Category Archives: Family

The Easter Drill 2014

Home from Easter church service, but before we change and get out of our clothes and run and around to pick up the house and cook Easter lunch lets take a few pics. It’s a time honored tradition!

Ready, lets go!

Yeah, well that’s okay. Something is wrong with the camera lens that expands everything at my waist. So lets fix that.

Hmm, that’s better but I cut the top of my head off. Big loss there right? I’m calling it good.

Okay, lets pick up the critters. From left to right meet Rascal, Ginger, and Abby. Okay, one is enough of this.

Finally a decent shot!

Yep, he is taller than me. But I’m meaner.

Aw, my main squeeze. Isn’t she beautiful!

She said, get out of the picture Jack. I said my name wasn’t Jack. She said she didn’t care just get her Rascal. So here they are. I had to overexpose it a little bit cuz otherwise he is a black blob.

I hope that you all are having as much fun on Easter as we are.

Silver Dollar City in Branson, Missouri

Here we are Silver Dollar City, the big amusement park in Branson

We saw some pretty good bluegrass music by Lindley Creek. I’m not much of a bluegrass bu I liked these guys. They are a family.

Lots of patriotism at Silver Dollar City. Flags and bunting were everywhere.

There is the kid disobeying signs again. Good for him is what I say.

And we saw some things that we couldn’t figure out.

Heather and Logan went on a couple spins on Wildfire, a high tech rollercoaster. That’s them on the far side of the back row. I feel so sorry for them. I’m such a chicken coward when it comes to rides.

Here is the rest of their trip. Sorry for the shaky video. I was scared just watching the thing.

There’s Heather. She loved it and so did Logan. I love this photo of Heather.

We finally found a ride I could manage. This rocking chair. I can rock the chair and eat blackberry ice cream at the same time. That’s good for me!

Anyway, that’s that!

Here is a link to our last trip to Silver Dollar City which was Spring Break 2010. Logan sure has grown since then.

Christmas at our House

(Are there American boys that want something besides video games and cheat books for Christmas. A football maybe? He does like books though.)

Okay, I know Christmas is over, at least for some people. Me, I’m a twelve days of Christmas kind of guy. So you will have to put up with me about it. Christmas morning is pretty civilized. Logan has never been and up at 4 am kind of guy. Or not any more. He is not a tear into things kind of guy either. We open our gifts slowly so we can each see what other people got.

(Funny thing, nobody can read my handwriting either. The Contract Administrators at work make jokes and laugh about the way I write.)

Logan left Santa a couple of gingerbread cookies and a glass of wine the night before and so Santa wrote him a note. Don’t get all MADD on me!!!Santa has a designated driver. I had been telling Logan that he was “on the bubble” for a few days. Poor kid didn’t know what that meant. Apparently neither does Santa.

For my trouble I got a Lump of Coal. The good kind.

We’d been promising Logan underwear for Christmas for years and Santa finally came through. Notice Logan’s pajamas. He wore them all day long. Note the slippers on right side. That is Heather. She was wearing her Christmas pajamas and her silk scarves. You won’t find a picture on this post of her in her pajamas. I may not be very smart, but I’m not all that dumb either. Besides, I would never find anybody that puts up with my crap like she does. You will also note that you won’t find a shot of me wearing my Christmas pj’s either. Cuz I’m the photographer.

Ginger got a new hedgehog. She’s our neurotic little dog and she loves her hedgehogs. That is her therapy hedgehog.

And here is Mrs. Grinch, aka Chrissy out big grouchy Maine Coon. She doesn’t give a flip about Christmas. I wouldn’t try and move her off that throw either. If you want to keep your hand that is.

And here is Logan with LJ (“Logan Junior”) feeding him treats. LJ loves Christmas and is terrorized by Mrs. Grinch. Don’t feel bad LJ, I am also.

