2007
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What's New??? 2007 |
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12/22/07 |
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22 Dec 07 Ladies and Gentlemen… Introducing the newest member of our family – LUNA!!! Luna is a small little Black Lab puppy that we picked up from the breeder yesterday. So far, she has been FANTASTIC! She is 8 weeks old, great with the kids, and of course extremely curious about everything – the boys are having a ball playing with her, and Luna is more than eager to play with them… She has only peed inside the house once, and she has pooped and peed outside about 10 times! We know that we are far from having a house-broken puppy, but so far, so good – wish us luck! Since we returned from Disney, we have been on the go non-stop! I even took a little jaunt out to Albuquerque for a few days for a conference, and the boys finished school in style in preparation for winter break. There were 3 Christmas parties to attend at each of their classes yesterday, and they all had so much fun – they even brought home gifts from their schools for the family, but we’ll just have to wait until Christmas to open them! And we can’t wait… Max is so close to knowing how to read, it is scary! We were in a restaurant yesterday, and Max said, “Look – Eat Like a Pig!” as he read a sign on the wall! We are very proud of him… We told him that if he can read by his 5th birthday, then he would get a computer… He has his goal, and he is going to succeed… Zander is still the fun little boy that we all know and love – he has constant energy with his brothers, and he LOVES to play – if there could be a major in school of playing, Zander would already be a Ph.D.! I was the leader in a rousing game of Santa-Says yesterday – and Nikolai did great! He really paid attention, and even made it into the semi-finals – way to go Nikolai! Nikolai also took a field trip out to the base the other day with his REM class, and he got to fly the B-2 simulator! I even met up with the class and took them out to see the B-2. The boys had a lot of fun. I got into the cockpit of the B-2, and Nikolai was my co-pilot – it was a very cool mental picture of me and my boy flying the plane… We are all braced and ready for Santa’s arrival! We have been watching every Christmas movie under the sun, and we are primed and ready. We all have the next ten days off, and we are not traveling anywhere – it is going to be fantastic – some much deserved family fun time… And getting to know the newest member of our family! We also want to send prayers to the families and servicemen and women around the world who are deployed defending our freedom – their sacrifice ensures that America remains the strongest, safest, and best country in the world – next time you see a soldier, sailor, airmen, or marine – thank them for their service. Trust me – they will appreciate it. I got a poem the other day – I’m sure many of you have seen it already, but always worth another read - damned near brought tears to my eyes:
The embers glowed softly, and in their dim light,
Outside the snow fell, a
blanket of white,
In perfect contentment, or
so it would seem,
Perhaps just a cough, I
didn't quite know, Then the
Standing out in the cold and
the dark of the night, A
Alone in the dark, he looked
up and smiled, Standing
"It's my duty to stand at
the front of the line, That
I've not seen my own son in
more than a while,
"I can live through the cold
and the being alone, Away
I can carry the weight of
killing another, Or lay down
"So go back inside," he
said, "harbor no fright, Your
It seems all too little for
all that you've done,
To fight for our rights back
at home while we're gone,
Merry Christmas, everybody… We hope that all is going great with your family – drop us a line when you get a chance! And as always, be sure to check out the newest pictures…
6 Dec 07 [In the interest of saving us a BUNCH of time, we have not linked individual pictures. Pam wrote this ENTIRE update - she knew how much I didn't want to!] And now... OUR TRIP TO DISNEY!!! On 21 November we all piled into the Big White Car and headed to St. Louis. We got to Heidi’s house at about 4pm. The kids were raring to go and were psyched to play with Sam and Evie. And their 3 month old Rottweiler puppy, Sonny Bear; cat named Sadie and of course, Willow. Sonny Bear is a crazy little puppy who would jump on anyone who made the mistake of sitting on the floor. Nikolai was enthralled with her Butt which had a little patch of fur that was tan and heart-shaped. Pretty funny. They loved playing with the puppy. Max and Zander liked to get her all worked up. They were trying to get dressed one day and Sonny grabbed Max’s sock with her teeth and ripped it right off his foot. Then the puppy tried to nip at the bottom of Zander’s shirt and Zander jumped back and said, “She tried to bite my penis!” Funny stuff! Now they all (and me too!) want a puppy. Now we just have to convince Greg. [Greg writes – FAT CHANCE!!!] Heidi and Aaron were great hosts! They just moved into a pretty sweet house in St. Louis. Heidi had Thanksgiving Dinner well in hand by the time I woke up. We ate and drank the night away, and I am pretty sure that the men watched 9+ hours of football… One for the ages! The next day, we all decided to head over to the Gateway Arch in St. Louis. We thought this was a great idea, as did ¾ of St. Louis! The place was packed – by the time Greg got to the front of the line to purchase tickets to the top, Greg was told that it was going to be over 4 hours until the next available train! Mmm…. 4 adults with 5 kids waiting four hours! Since we had a lot of time to kill, we go into a movie about westward expansion. There was very little foot room and we were pretty uncomfortable. So Heidi and I had our feet up on the seats in front of us. I was also holding a sleeping Zander on my lap. All of a sudden we hear,” Get your feet off the seats!” screamed from the back of the theater by someone who really takes her job as movie attendant seriously. The movie ended soon after that and as we were standing in the aisle waiting to move, we see said movie attendant check the seats where we had our feet with a flashlight. Apparently she thought we wore out cleats that day and had scarred the seats in some way. Funny! We had about 3 hours to wait still so we get some food and sit down for a while. Then we hit the museum for a bit and then the gift shop. It felt like this should have eaten more time than it did but when we left the gift shop, we still had 45 minutes to wait with nothing to do but sit on the floor and read a book. The kids were troopers though. We finally got to go up into the arch. It was a great view! Nikolai was staring out the window and he said, “I’ve waited my whole life to do this! This is the best view ever!” The kids were loving it which of course made the 4 hour wait worth it! After descending the arch, we went for pizza and then back to the house for cake and ice cream to celebrate Nikolai’s birthday which was the next day. Nikolai’s turned 6 on 24 November and we celebrated by getting into the car and driving 9 hours to Atlanta, Georgia where we spent the night. When we stopped for food, I picked up a cake and some relighting candles for round 2 of birthday celebration. We got a kick out of the boys trying to blow out the candles and we finally ended it before we set off the smoke alarm in the room. Off to sleep so we can get back into the car and finish the drive to Orlando, Fl. (about 8 more hours)! The kids were troopers the whole way. Thank God for books, portable DVD players and Leapsters! They did fantastic! They were nuts when they exited the car so they were able to play in the playground while we unpacked the car and put stuff away. Greg had told them not to throw things in the pretty fountain and not to walk in the manicured gardens. After he went out to check on them, he came back into the room and said he realized he should have told them not to pee into the fountain. When he walked outside he was greeted with a great view of 3 boys with their pants at their ankles peeing into a beautiful fountain. I guess we need to be more specific in our instructions! We are still giggling about that one… Off to dinner, we looked through a store and back to the room for bed. Did I mention that our room had bunk beds in it? Greg and I were thankful for the bars that served as a safety net because our kids are flip floppers in bed. Zander never got to sleep on the top bunk since he did fall out of the bottom bunk and scared the crap out of Greg. Another interesting thing on the way down to Florida. About 20 hours or so of driving and Nikolai never fell asleep once. I was amazed by that because we just need to be on the road for a few minutes and I’m sleepy. He said, “I don’t get tired!” The kid is a machine! 26 Nov. - I started my day with going to drop Greg off at his conference and going off in search of a Dunkin Donuts and a Walmart. My little friend Betty who lives inside the GPS we were using got me there! (Thanks Aaron!) We got some provisions and a much needed haircut for Zander and then went to pick Greg up at his conference. Back to the room to shower and pack up dinner (we brought sandwiches, drinks and snacks every day so we wouldn’t have to buy at the parks.) Magic Kingdom here we come! We had read that the week after Thanksgiving was one of the least crowded at Disney. Apparently all the people there didn’t get the memo though. We were expecting to not have to wait in line much. Were we wrong! The kids thought it was cool that we rode a tram and a monorail to get in the park. We walked right through Cinderella’s Castle to get to Fantasyland. Right after buying our autograph book, we saw Chicken Little. The line was short so we hopped in and got a pic. That was the only autograph we got that day. Greg was joking that we spent the money on a book for autographs and only got a 3rd rate autograph from a B-lister Disney Character! Oh Bother. First up, Mickey’s PhilharMagic. This was a really cool 3-D show with Donald Duck on a musical adventure through some Disney classic movies. The kids got a kick out of it and it was a great way to kick off our trip. Then on the line ride. We waited in line for 40 minutes to ride on It’s a Small World, 20 minutes for Peter Pan’s Flight and another 20 minutes for the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. While the waiting in line was stinky, the kids loved the rides so who are we to complain! We skipped the teacups and the Dumbo ride because of crazy lines and moved onto Mickey’s Toontown Fair. Here we went on a little roller coaster called The Barnstormer at Goofy’s Wiseacre farm. This ride lasted all of 50 seconds and from the second we started moving to when we stopped, Zander and Max screamed. When we got to the end, we stopped on the tracks for a few seconds and then started to move again. Max and Zander both shout, “I don’t want to go again!” When we got off, Max said he loved it! Go Figure! Tomorrowland was up next. We ate dinner and then got into Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin. I was in a car with Nikolai and Zander and Max were with Greg. This was like being inside a huge arcade game. We were “shooting” lasers at enemies and racking up points. At the end you could see where you ranked on the list. Nikolai said, “I’m a planetary pilot! I did better than all of you!” No modesty there! Then we jumped over the Stitch’s Great Escape. This ride got a big thumbs down from the whole family! Especially Zander who screamed the whole time and Nikolai who said, “didn’t you know I’m afraid of the dark!” This was a strange little experience where Stitch “escapes” into the audience, it gets pitch black in the room and then you can feel movement around you. Yeah, Stitch sneezed into my hair. I wasn’t such a fan! After this, Zander was finished and the rest of us were not far behind him. Monster’s Inc. Laugh Floor was cute and funny. The Disney Railway was also a big hit with the boys. By this point we had reached critical mass. I was carrying Zander (!) and we decided to head out for the night. We spotted a place to sit and watch the parade. We were glad we did because it was pretty cool. The kids liked it (with the assistance of some Mickey Mouse lollipops.) We skipped out on the fireworks to beat the crowd. At this point we were all ready to call it a night. A ride on a monorail, a tram and then back to the big white car. I think the kids were asleep before we left the parking lot! 27 Nov.