Updates Soon - I Hope...

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It's been a month since I updated! Sadly, my computer has been out of commission for nearly that entire time. Luckily we're nearly finished - I hope - getting it usable again and thankfully I don't think I lost anything, although I still have to double check some files - stupid bad sectors on one of my hard drives...

It's been a really busy month and I have a ton to blog from it, including such important events as Emmett's first birthday and Avery's first day of preschool, as well as lots of fun stuff like being in parades at both the Aumsville Corn Festival and the Sublimity Harvest Festival, monster trucks, and the Reno Air Races!

After all the to do of graduation and moving, it took all summer to get caught up on the blog, and I barely managed to get caught up before this happened! Frustrating! I'm just glad the computer waited until after I finished a major project! Anyway, there's plenty of posts that will be back-dated to when they happened coming soon... I hope...

Poo

On Friday, Travis went in to get Emmett up after his nap and found him without pants and diaper. Instead, everything was covered in poop. It was all over Emmett, in his hair, on the crib, the walls, and dropped on the floor.
OH. MY. OH. MY.
I washed Emmett and the sheet, blankets and crib pad, then kept the boys out of the way while Travis washed the crib and bedroom with much aggression. One pass to clear all the excess junk. A second pass to wipe the rest off until nothing can be seen. A third pass to disinfect it all.
Washing Emmett took more than one pass too. The stink didn't want to come off his skin! I scrubbed that poor kid red.

New policy. Onesies are a requirement.

Sunday mornings we get Emmett up last, as the last to get ready for church. This morning was no different, but this time we found him without pants, onesie open, and again the poop was everywhere.
Are you kidding me?!

Again, Emmett was scrubbed red, several times.
Travis managed pass one and two, but the sheets and blankets and disinfecting pass had to wait until after church. When we got home, Travis disassembled every piece of the crib and individually disinfected them in the shower. He took over two hours in the cleaning.

New policy: onesies with overalls or footie pajamas. Maybe we can do jeans with a seriously cinched belt...

Sorry, no pictures.

What a crappy weekend.

Girls Rule, Boys Drool

Okay, so we all suck at bowling, I just want to point out that Laurie, Katrina and Angela (and Avery) clearly wiped the floor with Travis, Kevin and Shane (and Carson).


Now that that's said, I'm willing to go back to being an adult again.

Too Much TV?

A conversation between Avery and Travis:

Avery: What's rich, Dad?
Travis: Usually it means when you have a lot of money.
Avery: How do you get a lot of money?
Travis: By working hard and saving money.
Avery: By saving money with Geico?

2009 Reno Air Races

It's time for the giant Reno Air Race post!

This year marked Travis' dad's 10th anniversary going to the Reno Air Races. He's the only one in the whole family who's made it for all 10 years! Considering we missed the last 4 years being in Milwaukee, we were very excited to go back this year.

Travis and his dad work a half day on Thursday, so by the time we actually leave, it's about dinner time. That means we drive all night and don't get to Reno until about 5:30am Friday morning. In the past we rode in the motor home (okay it was a bus conversion back then) so we got to sleep some of the drive. But now that we have three kids, we drove our van which definitely meant less sleep. I had about an hour early on so that I could stay up with Travis later. Finally, Travis couldn't take any more and I drove the last 2 hours. After arriving we just slept in the van for an hour or so before the festivities began!

This is what it's all about, the racing airplanes. This is a classic shot of the planes making the turn around the first pylon.


Jake and Josh (Travis' cousins) don't want to miss the action when back at camp.


Angela and Alli


At the opening ceremony everyday there are 3 flag jumpers from a C-130 and F-16's fly by.


This is the Air Force's Smoke-N-Thunder show (the jet car). He shows off the afterburner to the crowd, then sets up for a race with the stunt plane that just finished its show. The jet car waits at the end of the runway and when the airplane flies directly overhead then he can start. First to cross the Reno home pylon wins. Looks pretty close this day...


The Blue Angels start their show with Fat Albert, a C-130, that carries personnel, gear and spare parts for the Blue Angels. He does a few close flybys, in front and also right over our heads.


And because I'm a fan of Fat Albert, and this post needs more pictures (ha) here's a couple more shots of Fat Albert on his close flybys.


It really does seem impossible that these monsters can fly when they're flying right in front of you.


Just on Sunday (the biggest day when all the championship races are) Fat Albert demonstrated its jet-assisted takeoff (JATO) which simulates takeoff conditions in hostile environments. It allows for a short runway and a steep climb all done very quickly.


Fat Albert also does a wicked nose dive before landing and stopping in a super short distance that's crazy.

On to the Blue Angels. They show off their afterburners together, they takeoff together, and they fly ridiculously close together.


Love the pretty seperating formations, here are 2 of them.


After looking through my pictures I realized I must like the narrow miss flybys.


Yes, Avery is a genius. Carson fell asleep on the walk back to camp. That does not look comfortable.


Jake, Josh and Travis hanging around camp. That's the tent we were sleeping in behind them (borrowed from Kevin and Katrina who couldn't come this year). The first night it was so windy that Shane and Angela's tent collapsed nearly all the way down. As for our tent, the whole top half is mesh and the wind would suck up under the fly and dump dust into the tent. It was ridiculous. And loud. So Avery, Carson, Angela and Alli slept in the motor home, Shane braved their tent, and Travis, Emmett and I slept in the back of the van after unloading removing and folding down the seats. Oh, what a night. Thankfully, night number two was not as bad and we slept in the tent.