And here is me with my one Christmas shirt and my Dallas Cowboys stocking cap with my favorite gift from Heather for my office at work. Santa hasn’t visited the Cowboys since the 90’s. Dear Santa, I hope that you gave the Cowboys defense a clue and the Philedelphia Eagles the flu. Thanks. In case you are wondering why I am not smiling, that is my smile. No I wasn’t drunk either.

Here is Heather all cleaned up and her mother Nana. Ready to do battle with Christmas.

Heather got a new coffee machine. We have been nursing along our old one for quite a while an Nana couldn’t stand it anymore. We don’t like to replace things until they are worn out. The stuff we give to Goodwill or rummage sales is truly worn out.

Nana gave me a new Lomography camera. Sucker doesn’t even have a lens. It has a pinhole. I’ve been playing with it. You photography buffs, it has a f/175 aperture. This is going to be interesting. Some of the shots I want to take will requre exposure times of over a minute. I find out that Apple has an app that uses the camera as a light meter. You set the film speed and the fstop and it tells you the exposure time. And then you click it and it is a countdown timer. We’ll see how it works. Thing is I have to go through 36 exposures to see if gives me good results or not. Don’t hold your breath, it will take a while. I’ll have to use a tripod for almost all the shots.

I’ll have to get a cable release also to hold the shutter open. I’ve been reading about how one can open the shutter and then walk to a chair in front of the camera. Sit down and then get up to close the shutter. That kind of stuff really interests me.

And this is Rascal wanting to know where his stuff is. You may think its funny that we buy our pets gifts and treats at Christmas. Well its true, sorry. We had quite a zoo going on. Nana brought her dogs over so we had five total. Worse than little kids, in the door, out the door, and back in. Updating the Barkbook status constantly.

And here we are all ready for Christmas dinner!!

I hope that you had a great Christmas also.

Connected Again

I’ve been off the air lately. A few nights ago our internet crashed. I am not sure what caused it but it may be the Obamacare website thrashing around in its death throes did our access in. Stuff like this never happened with Bush is what I say. Of course most Republicans these days don’t even know who Bush is. They seem to think that we didn’t really have a President in the eight years before Obama. And you know they may be right! But I’m digressing The point is that I lost my internet but that’s okay cuz I was out gathering material.

My sister and her youngest daughter came to town for a horse show. (A little bit about that later.) We got to visit a little bit. It would have been rude to be writing a post during a visit don’t you think? For those of you who don’t think that I ever smile, this picture is proof that I do! Sister Ellen is also a fellow blogger. Go check out at News From The “Pole” Yard.

On Saturday I ran the Tulsa Run 15K. It kind of hurt. I had a sinus infection going on and had missed three days of work. Of course my boss is a runner also and asked me Saturday morning, “Oh, so you feel okay to run, huh?” To make matters worse I came in ahead of him, and his wife. Oh well, all in good fun is what I say. I’ll have more about the race in a later post.

Ellen and Jillian are both really involved with 4H and horses and horse judging. They were in town for the U.S. National Arabian and Half-Arabian Championship Horse Show. On Saturday night we met them at the show. I had never been to such a thing and it was just amazing. I have not seen anything like this horse show ever, not on television or anywhere. Those Arabian Horses are very spirited, high strung and beautiful and the owners, breeders, and fans are passionate about the breed. I’ll also be posting more about this later. The National Championship is coming back to Tulsa each year for the next five years. I’ll be there!! Getting high on that green sawdust.

Jillian (at the far right) was the coach of a high school 4H horse judging team from Colorado. Jillian competed extensively in high school and then later at Colorado State University before she graduated. She stays active in the sport. She took vacation from her job to come down with the kids and help them compete.

And then of course we went to the Pumpkin Patch. Gotta have pumpkins this time of year. Of course, Logan can carry the pumpkins now. We started bringing him out here when he was about the size of the one he is holding.

So, anyway, that’s my whirlwind post. I’ve missed everybody! But it was a nice break also. We had a lot going on.

