Nashville airport they even have a large area like an indoor park for kids to play on. I'm not sure who's plane the pilot in the background was flying, but I have to say we were already questioning his decision making ability by his choice of nap location.

For the most part Cade was a very good boy when it came to sitting in his own seat and keeping his seat belt on. Sometimes it's hard for a two-year-old to sit still for so long, but we were very proud of him both heading out and coming back.

One day Susie and Cade went to the South Carolina Aquarium. What a great time they had. Here's a picture of Cade petting an alligator.

Getting ready for the 4D theater at the aquarium.

Just can't come up with a caption for this one. Trying to incorporate too little sleep, not enough coffee, turning the boat straight into the reef, and a lack of respect from the rest of the crew, but nothing's coming to mind. Anyone got anything?

One evening we took a carriage ride in downtown Charleston. It's really a very interesting city with a lot of history. We even heard an interesting story about the city's first elevator and the slightly fuller figured president Taft. Cade got a kick out of the mules that pulled us around (not literally, which is good of course).

Another evening we went to the beach on Isle of Palms. The water was pretty cold, so Cade kept busy by chasing the seagulls around. They wanted to stay close in case we had some food, but definitely didn't let Cade get too close.

So there was this small laptop board for keeping your laptop off your lap (to prevent burns). This board had a couple elastic bands on it to hold leaflets and the channel guide on it, but Cade found a different use for them....or maybe his daddy did. Either way, we had fun.

That Friday night when we got back we took Cade to his friend Emmie's second birthday party. It was held at a gymnastics gym, and it was the perfect venue for little kids to run around and jump in the foam pit and bounce on the trampolines. We were pretty amazed that he didn't cram a cupcake in his mouth before he was supposed to or anything like that.

Cade really is a big fan of birthdays. He sang the birthday song very well and very loud and made sure everyone around him knew who's birthday it was.

Can I brag on my wife for a minute? She had a kid a couple years ago and then had knee surgery last year. This year she's finishing her Ph.D. AND training for a half marathon. He she is finishing her first race in a number of years, a 10K here in Owensboro. She almost ran too fast for the camera and finished at a sub-8:30 pace, which is super amazing. Now if we can just get my ankle better I'm looking forward to trying to keep up with her. My goal is to run the half marathon in May with her.

Happy March

2011-03-01T20:59:00.004-06:00

Here are a few pictures from over the last number of weeks:

Cade's first dental appointment went super! We kind of prepped him a little that he needed to climb up in the chair, open wide, and hold still. So when we were called back he walked right up to the chair and said, "Gotta climb up in the chair!" He did great during the exam, and then immediately asked for his special toothbrush. The dentist got the box of kids' brushes out and he picked a Cars toothbrush. Right when we got home he asked me if he could brush his teeth. It's still a struggle at times, but since our trip to the dentist's office he's been much better at brushing.

Something we've started doing when we can is going to the kids workshops that Lowe's holds every second or third Saturday morning. Cade likes putting on the apron and goggles and building whatever the project of the day is.We went to a hockey game in Evansville with our friends Derrick and Allie. Cade doesn't yet understand that he really shouldn't smile when he's being held by a Red Wings fan, but he still has time to learn. Here's Cade with the mascot.I've been traveling a lot lately. Here's a picture of a pretty cool central Florida sunset (of course the picture doesn't do the real thing justice) and one of downtown Chicago one night right after takeoff.

One of our favorite things to do with Cade in Bloomington is to go to a place called the Wonderlab. Cade's always been a fearless climber, and now he's big enough to climb the Grapevine Climber. This thing is over two stories high and goes from the floor to the ceiling on the second floor. The staircase winds around it so you can stay fairly close to your kiddo. He was by far the youngest kid in the climber (it's designed for kids four and older), and I was especially proud when another parent would comment on how well he climbed for a little guy. He actually got quite a few comments that day. :) Here's the view from the second floor looking down.

And here he is all the way at the top!

I have a nerf gun that I bought a couple summers ago for a youth game at the church. Cade has since found it and figured how to load and fire it. Our rule is that he can't shoot at people or pets, and he generally follows that rule pretty well. But he doesn't always hit what he's shooting at so it's imperative to stay alert when he's playing with it.

In other news, Susie is doing a great job of progressing toward her Ph.D., having just scheduled her defense date. So if you think of it between now and April 18th, say a prayer for her as she pushes to finish up the writing portion of her dissertation (or ishertayshun, as Cade says) and begins to prepare for her defense. She's working hard and is almost done! We're all very excited for her.

Cade's Sports Video Update!

2011-01-23T21:00:00.003-06:00

At the Gronseth house we're eagerly anticipating the arrival of spring. By my count, we only have 22 more days until pitchers and catchers report! But until then, while the snow flies outside, we must find a way to cure that baseball fever until the mercury rises. Luckily for us, Cade is still small enough that baseball in the house is just fine! Sometimes he wants to pitch to me, but most of the time he wants to hit. And most of the time when he hits, he tells me that he can "swing like Buster Posey." This might be his first favorite player - it's either Posey or Lincecum, mostly because he watched a lot of last fall's playoffs with Daddy. (Did I ever mention that he just keeps getting more and more fun?)

Today while we were playing I got the camera out to catch our little budding slugger in action. When he knows he's being recorded he loves to watch himself after each hit. Maybe a little vanity right now, but this will prep him for transitioning to mechanics film study later in life. :) All too soon enough I'm going to have to start wearing a glove and we're going to have to move the games outside, but I'm enjoying the inside baseball with my little boy for now.

Baseball isn't the only sport Cade likes playing. Today he was trying to master the dropkick. After a while he started nailing it pretty well. These two videos show a little of his progression.

Like a Child

2010-12-28T22:57:00.006-06:00

This Christmas was unlike any other Christmas I've ever experienced. As you grow older you start becoming more and more used to the Christmas season. You get better at getting things done in an efficient manner and you become calloused to the real wonder and anticipation of the season and its real meaning. Then you have a kiddo. Not much changes for the first couple Christmases (besides the mountain of presents sent to your baby from family and friends) because your baby doesn't quite understand what all the fuss and sugar and late nights are about.

Then your kid turns two and that next Christmas is unlike any other Christmas you've ever experienced. A two year old has such innocence, wonder, and true joy during the Christmas season, and it really brings you back to being in love with that innocence, wonder, and true joy. You realize you had forgotten what it was like to really stare at a present and really long to open it before Christmas. You realize you had forgotten how pretty Christmas lights and Christmas candles and Christmas trees really are. You realize you had forgotten how much fun it is to decorate Christmas cookies. You realize you had forgotten how good candy canes really do taste. You realize you'd grown used to (and tired of) singing Christmas songs. You realize you don't talk about what Christmas really means nearly often enough.

Here are a few of the pictures taken of Cade this Christmas season. I hope they convey just a little bit of how much he (and we) enjoyed Christmas this year.

“Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.”

And when it's all said and done.... "sleep in heavenly peace."

We hope your Christmas was as wonderful as ours, and we hope that we all can remember what it's like to be two years old and experience Christmas like that every year.

Some ladybugs are male.....

2010-11-14T20:11:00.005-06:00

"That's a real cute picture of your daughter there." Yeah, I've heard that a few times in the last couple weeks since I put this picture on my laptop's desktop. I don't care. Haven't you heard of a male ladybug? There have to be male ladybugs or else ladybugs would just cease to exist, right?

Some time before Halloween Susie texted me a picture of a ladybug costume her mom had found for Cade to wear. My first reaction was "Ummmm....." But I started to think about it. If you know Cade, you know he loves any kind of bug or critter. And he definitely doesn't know that the word "lady" has any female connotations. To him a ladybug is just another cool bug. After pondering for a while I figured this could have potential to be a real winner. And guess what? It was. Cade wore this costume three times the week of Halloween and we never had to fight him to get into it. And just picking out socks can be very trying sometimes. He's very particular about what he wears.

So here's a big thanks to VeeVee for bringing that ladybug costume. Cade loved it.

One of the Halloween events I took him to was with my buddy Jason and his family. Turns out, Jason's daughter Ella was a ladybug too. Potentially awkward situation? No way! Cade liked the idea that they were dressed the same. Plus, notice that Ella has hearts on her costume. So she's definitely the female ladybug and everyone was happy.

Now that Cade's little legs are long enough, he loves to go ride his tricycle around the neighborhood. He's been very good about following directions, staying on the less busy streets, and watching for cars. Even though he can reach the pedals he prefers to push along the ground with his feet.

Since we live a few blocks from the train tracks Cade likes to ride down to the tracks and see if we can see a train. I call this one "Sunset at the Train Crossing."

Last weekend I ran the Indianapolis Monumental Half Marathon with a few buddies. I'd been training hard with Robert (second from left) and Jason (far right, and father of Cade's ladybug friend). Robert's brother Bruce drove in from South Carolina to join us. We all had a great time, and the training program we found in Runner's World really paid off. I set a PR by four minutes and Jason and I finished over two minutes under our goal time. Robert and Bruce also turned in great finishing times, especially for a couple of guys that had never run a half before. The weather was great for running, and we definitely couldn't have asked for a better day.

We all stayed in the same hotel in downtown Indy, which was a lot of fun. Here's the whole crew after the race.

You may have noticed that all the wives and kids were wearing blue hoodies. Jason does a lot of outstanding design work, so he came up with this design for a shirt for the families. Pretty talented.

Last night the three of us went to the IU volleyball game. It was some sort of family night, so they had a photographer taking family pictures for free. We had bought Cade a little IU football jersey the week before and he'd been itching to wear it. He was so excited to put it on and go to the game. So here we are all decked out in Indiana red. I'm sure my dad's side of the family (from Minnesota) would all be so proud.

Cade was doing a little bit of exploring outside today. We are taking advantage of this great fall weather. Cade chose to wear this shirt to church this morning because it was just like daddy's shirt. He was kind of being a stick in the mud when it came to getting dressed (which isn't entirely unusual), but when I came in and he saw my shirt and we suggested that he could dress just like daddy he became a little more compliant.

Can I brag on my kid a bit? Cade got this set of puzzles from his Aunt Amy and Uncle Paul. In the box there are four puzzles and they all have four pieces to them. We've played with them before, but usually it ends up with Susie or I putting the puzzles together at Cade's request. Well, today Cade was playing by himself and we looked over and he had separated the four puzzles and had put them all together! He then took them apart, mixed up the pieces, and did it a couple more times. In this picture you can see that he's almost done with the red one, he's finished the green one, the blue one is almost done, and he's set the yellow pieces off to his right to work on next. I'm obviously a very biased party, but I was incredibly impressed. Way to go, my little two-year-old engineer!

Back!

2010-10-18T19:55:00.005-05:00

You don't want to hear excuses about school and travel and work and other things that might keep one from being a responsible blogger, do you? I didn't think so. So we'll get right to it. As some have subtly and some not so subtly reminded me, it's been almost two months since the last post on this illustrious blog. A lot has happened in the last couple months, so I'll try to break it down for you in a few paragraphs with some pictures.

I had a great birthday in September, especially since we got to go to the zoo as a family. It sounds so cliche, but with all the traveling we've been doing, all I really wanted on my birthday was to spend it with Susie and Cade. Cade loves the zoo, and we had a great time. After seeing mommy and daddy carry the backpack, Cade wanted his turn with it. He did a pretty good job of lugging/dragging it for a few minutes before gladly handing it back.

Apparently, some bats like milk in sippy cups with red lids.

Cade loves to play with stickers. As you can see, he'll stick them on anything, including (especially) himself.This fall Cade has requested that we go to some football games. Sometimes he's fidgety, and sometimes he really seems zeroed in on the game. Here we are in Bowling Green watching IU play Western Kentucky.At the end of September Owensboro held a Pumpkin Festival. Susie had some work to do for school, so Cade got some daddy time. We had a blast. Here's a picture of Cade on a train ride. For those that didn't know, we live a few blocks from some train tracks, and Cade loves to go watch the trains when they come by. So when he saw a train at the Pumpkin Festival we definitely had to ride it.

The Pumpkin Festival was the first time we had let Cade do some rides on his own. I started him off easy in a truck just so I could see if he'd sit still or try to escape while the ride was in motion. We then graduated to the flying elephants.

I had to talk myself into it, but Cade really wanted to go on the little ferris wheel. It wasn't too tall, so I figured if he got antsy and tried a Houdini I could hop on it and try and get him down. Fortunately, though, he passed this test with flying colors as well. He loved it. This kid has no fear of heights.

My mom came and visited in early October, and we went out to a local farm that weekend. Cade had fun running through a pumpkin maze, riding on a hayride, and.....

.....picking out his own pumpkin!

Owensboro is a town that loves festivals. This last weekend was the Apple Festival, one of the two big festivals of the year (the other is the BBQ Festival in May). The fire department had a display trailer and a couple fire engines out for display and Cade was all over it.

Cade's sat in a fire engine before, but I don't think it's gotten old for him yet.

You'll be happy to know that you are now viewing a picture of the best fifty cents we've ever spent. The local 4H bunny club set up a pen with a bunch of bunnies in it. You could pay fifty cents to go in the pen to pet and hold the bunnies. I don't think it was as fun for the bunnies as it was for the kids. But it looked like they were making a decent haul from it, so I guess the bunnies probably figured it was worth getting picked up by a back leg or getting an ear pulled for one day to ensure enough food for the rest of the year.

We did a few rides at the Apple Festival too. This one made me a little nervous because it didn't have any seat belts. Cade eventually rewarded my nervous thoughts by deciding this ride would be more fun if he rode it standing up. As he went by we'd tell him to sit down and he loved the fact that we couldn't actually make him sit down. Then on one lap the ride operator reached in and plopped him down into his seat. I think it surprised him so much (he was looking at us and smiling) that he stayed seated for the rest of the ride.

Despite his antics (and because of them), Susie and I are so blessed to have Cade as a son. He's growing and learning and becoming more and more interactive. Last week I actually had about a five minute phone conversation with him. I was in awe that he held the phone up to his ear and conversed for that long (he usually pushes the buttons until he hangs up the call). He's becoming more creative and imaginative as well. He'll make up songs and tell us stories of things that either aren't present or aren't possible. It's fun to see his little brain work.

Thanks for being patient with me and my lack of posts. Sometimes I wonder what I'll do with all my extra free time once I'm done with my MBA this December. I definitely intend to be more consistent with this blog, for one. But until then, I'll do my best to do better and post more frequently. Talk to you later!

He's a pitcher!

2010-08-21T17:01:00.002-05:00

It's great to see little Cade's brain in action. He's always learning and putting things together. It's really pretty amazing to witness (and often funny).

Last week Cade was getting ready for bed and I put some PJ's on him that have pitchers, catchers, and batters on them. As we put them on I'd point at a player on the PJ's and he'd tell me if it was a pitcher, catcher, or batter. Before bed he wanted to jump on the bed. (I know a real good dad wouldn't let him, but he was having so much fun and there are enough nights that I'm on the road and don't get to see him.) At one point he kind of lost his balance and caught himself with his leg up in the air for balance like in the picture below. He looked down at himself and exclaimed with glee, "He's a pitcher!" Neither Susie or I could breathe we were laughing so hard, but it was cool to see him translate an image he saw in a picture on his PJ's to real life in a spatial situation.

I was trying to get him to pose for more pictures and asked him for a big cheesy smile. This is what I got. Sometimes he just doesn't want to have a camera in his face, and other times, well... you make up your own mind here.