- Start the day with the trip to DD for some much needed Java! Greg wa driving as we were going to drop him off at his conference and head to the hotel pool. We go though the Drive-Thru and I ask pretty clearly for some extra cream and sugar on the side. The woman says ok and promptly hands me …… a cup of ice! Greg and I just giggled at the absurdity of it! Ask for cream and sugar, get ice…. Makes perfect sense! My task while Greg was at his conference was to wear the kids out so they will take a nap and be rested for Epcot. We were planning on staying at Epcot to catch the nighttime fireworks at 9:30. In order for that to be a realistic goal, we had to get them to nap. We first went to the playground and the arcade. In the arcade, we were playing a Simpson’s Bowling Game. It was really funny to watch Homer bowl and then scratch his butt waiting for his score. Then we head over to the pool where they literally splashed and tried to dunk each other for what seemed like a really long time! Then they spotted the games that were around the pool. Foozball Table 1st. ( Max called it the ball kicking game.) I am really good at that game when playing with a 6, 4 and 3 year old! Pool was 2nd. They wanted to play with the pool sticks but they were taken away before they could cause some damage with them. Their variation of the game was to roll the cue ball at the others until all the balls were in the holes. Kinda like crud but no one got hurt. Next up, and the best of all, is the ping pong table. This was by far one of the funniest things I’d ever seen. Zander and Max were “playing” with Nikolai and I as the ball shaggers. Max was able to hit the ball over the net. Zander, on the other hand had some trouble with keeping the ball on the table. Zander would yell, “Hy-ah!” and then hit the ball over his head, off the building, into the pool, into my stomach…. Anywhere except for where it should go. We were all laughing so hard! Nikolai was doing a little dance and said, “I just pee-peed into my swimsuit!” That about sums it up! At this point it is about 1230. My plan is to go back to the room, get the boys lunch and then all take a nap. Of course, the slowest maid in the world had other ideas. She had just started our room when we got back. So the boys and I went to the playground again and the gift shop. About 30 minutes later, we head back and she still is not finished. At this point, I just asked her to leave clean towels and that would be good enough. I was focused on getting these boys naps! At about 4pm, we arrive at Epcot. The boys were bummed that we didn’t get to ride the tram and monorail to get to the park. Epcot was way less crowded. We took a bunch of pictures of us with “the Ball” and also hit a character spot where we met Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Pluto and Chip and Dale. It was awesome. Suddenly that autograph book wasn’t such a bad idea. We then headed to the Honey I Shrunk the Audience 3-D show. I honestly thought the kids would love this show but they were not such big fans! With the help of the 3-D glasses, it looked like there was a cat hissing right into our faces as well as a huge snake. At the end, a giant dog leans towards the audience and sneezes. We feel water getting sprayed on us and Nikolai says, ”Disgusting! I know that was dog spit!” The imagination is a wonderful thing… After we ate our sandwiches, we were ready to head into the World Showcase. Mother Nature had other plans, however! It had started to rain so we took a little boat ride around the lagoon. We thought that the weather would clear by the time we got off the boat. No such luck. It was pouring out so we sought a dry spot inside a gift shop. The kids scatter and Greg says, “Go get them.” I figure he is talking about ponchos so I go to stand in a long line to buy said ponchos. I buy 3 child size ponchos and 1 umbrella and head to find the boys. As I round the corner I see Greg putting a poncho on the boys. Here’s how the conversation went: P: “Where’d you get those?” G: “I bought them.” P: “Me too!” G: “We have 8 ponchos and 1 umbrella!” So I went and returned what I bought. You can’t buy that kind of entertainment! When Nikolai put on the poncho, he was covered from head to knee in water-repellant plastic. His response: “But my legs will still get wet!” He thinks that he will melt if he gets wet. He said, “I’m like a cat! I don’t like to get wet, except for the tub!” Funny kid! 1st stop in the World Showcase was Canada. We saw a really cool Circle Vision 360 degree film about Canada narrated by Martin Short. It was funny and at the same time kept us dry for a few minutes. 2ndcountry is the United Kingdom. By the way, we had bought a really cute Epcot Passport for the kids and had no idea what we were supposed to do with it. When we entered France, we found a Kidcot ( a place for the kids to talk to a person from the country, do a craft and get a stamp in their passport). These could be found in every country. So we head to Morocco and Japan. The kids thought it was pretty cool to see their names written in other languages. In the USA, we went to a film called “The American Adventure”. About 5 minutes in, Zander needed to go poop. Of course, there wasn’t a potty in the building. Mommy and Zander leave the rest of the fam to take care of business and had to wait outside for the film to be over. We listened to some cool Christmas Music and watched a toy train for a while. [Greg’s note – Pam and Zander missed out! The American Adventure was one of the coolest shows in all of Disney…] We skipped a few countries in search of a good place to watch the fireworks and hit Norway while we waited. The bys spotted these cute little Mickey light up swords and really wanted them. Greg and I could envision them being used as weapons about a minute after they were bought so we said no. Zander: “But they are only $5.00!” (He thrust 5 fingers in the air while he said it.) Funny, but they still didn’t get them. The fireworks were spectacular! We had a really great spot to watch and the show was by far the best fireworks display we had ever seen. The kids loved it, watching with wide-eyed wonder! So much fun! 28 Nov.- Start the day with the standard trip to D.D. We are going to pick up Greg at his conference and head to MGM. After playing in the pool for a while, we get ready and we are off to MGM. (Nikolai was calling it mmmmmm gggggggggggggg mmmmmmmm) When we get there, we head off to Playhouse Disney Live on Stage. We see a photo op with Leo and Annie from Little Einsteins. We suggest that the boys get pictures and autographs. Max and Zander are all for it. Nikolai says, “No way!” He was dead set against getting anywhere near the characters. He was freaked out by them, maybe because they are little on TV and in person they had Gigantic heads. He sucked it up though and stood for a photo. Onto the show. Songs by Bear in the Big Blue House, Winnie the Pooh, Stanley, and JoJo’s Circus. Of course, we knew all the words! Fun Stuff! The Great Movie Ride was a little trip through some classic movies. The kids all loved it, except for when the alien popped down from the ceiling. The Muppet Vision 3-D was cute. It’s funny that the kids don’t know who the muppets are. We walked a bit after that and ran into Buzz Lightyear. The kids met him but missed Woody because the line was too long. We saw Lightning McQueen and Mater too… pretty sweet! The Honey I Shrunk the Kids Adventure was awesome. It was a playground area where everything was gigantic. It made everyone in there feel tiny! The kids loved it. We waited for the light
switch to be flicked on a fabulous display of Christmas lights. ( There
actually was a huge lightswitch.) This whole street was decked out in
millions of lights. There was snow and when the lights were turned on, they
“danced” in time to the music being played. We could only watch for a few
minutes because we had to move our tushies to get to MGMs nighttime show,
Fantasmic. Mickey Mouse had to “fight” all the villains from different
movies. They were shooting huge streams of water in an arch and played