Inspired Sunday – Sioux Valley Baptist Church

Last week I wasn’t blogging, I drove to South Dakota to attend the family reunion of my Dad’s side of the family.

A traditional part of the reunion is to attend the service at Sioux Valley Baptist Church near Del Rapids. The church is a humble very honest and impeccably maintained building on a dirt road. The first service was held Thanksgiving Day 1888 and it has been going strong ever since.

(Photo from ancestry.com)

The church was built by a group of Scandanavian Immigrants. The man pictured above, my Great Great Grandfather Nels Norgaard donated the acre of land that the church is built on. And that is why the Norgaard clain attends church service at the church before the picnic in Del Rapids.

The service was well attended and the hospitality was warm. The pastor, Rita Weber introduced herself and welcomed everybody individually before the service. I got the impression that she does that every service. Turns out that there was a man in the church and a member of the familiy who grew in Bartlesville, Oklahoma and he and his daughter, and her boyfriend also from Oklahoma attending the University of Central Oklahoma. Pastor Brown said during the service that the church had never had so many Oklahomans in the building ever. I felt like saying “Rita, we are Okies, not Oklahomans” but I was doing my best to behave myself.

The service was very warm with great singing and Pastor Webb delivered a great sermon. The whole experience was very warm, welcoming, and encouraging. I love the Bible verse on the plaque above. I think that a small country church that has been hanging in there doing the good work for 125 years deserves that verse.

Here is my sister and fellow blogger Ellen. She posted about the church and our family here. She has a great photograph of She, our brother, father, and me on the post.

Inspired Sunday

Pastor Rita Weber’s web site. Check it out, she is quite the woman and a great pastor.

If you are geocaching minded, there is no geocache on the grounds but the church has been listed as a waypoint on the geocaching offshoot site waypoint dot com here.

Our World – Family Trail Ride

We had a family reunion on a ranch near Island Park, Idaho last week. While there we signed up for a trail ride.

As we gathered brother Bob and nephew Shiloh honed their ~~roping~~ rope untangling skills.

Sister Ellen, (left), Dad, and Sweetie chattted.

The smirking stars of the day were trying to figure out who of the dudes they were going throw off during the ride.

The lead wrangler was showing us how to get on the horse. I didn’t catch his next move where standing where he is, he jumped and swung his right leg over the horse and into the saddle as smooth as silk. Without breaking his serious face he asked if we had any questions. I love smart alecky wranglers.

So after everybody was on their horse (using platforms) we were ready to go.

Off we went across the sagebrush and up a hill against a beautiful blue sky.

Alongside a small lake.

Across lush green meadows.

And through the woods.

We stopped and the wranger took photographs with our cameras. Left to right is brother-in-law Irv, brother Bob, sister Ellen, SuperPizzaBoy, nephew Mr. Beans, Sweetie, and Me!

Irv documented the return trek.

Here is my horsecam view of yet another small lake close to the stable.

All of our butts were a little sore but we were happpy.

Our World Tuesday

Skywatch Friday – Something Happening in Yellowstone

We just got back from a family reunion in Island Park, Idaho. Above from left to right is SuperPizzaBoy, sister Ellen, brother Bob, Sweetie, and bil Irv. As you can see the weather was nice where we are but there was a sinister looking cloud over in what I calculate to be Yellowstone Park not too far from where we were.

Skywatch Friday

Our World – Back from Vacation

We are back from vacation. We went down to Orange Beach, Alabama for a week.

We hung out on the beach a lot. Some of us tanned, others of us got toasted.

We went kayaking one day. Nothing like kayaking through a busy bay.

We saw some dolphins playing. That was quite a thrill.

We witnessed some great sunsets.

At ate some really, really good meals. Really.

And hung out on the beach. We did a lot of that!

One of us went geocaching.

We also listened to a lot of music, visited with some other friends of Tulsa, and even made a new friend at the urgent care clinic.

Now that we are back, we just want to know when we can go on our next vacation!

Our World Tuesday