After a number of rounds of "He's a pitcher!" he started getting the arm involved. That's when the game became more serious as he started watching his limbs to make sure they were positioned just so. It's ok buddy, we have years ahead of us to work on your mechanics. For now we'll just work on arm strength, so just focus on throwing it as hard as you can (knowing I'll regret telling him that while I clean up the remains of something breakable in the future).

Water!

2010-08-08T22:52:00.003-05:00

The theme of this post is....water! Cade has definitely taken to water this summer. This isn't a surprise to us, though. He's (almost) always loved his bath time, he's always loved the pool, and he enjoyed his first trip out on a boat earlier this year. But this last week Cade has taken it to a new level!

First, though, I wanted to just get a picture up real quick that we took a couple weekends ago. (It does have to do with water, just of the frozen variety.) We went down to the local rink and took Cade skating for the first time. He really liked it and did pretty well. He did a great job of staying on his feet and moving around a little bit, sometimes even without the help of the plastic crates.

We spent last weekend with our church down at Kentucky Lake. It was a great time of getting away to focus on building relationships with other people in the church as well as spend time together as a family. We had over 220 come for the weekend! We are blessed with a great community at our church. On Saturday we went out on the lake with another family. Here's a picture of Cade with a little buddy of his named Taylor. Cade had a good time hanging out with her this last weekend.

While we were out on the boat Cade got to take his first ride on a tube! He really seemed to like it for a while. After a little bit, though, he got tired of the water spashing up in his face and he wanted to get back in the boat. I don't think there is much that this kid is scared of, which I guess is a good thing and can possibly be a bad thing at the same time. But he sure loves being out on the water.

When we got back to Owensboro this afternoon, one of the local pools was holding their annual dog day so we packed up Chili and headed over there. Since Chili is now seven years old he can't really keep up with the younger doggies in the races (he did win the doggie paddle race a couple years when we first moved here). :) But he did shimmy enough to wow the judges and win the best shake contest.

In other news, Cade is now officially swimming on his own! He wears this little floaty vest, and until today he hadn't quite developed his sense of body control. He'd usually pitch forward or back or roll and get his face in the water if we let him go. But today he kept pushing me away when I was holding him and then proceeded to figure out how to move around and stay floating upright on his own (and pretty quickly actually). So we spent around two hours swimming around the pool chasing Chili and the tennis ball. Then he decided he was going to do some jumping in. In the past he liked jumping to me or Susie, but we didn't let him go under too much. But today he'd just jump in, bob back up, clear the water out of his eyes, and swim around just fine. It was super awesome to see him develop these abilities. It made playing with him in the water that much more fun.

Here's a short video of Cade swimming to me. I didn't realize I looked that excited when we were swimming around, but apparently I was the dorky dad. I don't care. It was too cool to have my own kid swimming around the pool with me today!

Such a proud dad (sniffle....)

2010-07-31T15:52:00.002-05:00

Here are a couple more videos of Cade playing baseball. He has a little soft bat and ball that he likes to play with. It's a good thing the ball is soft because he can hit it pretty well sometimes. It might not be too long before we have to curtail any ball in the house, but not yet. Sometimes he wants me to pitch, but most of the time he just wants to toss it himself and chase the ball around, which is great for burning off some energy. He's getting to where he hits it more than he misses. Makes a daddy proud. :) We'll work on mechanics later.

This video was a little too close to being a candidate for America's Funniest....

There are a couple things that make me laugh in this video. First, when he hits the ball around the corner he gets so excited and runs too fast and he almost doesn't quite make the corner. Then, when he comes back he just kind of hits one on a dead sprint. The end is funny because once he figured out I was taking videos of him he wanted to hit a couple and then come and watch himself on the camera. So at the end you can see him drop the bat and come to sit in my lap.

Video Blog

2010-07-18T20:58:00.004-05:00

Here are a few video clips from the last few weeks. These first two are of the same thing from different angles. It is now impossible to read the paper or a magazine when Cade is around because he had so much fun doing this the first time.

Here's the view from behind the paper....

This is the tail end of Cade's 20 yard dash last weekend. I obviously didn't get set up in time to get the whole race. It was one of those deals where he was taking a nap so we didn't want to wake him up, but we didn't want to be late for his first race. We cut it a little close, so he didn't have his bib on and I didn't get the video of the full race. When they started the race Cade kind of just stood there since he'd never been in a race and didn't quite know what to do. But then when he saw the other kids running he took off. We were glad our friend Shannon was there to catch him at the finish line.

Back home!

2010-07-08T20:52:00.008-05:00

Hey everyone. We are back from Colorado and have a lot to share, so let's go right to the pictures. We have a ton!

Before heading out Susie and I were able to go to the wedding of Matt and Rocio Elsberry. Matt is a high school buddy of mine. It was good to see him and spend some time with a couple other high school friends.

Also, Susie found Cade a replica jersey of the greatest quarterback of all time. She stumbled upon it in a kids consignment shop. When he put it on he wanted daddy to put on his Broncos jersey too. It was a super hot day, but he didn't want either of us to take our jerseys off. That kid's got great taste.

We drove out to Colorado, and the back of the Rav4 was perfect for our furry friend. Here are Cade and Chili on the way out of the driveway. They both were very good travelers both on the way out and the way back. I think the fact that Cade pretty much was born into driving up to Bloomington and back every week has made him a good car rider.

Here we are on our eighth anniversary. I'm such a lucky guy. We headed down into historic Manitou Springs and ate at the Mona Lisa fondue restaurant. If you're ever in Colorado Springs and need a great place to take a date, we'd definitely recommend it.

One thing Cade was able to do in Colorado was go to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo. Here he is, getting personal with a gorilla (though when Cade says gorilla it sounds more like koala).

The showcase of the zoo is the giraffe exhibit. Cade loved getting to feed crackers to the giraffes. He talked about that for days (and talked about their long purple tongues).

Of course we had to go see a Sky Sox game so Cade could see Sox the Fox. All he wanted to do all night was give Sox a high five. After the game the stadium had a fireworks show. At first Cade was ok with it, but when the bigger booms came out he started crying. I had to take him up on the concourse and if I took even one step towards the stands he'd cling and cry harder and point in the other direction and say "that way!" Poor guy. He still talks about "crying colors." We watched some fireworks on TV on the fourth of July and he seemed to like them better then.

We also took Cade to Chuck E Cheese's while in Colorado Springs. It's a lot smaller than I remember it, but Cade didn't seem to notice. He had a blast. He kept saying, "Like the mouse!"

Here's a picture of Cade and I on Father's Day. I am so blessed to be able to have such a great son.

Susie and my mom took Cade on a hike near my parents' house. He enjoyed being up in the mountains.

While on their hike they met up with a man on a horse. He was kind enough to let Cade sit on the horse. Cade has a high affinity for any kind of animal, and he didn't show any hesitation or fear. He just hopped up on the horse and sat there like a natural.

Cade also got to go to the Butterfly Pavilion in Denver. He enjoyed seeing the butterflies and other insects. He commented on how the butterflies looked like they were clapping. He also went around clapping his hands with the butterflies. Fortunately, he didn't clap too close to any butterflies.

We held a Rockies themed birthday party for Cade. Here we are, all dressed up in our Rockies shirts ready to party.

Cade's a natural at opening presents.

I think mommy likes the lion puppet more than Cade.

We got Cade an ice cream cake with baseball players on it. We also helped him blow out his candles. :)

Another hammock picture. Cade loved swinging in the hammock and he just about wet his pants when Maggie jumped up in the hammock with us. (Full disclosure: there was a good chance Cade's pants were already wet when Maggie joined us in the hammock.)

One day after running we set up Cade's swimming pool and both hopped in. In case you didn't know, mountain water is cold, even in the middle of June. Cade has discovered how to use a hose and also how much fun it is to spray other people with a hose.

We also took Cade to the Renaissance Festival in Larkspur. What a crazy, weird, interesting, fun place. Nana and Cade took a ride on the world's largest rocking horse (at least that's what they told us).

Cade and Grandpa feeding the goats in the petting zoo area.

I was surprised when we went towards the horse ride and Cade wanted to ride the llama. But that's what he wanted, so that's what we did.

Susie and I took a trip up Pikes Peak (in the car, not a hike). It was pretty incredible how different you feel when you drive up compared to after hiking it.

We went to Red Robin with the whole crew to celebrate my dad being reinstated back into active duty with the Air Force. Cade really, really, really liked the mint brownie milkshake, and you can see the brownie in his smile.

Another fun part of going to Colorado was getting all three dogs together for the first time. With Chili are Bella (my sister and brother-in-law's dog, the lighter colored one in the front) and Maggie (my parents' dog with the white face on the right). I don't know if they had more fun being together or Cade had more fun having three dogs to try and ride.

My parents went to Norway earlier this summer and they brought us all back Norwegian sweaters. Here's the whole crew in our sweaters in their backyard.

And before I forget, yes, you can follow @cadegronseth.

Here you go VeeVee!

2010-06-19T17:39:00.006-05:00

"Here you go" is one of Cade's recently learned and oft quoted phrases. It sounds more like "hee-go!" I think he picks things up to hand to you just to say that. But this post is for VeeVee who recently reminded me that I haven't put any pictures up in a while. Granddaddy is on a trip and so we figured she's probably lonely since Uncle Billy is gone too: off on his climbing adventure in West Virginia. But she's right. It's been quite a while since I've posted anything except for tweets. It's been so long that I'm going to need two posts to get it all in.

We're currently in Colorado, but the last month has seen us all over the southeast. Cade got to spend a couple weeks in Alabama with VeeVee and Granddaddy, and he had a blast there. So here's the first post of pictures. I hope to get another one up shortly.

Before we left for Alabama we decided to make some cookies. Cade really likes helping no matter if you're cooking, cleaning up, working in the yard, feeding Chili, etc. And lately we've noticed that for the most part he likes to be a pretty tidy little guy. If he spills something he'll try to wipe it up or ask someone else to wipe it up. If he sneezes he'll say, "boogie," to let you know you need to get a kleenex out and wipe his face. And he doesn't normally like a lot of stuff on his hands; he'll ask for a napkin. This next picture is the exact opposite of what I just described. He's trying to help clean up the mixer after making the cookie dough, but I don't think he cares too much that it's also getting all over his face.
Here we are in at the Fort Payne High School graduation for Susie's youngest brother. Congratulations Billy!

Cade was a big partier that night. It was fun to have the whole Brown family together for a couple days to hang out.

Susie's Aunt Fran, Uncle Cliff, cousin Jon, and Jon's son Jacob also came up for the graduation weekend. Jacob and Cade had fun playing together.

VeeVee got a pinata and we had a sort of early second birthday celebration for Cade. If you ever need a storm cellar or bomb shelter, make sure you buy it from the guy who made Cade's pinata. It took Billy and Jon quite a few big swings to break it open.

Cade and I took a hike up through the woods near VeeVee's house. We found a tree that grew up and then took a right turn so it was parallel with the ground. Cade had fun sitting up high. He didn't really want to get down, even when we heard thunder and needed to get back to the house.

He's inspecting something on the ground. Probably a bug. I saw this picture and it reminded me that I no longer have a baby. He looks so much more like a little boy now.

Billy had a graduation party thrown for him by his girlfriend's family out at their lake house. Of course, Chili had the most fun out of all of us. He wasn't quite as fast as Daisy, the resident doggie, but he sure loved being in the water.

This was Cade's first boat ride. He loved it. Susie and I were riding around on a wave runner and he thought it was funny when we'd ride up next to the boat and wave at him.

While in Alabama, VeeVee arranged for Cade to have swimming lessons at the gym where she works. Cade did very well, learning how to kick and jump in.

After his lesson I got to jump in and swim with him. Lately we've been working on holding our breath in the hot tub. In the pool Cade kept asking to "go unnahwatah." He'd say "holdabreath!" Then we'd count to three and bob under for a second or two. What cracked me up was the fact that he'd keep his eyes and mouth open under the water. I guess he figured out how to hold his breath with his mouth open, because he never really came back up hacking or spitting up water.

You can go back to some of my earliest posts and even back then I mentioned how much Cade loved to swing. He still does, and he's so over baby swings. Don't even try to put him in one. This is one of those pictures where I just think about how I thought I had a baby, but he's really a little boy now. He'll be two next week. Wow.

I'll try to get rest of the pictures up in a few days. We've had a lot of fun over the last few weeks so there is a lot to post. I think we're headed to Chuck E Cheese a little later. Cade's never been, so I hope he enjoys it. I know I will. :)

Stay tuned for part 2!

Springtime Fun

2010-05-10T21:37:00.005-05:00

Life is never boring in the Gronseth household! The last month has been super busy with traveling, running, and finishing semesters. But before we get to the pictures, let me say a big "Happy Mother's Day" to all you moms out there, especially to my lovely wife, her mother, and to my mom as well. Because of these three wonderful ladies, Cade has a nurturing, loving, and positive environment to grow up in. Even though Nana and VeeVee don't live in the same town as us, they make sure to let Cade know that he is loved and he looks forward to seeing them as much as possible. And Susie is the most unselfish, loving, caring mother I could ever have picked for Cade. I'm actually pretty humbled that I get to be a part of her family and that I get to be a part of bringing Cade up with her.

A couple weeks ago we got a couple baseball tattoos in the mail. I was surprised to see Cade sit so still while I helped him apply a tattoo to each arm, especially since he really didn't know what was going on at first. But after we peeled the paper back and he saw baseballs on his arms he was the proudest kid in Owensboro! A day later when we dropped him off at his babysitter in Bloomington he wanted to walk in without his shirt on to show off his tattoos. He was so funny to watch as he stood there while all the other boys flocked around him and ooohed and aaahed over the his baseball tattoos.

Two weekends ago we were able to spend some time in Colorado. Susie had a conference in Denver, so Cade and I tagged along. Susie and I were able to stay in Lodo and spend some time together over the weekend while Cade stayed with Nana and Grandpa. I forgot how much I love spending time in the downtown Denver area. After this trip we would definitely recommend 1515 (as a date place) and Appaloosa Grill (for a more relaxed tasty dinner) if you're headed to Denver anytime soon.

Even before we left for Colorado Cade was talking about seeing Maggie (my parents' dog) and Bella (my sister's dog). Maggie is getting up there in years, so I think she's the most tolerant of Cade climbing all over her out of her, Bella, and Chili. She's a cuddly dog, so I think she enjoyed Cade nestling in all the time.

Here's a picture of Cade with Maggie and my mom. Maggie's lips were caught on her teeth so it looks like she's giving a big cheesy grin, a la Chili here.

My mom took Cade out to the construction site of her sister's house, and Cade was super excited to see the big tractor! He loves pointing out tractors when we see any kind of construction equipment on the roadways, so it was super cool for him to get to see one up close.

My parents came up to Denver when Susie's conference was over. While we waited for her final session to end we walked down the 16th St Mall and Cade wanted to ride the "blue cow."

After the blue cow ride we went to the Denver Museum where we met up with my mom's two brothers and their families. Susie and I went to see the Body Worlds exhibit, which happened to be located there when we went. It was absolutely amazing. I highly recommend the experience if the exhibit travels to a town near you. Here is a picture of Cade with my three cousins. From the left are Nolan, Bodhi, and Mairin. He had a blast running around with them and looking at the dinosaurs and other animals.

We returned to my parents' house in Monument to find two inches of snow! My dad had set up a basketball hoop for Cade and all Cade wanted to do was "shoot!" So they went out in the snow and shot baskets.