videos on the sheet of water. It was great! 29 Nov.-- Greg had to go to his last day of his conference. My plan was to run errands with the boys, get them lunch and then get them to nap because we were heading back to Epcot. I was fighting off an enormous headache so I laid down too. Greg got back to the hotel to help get the kids to sleep and made the dinners for the park while Max, Zander and I napped. We got to the park around 4 again. We found out that Spaceship Earth, the Epcot Ball, was closed for repairs. Bummer! We checked out the Innovations section and played with the video games they had. There was a 3-D game where you had 4 minutes to put the parts of the human body in the right places. Nikolai, Zander and I did it together. Very cool. Then the boys played a car racing game. The displays were great and we all had a ton of fun. We hit Journey into Imagination with Figment and the kids met Figment. The Circle of Life movie with the Lion King characters was a big hit and we were taught about saving the environment. We also did the Living the Land boat ride which brought us through greenhouses and fisheries. For the Seas With Nemo and Friends, we road in a big clam through an adventure with the characters of “Finding Nemo”. He boys were excited about riding a “clam” and Greg and I were snickering to ourselves every time they said it! Turtle Talk with Crush was an interactive show where kids could talk to Crush. It was pretty cool. They were taught the many uses of the work dude. I think I have used every one that they talked about! We went through the whole World Showcase again. It was much better when it wasn’t raining! We hit all the countries we miss on the first go around. We stumbled upon a photo op with Tigger, Pooh and Eeyore. I was bummed that Piglet wasn’t there but what can you do? When we were standing in line for the autographs, we were joking about pulling Eeyore’s tail and the Disney worker at the head of the line said that if we did, we would be kicked out of the park and banned for life. For real!!! We were only kidding around. Man! The kids got the autographs and the photos and then Eeyore completely crossed the whole room and bee-lined to stand right in front of me. I had no idea why Eeyore sought me out, but it was definitely awkward. Creepy! In the Mexico are there was a little boat ride that had Donald Duck and friends. The kids loved it. We did stay for the fireworks for the 2nd time. They were really that good! We were all impressed again by the spectacular show! Another successful day! 30 Nov.- Greg didn’t have to go to his conference so we got an early start. We went to Animal Kingdom. That place was so cool! The Jungle theme was in full effect. There was a gigantic tree in the middle of the park. There were animals carved into the side of the tree and we saw a show in the trunk. It’s Tough to be a Bug was a 3-D show based on “A Bug’s Life”. Greg and I loved it but the boys were less impressed. We were shot at by a stink bug, sprayed with “bug spray”, swatted at and had HUGE spiders suspended from the ceiling. At the end, there was the feel of bugs crawling on the benches. I thought it was great but it pretty much scared the crap out of the boys! We went on a train ride to Rafiki’s Planet Watch. There was a cute little petting zoo and the train ride back. In the Africa section, we went on a Safari. We saw elephants, lions, warthogs, alligators, flamingoes, giraffes, zebras and a few other animals. We had a load of fun and the boys were so excited! We ran into King Louie and Ballou from “The Jungle Book”. King Louie couldn’t sign an autograph so he occupied himself by chasing Zander around for a few seconds. Zander was less than impressed but he still stayed for a photo. Funny thing though: Zander didn’t balk at standing with any of the characters throughout all the parks but when faced with standing with Pocahontas, a normal person dressed as an Indian, he downright refused! We couldn’t coax him into it. Characters with fur and huge heads he had no problem with but a woman dressed in a costume was off limits. The Festival of the Lion King was a great show with all the popular songs from the movie. When we walked out, all 3 boys were belting out the songs at the top of their lungs. People were very impressed and thought they were so cute! What can I say, they are cute! Off to Finding Nemo-the Musical and then we took a little ride on a dinosaur in Dino-Land U.S.A. We watched the Jammin’ Jungle Parade and then made our way to the exit. Zander and Max were crying as we left because they had decided they wanted to move to Florida and go to Disney whenever we wanted to. That is definitely the sign of a great vacation! We had so much fun at all the parks! The attention to detail was amazing! We were all a little sad to leave. We stopped for dinner at Macaroni Grill on the way back to the hotel. We figured that Nikolai needed to experience an Italian Birthday Celebration. We ordered cake and the waitress sang to him in Italian. He was so cute. He said that he wasn’t expecting to hear Italian. Off to the hotel and then my job was to pack everything up while Greg got some much needed sleep in anticipation of a hellish drive home. 1 & 2 Dec.- We got in the Big White Car and drove from Florida to Mississippi. We spent the night at Columbus AFB in MS. We were able to spread out in TLF (3 bedroom house-type place, courtesy of the Air Force) and get some rest. We woke up on Sunday at 5:25 AM and were on the road by 6 AM. We met up with Heidi and the girls for lunch in St. Louis and made it home around 6PM. The boys were troopers for all that time in the car. Between the DVD player, the leapster and a slew of puzzle books and books they were well occupied. Nikolai did not nap a wink on the way home either. They surpassed our expectations on the whole trip. They were awesome! We had a fabulous trip and so much fun! I know that this was a LONG update, but we wanted to get the snapshot of our trip for years to come! Now- brace yourself for the SLEW of pictures! 12 Nov 07 Happy Veteran's Day! Take a moment and remember those who have served to give us the life that we are able to lead, as well as for those that are overseas separated from their families as we approach this holiday season... We have the 3 funniest kids in the world! Each of them had a golden gem that they came out with: The other day, Max was talking at the dinner table, and then he says, "We can’t go outside because…" (At this point, he inserted a most-emphatic-two-handed gesture toward the darkened window and then said) "IT’S DARK!!!" Way to go, Max! You finally figured out what happens at night... HA! While we were all cleaning the playroom the other day, Nikolai says, "Mommy - I can’t clean!" Mommy says, "Why not?" and then Nikolai says, “Because I’m cleaning intolerant!” Mommy told Zander and Max, “When you guys are done cleaning, I have 2 muffins with your names on them!” After a while, Zander comes up and says, “HEY! This muffin doesn’t have my name on it!!!” They are pretty funny... My brother's wife should be dropping a baby-bomb any day now - Good luck with that! Hopefully her Vajay-jay does not look like sleeve-of-wizard when she is through... [Editor's note - She had the baby! Congratulations! Hunter Teagan was born on 11/11/07, weighing 7# 11oz... Mom and baby are doing great!] The kids had a great time for Halloween! Our little sleepy town had all of the businesses on Main Street host trick or treaters - we walked around for about 1.2 hours, and the kids had more candy then they could carry (literally - I had to carry their candy - heavy!). Max was a cowboy, Zander was a cow, and Nikolai was a Rebus puzzle - can you guess what he was? He came up with it on his own, and leave it to Supermom to bring it to fruition! We had a great time... The kids all had Halloween parties in their classes, and Pam put them all together! She is the best... Max got his school pictures back - He is such a cutie... I took the kids to a UCM Mules football game yesterday - they had a blast! We watched about 1/2 of the game, and then the kids spotted a bouncy castle from across the stadium - needless to say, we found ourselves at the bouncy castle in no time... They also got to meet the mascot! This was one tolerant Mule... Our yard has about 7 inches of leaves over the entire thing - raking is going to be a PITA! [Editor's note - it was.] Zander has had this thing the past few weeks where he continually puts his pants on backward and/or inside-out. Funny stuff! You can check out all of the pix HERE! We hope that all is going great with you and your family - drop us a line when you get a chance!!! 25 Oct 07 Fall is in the air, and Team Tolmoff is ready to rock! We are having a great time now that the weather has become cool, the leaves have changed colors, and the Patriots are 7-0! Pam will spew some drivel about the Red Sox being in the World Series, but we all know that is not too important... Last weekend I got to take a T-38 to Massachusetts for Homecoming! It was an awesome time... We stayed in a 1960's era bus! I was unable to bring the camera for photos, but there were plenty of pictures taken - I will post them once I get them! It was great seeing everyone - Scooter, Liz, Rich, Carolyn, Rob, Ucky-Lay, Dawn, STITCH, Basil, Squared, Sparky, Degan etc... A fine time was had by all! I even saved a hapless drunk lass by calling 9-1-1 and getting her carted off in an ambulance (where she needed to be - trust me), and I also realized that I am not such a fan of loud, hot, crowded, and overly expensive bars. Anymore. I found that we were just talking to the group of people that we came with, so why bother putting up with all the guff if you don't have to?!? While I was gone - the boys marched in the UCM parade! Nikolai had his adorable little cub-scouts outfit on, and his brothers were proud to be in close step... So adorable! Max and Nikolai are in a bowling class together! They are so proud when they get a spare... It is also funny when they throw the ball so light that it hits the pins and bounces back! Cute... Today while Nikolai was in school, Pam and I took Max and Zander on a little (4 mile) walk near our house! It was hard to believe that there was constant mental stimulation in the farm lands in Western Missouri, but they were loving it! There were horses, turkeys, birds, dogs, goats, and PLENTY of cows - The boys scared ~ 450 of them! Whodathunk that 2 little kids could incite a stampede??? Great time had by all... Making memories... *Sniff*!!! Yesterday was the day we were all waiting for - it was windy!!! Why were we waiting for a windy day? Because we wanted to fly a kite! It was great... The kids have been bugging us to fly a kite, but it was never windy enough - and they could not grasp that concept - so when it finally was windy enough (plenty of wind - trust me!) and they couldn't have been happier... And neither could we! We took a bunch of posed pictures of the kids - though they are not all great - we did manage to sneak in some cute ones!!! You can check out all of the pix HERE! We hope that all is going great with you and your family - drop us a line when you get a chance!!! 