He's so handsome!


Everyone gathering around to watch the video of Ben's tractor pull in the Sublimity Harvest Festival.


Emmett playing peek-a-boo and monkeying around.


Avery, Damon and Logan had lots of fun playing together, until Avery and Damon knocked poor Joel down. Having a timeout together wasn't so rough, until they decided they weren't friends anymore due to a punch or some other such boy mischief.


All the guys climbed in Ben's motor home to watch some DVD about an airplane that can switch its landing gear easily for landing in different terrain.


Part of the Air Races include a large static display. A couple planes and a helicopter are open for touring. Avery and Carson "flew" a plane, checked out the sleeping quarters, and Avery "flew" a helicopter.


Here's (part) of the the helicopter Avery "flew."


Papa and Alli getting ready for the big final race


Time for the main event! The Unlimited gold class lines up before the final race. There are 3 big names in the Unlimited's: 1. Strega, my first favorite back in the beginning, but then he wasn't around and so I rooted for 2. Rare Bear. Of course, Strega's been back while we were in Milwaukee and he won last year. 3. Dago Red, a big fan favorite. Dago Red was gone this year. Strega was killing it in all the qualifying rounds, but due to a cut pylon he was docked enough to allow Voodoo to take the pole position in the final race. That was big and exciting because Voodoo is a fan favorite for always being there and close in the running, but always coming in behind the big boys - and his flashy paint job is always fun. This year was the first he ever made pole position.
Strega did overtake him right away and ended up winning, but the bummer part is Voodoo had to pull out midway with mechanical difficulties. Rare Bear took second and then called a mayday after the race, but landed safely.


Emmett fell asleep during the gold race. Travis had good intentions to protect him with his hat, but I don't think he thought it through all the way.


And here are some parting shots, including a funny one. This it the C-130 the flag jumpers jump from for welcoming exercises, Rare Bear and his very flashy new paint job, a close race (the finish line is the Reno home pylon.) and a class act.


Seriously, I just had to include that last one. We were talking about how a monster truck rally crowd is generally different from the Reno crowd. (Basically because there's so much more money wrapped up in all things airplane so the crowd that follows air racing is generally more affluent.) That's not to say Reno doesn't make for fun people watching too, it's just no where near the level of a monster truck crowd. Then we spotted this guy and all had a good laugh. The front view was even less appealing. I can't believe I even caught him hitchin' his shorts up even higher!

Another fun year at the races!

Emmett's 1 Year Checkup

Emmett had his 1 year check-up today. Travis was working a half day today before we head to Reno this evening, but got off work earlier than I expected and surprised me at the doctor's office. With the pile of paperwork I had to fill out, his help wrangling the 3 boys was invaluable!

Emmett is
length: 31 1/2 inches, 90-95%
weight: 23lb 15.5oz, 50-75%
head: 48 1/4 inches, 92%

Emmett was supposed to get 4 shots today, including flu, but since we're heading to Reno, he'll get them on the 24th instead along with Avery and Carson getting flu shots.

Sublimity Harvest Fest Part 2: Monster Trucks and Tractor Pulls!

After the parade Saturday, we headed home for some lunch and a nap for Emmett. Then, it was back to the Harvest Fest grounds for some of the big guns in tractor and truck pulling and then monster trucks!



Tractor pulling and monster trucks are very loud, so all the kids had ear plugs:






This tractor had this extreme black smoke


During the monster trucks, t-shirts were thrown into the crowd. We didn't catch one, but someone near us did and gave it to Avery! Avery's just being a pill about having his picture taken and had no idea Kevin was giving him bunny ears.


Here's a short clip of the monster trucks:



Then, Sunday morning we headed back to the Harvest Fest to watch Travis' dad in the tractor pulls. This was his first time pulling on his 1937 John Deere Model A. The announcers really liked his pull, and told Ben later his was one of their favorites and gave him some pointers for next year.


Along with the anybody-can-enter tractor pulls, there was also truck pulls, kids on 4 wheelers pulling, and teamed horses pulling.

After Ben was done with his pull, Travis and I took the boys around a bit while we waited for the monster trucks.


"Running" from "Frank the Combine" from the movie Cars.


"What up, homey"


Aunt Megan was super nice and bought Avery and Alli some balloon shapes, Avery got a sword and scabbard.


Then it was time for monster trucks again!


Emmett fell asleep in all that noise!


What a full and fun weekend!

Sublimity Harvest Fest Part 1: Parade

We had a full weekend at the Sublimity Harvest Festival! This is part one, covering the Saturday morning parade.

Our float won first place (for a full picture of the set up, see the Aumsville Corn Festival post)


The Hunsaker boys having a laugh (Ben, Kevin, Jon, Travis)


Carson's still not sure about being on the trailer.


Uncle Kevin and Aunt Katrina tried to keep Carson happy and waving at the crowd.


Emmett really liked the floss we were throwing out


After the parade, we parked it in this field to clean up where the kids found a baseball and had fun pretending to play baseball.
Emmett says, "I want to play!"


Rookie of the Year!


Emmett was having too much fun running with the big kids to notice his poor bare feet.




Dandelions don't taste as good as they look apparently


Always with the climbing...


When I first looked at this picture on my computer I thought "WOW look at those baby blues!" and then I remembered what I noticed after taking the picture at the time, "WHAT is in/on his mouth!?" Answer: a dirty rock from the infield.


Time to rinse!


What a fun morning! Ever since, Avery's been asking when the next parade is. What, three in a summer isn't enough for you?!