I don't know if Cade had ever eaten snow before this trip, but he certainly ate his share this time. I guess as long as it's not yellow.....

Here's another first: Cade's first time shoveling. He was a big help for Grandpa.

We also went to a Colorado Springs Sky Sox game (Triple AAA affiliate of the Colorado Rockies). I grew up going to see the Sky Sox, so it was fun for me to go back to that ball park. Cade was in love right as we walked up because of the huge baseballs out front.

He grew futher enamored when he saw the team's mascot, Sox the Fox (pronounced "Soxy Fox" by Cade). Uncle Paul took him over to get his picture taken with Sox. Sometimes it was hard to tell if he was watching the game or Sox more intently.

He loved the carmel apple, but he wasn't interested in the slices of apple with carmel on them. He preferred to eat the core, from the bottom up.

For all the fun we'd had, the crowning moment of the night came when a foul ball landed near Grandpa. He scooped it up and handed it to Cade. He was pretty excited to have a real game ball. We'll be back in Colorado in June, and we're definitely going to head down to see another Sky Sox game (when the temperature is above 50).

Last weekend I was able to run in the 500 Festival Half Marathon in Indianapolis. I was a little nervous about it since I've been having some IT band problems with me left knee that kept me out of quite a bit of training. Despite the wind, it was a blast running that race with ~35,000 others. Check out the link above and there should be a picture of the start. It was a pretty amazing logistical feat. The highlights of the run were running a lap at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and setting a new PR. We stayed in a hotel three blocks from the start line and so the night before Cade wanted to try on all the swag I got in my race packet. It was all too big for him, but he still looked pretty good.

It was a real treat to have Susie and Cade there to greet me at the finish line. Cade was especially excited to try the chocolate milk they were handing out to finishers. He also liked wearing the finisher's medal. That medal got a lot more comments when he was wearing it than when I was. :) Next up, the Georgetown to Idaho Springs race in August with my high school buddy Matty. Anyone want to join us?

Then on Mother's Day we were able to participate in the baby dedication at church. We are so fortunate and thankful to be a part of such a great community at Bridgepointe Church here. And I know it was something extra special for Susie to do on Mother's Day as well.

Thanks for stopping by. I'll try to post more frequently in the next month or so since I'm between semesters.

Zombies & Toyotas

2010-04-17T23:01:00.002-05:00

It's so good to be home! I got stuck at the Atlanta airport last night on my way back into town from Charleston. It was initially a big bummer, but I was able to stay with my high school buddy Matt and spend some time catching up with him. He was gracious enough to pick me up at the MARTA station and offer me his guest room for the short night. I think the trouble and unfriendly employees were Delta's ways of getting back at me for taking this shot via Twitter on Tuesday about how much it sucks flying through the delay-plagued Atlanta airport. No worries now, though. I'm home and with my family.

The weather has been beautiful these last couple weeks. During one of those nice days we were outside working on the yard. Susie gave Cade a grape popsicle since it was pretty warm out. I was bent over a garden working and I heard Cade come walking over and then fall down in the garden near me. As I looked up I saw what looked like a dirty bloody little zombie (opinion probably influenced by my recent viewing of "Zombieland"). So here are a couple pictures of our little living dead (another one here). The pictures definitely don't do the makeup trailer any justice.

This afternoon we went down to a small carnival that had set up at Kentucky Wesleyan College. We took Cade on the carousel. He's been on carousels before, so he was pretty excited to ride it as you can tell in this picture.

After Susie rode with him it was my turn. As we walked on the ride I asked Cade which one he wanted to ride on. He looked at me and said, "Ride on rooster!" I had no idea he even knew that word. About halfway through the ride he wanted to switch over to the "piggie." I told him no due to the piggie's sharp teeth. He seemed ok with that answer and agreed that pigs with sharp teeth should be avoided. (Somehow four-foot-tall roosters aren't cause for any concern though...)

We picked up a pizza on the way home and Cade got to play the car racing game at the restaurant. If you've seen other posts, you know that he loves racing car games, so we're not covering any new ground here. The only reason I'm posting this picture is because I let Cade pick out our vehicle. Notice he picked out the Toyota truck. Now that's a kid with great taste. The game turned out to be kind of a dud. We didn't have any sticky accelerator issues. Rather, the shift knob in my right hand didn't exactly work, and it's hard to win any races when you're stuck in first gear. Cade asked me why the transmission was faulty. He said he was confused because he hadn't chosen the Dodge. ;) I just told him it was an unrealistic simulation.

Thanks for reading. We hope you are enjoying spring as much as we are!

I love you little buddy

2010-04-11T23:37:00.003-05:00

Here are a few reasons why I love you Cade:
* I love the way you say "Good Moming Daddy!"
* I love the way you are always looking to make a joke. Like this morning, when you usually say "Good Moming Daddy." Over and over I said "Good Morning Cade," and over and over you looked at me with a glimmer in your eyes and said with a half straight face: "Good Moming Mommy!"
* I love how you want to dance with your daddy. I especially love it how sometimes when you dance with daddy you fall asleep on his chest.
* I love how you love your mommy.
* I love how even at a young age you are showing a love for Jesus. You always want us to pause to say "blessing" before every meal and you love saying "Amen!" at the end of any prayer. And every night you ask us to sing "Jesus" as you fall asleep. These are very simple things, but they indicate a beginning knowledge and love.
* I love how you are curious and love to explore the world around you. Sometimes this results in "bo-bo's," but that doesn't slow you down, and that brings me to my next one:
* I love how you know where to come for comfort from bo-bo's, hurting gums, and other problems. Please know that you can always come to Mommy and Daddy when things don't seem right.
* I love how your interests are seemingly broad. You love to watch and play basketball as well as all kinds of other games with balls and bats. You love to listen to and play music. You love to play with Chili. You love to read books. I don't know where your interests will take you and what you will eventually gravitate towards as you grow, but I can't wait to watch.
* I love how you are outgoing and friendly. You haven't met anyone you don't like; you'll go up to anyone and say "Hi!," which reminds me a lot of my Grandpa. You would have loved him.
* I love your assertiveness. You know what you want. Even though it creates tension at times, and probably will continue to create tension in the future, I believe this quality will serve you well as you grow up.
* I love how much you look like your mommy.
* I love how much you look like me.

This list could go on and on. Notice that nowhere on this list do I tell you that I love you because of anything that you can or cannot do. I think that you're handsome and you're smart and you're fun to be around, but these aren't the reasons I love you. My love for you is not based on any condition or any expectation we have of you. No matter what you do and no matter who you choose to become your mommy and I will always love you because of the most important reason on this list:
* You are our son and you are a gift from God.

Happy Easter!

2010-04-04T23:24:00.004-05:00

Happy Easter everyone! We hope you were able to spend Easter with people that are important to you and that your day gave you time to reflect on the importance of Jesus' resurrection. We weren't able to spend this Easter with any of our biological family, but that doesn't mean we didn't have a great weekend.

Yesterday one of Cade's buddies from church, Elizabeth, came over to help decorate eggs and do an egg hunt. As I mentioned in the last post, Cade loves stickers so I think his favorite part of decorating was putting stickers on the eggs after they were colored.

I got to hide eggs for the first time ever, so that was kind of fun. It was a little different being on this side of the game, and it was so fun to see Cade getting a kick out of looking for the eggs. I wondered if he would get into it, but once he figured out the idea of the game he was like a little blond-headed bloodhound out there. If you can remember, next time you see me ask me about a story from my childhood involving an Easter egg hunt, my cousins, and some doggie dookie.

I'm going to just take this platform and say that our friends Jeff and Denise are outstanding people. They invited us and another couple our age from our church over for an Easter meal today. They knew we didn't have any family in the area so they filled in just great! They are a selfless couple that have sacrificed for us before and love playing with Cade. They have a grandson a little older than Cade so they had tons of cool toys for Cade to play with.

When I was a kid I always wanted a Power Wheels but never got one. Well, Jeff and Denise had one and Cade wasn't so sure what to do at first. He's a big fan of the racing games at the arcade. Also, whenever we get home from going somewhere he likes to climb into my lap before I get out of the car and pretend like he is driving. This truck was a little big for him; he had to stretch to reach the gas pedal. I don't know if giving a one-year-old control of a motorized vehicle is really that prudent, but the look on his face when he realized what he had in his hands was sooooo worth it. This picture is as close as we came to capturing that look. We showed him the pedal and demonstrated it for him and then kind of let him sit in it. After a while he figured it out and his expression was a combination of a big smile, complete wonder, total surprise, and anticipation.

Another cool toy Jeff brought out was a kite. Again, not sure how he'd react, but he ended up loving it. I love this picture. That kid is smiling with his whole face.

We had round two of the egg hunt. I think Cade is telling us that he sees an airplane and where it is located in case we also wanted to view the airplane.

Out back they had a trampoline. Cade had never been on one before and it shouldn't be any surprise that he loved it. I bounced him all over and he was pretty bummed out when it was time to get off and do something else. I don't know if I'll ever be able to convince Susie to get one of these if we ever have a yard with a place for one. (Another toy I wanted as a kid but never got. Looking back on today I may have had more fun than Cade.)

Here's a video of Cade in the truck. He's not doing too bad considering he still has over 14 years to go before he can legally operate a vehicle. Shortly after this take he ran into a tree, so maybe it's a good thing he has over 14 years...

Sorry if you see multiple typos or grammar errors. I just learned Wilco was on Austin City Limits last night so I'm skipping proofreading and heading over to the PBS website to watch the show. Have a great night!

Let's have a spelling contest!

2010-04-01T22:04:00.003-05:00

My favorite movie ever made through all these years remains Tombstone. Nothing made since then has come close to unseating it in my mind. And one of the best lines in that movie is when Doc Holliday was taking Ike Clanton's money at the poker table. Ike clearly insinuates Doc's cheating, to which Doc replies: "Maybe poker's just not your game, Ike. I know, let's have a spelling contest!"

This small piece of Daddy Gronseth trivia happens to be a perfect segway into the video you're about to see. Cade's been learning all kinds of things lately. Just last week we were in the car and he started spouting out months that he'd been learning at his babysitter (she does a great job of not only watching the boys, but having a school time everyday, which we appreciate a TON). He named most of them very well and in order and November (No-muh-muh-muh) came out sounding a lot like his version of cucumber (cu-muh-muh-muh). I mean, they kind of rhyme in real life, so I don't see a problem with them rhyming in Cade dialect. Well, tonight when Cade and Susie pulled in from Bloomington they hit me with this jewel. I had to get it on video (more than once, of course). His time at a major university must be rubbing off. Doc would be proud:

For the last few years Susie has been faithfully driving her 1995 Camry up to Bloomington and back. It has been a great car, and it was something she'd been driving since 1998 when she bought it with just under 40K miles on it. Now it has over 231K. We'd had a couple repairs over the last year that had made me more leery of her driving long distances with it, especially with Cade and especially since they were traveling some more or less deserted state roads between Owensboro and B-town. If we just were just using it around town I'd keep it until it ran into the ground; that thing still has a number of years of local driving left in it. But the travel Susie was doing with it (and me too, for business occasionally) got us thinking about something new. And since Toyota had a 0% incentive going on, we finally took the plunge. (I'm a pretty firm believer in paying for something instead of going into debt, but when someone offers you 0% financing anyone who's had any economics course that covers the time-value of money will tell you to take it. Just to cover my bases I called my good buddy Matt who has worked for Crown Financial Ministries for the last 9ish years and whose financial advice I greatly admire. He confirmed my thoughts so off we went!) We're sad to see "Tinkerbell" go, but Susie is definitely excited about her Rav4. We haven't lost faith in Toyota. Here she is, ready to drive off the lot.

If you give Cade a sticker he'll be your buddy forever (or at least until the sticky wears off). So last week when we got a new bunch of bananas he just HAD to get those stickers. He loves putting them on everything, including his own face.

My mom sent Cade a new treat: applesauce in a pouch. Well, it wasn't really applesauce, it was kind of like this apple and grape mush, which I guess is kind of like applesauce. It had a cool little spout like a straw and he downed it in no time. The only downfall was that it wasn't bigger. Cade is a big fan of apples (applesauce, apple pie, apple juice, apple slushies, etc.), so this was a good gift. I can't get over how big and tall he's getting and how much he looks like a boy instead of a baby. I guess this is good since baby to boy pretty much the natural progression for male humans (growing into a goat instead of a boy would raise some concern). He almost weighs 28 pounds now, which I think is right about the middle of the percentile range. We know this because he wanted to stand on the scale all by himself the other day. What a big boy!

Oh, and I almost forgot the story I promised in the last post. Like I mentioned, we're starting to try a little bit of low-pressure encouragement to go in the toilet. The genesis of that was noticing how much he would crack up at peeing in the bath. Right when he'd get in the bath, probably encouraged by the warm water, he'd start and stop his stream and just laugh at it the whole time saying, "pee-pee!" He was completely enamored at the discovery of his own personal little water gun. So we reasoned that if he's used to going at bathtime (one time he peed on the floor while we were filling the tub), we'd try and see if he'd pee in the toilet. So for about a week instead of going right to the tub we'd get him up on a stool in front of the toilet to see if he'd go. I know he wanted to. He'd stand there and say, "Pee-pee in the toilet!" and you could see him flexing his lower abdomen, but it never happened. We even tried having Daddy demonstrate (sorry if that was TMI), but no luck. The last couple times we tried, we'd wait for a while and then put him in the tub. However, he would be so frustrated that he'd just scream instead of enjoying bath time like normal. I'm pretty sure he understood the concept but just couldn't figure out how to make it happen. He was so focused on using the toilet and so frustrated that he couldn't do it that it would completely ruin the rest of the evening. So.... we put that idea back on the shelf. Maybe we'll come back to it, maybe not. I'm positive he's not ready, but we thought we'd give it a shot.

In slightly related news, he has figured out how to FLUSH the toilet, so I'm curious how much our water bill will go up.

Anyone still reading?

2010-03-24T20:43:00.004-05:00

Well, if you're reading this and you're not an immediate member of Susie's or my family, I commend you. It's been over a month since I posted last, so I can understand casual bloggies dropping off the radar. I don't know about anyone else, but it just feels like it's been a very busy transition to spring. Between traveling for work, a pretty nasty flu bug, a disabled laptop, surgery, work, school, the beginnings of teething on the two-year molars, etc., it just feels like life has been busy. Not necessarily in a stressful overbearing way for the most part. Mostly good things going on. Just busy.

One of my excuses for not posting occurred right at the start of March. Cade had a stomach bug starting on the Thursday right at the end of February. I came home late from a work trip late Friday night, and Susie got back from B-town the next morning (Susie's mom was watching Cade at our house that week). We went to a some friends' house Saturday night for a baby shower and some of the people at that shower had been at a youth function at their church in a packed room all weekend. So we don't know if we/Cade passed it over to them or if they passed it to me, but two of our friends and I got very sick the next day/night. I missed half the gold medal hockey game, so you know it had to be bad. :)

Unfortunately, one of our friends that got sick was Carla, the person whose baby shower we had just attended. The flu caused her to go into labor about eight weeks early and she ended up in the hospital. Fortunately for her and her baby, they were able to stop the labor and she went home a couple days later. So far, the baby has stayed put, so we're thankful for that.