13 Oct 07 Happy Anniversary to Us!!! On 11 Oct, we were married for 10 whole years! And it has been a long, strange trip. But in a good way! Go us! Can't wait for the next 50... Last weekend Heidi and her kids came over from St. Louis - we had an absolute blast with them - not to mention the boys playing w/ her 2 little girls! Nikolai and Samantha were playing, "Miss me, Miss me - now you gotta kiss me!" And then she would chase Nikolai around until he kissed her. I am still so happy that we have all boys... We had a very low key weekend, but one with lots of eating, lots of drinking, lots of football (Go Pats - 5-0!) and lots of laughs... We had a great time... A few weeks ago, the boys all went to the local fire department with Nikolai's cub scout pack. They loved it! And of course they all want to be firemen now... Nikolai lost his first tooth! It was the goofy, fuzed tooth in the front bottom of his mouth. He is so proud of himself that he is now getting to be a big boy! Go Nikolai! Much to my surprise, the tooth fairy left him $3! I remember getting a dime for my troubles - HOPEFULLY the tooth fairy doesn't leave $3 for every tooth or then the TOOTH FAIRY won't have money for any other endeavors!!! Max and Nikolai had their soccer pictures taken a few weeks back - they are so adorable... They really hustled during the game, and it was a lot of fun for them to play (and for us to watch!) - Great stuff. Their season is already over - on Monday, they start bowling! Pete Weber, beware... Funny Max story - Pam was talking to Zander and Max while they were drinking milk, and Max said, "I know where Milk comes from - it comes from a cow's Gutters!" Pam about pissed herself - she told Max that she liked it with his version, better... A few weeks back, Nikolai and Max were in the tub, chatting up a storm (incessantly) and Nikolai was singing, "Proud to be an American" at the top of his lungs. Max (being silly) says, "Nikolai, are we Americans?" Without missing a beat, Nikolai came back with, "Of course. What do you think we are, Israelites?" When Pam stopped laughing, she asked Nikolai, "Israelites?" Nikolai said, "Yeah - that's the first thing I thought of..." Zander is learning all the great, disrespectful slang from his brothers - he is now coming out with such gems as, "Oh brother. You're joking. What is that all about?" - He also has a way to express his disbelief by saying, MOMMY?!?! Tough to express in words, but it is pretty funny... I also did another road trip to and from Dallas. Me ass hurts. Fortunately I do not have to drive anywhere for quite a while... A quick and dirty update! We hope you enjoyed it - thanks for stopping in! You can check out all of the pix HERE! We hope that all is going great with you and your family - drop us a line when you get a chance!!! 30 Sep 07 Can you believe it?!? I am updating the website w/in a week! Go me!!! As you can tell, I have finally been home a bit, and it has been GREAT! We of course have kept ourselves very busy in Missouri, however... Last Sunday afternoon, we went to our Church's annual Fish-Fry! We have really gotten into fish since I have been filling our freezer with yummy fish - the fact that there was a park right next to the fish-fry did not escape the kids, either - they wanted to swing well into the night! The kids were decked out in their Patriots gear (3-0 - go Pats!), and looking their best... I was finally able to fly a few times this past week - it was great to get back into the air - I re-learned the fact that flying is a perishable skill! Nothing dangerous, but perishable nonetheless... On Friday, the whole fam went Camping at Knob-Noster State Park with Nikolai's Cub-Scout pack! It was our first attempt at camping, so we were not sure what to expect. To our surprise, it went FANTASTIC! The kids were very well behaved (in comparison to some of the others), and they went right to sleep at night - and they slept the whole night without having to get up to pee! I wish I could say the same about myself... At night we went on a night hike, and all of the kids got some awards - Nikolai even got his first award for playing soccer! (Max and Nikolai are on the same soccer team - they are so cute!) The next morning Nikolai grabbed his friend, and we all went to the Nature Center where there were a bunch of stuffed animals (turkeys, beavers, birds, squirrels, etc.). Max kept saying, "Daddy - I like the place with the dead animals..." All in all - it was VERY successful, and we are trying to figure out when we can go again - we'll keep you posted! After the camping trip, I cam home and mowed the lawn. It finally looks reasonable again - first time in 3 months... Last night we went to a fun Oktoberfest party at our friend Rebecca's house - lots of fun (and great beer), but we were wicked tired, so we didn't stay too late. The kids hit critical mass and were asleep before their head's hit the pillow... Pam and I watched, "Knocked Up" last night - That is a funny movie - if you get the chance to see it - do it. There were some scenes that had Pam and I belly-laughing! Funny Max Story: So the other night, I could not sleep well, so I got up and walked on the treadmill at 3 in the morning. Max heard me, so he came downstairs and said he had to poop. No problem - go ahead. After about 15 minutes, I had not heard from him, so I called him and asked if he was done - he said: "YES - AND I WANT YOU TO RESPECT ME!!!" Ummm.. Excuse me? "I WANT YOU TO RESPECT ME!!!" "Ummmm. OK, Max. That was a great poop. Better than I could do. Perfect form. You're the best. Is that what you wanted?" And then he proceeds to walk to me, bend over and part his butt-cheeks... Ahhh... He meant, "I want you to IN-spect me..." I giggled for about an hour... You can check out all of the pix HERE! We hope that all is going great with you and your family - drop us a line when you get a chance!!! 22 Sep 07 Can't believe that I can't update the website more than once every 3 weeks... I have been on the road AGAIN for the past 2 weeks - thank God that my journeys are going to slow way down in the near future! I am missing the fam... These past 2 weeks brought me back to Dayton, OH to see Donevan and Jen Rein (and their troop of chitlins), St. Louis, and then down to Ft Walton Beach, FL. In St. Louis I hung out w/ Heidi Keeler and her girls for a few days - they were temporarily staying in the world's most ghetto apartment while they waited for their house to be ready to move into. We had a great time, and I can't wait to get our crew out to St. Louis to see them! The girls are already picking which Tolmoff boy is their "boyfriend." Gotta love the imagination of a 3 and 5 year old! At least we'd like the in-laws... We went to the kids Science Museum while in St Louis - the boys are going to love it there! After St. Louis I went down to FL for a class at Eglin AFB - while I was there I got to go deep sea fishing twice! It rocked... The first time was on a charter boat, and the next day we went on a co-worker's boat. We cleaned up both days! The big fish in the middle is a Cobia - the guy we were with caught it, and he let me keep the bulk of it - smart thinking to bring the cooler down to FL to load it up with fish on the trip home! Tasty eats, I'll tell you what... The next day we caught our limit of Red Snapper, with one Grouper and one TriggerFish - sweet! While I was gone, Max and Zander started preschool! They are going to the Methodist church for 3 days/week, and they love it! Zander was a bit hesitant for the first few days - crying and clinging to Mommy, but he got over that quickly, and now he is raring to go! They come home with the cutest little projects (yesterday Zander came home with a Chrysalis [toilet paper holder], and Max came home with a caterpillar [made out of an egg carton] - adorable!). They really like it there... Nikolai is now a cub scout! Our cute little Tiger Cub has been to 2 meetings so far, and he really likes it. We have a whole family camp-out next week - we'll let you know how that goes! Nikolai had his school's "Open House" the other night - this school has been such a drastic difference from last year - he ran in and gave his teacher a huge hug and was so proud to show us around his school and introduce us to his friends... He even started his REM program, and I have never seen a kid more excited to do extra school work! He even said easily the most preposterous thing that has every come out of someone's mouth - "T.G.I.M., Mommy!" The kid is enthusiastic... Max and Nikolai also started soccer the other day - and Nikolai got a goal in his first game! Way to go, Nikolai! He was so proud of himself - he even did a little jig when he scored... As long as the celebrations don't become excessive - I'll let this one slide! While Max was playing, a train went by while he was chasing after the ball, and he stopped to a dead standstill and yelled out, "Look Mommy! A Train!!!" The kid has his priorities straight - that is for sure! Team Tolmoff's lair is absolutely infested with frogs - whenever we go outside, there are frogs everywhere - the kids love to catch and play with the frogs - we have even started calling Zander "The Frog Whisperer." He has this uncanny knack to be able to catch the frogs where the rest of the fam can not... Unfortunately, he also tends to play with the frogs "a little too rough," and therefore, "there is not a whole lot of life left in them," when he is through - we are teaching him the value of being, "gentle..." Today Pam and I put away the pool and all of the accoutrements - it was a real PITA! Glad it is done until next year... It is good to be home to RELAX for a few weeks! All that I wanted to do when I got home was play with the boys, get some sleep, and tickle the wife (but not necessarily in that order... :o) )!!! I got my Official Photo for my new job taken the other day - so whattya think? But seriously... And don't forget the flight suit! (Pam says it looks like I have to doody...) Congrats to Karen Batt!!! HA!!! You can check out all of the pix HERE! (We had left the "good" camera at a friend's house for the last 2 weeks, so that is why most of the pictures suck - they'll be better from now on, we promise!) We hope that all is going great with you and your family - drop us a line when you get a chance!!! 1 Sep 07 Jul 16 - 1 Sep - Puddy's perspective... [For a noggin's up - since there is such a huge gap between updates (sorry), I did not hyperlink any of the pix to the stories - you can still see all the pictures, but linking them to the story would be WAY too time prohibitive. So sue me.] Oh Where o’ Where can the Puddy’s be? Wow. I have said that I have been busy before, but never quite like this! When I came home from my Alaska trip, I rolled right into a week-long conference for 30 people (that I was hosting – lucky me!). I then had one week of just “normal” work – getting me prepared to go on 5 weeks of Temporary Duty! (TDY). The first one was pretty sweet – a fairly useless conference in Dayton, Ohio. Fortunately for us, the Rein’s just moved out there! They were nice enough to house team Tolmoff for about 4 days – I got to go to the conference, while Pam and the boys played in the pool all day. Lucky! I got my share of playing with the kids as well… We also saw the Simpson’s Movie. Not that great – a few funny parts, but overall, not that great… A nice little feature about our trip, was that the day before we left, the Air Conditioner in the car crapped out! If you weren’t aware, we had just paid $1,100 to get a new compressor the day I came back from AK – this time it was the condenser that died! I was so pissed. Now we had to drive 10 hours in the heat – did I mention that it was 98 degrees out? The kids’ little faces were all bright red and they were sweating – but they were troopers! They didn’t complain once – Pam and I were little bitches, though. So when we were in OH, we decided to get the condenser fixed – to the tune of $1,100! I could have screamed… At least the AC worked on the way home… When I got home, I was back on the road 3 days later – to drive to Georgia! Why would I do that to myself? Because the Air Force pays $.485 per mile… And I am driving a paid-for (1996) Honda Accord that has a great air conditioning, XM radio, and did I mention that we have spent over $3,000 on Pam’s car in the last 3 months? Not to mention that “cheap little” trip to AK? Yeah – we need money. So the first day I drive to Columbus, MS to see one of the casual LTs that worked for me at Whiteman – he is now in Pilot Training there. I spent the night and then drove to Jekyll Island, GA. Through the backroads – after about 7 hours, I was saying, “I get it! There are trailer parks in GA!” I got to the hotel – a beautiful, old hotel called the Jekyll Island Club Hotel – this is the place where the Vanderbilts, JP Morgan, the Rockefellers, and Teddy Roosevelt used to vacation. Of course they came in the fall and winter. Not in August. Because there was no Air Conditioning back then in August. AND THERE WAS NO AIR CONDITIONING FOR ME, EITHER!!! I couldn’t believe it – the AC in the ENTIRE hotel had died that morning. That night, It was ~ 94 degrees in my room, and I was sweating profusely, and cursing even louder. Yeah – South Georgia in August w/ no AC was pretty brutal. I did manage to get 3 free breakfasts and a free lunch for my suffering. Wasn’t worth it. It took them about 2 days (of the 3 that I was going to be there) to fix the AC. Just brutal. While I was happy to make Jekyll Island small in my rearview mirror, I was not so happy about the drive that was in front of me – I drove from South GA (45 minutes North of Jacksonville, FL) to Louisville, KY. Ouch. By this point my back was in knots! I spent the night at Ross and Shelly’s house, and then back on the road in the morning to get home. Where I played w/ the kids, tickled the wife, went to sleep, woke up, mowed the lawn, and then back on the road to another trip! This time I only drove ~6.5 hours to Oklahoma City, where I met up w/ 2 more casual LTs that worked for me at Whiteman – one in Pilot training in Vance, OK, and the other one from Corpus Christi, TX. We had a raucous time in downtown OKC – the morning hurt… Because I had to get back in my car and drive to Arlington, TX! It was wicked hot, but when we got to the hotel (I now had a Lieutenant in tow – my boy BUD!), they had a six pack on ice, and a ton of munchies! It was pretty sweet – we ate Gouda cheese and watched Tiger win the PGA… I then had 4 days of mind numbing work in front of me while Superdave and his boy Bud went to the Nudie Bar! I (like the good boy that I am) – just went to sleep. Remember – I am on this trip to make money – not fund “Lexus, Mercedes, and Pinto’s (Ron’s stripper)” “acting” classes. I did get some good sleep, though… We did catch a Ranger’s game (one of the guys who we were working with was an usher at the Ranger’s, and got us some SMOKING tickets behind homeplate – for free!) When the conference was wrapped up, it was back on the road – to Albuquerque, NM! My little Honda did it all… It was a long (and easily the most boring scenery), but I made it out there unscathed. And Matty B flew in from Phoenix for 35 hours of Rumpus-ing! A fine time – we even went golfing (where I played my worst round ever. EVER!), hit the atomic museum, and a pair of Breakfast burritos washed down w/ some Dunkin Donuts coffee. Kick ass… After Matty B left, I had nothing but 4 days of dull conferences to look forward to, so I actually got to catch up on some sleep! I even read a book – you know that I have nothing going on if I am reading a book… I played golf 2 more times (did much better – for me, that is – I shot a 107…) I also met up w/ Geoff Steeve’s brother (Geoff was my “date” at 2 weddings last summer) – and Mark and I got our booze on. It was good stuff! When all was said and done in Albuquerque, it was back on the road for me back to Arlington, TX – for another conference! I stopped in Wichita Falls, TX to meet up with an old A-10 buddy of mine, Scammer, for some lasagna, red wine, and cheap ice cream. Then I finished the trip and ended up back in Arlington – good stuff! And that is where I am sitting writing all of this right now… I only have 600 miles separating me from playing with the fam, and I can’t wait… It is now 1 Sep - I made it home, and all is GREAT!!! I love coming home to such a great family... And Pam's Burrito will keep me coming back for more... Jul 16 - 1 Sep - Pam's perspective... Where to begin….. it feels like the summer went by too fast. Maybe because we didn’t stop moving all summer! While Greg was off enjoying the fishing in Alaska, the boys and I hopped on a plane and headed for the great Northeast. We stayed in MA for 2 weeks with my parents. We had a ton of fun. The boys loved hanging out with their cousins, Angela and Ryan. Zander latched on to Angela and followed her around all the time. It was so cute! One day, he said, “When is Angela coming over…. Angela my friend!” She was really good with the boys. Ryan and Nikolai became great buddies too. Nikolai is planning all kinds of fun stuff in anticipation of a visit from their cousins. While in MA., I got to go to a Red Sox game at Fenway with my dad and brother Mike. We went to a bar before the game and enjoyed $2 beers. Every time I turned around a new one was getting put down in front of me. I had to do my best to keep up with them but I have to say that they seemed just fine while I was a bit tipsy. I did take some great pictures and bought a great T-Shirt (It says “I hate Peyton Manning and Eli sucks too) . The day before the game, Max asked me if I was hoping that Big Papi would hit a home run while I was at the game. Max got his wish. That was pretty cool too! We took all the kids to a Worcester Tornados game. They all got a kick out of that, especially Zander. Their mascot was a big orange puppy named Twister. Zander even got his autograph! We spent a lot of time with family and friends which was awesome. We get home whenever we can but it is always so hard to leave. A big Thank you to my parents for letting us camp out for 2 weeks! We will have to do it again soon! About a week after getting home, we drove out to Ohio to visit our friends, the Reins. We were able to stay with them for a week. We had a blast hanging out at their pool and just being able to visit and relax. We definitely miss them so it was a great trip. We celebrated my birthday there. Jen watched all the kids so that Greg and I could go out to dinner. Mmmm… Sushi! Thanks Jen! We also visited the Air Force Museum. We saw a small portion of it before the kids were ready to head off to lunch. As a side note: I forgot to mention that the AC in my car broke the day before we left for Ohio. 9 hours in the car… 95 degrees…. No AC! Fun Stuff! Thank God the return trip was cooler! We are thankful to have such great friends! Back to real life! We had about a week and a half before Nikolai started 1st grade. We set up a 12 foot diameter pool in our backyard ( Thankyou Jen and Don!) The kids love it! Almost every day they are in it, weather permitting. They are little fish! Greg was off to TDY after TDY so the boys and I were on our own for the time being. I started “working” at our Church as the Nursery Supervisor. I am there from 9-12 every Sunday to help out with Sunday School and then watch the little ones while their parents are in Church. I am basically getting paid to play with kids for 3 hours! I almost feel guilty about it! They boys love it and I am having fun! Nikolai started 1st grade on 16 August. He loves it. His teacher’s name is Mrs. Shippy. He just raves about her and the school. He started at Martin-Warren Elementary here in Warrensburg. He is excited every day to go and usually has a huge smile on his face when I pick him up. It is so refreshing for us to see him so excited and his teacher truly believes in him. We are hoping for a great year and he has definitely started off on the right foot! His vocabulary is growing every day. It is scary to see how fast he is growing up! He talks to me like he is an adult. Sometimes, when I ask him a question his answer will be, “not necessarily”. He tells me corny jokes all the time that always make me laugh. I am always excited to hear his stories from school! He is such a cute little man! Max and Zander spend the days trying to kill each other. They have a great case of sibling rivalry going on. If one has something, the other wants it and vice versa. And they both have matching attitudes! They have great imaginations and play the cutest games. The other day, I walked into the room and Max was curled up on the floor and Zander was throwing the string from a yo-yo down at him. When I asked what they were doing… they both looked at me at said “we’re pretending we’re fishing!”. Max was apparently the fish. They do stuff like this all the time. They play golf, baseball, bikes…. You name it and they want to do it…. RIGHT NOW!!!! This morning, Zander told me, “I want chocolate milk, and I want it now!” I just looked at him and he adds in a quiet voice, “please?” They definitely keep me on my toes! We have frogs everywhere lately. Every night when it gets dark 3 frogs will sit on the door to our deck and eat bugs. We’ve even named them. Creatively of course, they are the Nikolai, Max and Zander Frogs. They are there every single night and it has become a routine for us to check for them. We all will sit transfixed and staring at them, watching them eat. Tonight, Grge was even pulled into the madness. I came out of the kids rooms and he was just staring at these frogs. It is so funny. The other day, this tiny little frog joined the group and appears periodically on the door. Max has dubbed this frog, “the baby Patrick frog”. So cute! We never know where the frogs go during the day and we have looked for them. The other day, I was power washing the deck and apparently found a hiding spot because I almost shot a frog right off the deck with the washer. I saw him right before he went flying off the deck!. Sadly, I found myself apologizing to the frog! As I mentioned, we bought a power washer. I told Greg that if it could be power washed it would be. 1st it was the deck and everything on it, then the front step, the front door and basically the whole front of the house, the garage doors and the trash cans. Hopefully our water bill won’t be through the roof! While Greg was gone, I actually got on an organizational kick. I re-organized the kids playroom and all their toys, moved around furniture, cleaned the garage and the storage room, just to name a few of my projects. All good stuff but I think the kids thought I was a bit crazy. Nikolai said that I just wanted our house to look like Walmart. The Walmart near our house just completely was changed around. Every day, the poor kid would come home and something would be different. Since he doesn’t always like change, he really enjoyed it! Oh well… there was so much that needed to be done. Zander is almost completely potty trained! He is wearing big boy (Superman) underwear all day now and even at night. He has been completely dry for 3 days now…. Day and night. Last Sunday, I decided to just leap into underwear. He was doing ok with pull-ups but he still was having accidents. I thought maybe the pull-up was offering too much security for him so we tried underwear out. Since Sunday, he has only peed once in his underwear, and even that time he tried to get to the bathroom. He is so proud of himself. Can you believe the Tolmoff Family is FINALLY out of diapers? 