Back at our house, Susie was dishing out the Pedialyte to both Cade and I with alarming efficiency. Between bathroom sessions, I pulled out my laptop to catch up on some work and school emails. I set my laptop down near the bed and tried to sleep, but I suddenly felt the urge. In my dash to the bathroom I knocked the Pedialyte onto my laptop's ultimately too accepting keyboard: not good. This is a work laptop, and luckily our Helpless Desk was able to direct me straight to Dell. Dell fixed me up, I didn't lose any of my hard drive, but I was without my link to work and school for almost two weeks. I had a couple days of slowly coming back out of my cloud and then a week out in the field working on a compressor, so I didn't need it too much, but I found out how much I take technology for granted. So that's my excuse for roughly half the month.

I guess if I was going to make an excuse for the other half I'd cite Susie's knee surgery two Fridays ago. Her left knee had been bothering her for a few months so she had it checked out and it turns out she had a torn meniscus. Her surgery went very well and she only needed a few days on crutches, but it still slowed things down for us. Susie's mom came into town before the surgery and stayed a few days afterwards. We are so fortunate to have her and her servant heart and I know Cade enjoyed all the time he was able to spend with his VeeVee.

So between those two events and work and school, I haven't done a very good job of maintaining this blog. We haven't even been very good picture takers. But here are a few that we've taken over the last month.

Bloomington has some great parks, and now that the weather is warming up we've taken Cade out a few times. He loves sliding and swinging the best.
Last Saturday the weather was perfect: mid-sixties and sunny. I had a 10K race in the morning and was able to spend a lot of the rest of the day working outside in the yard. Cade came out and was a big help. It was the first time we'd been able to spend a decent amount of time cleaning the yard and gardens up after the winter. It's amazing how much the yard waste and leaves and sticks and dog turds build up over the winter. Cade really does like to be a help. He was actually very good at putting leaves and sticks in the yard trash bags and I didn't catch him putting even one small Chili bomb in his mouth! Another thing we determined that day is that Cade likes to hang out in the bed of the truck.
As you can see, he's figured out how to say "Cheese!"
We spent a lot of time in the TV room the last Thursday through Sunday evenings because once Cade learned there was going to be a lot of basketball on TV he wanted to watch all the time. He also wants to wear any clothing that has basketballs on it and he wants to shoot baskets all the time too. I guess it only makes sense since he's a Kentucky native and this is definitely a roundball state.
This is a picture of our everyday life. We try to keep the same bedtime routine every night and Cade usually responds pretty well to it. We give him a bath, then read stories while he drinks his milk. Then we brush his teeth, say our prayers, and it's off to bed. As you can see, Cade doesn't lack for books. He loves them all and can recite sizeable chunks out of quite a few of them. He's kind of funny because he hasn't really developed a snotty toddler "NO!" yet. And his communication skills are getting better and better. You can give him choices and options and he really comprehends a lot and responds pretty consistently. So sometimes when we're reading stories we'll pick one up and if he doesn't want to read that one he'll say a little "nope." Not "no" or "NO!" Just "nope." Pretty cute.

News Flash! I guess we may be at a developmental transition. As I was typing this, Susie just informed me that Cade climbed out of his crib while she was putting him to bed tonight. So we're looking at how to transform the crib into the toddler bed tomorrow. I guess if he knows how to get out I'd rather have him slide off the mattress instead of skydiving from the top rail. More updates to come on that, so hopefully we'll have good things to post sooner rather than later. We're also starting a little bit of the beginnings of potty training, so I'll save that story for a sooner post as well. Like I mentioned earlier, if you're still with us: Thanks!

20 months!

2010-02-23T22:01:00.006-06:00

Well, today is Cade's 20 month birthday. What a great 20 months it's been, and it just seems to keep getting better. Cade continues to grow and grow and learn and learn. I keep saying this, but it's so much fun to watch his mind develop. And I feel like in the last few months the relationship between Cade and me has developed quite a bit. I feel like he's really starting to be daddy's little boy and I love it. He's been playing more and more like a little boy and when he's in distress he no longer only calls for mommy. Every once in a while it's daddy that he wants now instead of mommy. I've read that sometime between 18 and 36 months is when most little boys really start psychologically developing a sense of being a boy and learning what it is to be a male as opposed to a female. It's at this point that a dad is very important, and I've been noticing him looking more to me lately than he did when he was much smaller. There's nothing like it.

These last couple weeks have been very eventful for Cade. Two weekends ago my sister Amy and her husband Paul came to visit. Cade affectionately refers to them as "Apple Paul" and "A - A - A - my!" (Auntie Amy). Here's a picture of him helping us clean up while getting ready for their visit. He just had to wear my sock hat.

He's all about putting stuff on his head. I think it's Apple Paul's influence. Here he's doing his best Johnny Appleseed impression.
Paul and Amy took Cade back to Colorado with them to spend a week at Nana and Grandpa's house. It was so tempting to run after Paul and Amy in the airport yelling something about our kidnapped son......but we didn't. Traveling with a small child is challenging enough, so we appreciate their efforts. :) My mom had all kinds of fun things planned for Cade over the week. Here's a picture of Cade on a play date with our friend Jan's granddaughter Sage.
In keeping with the theme of head-wear, Cade and my dad spent some time playing with hats while he was there.

One thing Cade loves is basketball, and he really LOVES actually going to a game. While in Colorado my parents took him to a game in the same gym where I played high school basketball. As you can tell by this picture, he wasn't bored.

Unfortunately I wasn't there to introduce Cade to old friends. Here's one of my favorite teachers, Miss Bruce. She's almost solely responsible for my mathematical aptitude. I think we'd have a lot more calculus lovers (or at least a better understanding of the subject) if everyone got to take calculus from her. She's also been keeping the official scorebook at CSCS basketball games since before I played there. What a great individual.

My mom's sister, Deb, is building a house near my parents' house. Cade took a trip to the jobsite and was able to see some horses in a field nearby. Cade loves all kinds of animals, and these horses obliged his curiousity.

It was my sister's birthday while Cade was in Colorado so he enjoyed the birthday celebration for A - A - A - my.

I think Cade impressed my dad by being able to say "hockey stick." He likes to look through my Sports Illustrated, so I've been teaching him the equipment for different sports that are pictured. My dad cut down one of his old sticks and they played in the basement.

When my mom brought Cade back to Owensboro we went down to a church in town and played in their gym. It was difficult to jump this high with Cade, but I really wanted him to know what it feels like to dunk so he can have something to shoot for.

It's not just hats that Cade likes to put on his head. He also likes to put small trash cans on his head and run around bumping into stuff. Here he's wearing a Lego bucket that VeeVee brought him when she came last weekend.

It was fun to have both grandmas here last weekend. My mom headed back out on Monday and VeeVee is taking care of Cade this week while I'm in Arkansas and Susie is in Indiana. Cade is so lucky to have grandmas that love him so much.

Cade isn't prejudice to basketball. He will play with any kind of ball. The other night he was holding his bat and we tossed a couple of balls his way. He hit the first two right on the screws and sent them flying across the room. We were pretty amazed (and proud). Subsequent tosses unfortunately proved the first two to be a fluke, but we'll keep working on it. Here's a picture of Cade working on his first step to the hole.

One last picture with Nana before she had to head to the airport. As you can tell she's a much better picture taker than Susie and I are, so thanks to her for many great pictures. It was hard to narrow down the pictures to post here. There were so many good ones. It's been a great couple of weeks with family. Cade's a lucky boy.

Snow!

2010-02-10T21:37:00.003-06:00

We've had a couple of decent snow storms here lately. Luckily we aren't getting hit like the east coast. Both storms have given us around 4 inches, which is plenty to have fun in, but not too much to hamper a lot of daily activity. Susie got some new boots for Christmas, so she's been wearing them a lot this winter. A couple weeks ago Cade found them and decided he wanted to try them on. He pretty much got them on all by himself, so we had to take a picture. I'm amazed at how much he looks like a little boy now. Definitely not a baby anymore!

Here's a video of him walking around in the boots. I was just off camera and had picked him up and kind of dropped him into the boots. He was excited to be in the boots and gave an emphatic, "All right!" This is a phrase he likes to use; very cool in my opinion. Then he tries a little bit of a dance move. Dancing is something he still loves to do, both on his own and in Susie's or my arms. On the weekends we have a pretty standard routine when it's time for his afternoon nap. He'll ask to dance and we'll put something on in the kitchen. His favorite is the latest One Republic album. We'll dance around and he'll just fall asleep on my chest. I love it. Back to the video: after dancing Susie asks him who's boots those are. Cade has been staring to put adjectives with nouns lately. He'll identify possession (Chili's food) or describe something (orange ball). Like I've said before, it's really interesting to watch how his brain picks up on things. Lastly, he points out a frog on a book nearby. I don't know which he likes better, but dogs and frogs are his two favorite animals. I know it sounds like he's saying "poop," but I can assure you the noise he makes after pointing out the frog is his version of "ribbit."

After the first snow we were able to go sledding at one of the local golf course's driving range. At first Cade didn't like it. I think it was because of the snow that sprayed up into his face. But after a few runs we couldn't convince him it was time to leave. He was pretty upset when we strapped him into his car seat.

Since we don't usually get a lot of snow and because the kid grows so fast we haven't invested in proper snow attire for Cade. So we layered him up a few times and stuck his feet in some rubber Snoopy boots that I had when I was a kid. They were too small to leave his shoes on in the boots and too big for his feet with only socks on them. As a result they kept falling off. Apparently he was having so much fun that he didn't really seem to notice when one would fall off. He would just keep walking on the snow in his socks.

On a different note, I had some work travel that took me to Orlando and Merritt Island a couple weeks ago. I recently got back in touch with an old college baseball buddy that lives in a condo right on Cocoa Beach. So I stayed with Susie's brother Dustin half the week and with my friend David half the week. I was able to run on Cocoa Beach before the sun came up, walk upstairs to get cleaned up, then watch the sunrise from the condo balcony. It was a very therapeutic way to start each morning.

And last but not least, here's a video of Cade singing his ABC's. He's been ending his song with Rockies for quite some time now. Sigh.....I guess eventually he'll learn it the right way, but we always laugh at "q, r, Rockies!" so it's probably getting reinforced. Oh well. I love how his nose scrunches up when he says Rockies. It does the same thing when he says Mommy or Daddy.

We're pretty excited for the next couple weeks. This Friday my sister and her husband are coming out for the weekend. Cade loves Amy and Paul. The last few times he's seen Paul in a picture he says "Apple Paul." I guess that's close to "uncle." Then Amy and Paul will take Cade back to Colorado for a week at my parents' house. The following weekend my mom will bring him back to us. Then the next week Susie's mom is coming to take care of Cade for the week. What a lucky kid. Susie and I definitely agree that we are getting a lot more visits with our family now that Cade is here. Not a bad deal. Until next time, thanks for stopping by.

All Caught Up!

2010-01-13T22:37:00.006-06:00

We have a lot to catch up on! It's already the first week of school, so before I get too busy with classes and work I thought I'd get a post up. In the last month we've been to Florida twice and also to Baton Rouge for Christmas. Thanks to the friendly folks at Allegiant Air, flights to Orlando's Sanford airport that cost $9.99 each way were available. Luckily, we heard about this promotion right when it went live, so we were able to snag this deal a couple of times. I had to visit our plants in Orlando and Merritt Island about a month ago, so Susie and Cade came along for fun. It was a good way for Susie to depressurize after a trying semester. We stayed on Cocoa Beach, and the sun didn't come out at all. No big deal, Susie and Cade spent a lot of time relaxing. And despite the weather we were able to spend a little time on the beach as a family. It wasn't particularly cold, just cloudy and rainy.

Cade loved the beach. We took him to Cocoa Beach back in May, but I don't think it sunk it as much as this time. He was all about playing in the sand and wading into the water. Big smiles all around.

And yeah, he loved the sand so much he just had to get a mouthful to see what it tasted like.
The sand must have tasted good, because the next time we went in the water he decided to give that a go. Not my idea of thirst quenching, but I'm sure it's a little different when you have fresh eyes to see the world.

On to Christmas! Before we talk about our Christmas, I just wanted to thank all of you that sent in or brought donations of money or toys way back when we had Cade's first birthday. Because of your generosity we were able to put together a very large number of boxes for Operation Christmas Child. Cade helped us pack some of them, and it was truly a blessing for us to be able to be used in that capacity. I got an email from Samaritan's Purse telling me where the boxes went. Your gifts helped children in Ghana and the Baltic nations in western Europe experience a better Christmas. So thank you all very much. You know who you are.

We opened some gifts at home before we left for Baton Rouge. Cade definitely got into the unwrapping part way more than he ever has before.

One of the coolest gifts Cade received (in my humble opinion) was either the crazy ball game from Uncle Dustin or these superfly funky monkey slippers. Cade, of course, has other favorites, but I like these the best. Tell me you've seen better slippers anywhere on anyone. I don't think it's possible.

Cade got a kick out of this puppet from Uncle Paul and Aunt Amy. It's the craziest looking thing you've ever seen. He calls it his "bear." I don't feel comfortable correcting him because I have no clue as to what to tell him it is. So "bear" it shall remain.

On to Baton Rouge. We chose to drive to Baton Rouge for Christmas instead of fly. It's about 11.5 hours, and we stayed in a hotel (thanks to many Hilton Honors points as a result of many nights on the road) just south of Memphis on the way there and back. That ended up being a good strategy. Not sure if Cade could've taken much more than what we asked him to. This was especially true because he was sick pretty much the entire trip. It was a bummer for a lot of Susie's family that don't get to see him much to see him in poor health like that. That first night in the hotel he showed us his dinner and repeated that routine almost every day of the trip. Many thanks to VeeVee for helping us out big time with pukey laundry. When we got back home we took him to the doctor and found out he also had a couple ear infections. As a result of having a sick kid we spent a decent amount of the trip in self-imposed sequestered hibernation.

Despite the illness, we did end up having a great time. We were able to spend time with family that we don't get to see enough. I was able to play with Susie's cousin Conner (also here) at his church that Sunday morning. And as you can see in the picture, Cade spent some of his recovery time honing his stacking skills.

Here's the traditional Christmas Day picture. Poor little guy. Unhappy.

The woman in the middle is Susie's Grandmother. Susie lived with her when she was getting her masters at LSU. This is when I met and started dating Susie. Her Grandmother has cooked countless delicious meals for me and others and is one of the most hospitable people I know. She always has an open door and a full plate of food ready. She hosts family every year, and we are all blessed to be a part of her family. Here she is with all her guys. What a great legacy.

Even though I'm a little partial to the funky monkey slippers, mostly because my funky monkey was a toy from my childhood, Cade also got these way cool Rudolph slippers from Susie's Grandmother. His little footsies will not be cold this winter. In fact, they'll stay warm in style.

Just last week we were able to head down to Florida again. This time we stayed in Orlando near all the theme parks. We didn't venture into any of them because we figured Cade is too young to really fully appreciate how much it sucks to stand in line for hours. We got a hotel deal that kind of fell into our laps. For our incredibly cheap suite, we were required to attend a two-hour tour of one of Hilton's Grand Vacations Club resorts there in Orlando. Having made up our mind beforehand that we were not interested in a timeshare-type contract, we sat through the schmoozing and went back to vacationing on the cheap. Those two hours could fill an entire other post, but I wouldn't do that to you.

We did, however, get to see Susie's brother Dustin at the restaurant/bar some of his fraternity brothers opened. If you're in downtown Orlando, make sure to swing by the Downtown Pourhouse. Very nice. (He told us it was "babies' night," but I don't think Cade got any free bottles, at least that I noticed.)