5+ years of keeping huggies and pampers in business! Now we have a little more storage space for all those toys! Max and Zander start pre-school 3 mornings a week next week. Nikolai is going to do Cub Scouts. Nikolai & Max are going to start Soccer as well. The Tolmoff Taxi will be in full operation soon. Good thing my new phone will beep at me and tell me where I am supposed to be! We will keep you posted! Sorry for the long update. Things have been a little crazy this summer! You can check out all of the pix HERE! We hope that all is going great with you and your family - drop us a line when you get a chance!!! 15 Jul 07 Let the games begin! It is sat, 7 July, and I am sitting in the Chicago airport enroute to ALASKA! I AM SO PSYCHED... It is going to be a blast! First things first - we had an AWESOME 4th of July party the other day. There were about 60 people at our house, and it seemed like everyone brought fireworks! Very cool. Of course our lawn was destroyed when all was said and done, but we had a ton of fun. During the fireworks, it looked like a scene out of Apocalypse Now. There was smoke, flares, rockets. And explosions. Lots of explosions! I can't believe no one got hurt... Then last night, we went to my Operations Group Commander's farewell. This was the guy who got me my job as the Detachment Commander, so I owed him a small debt of gratitude. I was the one who organized the bulk of the party, and it went off without a hitch! Most of it was pretty funny, actually... As I type, Pam is on her own flight with the boys enroute to Massachusetts to see her family with the boys. I will let her fill you in on how their trip went. I am meeting up with 2 friends of mine for this trip - Rob and Neil. Now that I think about it, I guess you could call them Neil and Bob! Funny stuff. We are renting a 29 foot RV, and I can't wait... I am writing this now from the queen sized bed in the back of the RV. The unfortunate thing is that it is Saturday (14 Jul) and we are going home today! What a great time... I kept realizing that I had a bunch of preconceived notions about what Alaska was going to look like, etc., but I was proven wrong on every single one of them! Here is the story for those of you brave enough to listen…
We all met up in the airport and retrieved our noble steed - the Minnie Winnie. First stop? The liquor store! We all put $200 in a hat for common consumables like booze, food, and booze. After that, we went and had a pizza (awesome) and a few beers at "The Moose's Tooth" in Anchorage. And when we were done? We just stumbled out to the RV for a little snooze... Now, something about AK that I was aware of, but did not fully get - the midnight sun. We walked out of the bar at 12:30, and it barely even looked like dusk. Freaky! So we piled in to the RV and went to bed. And at 4 a.m. I was wide awake... Ouch. I laid in bed until 6, and then I couldn't stand it anymore so I went for a walk. To Wal-Mart. To get a kick ass camera! (Rob was supposed to bring his "good" camera, but he lost his...) it is a wicked camera. 12 Mega-pixels! Me credit card hurts... After that, I met back up with the boys, went back to Wal-Mart to stock up on provisions. With our bountiful harvest we went out to the RV in the parking lot and made a little bacon, egg, and cheese burritos! I love RVing... After breakfast, we went to check out the sights (downtown, fish hatchery, salmon sitting in a river, Elmendorf AFB) and then we started our drive to Hope, AK. What an AWESOME drive! There were mountains everywhere - on the way we even saw a moose and a mountain goat, and even stopped at a glacier lake - way cool... Hope, AK is one of the smallest, coolest towns I have ever seen - Neil snoozed while Rob and I took a walk around town and took a few pictures. Rob also had a few envelopes to mail - what better place than the Hope post office! When Neil woke up, that's when the fun began... We went to the Seaview Café to meet up with some of the local color - found it! Brian and Suzie were a fun (albeit slightly dysfunctional) couple. Looking back on it now, I realize that this was our first beard. A beard in AK gives a man credibility. It shows strength, wisdom, courage. Now Brian wasn't all of those things, but he did have a beard... The next morning (now Monday, 9 Jul 07) we went to our first event - Whitewater Rafting! It was fantastic, albeit extremely cold. (they made us jump in - with a drysuit on, of course - into 40 degree water for a practice swim - holy crap, I thought I was going to die...) Our guide was Ben. Ben had a beard. We had an awesome ride down 6-mile river, except for "the incident." Neil fell off the boat right in the middle of a Class IV rapids (conveniently named, "The Predator"), using my cat- like reflexes, I jumped across the boat and grabbed onto Neil and pulled him into the boat, thus saving his life... (actually it was more like, "umm... Ben? Neil fell out of the boat..." To which Ben replied, "WELL GET HIM!!!") I did save his life, though. After rafting, we drove down to Seward. What a cool town! We stayed (in the RV, of course) at an Air Force recreation area - cheap! After we got settled, we headed off to our next event... Sea kayaking! I thought this was going to be cool, but I didn't realize quite how cool... The weather was perfect, and the seas were nice and calm. We started off by seeing a bunch of bald eagles flying over our heads, and there was also some wild scenery- not to mention a porpoise that jumped out of the water about 30 feet from the boat and scared the crap out of me! We pulled the kayak up on the beach, and hiked inland a bit. Our guide, Wolfy (who obviously had a beard) showed us an AWESOME 175 foot waterfall in the middle of an arctic, "rainforest." Hella-Cool... While we were in the forest, Wolfy the guide said, "If a bear does happen to come by, the 4 of us will stand close together and say in a stern voice 'No bear. You are not welcome here. We are not your food.'" I told ol' Wolfy that if we did see a bear, he was going to be talking to himself, because I was going to take off running. We made it back to the RV about 10:30 p.m., and crashed out - we were exhausted from rafting and kayaking all in the same day... Neil talks in his sleep. These were some of our favorite quotes: "You are definitely gay." "Shut the hell up." "What's up, Michelle?" And of course all sorts of random profanity not suitable for this family oriented website... On Tuesday, we woke up to a rainy day with no real plans. We kicked around the possibility of going to the Exit Glacier, or going horseback riding. We opted to go horseback riding - what a treat (notice the sarcasm). I had the most surly and obstinate horse ever... I could not get this horse to do anything! I kept calling it a piggy in horse's clothing - ever 30 seconds he would stop to eat regardless of what I did... The trail took us right down the Resurrection River - there were Bald Eagles everywhere, and every time I would get ready to take a picture, that F-ing horse would take off running. So what I ended up with was about 100 blurry pictures and some very shaky video with the audio track of me yelling at the horse! It was extremely frustrating... We also got more wet by riding through rivers and wet trees/bushes, than we did by sea-kayaking! The horseback riding was fun, but it was not the highlight of the trip... That afternoon, we walked around the town for a little bit (with this satellite dish showing how far North we were - almost aiming parallel to the ground), and then Rob got a great idea... He suggested we hike into the woods and eat meat on sticks! Off to the store to get some steaks, and before we knew it, we were on a nice, "easy" hike ("easy" was according to Wolfy the beard - we almost died). Since we didn't have any of the conveniences of home (read: tupperware), we had Rob carry the uncovered bucket of raw meat. We figured that if we had any opportunity to see a bear, then this was it! All I had to do was out-run Neil. We got to a really cool part of the woods where we unleashed our Eagle Scout to make us a fire (it had rained for a lot of the day, and was therefore very damp - we were in an arctic rain-forest, after all!) He got the fire started in no time! I was impressed... While he made the fire, I made some shish-ka-bobs (Mmmm... Meat on a stick!), and we placed them around the fire. It was OUTSTANDING! Just delicious... Great scenery, the weather was just right, and we didn't see any bears. A VERY successful hike! More than made up for my PITA horse... We went to bed early on Tuesday night - because on Wednesday we were going to go King Salmon fishing! This was the biggest event of the trip in my opinion... We drove to Cooper Landing to meet up with our guide (a girl who weighed about 120# soaking wet) and then headed on over to the Kasilof river. While on the drive, our guide asks me, "What day is it?" I tell her that it is Wednesday. She says, "On Wednesdays on this river, you can only keep hatchery fish (as opposed to Natural ones). The hatchery fish have a clipped adipose fin (small fin located between the dorsal fin and the tail) - bottom line - if the fin is there, you gotta throw back the fish, regardless of size..." YGBSM!!! Thanks for telling me that NOW that I am on the trip! I was pissed, but determined to catch a hatchery fish... We get on the water to do this "drift" fishing. The best way to catch fish is to drift down the river at about 1/2 mile per hour. The only problem is that the river moves at about 8 mph. So where does that other 7.5 mph go? Our tiny little guide rows for 8 hours straight! It was amazing to watch... I couldn't do it! Neil was the first one to get a fish on (on the first cast), and he landed a nice 25 pound King Salmon! Way to go Neil! Awwww... I'm sorry - we gotta let it go, because it still has the fin intact! About 2 hours later, it happened... Or so I thought… I got a huge hit, and went to set the hook – and it felt like my line broke – Poop happens, right? Wrong – my hook came untied from the line! I looked at our guide and could have killed her. I didn’t pay all this money to have a guide not know how to tie a hook (no beard… coincidence?). THEN it happened. I got a massive hit, and I set the hook. And then I fought this fish for over 15 minutes! I could barely move this fish. Then the fish decided that he did not want to stick around anymore, so he took off down river - pulling out line faster than if I had casted it... I finally got it near the boat when I got a glimpse of its tail - it was nearly a foot across! This thing was huge! The guide saw this and jumped out of the boat (after anchoring us) with the net in hand. I finally coaxed the fish over to her and she got it in the net. And then the look on her face said it all... The fish still had the fin, and he was not coming home with me!