Our hotel had a racing game and Cade fell in love. And yes we're keeping our ears covered because it was in the 30s and 40s outside for our trip. We must bring crappy weather with us to Florida. Sorry to all you Sunshine Staters. But 30s and 40s was 30-40 degrees warmer than it was back in Owensboro, so we weren't complaining too loudly.

We had to get a picture near the luxurious pool. We even went for a quick swim (very quick).

Since the weather was chilly, we settled for the hotel's sand volleyball court so Cade could get his fix.

Cade received a "Build-A-Bear" gift card for Christmas, so we took advantage of being near one and built a frog. Added bonus: he got his gift card from a cute little lass named Olivia and she was able to come as well to build her own bear. When you build your bear (or frog), you get a birth certificate, so you have to come up with a name. We chose the cleverly inventive name of "Frog."

Here are Cade and Olivia hugging. Olivia's mom, Wendy, is a life-long friend of Susie. Wendy was the maid of honor at our wedding. Cade and Olivia are just four or five weeks apart in age, so it's been great for Susie and Wendy to do the whole "chillen bearin'" thing together. No word on whether they've planned their kids' entire wedding reception yet. I think they're still deciding on a caterer. :)

We went out to see the manatees at Apollo Beach.

Wendy's sister Amy has a 2-year-old daughter. The three kiddos had a blast playing together.

Next Rock Band champion? Possibly.

Wow, that was a long one. But now we're all caught up. Cade's feeling great and Susie and I are getting back in the swing of things at school. Thanks for stopping by. See you next time.

I love to count!

2010-01-02T21:48:00.003-06:00

I don't have clue about whether this is incredibly great for being 18 months old, if it's incredibly behind, or somewhere in the foggy middle. Truth is, I really don't care because I'm pretty proud of Cade for being able to count to eight. We only got him counting to six on video because the camera ran out of memory space (I hadn't uploaded the Christmas pictures to the laptop yet so we only had a couple of takes to get this).

Sorry for the awkward camera angle, but this IS a family friendly blog. :)

Merry Christmas 2009

2009-12-19T17:52:00.002-06:00

Here is a look back on 2009 for us. It was a year of a lot of firsts: first crawls, pulling up, walking, running, birthday, etc. We hope you and yours had as good and blessed year as we did. We hope you enjoy your holiday season. Merry Christmas!

Late Thanksgiving Post

2009-12-15T21:59:00.005-06:00

I know what I'm thankful for right now: being done with school! I finished up my semester last week and am also enjoying some days off from work. With the craziness of the end of the semester I really slacked off on posting the pictures from our trip to Alabama for Thanksgiving. It was a great weekend of relaxing and enjoying family time around an outstanding (as always) meal.

Cade decided he liked his cereal so much he wanted to wear the box as a hat.

Susie was able to reconnect with a friend from childhood, Brandi, and the rest of her family as they were passing through the area on their way from Michigan to Florida.

I was pretty impressed when I found out they had just driven about 12 hours with four kiddos under the age of six (the youngest two are nine-month-old twins). These four kids were very well mannered, but no matter how good all the kids were, it was pretty tough to get them all to sit still for a group picture. We have multiple shots of kids in various positions and degrees of escape, but this one turned out pretty well all things considered.

Cade in the tupperware palace with the light-up tambourine. Very suave.

VeeVee and Cade outside on the swing. The weather was great over the weekend.

Now that's a handsome family!

Since the semester's finish, I've been able to spend a lot more time with Cade, especially over the last couple days as Susie finishes up her grading and schoolwork. He continues to become more and more of a rough and tumble playmate. He's always throwing something, or running somewhere, or banging one toy with another (if we're lucky he's not banging something breakable around the house). He loves to climb. Just this afternoon I turned away for what seemed like two seconds and when I turned back he was up on a folding chair leaning way over onto a card table. Last night we lost track of him very briefly and the next thing we knew he was almost two flights up the stairs. No fear. He loves being thrown around and hanging and swinging upside-down; we know when he's up for that because he'll come up to us and says "Bat Baby."

Cade's language skills continue to grow and grow as well. It's a lot of fun to actually talk back and forth with him now. In some ways it's almost a little frustrating for all of us at times. Because we can understand so much of what he's saying it can become difficult when he repeats something over and over and we just can't figure out what he's trying to say. I think it's more frustrating now because we used to be able to just pass his talking off as baby talk and not really have to try and decipher it and now we sometimes can't tell if it's just baby ramblings or if there are words in there that we should be picking up. But overall he's getting better at enunciating words and we're getting better at understanding his "dialect" and helping him speak better.

I'm not sure how early is too early to start looking for his two-year molars, but Cade has been early with all his teeth and he's showing signs of teething again. He's not even 18 months old yet, so I'd be surprised if he's getting more, but he's had all his teeth including the first molars for a while now, so I don't know. He's been drooling like a shaken up soda can, he's pulling at his teeth a lot, his nose is running big time, he's got a congestion cough, he's not sleeping well, he doesn't want to eat much, opting instead for lots and lots of milk, and he's working on some pesky diaper rash. These are all things he dealt with when teething with his last molars, so it would appear that he's got some new ones on the way, but if so it's extremely early. We'll see; I got my wisdom teeth all the way in at 14, so maybe it's hereditary.

Other than the teething(?) thing, we really do have a lot to be thankful for, and it's hard to find reasons to complain. We are blessed with a healthy and vibrant son, and he continually finds ways to keep us entertained and on our toes. Thanks for checking in, and we hope the Chrismas season finds you as greatful and thankful as we feel.

Buying time....

2009-12-03T22:32:00.003-06:00

We hope your Thanksgiving was as great and relaxing as ours was. We definitely have a lot to be thankful for. I don't think blogger would allow me enough space to list it all. God is good. I have a number of pictures from our Thanksgiving weekend in Alabama, but........I'm in Bloomington this week with Susie and Cade and the camera transfer cord is in Owensboro. The picture above was one of many taken by our friend Meagan. So I haven't been a total slacker lately. Ok, I have, but I have a good excuse. So here's my peace offering in the meantime: a completely dark video of Cade. Let me explain.

Tonight Susie, Cade, and I went out to eat with a couple of Susie's classmates. We went to a Tibetan restaurant, and it was outstanding. On the way there we drove around the square in downtown Bloomington. Bloomington is like a lot of towns in Kentucky and Indiana (and elsewhere, I'm sure), where the downtown area is built around a square with a government building like a courthouse in the middle. The square in Bloomington is full of all kinds of restaurants and stores and coffee shops. It's a lot of fun to walk around. And every Christmas they decorate the trees with lights and string lights from the buildings around the square to the courthouse in the middle.

Let me take a minute to tell you that Cade LOVES Christmas lights. Over the last week or so he's taken every opportunity to point out the Christmas lights when we've been out and about. It comes out like "pee-tee-dites." It didn't always sound like this. For a while it was just three unintelligible syllables that were shrieked at an excitable pitch. The syllables were constantly changing, but the excitement and finger pointing pretty much told the story. In the last couple days the excitable pitch has settled down (unless he sees an impressive display) and he's settled in on "pee-tee-dites." Close enough.

Quick aside: because it's now dark when we pick him up from the babysitter he's also been pointing out the moon and stars on the way home too. If you get a chance, ask him to say "moon." I don't know if "n" is a tough letter or not, but it comes out "moot" with heavy emphasis on the "t." Hilarious. It's so hard not to laugh at him because it's so stinkin' cute the way he says it. Each time I tell him, "That's right Cade, that's the moon," with heavy emphasis on the "n." I'm sure he'll catch on soon.

He's also getting pretty good at identifying buses and trucks, which he does in this video. Sorry there's no light, you'll just have to imagine how cute he is. I posted a picture at the start of this post in case you forgot what he looks like. We think he looks model-rific in this picture; does that make us conceited parents? I hope not. I kinda figure it makes us like about 99% of parents out there. Who doesn't think their baby is the cutest? :) Thanks for stopping by.

Halloween and fall fun

2009-11-11T21:00:00.004-06:00

On Halloween Cade was a pumpkin for the second year in a row. We were fortunate that the costume my mom got him last year was good up through 24 months. He wasn't real keen on the hat, but he wore it long enough for us to go trick-or-treating at our friend Carla's house and long enough to get a couple of pictures.
Later that night we went out to a party on a farm across the river in Indiana. My friend Chris, who I used to work with in Rockport, invited us to a large family party complete with turtle soup and a real headless horseman. It was a great time. Cade wasn't the least bit spooked by the headless horseman; in fact, he loved getting to pet the horse on the nose.
This last weekend we had some beautiful weather in the 60s and 70s. We spent a lot of Saturday afternoon doing stuff out in the yard. A while back Chris also gave us a tricycle they had laying around. It's in great shape and we've been waiting for a chance to break it out. Cade's feet don't quite reach the pedals enough to pedal yet, but he definitely likes to be pushed around on it.
I think this shirt is another one that I wore as a little kid. Looks pretty good on Cade! I raked some leaves into a pile and he liked playing in the leaves with Chili.
While we were outside I took the opportunity with the great weather to wash and clean both of our automobiles. I was in the garage vacuuming out the truck and Cade came walking in and wanted to help. He did a very good job on the floor mats.

Saturday morning we had some family photos taken out at a park by a good friend Meagan. We look forward to sharing some of those photos with you all when we get them back. She's a very talented photographer, so we can't wait to see them. Thanks for stopping by! See you next time.

What I've learned from running

2009-11-02T23:30:00.003-06:00

Here's part two of tonight's double feature:

Susie and I take a good hard look at our family budget at the end of each year as we look toward how we can best use our resources during the following year. At the start of 2009 we decided to quit our health club for a few reasons: we anticipated being out of town more in 2009 which rendered our membership useless, the club had gone severely downhill in maintenance and cleanliness, Cade presented the need for childcare if we were going to work out together, and we figured we could save a little money.

Without a designated place to exercise, I began to run. I have never liked running, but I figured it would be the easiest way to burn calories. Running is free, and I can run wherever I travel and in all seasons. Also, my health seems to go downhill easily when I carry a few extra pounds around. My nose was broken when I was in 6th grade (another story for another day) and I seem to be susceptible to upper respiratory problems if I’m not careful. But most importantly, I was feeling the need to set a good example for Cade in fitness and health. It’s amazing to see how much of our actions and words he’s already picking up on. My dad has been a picture of consistency in exercise for me, and I want to be that same picture for Cade.

Despite my loathing to run, I had found it to be the best way for me to lose unwanted pounds and stay in shape. The runs were purposely kept short at the outset, partially because it was still cold outside, and partially because we had started to train for a half marathon when we lived in Houston and my knees started breaking down due to overtraining. By very slowly ramping up my miles each week I could hopefully avoid injury.

Near the end of March I was sort of getting into a routine so I set my first goal. I was at 235 pounds and I wanted to get down to 210 by the time Cade turned one at the end of June. I don’t know why I picked 210, but I needed a hard number in front of me instead of a nebulous goal. To reach this goal I estimated that I needed to run at least 2 out of every 3 days. I made a spreadsheet to track my progress and Susie made fun of me because I’m a big dork.

I made my goal of 210 a couple weeks before Cade’s birthday and I found another goal. I let my buddy Jared talk me into doing a half marathon in October. Now I had a training schedule and a much bigger goal than merely weight. As I ran throughout the summer, something funny happened: I started leaving my iPod at home and started really enjoying my runs. If I missed a day I started missing it. As soon as my last run was done I’d start mentally preparing for the next one, especially if it was going to be a long one. As I mentioned in a previous post, the half marathon was a big success for me and so I wanted to write a post about what I learned while training for and competing in this race. Here we go:

· You can do a lot more than you initially think you can. I figured I could train up to running 13.1 miles, but it really was a daunting prospect. If my schedule called for a distance that I’d not previously run I’d have to mentally prepare to run it. So the first time I ran 8 miles, and then 9 miles, and so on was kind of intimidating because it was a step into the unknown. I ran 13 miles a few weeks before the race just so I had a mental edge of having done it before the race. But this goes far past running. It really applies to any aspect of life. We didn’t realize how little sleep we could actually function on until we were pressed to do it when Cade couldn’t go more than an hour or two without eating at the beginning. I didn’t realize how incredibly full of grace and love Susie was until I watched her interact with our son. Pushing boundaries is essential to becoming a better person.

· The things you appreciate the most don’t come overnight. 2009 has provided me with two opportunities to practice patience towards a goal. The first was losing weight and preparing for the race. I mentally had to expect to lose the weight over a period of time, not overnight. This long-term approach allowed me to trust my training and my eating habits and when it was all said and done I exceeded my goal. As I lost weight and gained conditioning, my pacing got incrementally faster, which encouraged me to stick with it even more. When your goals reference a point in the future you don’t get distraught over small temporary setbacks and you don’t get impatient with slower progress as long as it’s steady and marked. Secondly, I’d never read straight through the Bible. So Susie and I have been part of a Facebook group designed to get us through the Bible in a year. The Bible is a large book, but staying on pace with the group has kept us on track, and I believe we’ve become closer as a couple as we spend time in spiritual discussions that challenge our minds regarding what we’ve read. I’m not going read the Bible in one sitting, and I’m not going to lose 25 pounds overnight, but slow and steady progress makes the end result worthwhile, which brings me to my next point, which is:

· The end is not necessarily the end. I’ve referenced Don Miller in this blog before, and something he said in his talk a few weeks back has been working around in my mind. In his talk and his latest book, he uses the analogy of story for how to live fulfilling, meaningful lives. Every important aspect of story, such as a protagonist that desires something, conflict, and sacrifice all play a part in a compelling story. We would be wise to consider these elements and how they are involved in our lives. But there is one element of story that we are not meant to experience in this life, and that is the climax and the big finish. Companies sell us goods under the proposition that their good will lead to a fulfilled life. But what good ever has? Even Christian spiritualism has become consumer-centric, promising in many cases that Jesus will solve all your problems. This is not Biblical, but it’s preached ad nauseum. I don’t know anyone, Christian or not, that has reached the point in their lives where all conflict is gone. Even Paul in Romans 8 talks about how creation groans as in the pains of childbirth and how we eagerly await a future glory with hope despite our current sufferings. Not exactly a pitch you can use on a late night infomercial. This point was brought to mind as I watched "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" yesterday. I’d never seen the show before, but we watched because it was the episode that was filmed in Owensboro back in September. Throughout the show I kept hearing lines like “Our troubles are over,” “We don’t have to worry about anything now,” and “This new house will fix our problems.” The show was sweet and sappy, but unlike a fictional movie where the credits roll and all is happily ever after, when the credits rolled on this show the dad in the family still had health issues and treatments and still couldn’t work. The mom still had to be the breadwinner and care for her husband. Not even a new house and car in place of their trailer and clunker could completely fix and fulfill their lives. Not to sound like a downer, but this is the world we live in. That’s why, in order to continue to live fulfilling lives we have to continually push ourselves with loftier and loftier goals and never rest on what we’ve accomplished. I’ll have to admit when I first signed up for the half I had these lofty visions of ripped abs and laurels and glory as I crossed the finish line. I still have love handles. I can still get faster. There were nearly 400 people that finished ahead of me (and this was a small race compared to other half marathons). After the high of finishing with a good time wore off I was mentally searching for the next thing, because there is never fulfillment (read Ecclesiastes for extra food for thought). So as I type I’m currently pondering my next race in order to push myself again and train to beat my time. And now we’ll head back to less of a philosophical realm:

· When you run you automatically have millions, and probably billions of partners out there. The camaraderie is great. I like waving to other runners as we pass on the street or trail. I like to see other runners running when I’m driving around doing errands. It makes me want to run. There have been a few times where my path will allow me to run for a few blocks or more with a complete stranger, but we always seem to have a good time talking until our paths separate. While training I often did my long weekend runs with Jared, Jason, and Robert. One time I ran with Susie. Last weekend I ran with my uncle. Sometimes my pace is pushed, sometimes it lags more than normal, but it doesn’t matter, because it’s time to spend together and talk and experience the run together.

· Running provides good views. A city looks completely different running than it does when you drive through it. The slower pace allows you to soak in the surroundings more. I like this, especially when traveling. One place in particular I recall was when I was up at Purdue University doing some recruiting for my company. I parked at a park in Lafayette and ran down to the river and across into West Lafayette. My run took me up into campus and I ran around for a while before heading back. I noticed houses and buildings and people that I’d have never appreciated if I had just driven over to campus the next day for the interviews. It even let me scout out some interesting looking places to eat.

· The right equipment makes all the difference. I used to make fun of people who wore running clothes when they ran. Then Susie got me a couple running shirts and some running shorts. Man, did I feel light as a feather. Then my parents took me to a running store to be custom fit for some shoes based on my foot and gait. I bet the right equipment shaved 10 seconds off my mile pace right there. Susie also got me a GPS watch for my birthday that allows me to regulate my pace and train more effectively. The right equipment makes all the difference.

· People are generally very polite. I’ve noticed this as I’ve run along streets and encountered cars. Despite running somewhere between 600 and 700 miles this year (most of them on roads/sidewalks), I can only think of one time where I feel like a driver intentionally cut me off. For the most part people are very eager to yield to a runner. It’s made me more conscious of runners when I am driving.

· You can generally tell whether the people in each house use the sidewalks or not. If the trees and limbs obstruct the sidewalk, there’s a good chance the people in the house don’t take walks or they’d realize how bad it is. On the other hand, you can tell when people do utilize the sidewalks because the sidewalks in front of their houses are well trimmed.

· You can’t judge a runner by what he or she looks like. This is probably a “duh” point, but as people we spend so much time sizing others up based on their appearance. There have been plenty of times I’ve been smoked by someone at a race that initially looked too short or too fat or too unathletic. You’d be amazed at how goofy some people look while they’re passing me. This is like that whole idiom about a book and something about its cover, but it’s true.

So that’s probably more than you were interested in, and major kudos for still reading. I figured I could sneak this in if it came as a double feature. Thanks for continuing to frequent this inconsistent blog about my son.

Minnesota Trip

2009-11-02T22:55:00.004-06:00

Tonight is a double feature: Two posts at the same time! Here are a few pictures from our Minnesota trip:

Cade is still a great traveler. It was pretty cool to see him start to understand what was going on. He loved looking out the window, both on the ground and in the air. He quickly learned the word "airplane," and he enjoyed saying "bye" to planes as they took off. When we'd ask him where each plane was going he'd put his palms up to say "I don't know." We got to see my cousin (at some level, our dads are cousins, so you figure it out) Kyle, his wife Jenny, and their three-month-old daughter Kayla. Kayla was a cutie, she just wasn't up for a picture at this point. Kyle picked us up at the airport and they let us borrow a pack and play and a high chair for the weekend: very important items to not have to carry on board!
My Aunt Renee and Uncle Dave were so hospitable and opened their house to a whole crew of family. They have a bunny named Ginger, and I think Cade fell in love. He got to feed Ginger beans and got a kick out of how soft her fur was.
Susie and my parents took Cade to the Mall of America (I stayed home). :) Cade got to ride on the balloon ride and apparently giggled and laughed the entire time.

Cade spent some time outside in the leaves. He's not a big hat wearer, but he liked his little red cap we found for a buck at the recycled baby item store.

My cousin Julia got some big slippers at the mall and Cade got to try them on. Looks like they fit just right!

The reason we all went up to Minneapolis was to go to this church. It's now called Faith Free Lutheran Church, but it started as Rosedale Lutheran Church. We attended the 100th anniversary of the church. Why this church? My great grandfather was the pastor of this church for 49 years, from 1921 to 1970 when he died. Because I never got to meet him, it was very interesting for me to see his church and hear about him from some of the members. He was a very hard worker and cared for the people at his church. There were many pictures of him, and I found a couple record books where he kept church records with a fountain pen. When he started as pastor he made less than $1,000 each year. The parsonage connected to the rear of the church was where my dad lived the first year or so of his life. I know it was a big deal for my dad and his sisters to come back and see the church and the parsonage and relive old memories. It was kind of a chance for me to get to know him.

Here's a picture of me and Cade with my Aunt Joyce and my dad's Aunt Joyce.

Four generations!

After the service the current church members cooked a huge meal for everyone that came. Delicious!

Here's a picture of the whole Gronseth clan that attended. It was great to reconnect with family that we hadn't seen in quite some time.

Picture Update

2009-10-19T20:48:00.007-05:00

Well, here's the photo update I promised a while back. The school work has calmed down (at least for a week or two) and Cade is down for the evening. Enjoy the pictures!

We start way back with our trip to Colorado at the start of September. Once again Cade was a great traveler (with a minor exception, which I'll describe right now). On the way out we had settled into our seats and the plane was just about to take off when Susie, who was holding Cade, looked at me with a look of trepidation and said those fateful words, "Cade's pooping." We asked the flight attendant if we could change him and were informed that everyone needed to remain in their seats or we'd lose our place in line for takeoff. Uh oh. As if it couldn't get worse, Susie looked at me again and said, "His diaper is leaking." We had some plastic that we put between Cade's booty and Susie's lap and held on hoping for the best. During takeoff Cade miraculously fell asleep so the diaper change was put off for another hour. (We aren't always super smart, but we have learned to not wake him up unless absolutely necessary.) When Cade woke up Daddy was spared by the fact that airplane bathrooms now measure approximately 18" x 20" including toilet, so Susie made the impossible possible and changed Cade at 30,000 feet. Just before landing Susie looked at me again and said, "I'd better go change him again." Wow. Some days we don't get one set of poopy pants and he just decided it would be fun to drop two deuces in one plane trip. I know he's more aware of what's going than we fully comprehend. But overall he really was an excellent plane rider, so we let him off easy. :)

Once we got to Colorado Springs we spent some time out at the park with some ducks and geese. It was pretty windy.We also stopped at Petsmart to see the rescue dogs and cats for adoption. It's so sad to see these animals that have been abused and abandoned. Just hearing their stories makes you want to take them all home. Cade loves to hang out with the animals. I hope he doesn't have a bad experience with a dog at some point because he just makes a beeline for any canine at every opportunity at this point. His love is usually returned many times over.

An interesting fact about our family: my mom and I share a birthday on September 11th and my dad's birthday is on September 12th. That was part of the reason we chose that weekend to visit. It was my 30th, so we had a good time celebrating birthdays. It's kind of like a mini-Christmas, but slightly better because we include an ice cream cake. The other reason we chose that weekend is because my mom and sister head up to the mountains to ride horses with some other ladies and Susie has been able to go with them a few times now. So she took off with the ladies and we had a guys' weekend back at the house in Monument. We got to watch football, play a lot, and do other things we won't tell the ladies about, right Cade? :) Here's a picture of Cade trying to contain his excitement right after Uncle Paul filled him in on just exactly what does happen on guys' weekends.
I found a pair of mittens that I wore when I was a little guy. Cade thought they were the coolest and wanted to wear them for a while.
My dad's glasses were just blowing Cade's mind. He would look at Grandpa straight in the eye and then would slide his head around to look at his eyes from the side view as seen in this picture. This entertained Cade (and us) for quite some time.

Here's part of the ladies' crew up at Lost Valley Ranch.

After the weekend we left Cade in Colorado with Nana and Grandpa for a week away. It was extremely helpful for us because that was the week Susie needed to use to prepare for her dossier review. So it was great for Cade, Nana, and Grandpa in Colorado, and it was time well utilized by Susie in preparation for that Friday. Susie did very well in her review, so it was worth the time away. We sure missed him though. It just felt weird not having him around with both of us together. Here's a picture of Cade after a bath. Nana has the coolest doggie towel that he gets wrapped up in after bath time. You can see his head goes in the dog head so the big black nose is on Cade's forehead and the big brown ears flop down the sides of his head. You can't tell by this picture, but the corners are four big paws that hug him to dry him.

As a doggie lover, Cade enjoyed getting to hang out with Maggie. He just can't hide his excitement at the opportunity to give Maggie a treat.

My Aunt Deb (my mom's sister) and Uncle Bill are building a house not far away from my parents' house. It will be great to have them around more often when we're in Colorado. Cade and Bill hit it off great.

Cade enjoyed playing out in the backyard with Nana and Grandpa. He really liked chilling in the hammock.

When my mom flew back with Cade she spent the day in Bloomington with us. Her flight went out of Indianapolis so we went up to the Indy Zoo. Cade absolutely loved seeing the different animals. The first thing we saw were sea lions and he immediately said "doggie!" which is understandable given their dog-like faces and his strong affinity for pooches. He correctly identified the bears as well. This zoo has an underwater dolphin viewing tank, and Cade got a kick out of watching the dolphins swim around us.

Susie and I went to see Ben Folds in at the IU Auditorium with one of her housemates, Craig. Ben Folds is one of the most talented musicians I've had the pleasure of seeing live and also one of the best showmen. We were fortunate enough to have third row seats! It was just him and his piano; it's just incredible how much sound he gets from one instrument. If you haven't seen him live and you enjoy his music, I'd recommend you take any opportunity you get to see him. This was my fourth time seeing him. Each time the arrangement has been different (we once saw him with the Louisville Orchestra) and each time has been unbelievable.

The weather has been great lately, so we've taken the chance to go to the park and play a number of times. Cade LOVES to swing, but that doesn't even compare to his love of sliding. Here are a couple pictures of pure joy.

Last week I had the opportunity to see one of my favorite authors, Don Miller, speak in Evansville. It was a great night listening to him as well as Susan Isaacs, and I even got to chat with him for a few minutes afterwards. If you haven't read anything by Don, I'd recommend picking up any of his books. They are all outstanding. He's very humble, is very wise, and is a master of conveying ideas and breaking theological ideas down into palatable information. He's one of those writers that makes you feel like you know them well after reading their work. His books have helped me make sense of some of the random thoughts about life floating around my head.

Last Saturday was the event that my friend Jared and I had been training for for quite a while. We ran a half marathon in Indianapolis; it was my first and Jared's second. I beat my goal time by about five minutes and Jared improved on the time from his last half marathon. The course went through a state park and the trees were beautiful in their fall colors. It was 34 degrees at the start, but once we got going the cool weather was energizing. It was a great experience for my first one. I'm looking forward to doing another one in the spring.

When I got back to Bloomington Cade wanted to wear my finisher's medal (Daddy's nowhere near fast enough to actually WIN a medal, but we won't tell Cade that yet). He looks very proud of himself.

Chili's really been coming around with Cade. He seems to really like him now, and doesn't mind Cade crawling all over him as much. Cade thinks Chili's soft fur is the coolest and loves to cuddle with him.

Do you think it might be time for another haircut?

As I write this I'm listening to the internet broadcast of the Broncos' Monday night matchup with the Chargers. The Broncos just scored to go up 27-23: great game so far; hope they can hold the lead! We don't have a TV up here in Bloomington, so I'm glad I can get the game on KOA's website. Cade wore a super stylish shirt today for game day. This is a shirt I had as a little guy. Amazing how some things just never go out of fashion.

Walking

2009-10-07T21:20:00.002-05:00

I should be putting together a marketing plan for school, but this is a chance to procrastinate. I've been talking about Cade walking for a little while, and now I present proof to you. He's really become much more balanced, coordinated, and quick on his feet in the last few weeks. We now have to be much more wary of where he is and what he's getting into. Did I mention he keeps getting more and more fun?

So here's a short video I put together. I haven't tried my hand too much at video editing and was surprised how easy it was to string together clips and add a soundtrack in the background. Many thanks to my friends in WILCO for writing an appropriate song for the occasion. :)

I Can Has Dirty Diaper

2009-10-05T13:31:00.005-05:00

Many props to Uncle Paul and his creation a la loldogs and lolcats. I've been dormant lately with excuses ranging from a trip to Colorado to school (big paper due this Monday!) to being away from home for a couple weeks without the cable thingy that goes from the camera to the computer. A new post is coming soon with lots of pictures from our Colorado trip and other fun things. And after that I'll try to finish up my first video ever created and edited on my own in tribute to Cade walking. That will be posted soon as well (I hope!).

Chili's starting to like this kid

2009-09-07T22:33:00.004-05:00

Just a quick post to get this video up that I took this morning here in B-town. Apparently Chili was looking a little underfed.

I don't think I could do it (and other random heart-related thoughts)

2009-08-28T20:10:00.005-05:00

Cade is sick. He's more sick than I remember ever seeing him, barring the initial hostipal treatments during his first few days of life. Two events in the last 24 hours have triggered a few deep thoughts in my head and strong feelings in my heart. The first happened last night when we discovered he wasn't feeling great. Susie and I were heading to bed around 10:30. Cade was in bed early because he was cutting a new molar and that had him feeling crummy all day. We heard him crying and decided to go check on him. Sometimes we'll let him cry and put himself back to sleep, but this time we investigated. When we walked in he was standing up and crying in his crib, squinting in the light, himself and his crib completely covered in the food he'd eaten yesterday. It was the most pitiful sight, and my heart broke for him. Susie took him right into the bath and I worked on his clothe, room, and bed. He ended up throwing up twice more throughout the night. Susie and her mom took Cade to the doctor this morning and we found out he has a virus. Really all we can do is try to make him comfortable and manage his fever until it passes. He's been in a poor state during the day and evening.

The second event was just earlier this evening. Susie and her mom went to a church function a while ago and Cade had finally gone to sleep right before they left. Only a few minutes after they had left I heard him crying. All day today it seemed like he just couldn't get comfortable enough to sleep well so he tossed and turned a lot. I went in and stood by his crib and rubbed his back, but when I thought he was asleep and turned to leave he would start crying right when I got out the door. This happened a few times so I ultimately took him and held him for about a half hour as he worked his way back to sleep on my chest. It was a sweet time to be with him and to just console him as he just kind of moaned and tried to get comfortable enough to sleep. Susie said earlier today that in some ways she doesn't mind him being sick because he's so dependent on her and just longs for her to hold him and it's a real feeling of connection. I can identify with that, but at the same time it just pains me to see him as uncomfortable as he is. I spent that time praying for him to feel better and for him in general. Finally he drifted off enough that I could put him back in his crib. So far so good (knock knock).

Those two images, of Cade standing and crying in his crib covered in vomit, and of his sick little face curled up on my chest contorting and straining against his virus in an effort to get some rest have burned themselves into my mind. I hate seeing him less than the vibrant, fun bundle of life we're used to. The thought that kept entering my mind as I rocked him back to sleep was, "Dear God, how did you ever allow your only son to be tortured and killed? I don't think I could do it. I don't have enough love and grace in me."