SUCK! I was pissed, but at the same time I was still happy that I caught the feesh, for I was the Old Man and the Sea. I jumped out of the boat to take pictures with my fish (which, by the way was ~50 lbs). It was a very cool experience - I just wish I had 25 lbs of salmon filets in my cooler to remember him by! (just as a side note - from a strictly financial perspective - Alaskan King Salmon goes for about $17 per pound (I had to let go a $425 fish...) oh well - sucks to be me! But how many King Salmon have you caught?!? Ha! I did manage to catch a small baby King Salmon (that ironically I was allowed to keep...) It was a long ride back to Seward... At least Neil and I caught something! Rob got skunked completely... Oh well... Tomorrow was a new day - and this time we were going fishing for Silver Salmon! Neil pan-fried up the small fish I caught, and we each got a taste of what we let go... And I hate to say it, but it was goooooodddd... We woke up bright and early and headed to the dock to meet up with our guide/boat Captain, Tom. And Tom had a beard! Happy days were here again... We knew that today was going to be a good day... Off we went - and this time Rob was the man and reeled in his limit (6 fish) in about 65 minutes - it took me about twice as long... And it took one woman over 3 hours... The whole boat had caught their limit and were all just watching her fish. Tom the beard started grabbing poles, getting a fish on and had her reel it in - it took her about 10 minutes to reach her limit! On the way back in, Tom the beard found a pair of whales playing in the water, so he pulled the boat up right along side - credit goes to Neil for taking the pictures, as I was busy on camcorder detail... So freaking cool... We got our catch back to the dock, and Tom the beard bloodied the deck and filleted our fish. We were staying at the military resort, and they had vacuum sealers and freezers for the fish. We took our filets in, and about 20 minutes later, we had vacuum sealed fish filets, portioned and in the freezer... Since we all caught our limit early, we were back in the RV by about 3:30. This was the first time all week we had been back earlier than 10 p.m.! We cracked a couple of beers and like the previous night, enjoyed a taste of our catch for dinner... All told, the 3 of us caught about 60 lbs in fish filets - gonna be good eats when Pam and the boys get back! That night we all fell asleep around 7:15 since we were just exhausted from the week... Friday morning found us back on the docks at 0600 - this time going fishing for Halibut! For the locals - most of them prefer Halibut over Salmon. (There are a bunches of restaurants that sell "Buckets of 'But." Get it?) Another awesome boat-ride - this time about 60 miles out. We saw more whales, seals, dolphins, and puffin. But now we wanted to see halibut! And with our limit only being 2, we had to make them as big as possible... (for a frame of reference - the world record is 496 lbs, with fish over 200 lbs caught regularly). Unfortunately, it was not to be. I did catch about 10 halibut (only keeping the biggest 2), and the max size I got was ~22 lbs. They say the meat quality is better on the smaller fish, but I was after quantity, not quality on this trip. While I was reeling up my second fish, the guy standing 3 feet away from me caught This. It was 5 feet, 2 inches, and weighed 127 lbs! Just huge... Coulda been me! Looks like I'll have to come back and try again! Rob and Neil also caught their limit, and it was time to call it a day... There was a whole hodge-podge of other fish caught - starfish, ling-cod, sharks, and even a few skates! Wild Alaska at its finest... On the way back into shore, the deckhand filleted all the fish - she had it down to a science! Each fish gave 4 good sized filets - all total between the 3 of us we got ~ 55 lbs of halibut filets. Totaled up with the salmon, it looks like we were getting sent home with about 40 lbs of fish per person... Coulda been a bit better, but I am still extremely happy with our haul... After vacuum packing and freezing our fish, it was time to hit Seward's legendary Pit Bar. The bar was not supposed to get hopping until after 1 a.m., but we knew there was no way that we'd be able to make it that late. We showed up ~7:30, and we were all tucked in by 11:30... Fun dive bar, with a cool dog, a pig-bear-man, shuffleboard, and a Galaga game (that Neil happens to be pretty good at!). Too bad we couldn't see the hopping scene after 1 a.m. - I'll throw that on my list of things to do for next time! Saturday morning found us waking up in the Pit Bar parking lot... I love RVing! We ate some breakfast, did some shopping, bought some coolers and dry ice, retrieved our fish, cleaned the RV and drove back to Anchorage to return the RV and fly home... What a great trip! I had a lot of pre-conceived notions on Alaska and how much fun I was going to have - all of my expectations were shattered! Huge thanks to Neil and Rob for making it so memorable (I was out hunting Wolverines with my Uncle. Gosh!). But the biggest thanks goes out to Pam for letting me go on this trip! Thank you! I love you! And where was Pam during all of this? She got to go spend 2 weeks with her family and the boys in Worcester, MA. I will let her write all about her adventures when she returns... We hope that all is going great with you and your family - take care and drop us a line when you get a chance - and as always - check out the pictures! 23 Jun 07 Miracles never cease! On Tuesday, 19 Jun 07, I became a Commander! It is of a (very) small detachment, but regardless - I am still the man in charge! It was a lot of fun - my parents flew in from Connecticut for the ceremony, and we we had a cool cake. Fun stuff! The day went awesome (in no small part thanks to Pam) - my new Squadron Commander even came to our house for about 4 hours - we even all went fishing! Non-standard, I am guessing, but what do you expect from us?!? Speaking of fishing - we have been going just about every night - and the fish keep getting bigger and bigger! I was night flying on Thursday night, and Pam reeled in this beauty - Max is the one who took the pictures - good job, Max! Then on Friday I caught a fish that dwarfed Pam's fish! I even let Pam hold it... I swear this fish was 2 feet long and weighed ~4.5 lbs! It was certainly the biggest freshwater fish I have ever caught - VERY cool... The boys are getting to be quite the little frog catchers! They still fish occasionally, but they more have traded in their poles for their frog-catching nets... And they don't even always use the net! Needless to say, they get dirty as all get-out when they are out fishing/frogging. Their first stop is always right in the tub! Pam took the boys to a "Rodeo-Roundup" at a local farm - the kids loved it! They especially liked to milk the (fake) cow - these kids are turning into little rough-and-tumble rapscallions! And we wouldn't have it any other way... That's it for the quick update! We do have a mess of new pictures - take a look! And as always - drop us a line when you get a chance! 14 Jun 07 The fun continues! We have been busy, but in the best possible way… First off, I went to Eglin AFB for a few days in Florida for a conference – a COMMANDER’S conference! That is right – I got a new job as a Detachment Commander at Whiteman AFB! I am very excited… My job is that I will own the testing and development of the all of the simulators, cockpit procedural trainers, maintenance trainers, and Weapons Load trainers at Whiteman AFB – It is a pretty sweet deal… It will keep me at Whiteman for at least 2 more years (and in this kick ass house), as well as a Command-tour which will make me very competitive for future promotions – basically it is the best possible job I could have asked for!!! The formal Change of Command is on Tuesday, 19 Jun at 0900 – wish me luck!!! Not to mention that when I was at Eglin, I was in a Golf Tournament, and I won a Golf Bag! All in all, a pretty sweet deal… Immediately after I got home from Eglin, I picked up my Mom and Dad at the airport, and then Team Tolmoff (grandparents included!) all went down to Branson, MO for a week! What a FANTASTIC time! We were all floored at what a great time we had… We all expected Branson to be a yokel-type town with a bunch of in-breds playing in a jug-band, picking their banjos and chewing on hay with their 3 teeth. I can tell you that we couldn’t have been more wrong! Here is a list of the things we did: Silver Dollar City (2 days) Ride the Ducks (All 3 kids even got to drive the duck!) Hamner-Barber Comedy/Magic/Ventriloquism Putt-Putt mini-Golf Fishing in Table Rock Lake And LOTS of swimming in the pool! A guy I work with had a time share, and we got a smokin’ deal on a 3-bedroom 2000 sq ft house – 2 king size beds, 1 queen size, plasma TV, full kitchen/dining room/living room/laundry – it was AWESOME!!! It was great having a having nice refuge to come home to after long days out and about – the 7 of us had plenty of room to spread out… If anyone ever wants to go to Branson – let me know, and I’ll see if I can hook you up with the same deal… At the Hamner-Barber show, Nikolai was almost rolling in the aisle – he created a ruckus that had other people laughing! He said with tears in his eyes, “This is the funniest thing I have ever seen!” At Putt-putt, Nikolai got a hole-in-one, and Zander had about 15 strokes per hole, “1,2,3, I hit it! I do it again. 