And see, there's the rub. As much as Susie or I love Cade, that love pales in comparison to God's love for me and for every person that's ever been conceived on this planet. He's the only one capable of that kind of love. I firmly believe the most unselfish thing a perfect being could do is to create other beings for the sole purpose of enjoying himself. And even more incredibly, He didn't force his love and any kind of obedience on us. Forced obedience creates a resentment or no feeling at all. So He allows us to make the choice to cut the ties and reject Him. And we do. Everyday. We're people that want to know how far we can stretch a rule. How fast can I go over the speed limit without getting a ticket (FYI: in Owensboro it's less than 6 over)? How much can I slack off before my A drops to a B or my B drops to a C? How mediocre can I allow my work to be before it gets noticed for the crap that it is? How little time can I spend with God and how little can I mention Him in conversation and how little can I care about the people around me without giving up my status as a "good Christian guy?" But it's not about rules. It's about our hearts.

I'd like to share a story I read a few days ago that I really liked. I've read it a few times since I first came across it. I love the ending. It's about a king that decided his people had been rebellious for too long. When he became king, he made it a priority to repair and re-consecrate the temple in Jerusalem and re-consecrate the priests of the land so they could worship the God that had delivered them over and over. He wanted to do it right. He wanted to celebrate the most important festival of thanks to God as a nation for the first time in a long time, but enough priests had not been consecrated and the people had not been assembled in time. The Passover was normally celebrated in the first month of the year, but instead they chose to celebrate it in the second month just this one time because it was a priority to return to their traditions of honoring God and remembering what he had done for them. Historically, this was a no-no. Additionally, many of the people who had come from a distance to celebrate had not ceremonially purified themselves so they were actually celebrating the festival in direct opposition to God's law. But here's what happened: "(The king) prayed for them, saying, 'May the Lord, who is good, pardon everyone who sets their heart on seeking God - the Lord, the God of their ancestors - even if they are not clean according to the rules of the sanctuary.' And the Lord heard (the king) and healed the people." (2 Chronicles 29-30)

I love that story. I love it because we get so wrapped up in focusing on the rules and the lists of things we can and cannot do. We hold so tighly to the taboos and boundaries we've set up in our minds, we don't take the time to examine our hearts, and our hearts go astray. But our hearts are what matter to God. My heart longs for my son to feel good and be happy. God's heart longs for me to be close to him and to care about others. He longs for my heart so much that he watched his son endure the worst pain any person has ever endured because without his blood my shortcomings would separate me from God. He allowed his son to be tortured and killed because he longs for the hearts of so many that choose to completely disregard him. Because His love and grace are enough to overcome anything I can do in rebellion to Him, I have the freedom to love my son. So I stand amazed at my God yet again and thank him for his limitless love, his unending forgiveness, and the grace to allow me to have a son if only for the ability to further appreciate the sacrifice he made in giving up his own for me.

More Walking

2009-08-26T19:39:00.004-05:00

Cade has been doing more and more walking. Just this evening he walked from the middle of a room at IU to the doorway. We were talking with some of Susie's classmates, so it kind of went unnoticed until we realized what he had just done.

My aunt Joyce sent Cade a shopping cart for his birthday. Her son David had one when he was a baby and apparently it was a big time favorite toy. Up until about a week ago Cade wasn't stable enough on his feet to really enjoy it, but now that he's more mobile he loves to push it around with his toys in it. So big thanks goes out to Joyce and her experience with little boys. :) Cade's putting a lot of miles on those shopping cart wheels. He's not very good at turning yet, so sometimes he'll get stuck when he runs into a wall or something else. We're looking forward to seeing Joyce and a lot of the extended Gronseth family in October.

I also got a video of Cade pushing another walker around. He still prefers crawling since it's faster, but he's sure coming along with the walking.

And here's the video of the shopping cart.

Cade's vocabulary is also growing pretty quickly. He's learned "hi" and "bye," which make any occasion more fun. And he's definitely partial to the letter "Z." We read him the Dr. Seuss ABC's book quite often (sometimes 5-10 times a day). He loves it. He'll pick it up and bring it to us and say, "B!" We think "B" either means "ABC" or "read," we're not sure yet. But when we get to the end we'll say the whole alphabet and he'll finish with an emphatic "Z!" It still kinda sounds like "TSE," but we're giving him the benefit of the doubt. It's his favorite letter. He even loves the rhyme that goes with Z in the book: "Big Z, little z, what begins with Z?" (Turn the page to a picture of a goofy Seussian fuzzy patchwork dragon.) "I do! I am a zizzer-zazzer-zuzz as you can plainly see!" Which is followed by Cade cackling and turning the book back to the beginning. Every time.

First Haircut!

2009-08-19T17:06:00.007-05:00

Cade is hilarious. Can I just say that before we get started today? He constantly comes up with new things that are at the same time funny and amazing because you can tell he's coming to grips with the world around him. Like the other night Susie was telling me about how when he was in the bath he was standing up and apparently nature was calling. So while standing there he just started peeing. She said he looked down at what was going on and just started cracking up at himself. You know he knows he eliminates waste because he gets cranky if his diaper isn't changed for a long time. So he knows occasionally it gets wet and/or lumpy in his diaper, but I wonder if he really puts it all together. I know when he does that will make potty training a lot easier. (Side note: last night I learned that Susie was trained at 15 months which blows my mind. That's exciting to me because it means we might be closer to no more diaper changes, but it kinda scares me too because it means we'll have to deal with the "accidents" that come with training. I'm sure they don't always happen at convenient times.) But back to the tub, I guess he just saw the play unfolding before him and decided that it was pretty funny.

Another funny/neuron-connection thing happened at bath time last night. Susie thought Cade's hair was very cute and wanted to take a few pictures. It was at that point we realized Cade can anticipate the camera's flash. Our camera does what a lot of cameras do now: it blinks an orange light a second or two before the picture is taken. Well, Cade's figured out the sequence and doesn't like the flash in his eyes. So the result is what you see below. There were many more "in betweeners" but I narrowed it down to the best three. He smiles for the picture, but then decides he wants to avoid the flash, but then at some point between those two decisions he decides that having a smile on really still is important. The third one is kind of blurry, but I believe that picture captures the exact moment of decision.

And here's a "nice" picture of smiley Cade.

But what I really wanted to tell you about was his haircut today. He was such a good boy! I was a little nervous about how it would go since he is SO wiggly. All the time. Everyday. But enough was enough: he was developing quite the mud flap in the back. I know we live in and Cade was born in Kentucky, but at some point you just have to take the appropriate stand against mullets. :)

So far so good. Sitting on the little booster seat very well!

At first he didn't quite like the cape. But when he got to play with a hair clip he was very compliant.

After a while the hair clip just wasn't fun enough anymore so we got a comb in his hands and he was happy again.

Overall he did wonderful! He sat very still for LaDonna and now looks quite dapper and trim. Thanks a bunch LaDonna for doing a great job!

Here's a quick video of Cade standing up by himself. He's getting a lot better at this now and takes a few steps by himself now.

Walking, Rocking, and Carl

2009-08-15T21:50:00.007-05:00

Well, not quite walking yet, but kinda. He's taking up to five or so steps at a time, still very wobbly, and still not real consistently, but he seems to be showing more enthusiasm for it. Today he actually walked a few steps to me, fell down, stood back up (without help), walked a couple more, fell down, and then decided to just crawl. And then later this evening he was standing by the bed in his room and wanted the blanket out of his crib so he walked the few steps to get it instead of crawling over there. Hopefully we can get a video of it soon so you all can see it. It's pretty amazing to watch him learn new things, and it blows my mind at just how much little babies' brains develop and pick up at this age.

This video is of Cade in his rocking chair. This chair was a very special birthday present from Susie's parents. This rocking chair belonged to Susie's great grandfather. Susie's dad refinished the rocking chair and then they had the webbing replaced so it's as good as new. Cade is still a little small for it, and for the most part he's ignored it until just recently. Susie got a good video of his newest trick, which is how he likes to climb into it and rock.

Here's a bonus outtake:

I wonder if any other parents out there fight the getting dressed battle like we do. Every night we follow pretty much the same routine. When Cade starts getting tired we get him in the bath. We'll do a small snack with some milk either before or after the bath. After bath/snack, we brush his little teeth (all ten of them!). Then we read a book or two together. Then we say our prayers and it's off to bed. He's generally very compliant throughout the whole process, probably because we're pretty consistent with it and he knows what's coming. But.....at least 9 out of 10 nights it's a major struggle to get his pj's on him after his bath. I wonder if he thinks if he fusses enough that one glorious night we'll let him sleep in his birthday suit. I don't know why he gets cranky with us, but once his pj's are on him crab Cade goes away and sweet Cade returns from wherever he was hiding.

Cade is constantly adding to his vocabulary, and it's not always the words we expect. A friend and coworker sent a book for Cade called "Good Dog, Carl" (thanks Kate!). It's a story about a lady who leaves her baby under the dutiful watch of the family rottweiler, Carl. While she's gone, the dog gets the baby out of the crib and they have tons of fun dancing to music from the stereo, raiding the fridge, playing dress up, sliding down the laundry chute, and jumping on the bed. Before the lady comes home Carl puts the baby back in the crib and cleans up their messes. When the lady returns she's pleased to see the baby sleeping in the crib and tells the dog, "Good dog, Carl." It's a fun book because other than the initial instructions and the final words of praise, there is no text, so we can make up the story as we go. Well, tonight Cade grabbed that book and handed it to me. I said "Good Dog, Carl!" and Cade looked me in the eye and repeated "Carl." Then he kept saying it. Hilarious. He hears the words "good" and "dog" way more frequently than "Carl," but he chose to say "Carl." I shot a quick video on my phone, so the quality's not super, and the lighting was poor, but hopefully you can catch it. (And yes, he's sitting in his toy box. I'm not sure why, but he just climbed in it, which made me laugh.)

July

2009-08-01T21:39:00.008-05:00

Wow, it's really been almost a month since I posted last. July was a fairly busy month for us. We had a little travel, I finished up my summer class, Susie is still teaching and taking summer classes, and we've just been generally busy. But that's no excuse for this long layoff. I apologize, but hopefully you'll forgive me when you see the smorgasbord of pictures and videos I have for you.

Cade is still not walking across the room, but he's starting to stand very well on his own, and he's doing a good job of walking a step or two towards something he wants. But in the end I think he just feels more comfortable with crawling and knows he can crawl faster than he can walk. So usually he'll take about a half a step or two and then plop down and crawl wherever he wants to go. Eventually I think it'll click in his head and he'll just start to prefer a walk to a crawl.

One week in July I traveled to our plant near Indianapolis so Susie, Cade, and Chili took the opportunity to head off to Alabama. I know Susie's family appreciated having them around, and Susie appreciated the chance to get some extra work done while spending time with her family. I went down that following weekend and we all had a great time.

Here's Cade just chillin' at VeeVee and Granddaddy's.

Cade loved to eat the fresh-picked blackberries and blueberries. We have a place near Owensboro where Susie has picked blueberries many times this summer. She also got to pick some in Alabama. I don't know if it has to do with the soil or the climate or what, but the blueberries here in Kentucky have to be some of the sweetest, best-tasting blueberries I've ever had. Cade loves them too. Overall he's turned into a fruit eating machine. Despite his rocky start with bananas (detailed in this post), I think they've turned into his favorite fruit to eat. He can almost say "banana," but the "n's" come out more like "d's."

Susie has also been firing the bread machine up quite a bit this summer. She's becoming a master with that thing. She's made many different kinds of wheat breads, but I've really been digging the sourdough loaves she's been cooking lately. Cade loves it too. He gets all excited when you plop momma's bread down in front of him.

Tell me you've seen a baby more talented than this:

Cade love frozen grapes. We cut them in half so they're less of a choking hazard, and they disappear faster than back copies of Michael Jackson CD's. Here are a couple pictures of his latest trick. He's been stacking them into pyramid and then applauding himself.

Just kidding. We built the pyramid of grapes for him. :) But he did enjoy watching us work. Just imagine how impressed you'd be if he really DID build it himself.

I think one of the more fun things lately has been watching his tiny vocabulary grow little by little. He's been saying "mama" and "dada" and "ug" for a while now, but more recently he's starting to expand his repertoire. Here are a few videos showing off three of his newer words. NOTE: To be considered for these videos, the word has to be repeated intentionally. He's starting to be more consistent in referring to specific objects with different sounds. Sometimes the sound is unintelligible, like when he refers to a light or a fan as "dah." It's consistent, but not a real word. Here are a couple real words he's learned.

You can imagine my pride when one of his first words is (this is his newest word he's learned):

He can also say "ball." He doesn't quite have the "l" sound down pat, so sometimes it sounds more like "baw," but he definitely knows what a "baw" is. He still loves to play with his Rockies bat and baw. (He speaks quietly in this video.)

And this is a fun one he's perfected over the last few weeks.

One of the reasons I've personally been busier lately is because I'm training for a half marathon in October. My buddy Jared and I will be running it together and we've been doing a lot of our longer runs on the weekends together. I've never been a super enthusiastic runner, but since Susie and I quit our gym at the start of the year (it had turned into a dump), I wanted to find a way to exercise for free. Running is free, so I slowly worked at increasing my mileage and Jared finally talked me into the half marathon.

Susie ran cross country in college, so I think she was a little jealous of me running while she was still in the nursing stage of baby-rearing. She had been getting back in shape by doing pilates and step classes, but hadn't been running. Well, when we were in Alabama she said she wanted to run with me on my long run that Saturday. So she dusted off her running shoes and did 7.5 miles with me like it was no big thing. I tell you, I'm more impressed with her all the time.

A few Saturdays ago I ran my first 10K. It was a night run, which was good because it was cooler than running during the day. I was so excited to see Susie, Cade, and Chili standing at the 4-mile marker. I still can't say I really like running, but it's been a great way to stay in shape, and it's growing on me. We're looking for a used running stroller so we can go as a family, so if you know of anyone trying to get rid of one let us know!

Thanks for being patient this month. I'll do my best to post more frequently as we head towards fall!

Cade's Cake Dive

2009-07-04T17:11:00.003-05:00

Ok, it took too long to get this up here, but here it is! He just wanted to eat on the frosting at first, but after he got a taste of the cake itself he grabbed a bite that was too big for his mouth and just kept shoving it in.

We took Cade to his one-year checkup last week and he weighed in at 21 lb, 15 oz, which kept him in the 40th percentile. He was 30 1/4" tall, which is in the 75th percentile. He was a big stud when it came to getting his vaccinations. He cried a little, but was very brave and was ready to play that afternoon. I'm still on the fence on whether I really want my kid being vaccinated, but because we live in such a small town with zero opportunity for alternative medicine we've followed the recommended vaccination schedule so far (if you want a long explanation regarding my dissillusionment with modern standard medicine and drugs, ask me about it offline sometime, and get ready for a lengthy discussion). To this point, it seems that every time he's had a shot he comes down with some sort of crud. One vaccination, Rotateq, made its way through all three of us (literally, ugh) back in November. But so far he's done very well this time around, so we're keeping our fingers crossed.

I'm finding that he's becoming more of a "boy" in his play, at least around me, and it's awesome! He likes to wrestle around with daddy and he cracks up when I put him on my shoulders and run around the house (the high ceilings on our first floor are perfect for hot laps). One thing that makes him laugh is me throwing his foam blocks at him, and the harder I throw them the harder he laughs. Just this afternoon we played a new game where he'd crawl away from me and I'd drag him back to me by his ankles and tickle him all over. Then he'd try crawling away again. Every few times I'd let him get away to mommy, but that obviously wasn't as fun for him as getting caught. He'd turn around and crawl at me and head-butt me right in the forehead and then try to get away again. Hilarious.

Thanks for following along, and have a great day!

Birthday Boy!

2009-06-24T21:29:00.005-05:00

Yesterday was Cade's first birthday and we celebrated all weekend in style! Both my parents and Susie's parents came out for the weekend and it was great to have the whole crew here. Cade is really lucky to have two great sets of grandparents. We had a party for him on Saturday night, and I figure we can get right to the pictures:

Susie went to Kroger to get some food on Friday, and she also got Cade a balloon. I think the balloon was his favorite part of the weekend. We tied it to the tray on his highchair and it became a source of entertainment at each meal.

Here's Susie with Cade's cake before it was destroyed. Susie was a food preparing champ for his party. Pretty much everything was homemade and it all was delicious.
This cake never had a chance. At first he just kind of licked at the frosting. Then I gave him a piece of the cake itself. At that point he just chowed down. We have a pretty good video of the cake feeding frenzy; I'll get it in another post soon.

Leaning in for a picture. Cade took the opportunity to slime Mommy with cake frosting.

Cade with the four grandparents.
Three generations.
Opening presents.

Not sure if I've mentioned it before, but Cade LOVES to swing. :)

Another thing he's taken to is the teeter-totter.

Since our anniversary was in the previous week, Nana and Grandpa watched Cade one night while Susie and I went out on a date. Cade took the opportunity to show off his operatic singing voice with a soapy fauxhawk.

When I look at this picture all I can see is "Dumb and Dumber." "You go talk to her and I'll just stand here and put out the vibe."

Cade already likes playing baseball! I knew he was an exceptional kid. :) Cade likes it when I help him hit, and we spent some time hitting last weekend. Not sure if he's a righty or a lefty yet so we're working both sides of the dish right now.
Here's a picture of a new game: jumping off the couch onto Daddy. And it's not just a roll off the couch; it's a swan dive.

We spend so much time building towers of blocks and he insists on knocking them over.

As mentioned, I have a pretty good video of Cade devouring the cake, and I'll publish that soon (I hope). Stay tuned!

In the meantime....

2009-06-18T22:45:00.003-05:00

....here's a picture of Cade at an outing at the park for Bridgepointe Church's kids. Cade LOVES to swing at the park. Thanks to Jeff Estes for this great picture!

I know this blog has been stale for a couple weeks. Just wait! We have a birthday coming up with grandparents visiting; updates are imminent!

Bumps...

2009-06-03T21:14:00.006-05:00

Hello everyone out there in blogland. Guess what? Cade continues to grow and develop and learn new things. Believe it or not, he has not settled down at all. He is a picture of perpetual motion. And just in the last couple weeks I think we're starting to see the presence of the sin nature that we're all stuck with. He's really started testing his limits on certain things. For example, he bites Susie and me and others occasionally. If you're holding him he'll sometimes try to bite you on the shoulder. Or other times he'll try to bite your finger or arm. We've started telling him "no" when he bites, and I know he knows what he's doing. The reason I know is because after I tell him "no" he'll take my hand or arm or whatever he was just biting, put his mouth on it (without biting), and look at me and give a sly smile. Or sometimes we'll notice him try to put things in his mouth that just don't belong there. So we'll take whatever it was out of his mouth and tell him "no" and give him something else to chew on or play with. If he can, he will go directly to what it was we took away from him, pick it up, and put it on his chin or cheek, look at us, and give that sly smile again. Sweet and innocent? Not all the time. But we still love him. We're just going to have to start talking more about how we want to handle disciplinary situations so we provide a consistent front. Did this have to come so quickly?

On a cuter note, he's also been a lot more playful lately as well. I just love getting to interact with him. His repertoire of noises and syllables continues to grow as well. And he's becoming more and more coordinated in his movements, especially pulling himself up on things and moving around. Walking probably isn't that far away. It's so much fun being a dad, especially a dad to this kid. I know you guys come to this site for the pictures, so here we go:

To start off, here are a few pictures from my sister Amy of when we met her and Paul in Fort Pierce, FL.

Contemplating life and just how stinkin' cool I look in a fauxhawk.

Cade has no fear. Not of heights, not of flipping around, not of being upside-down. He likes to ride on my shoulders and he especially likes it when I pretend like I'm dumping him off behind me.

This was the only one out of like seven where we were all looking at the camera, but it was a fun photo shoot.

During Memorial Day weekend the Keaton girls dropped by to say hi to Cade. He has more girls calling on him already than his dad ever did.

He definitely knows how to ham it up for the camera.Speaking of hamming it up, he definitely hasn't forgotten how to scrunch his nose up.

Last week we were fortunate enough to have my cousins Chris (on the right) and Brian stay a night with us on their way from SoCal to New York. I hadn't seen them for a few years, so it was great catching up. They hadn't met Cade, so he got some play time with his second cousins (Is that right? If they're my cousins does that make Cade their second cousin?). Chris and Brian's parents are moving to Colorado soon, so hopefully that means we'll be able to see them more often during the holidays.

Here's a random picture of Cade being helpful around the house.

Last Sunday afternoon was the annual church picnic, and here's a picture of Edie taking Cade down the slide. Cade digs slides, and I think he's pretty fond of Edie and her sister Allie too.

What's a picnic without some sort of messy food? Here he's getting all covered with baked beans (and other things I'm sure). He liked the barbecue fare and stuffed his face.

This last picture is of a bruise Cade gave himself this morning. I was just walking out of the kitchen to go run when in rapid fire succession I heard: "Oh no!", Big Bump, the dreaded split second of silence that feels like an eternity, SCREAM. With his increased mobility and curiousity, he keeps putting himself in more situations where it's possible to fall and hit something. I mentioned that he's getting more coordinated, but he still takes a lot of falls. In this case he smacked his cheek on a shelf. I've been impressed with his toughness and pain tolerance, but it definitely took a few minutes to calm him down after this one. A couple of nights ago I was playing with him and he had pulled himself up on a window sill near where Chili was laying. He's become more adept at letting himself down from a standing position. He used to just fall, but now he can kind of hold on and start the descent before letting go so he lands a lot more softly. It's graceful compared to how he used to sit, but it's still not a picture of grace. This particular time he must have heard something right as he let go, so he kind of spun and arched his back as he fell backwards. I don't know if his head hit the window sill or if he landed weird on Chili's paw, but he came up crying with blood all over his mouth. It scared me at first until I could tell it was coming from his upper gums. He was a pretty tough little guy with that one. He was just about done crying by the time I got the blood wiped off his face.

I guess these instances are sort of a microcosm of what parents go through everyday on a broad scale. Can any other parents relate? On one hand, Susie and I want to shelter him and protect him from anything that could hurt him. I hate seeing him in pain. On the other hand, we want him to explore and experience things, even if it means a bump or bruise along the way. I guess there's a fine line somewhere in the middle that contains a healthy dose of protection along with a long enough leash to learn some things on his own. At this point, we're still feeling our way along that line and trying to figure it out as we go. I'm sure that line sits differently for every person, and maybe that line will change as Cade grows. He's already shown signs of being stubborn and strong willed, so maybe he needs to learn some things on his own. I don't know, and I'm sure we'll come to points all throughout his life where we have to decide how much leash to let him have. We've never done this before, but we're relying on God for the right wisdom at the right time.

11 months/FL trip part 2

2009-05-23T17:28:00.005-05:00

I think I think this every month: "I can't believe it's been (fill in the blank) months since Cade was born! It seems like yesterday! He's getting old too quick!" So today was no different. 11 months! In 31 days he'll be a year old! Wow. He is still just so much fun, and he keeps learning new things and trying new things.

At this point he's getting very good at pulling himself up on anything. What he's not so good at is doing it in a graceful manner every time. He has become the master at finding an object his head has not yet met and flinging said head into it. And he can do it in the blink of an eye. He requires more vigilant watching now than he ever has. I'm sure when we're out in public people look at him and think we're either very neglectful parents or we enjoy smacking him around. And he doesn't ever fall on his arm or shoulder or chest or anything except for his head. Any other parents out there experience this or is Cade just that good at it?

The fact that he is incredibly active doesn't help his head out at all either. I don't know how many times he's almost wriggled free when I'm holding him. One thing he does well is climb the person that's holding him. He'll push himself away from your body, wedge his little feet up on your chest or stomach and start walking up your torso. It makes it very difficult to hold him, and he just laughs and laughs.

He's been pulling up for a while, but he's now advancing to being able to pull himself along the couch or something else and kind of shuffle along. I don't think it will be long now before he's starting to walk on his own.

We got back from Florida a week ago. My sister Amy is sending me the pictures from her camera (she has a much nicer camera and is a much better photographer than Susie or me), so I'll post some of them soon. We had a blast seeing Amy and Paul for dinner one night. The whole trip was great, but it was good to be back home too. We were ready to have a little more room, and Cade and I had come down with some kind of cold/flu. We weren't hanging out with any piggies, so I don't think it was the mass panic-inducing version we've been hearing too much about, but it slowed us down for a couple of days.

This last week we got new carpet in our upstairs. It has been thoroughly Cade-tested and Cade-approved. It feels like a completely new house upstairs.

Well, I know everyone comes for the pictures, so here are a few. Like I said, I'll post more from Amy's camera when I can. Thanks for stopping by!

We met Paul and Amy at a pretty cool tiki bar-style restaurant right on the Indian River in Ft. Pierce, FL, which was almost exactly halfway between Orlando and Ft. Lauderdale. Cade pleaded with us to let him work his hair up into a fauxhawk. So we relented.

This picture of Cade and Uncle Paul turned out pretty good.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that Susie's brother, Dustin, has a friend who works in ticket sales for the Magic. So he got us a pair of media passes for Game 6 of the Magic/Celtics playoff series. We entered through the tunnel at one corner of the arena and had to walk around the court to get to our seats, which were at the top of the lower bowl. Kevin Garnett has been my favorite NBA player since his days in Minnesota; unfortunately the policeman shuffled us by the Celtics bench before I could take a picture, but our eyes briefly locked and I think he could feel the love. I did have my camera ready when we walked by the Magic bench though. It's good I didn't get a video because Van Gundy was letting loose a string of f-bombs due to the fact that the Magic weren't playing very well to start the game. Not very family friendly. But the Magic heeded his filthy words and ended up winning and Dustin and I had a great time.

Here's Cade showing off his ability to stand up the day we got back.

Florida

2009-05-13T20:55:00.005-05:00

We're halfway through our trip to Florida and I thought I'd post a few pictures:

Saturday we got to see Susie's brother Dustin graduate from the University of Central Florida. Congrats Dustin! He's now off to work for Direct TV selling sports packages so if you're in that market let me know and I can get you in touch with him for a sweet deal.

After graduation we went back to the hotel (in Orlando) to do a little swimming. Cade has this hilarious looking, but highly effective swimsuit. It's like a little wrestling singlet with a foam pad sewn into the chest and back. He seems to really like water, and this thing helps him stay afloat.

I don't have any pictures of it, but I got to see another shuttle launch from my company's plant in Merritt Island. This one was during the day, but it was no less impressive. I wonder if seeing it ever gets old for the people around here. Doubtful. I have a long video of the launch, but it didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped it would.

Last night Susie and I had a great dinner with one of my coworkers and his wife at this outstanding seafood place on Cape Canaveral. We got out to the coast a little early so we drove down toward Cocoa Beach and found a spot to take Cade out to the water for the first time. He was smiling the entire time. We think he really enjoyed the beach time. Here's a picture of his first time putting his toes in the sand.

And his first dip into the waves.

My good looking family.

Cade's turned into a pretty good ham when it comes to picture time. He's always cheesin' it up.

Our son is still a baby, but he's almost half as tall as his mom!

Here's a short video of him getting his pants a little wet (Dad's fault). He cracks a pretty good smile at the end of the video. That kid is so much fun.

This Friday we're actually going to be able to get together with my sister Amy and her husband Paul, who will be down in Ft. Lauderdale for a short vacation. We're looking forward to that and I'll be sure to post some pictures of the rest of the vacation.

A new trick

2009-05-06T21:55:00.003-05:00

The very first piece of baby clothing we ever bought for Cade was documented here. Well, he's over 10 months old and it finally fits! It looks great with the doggie hat the Keatons bought him. Pictures below.

I read the post I linked above and it reminded me of my need to be a good example for Cade. He's only 10 months old, but you can tell he's already starting to try and repeat some of the words we say. He has "dada," "mama," and "ug" (dog) down pretty well. But you can tell he's working on other sounds that he hears. So wouldn't it be a bummer if I said something improper and the next thing I hear is my infant son repeating it? Tame the tongue daddy.

In that post I also noticed how naive I was. I feel like Susie and I have learned a LOT in the last year. Our breadth of life experiences continues to expand at breakneck speed. Despite the multitude of lessons constantly presenting themselves in new ways I still feel very unknowledgeable (is that a word?). Don't get me wrong, I know how to change a diaper now. Cade has even made sure we've graduated to phase two and three of diaper prowess with all his wiggling and crawling and his occasional curious hand that gets a good grip on some poo every once in a while. But having a kid makes you feel completely helpless sometimes. It goes back to the worry issue Jesus addresses in Matthew 6. Where is my focus?

Last Sunday I had a pretty intense aha moment. I play in the band at church, so I get to see the response time at the end of each service from a different angle than most of the people in the room. Last Sunday our pastor gave an invitation at the end of the service and as we played I noticed a kid who looked about 9 or 10 years old come walking down and talk with our youth pastor for a while. After talking for a while he pointed out his dad and his dad walked down and joined them. As the song ended the dad sat down with the kid in the front row and put his arm around him with a humongous smile on his face. That is exactly what I pray for regarding Cade every day. I long to experience that within our own family. I've prayed for that for quite a while now, but actually seeing it take place within another family right in front of me was a stark reminder to stay vigilant. Cade's life is pretty basic at this point, but I pray that at some point he comes to terms with his humanness and that reality leads him to a relationship with Jesus. There is no greater decision than that.

In other news, school is now over for the semester. I'm looking forward to no classes until June while Susie's summer classes start next week. Her classes are primarily online this summer though, so we look forward to a lot of time together at home.

This Saturday we are flying down to Orlando to see Susie's brother Dustin graduate from college. We're taking advantage of Allegiant Air's direct flight from Owensboro to Orlando. Kind of random, but very handy. It will be Cade's first time to the beach. We'll take lots of pictures and you can see them right here.

One last thing: Cade has learned a new skill. Every night we have a pretty standard routine: bath, bottle, and bed. Either Susie or I will take a bath with Cade and then the other will give him his bottle and put him down. It usually works pretty well. The other night I heard Susie say, "Matt, come in here and check THIS out." We have a basketball hoop that sticks to the side of the tub with suction cups. For a while now we've showed Cade how to put the ball in the hoop and then we'll give the ball to him. He usually chews on it or splashes it around. Not anymore. He slam dunked that ball like a pro over and over. We cheered and made a big deal about it each time he put it in the basket. He even tried to get sneaky. A couple times he'd put the ball over the rim so we'd cheer for him and then he'd pull it out at the last minute to try and trick us while giving us a big smile. The next night when I got in the bath with him I wanted to see if he remembered. Sure enough, I handed the ball to Cade and he dropped it right in. It's pretty cool seeing him put stuff together in his head.

Enough talking. Here are the pictures. Thanks for keeping up with us!