1,2,3, I hit it! I do it again…” Funny stuff… I got stung by a bee on the Branson Belle Showboat. While inside. Watching the show. And I’m allergic. I ran out of the auditorium and into the lobby where a waitress saw the panicked look on my face, and she said, “Are you OK?” The stinger was on the tip of my left ring finger, so I was pinching it hard with my right hand (therefore had no free hands), and I said as calmly as possible, “I got stung by a bee and I’m allergic, pull the stinger out.” She came back with, “Well – I’m really not supposed to…” At that point, my fun-meter was pegged and I yelled, “PULL THE F@#KING STINGER OUT NOW!” And she did… It hurt for about 3 days… Fish hatcheries are cool if you ever get to go to one… Max’s confidence in the swimming pool skyrocketed even over the week that we were there – they were all so cute playing with each-other! I took many mental snap-shots of me throwing them high in the air and carrying them on my back to the deep end. I can’t believe they are not always going to be this little and cute. But Pam and I did our damnedest to make as many memories as we could on this trip! And I think we succeeded better than we ever could have imagined… 2 guys that worked for me got promoted today! Way to go (M)Sgt Sewell and (M)Sgt Wiss! Pam is absolutely OBSESSED with fishing! We went fishing the day we got home from Branson and she caught an 18" bass, and we have been out for 2.5 hours/night trying to get her her "Fix!" Funny stuff... Life is going pretty sweet… We hope that all is going great with you and your family - Drop us a line when you get a chance, and as always - check out the pictures! 28 May 07 Nikolai is a Kindergarten Graduate! Congratulations, Nikolai! We are so proud of you!!! Can't say we are going to miss his school - there were a ton of things wrong with that school - too numerous to list here now - but maybe later... :) Needless to say we are more than a bit relieved that he will not have to walk through those doors again in the Fall - but he stuck through it and is none worse for the wear - Way to go, Nikolai! He looked so ridiculously cute with his little cap and gown on... And when it was his turn to read his bible verse, no one said it louder or more clearly than Nikolai - the verse he chose, ironically, was, "Children - Obey your parents and the Lord, for this is right." And he boomed it into the microphone... Great stuff! Lots of funny kids stories over the last few weeks: We went to 2 Birthday parties last week - the kids had a blast. We also went to a "going away party." We didn't realize that we had never taken the kids to any kind of party other than a birthday party. This became evident as we were trying to leave and Zander started screaming, "But we didn't have cake yet!!!" Pam was getting the kids into the tubby, and she was picking up their clothes to put them into the washer - when she got to Max's skivvies she noticed that someone had left her a little surprise, so she said, "So who drew mud in their underwear?" Max looked at her completely deadpan and said, "Mommy - that's not mud." A goat sneezed on Pam yesterday. I peed myself. Zander, with his irrational fear of wind, also came down with an un-natural fear that - as soon as we turn the tub on - it is going to overflow. He freaks out, "TURN IT OFF!!!" Not sure where he is getting his unique phobias from. Maybe he'll own TWA someday... (I know there are only a very few of you who will get that joke - let me know who got it!") Pam was driving with the kids, and they pulled up next to a truck that was covered top-to-bottom in mud - you could barely see the windows. Nikolai says, "Look, Mommy - that car is dirtier than yours!" At one of the birthday parties last week - they had super-soakers for the kids. Pam (being the great Mom that she is), fills it up and squirts Max, laughs, and puts down the gun and walks away. She then hears, "Oh yeah?" And turns to see Max with the super-soaker aimed right at her. Where he unleashed and soaked her! Good for you, Max! In the Costco parking lot, there were a few Indian (Dots, not feathers) women walking by - Zander, in his Irish whisper said, "Mommy - Why do those women have dots on their heads?!?" Max was carrying a little stuffed bunny through Costco, and when we were about to check out, we realized it was gone. So I take Max by the hand and we set off to retrace his steps to see if we can find it. After about 15 minutes, I saw it sitting on a recumbent bike that he was playing on, so I stop with us facing right at it. Max says, "Why did we stop? It is not here. Daddy? Why did we stop? It is not here. I don't see it. It is not here. Daddy - it is not here. Oh - there it is!!!" He runs and grabs it, and we start walking away, and I say, "So Max - do you have anything to say?" (Not so subtlety fishing for a Thank You for finding his bunny). Max said, "Thank you to myself for finding my bunny." We have been fishing a bunch lately! It is a lot of fun - we went to a farm called "Deanna Rose Farm" and they have fishing poles for kids - they had a blast! Even though the fish were smaller than something you would find in your fishtank... We had a blast! And today, Pam caught a 14" bass, and the kids were pulling out sunnies left and right! We got a TON of great pictures the past few weeks - Check them out! We hope you are doing great - Drop us a line when you get a chance!
12 May 07 Hard to believe that just 3 short years ago, God blessed us with a big baby... Happy Birthday Zander! Funny Max story: We had lit Zander's candle for his birthday, and sang him Happy Birthday - then when it was time to blow out the candle, Max leaned in and blew it out first. Zander erupted, and Max had a look on his face like, "What did I do wrong?" We asked him why he did it, and he said, "I was helping - it was teamwork!" Some things are best left to individual activity... HA! Just had my B-2 checkride this past week - I hate checkrides. But if you care, I did fine... :) I have my T-38 checkride in another week or two. Wish me luck! Matty B came to town this past weekend - we had a GREAT time! On Friday, we went into Kansas City to check out some of the sights - we even checked out the WWI museum - 2nd time for me, but just as cool as the first. After that we went to a stinker of a Baseball game - Tigers at Royals - just painful to watch the Tigers methodically pick them apart... Then we met up with some of the guys I work with in the roaring metropolis of "Downtown W-burg." Pretty hick stuff, but a lot of fun. Even saw my neighbor's drunk son - he was the life of the party to say the least! Saturday, we hit some golf balls and then took a B-2 tour. Good thing we started out with a big breakfast for the masses (about 5 people stayed over) - thanks Pam! Saturday night was a "bar stocking" party at a friend of mine's house - he just finished his basement bar, and it was FANTASTIC! Good time had by all - except Sunday morning hurt. Bad. And I had to drive Matty B to the airport in a massive thunderstorm. And his flight was delayed. For 2 hours. Ouch! Overall, fantastic time... Nikolai and Max only have about 2 more weeks of school! Pam says she can't wait to not have to wake up so early every morning - but I say "be careful what you wish for!" The kids are always going to be around... With no reprieve! We went to the JCCA Spring Program and watched our kids sing - it was some pretty funny stuff - but they really got into it! Yesterday, Pam (supermom) was a chaperone on a field trip to the pool! The kids had a fantastic time swimming with each other, and Pam got some great pictures... They look like they had a blast! We also found out yesterday that Nikolai will be graduating kindergarten - apparently there was some question as to whether or not he would graduate because of his behavior. We think that it has gotten markedly better, and we think that with a different teacher/environment - he will excel! Can't. Wait. Until. School's. Out.... Zander has been loving his Mommy time, but he is pushing her to the limit! He has rolled nicely into his terrible 3s. Nikolai had a bad bout of the terrible 3s (no 2s for our kids!) so this is not a huge surprise - he can get very defiant and stubborn when he puts his mind to it - and it would test the patience of a saint! He will also avoid answering questions at all cost - he will justify all of his behavior as to why he did something, rather than just answer the yes or no question posed to him... Funny Zander story - we are doing our best to potty train him, and he is hit or miss depending on the day (literally and figuratively). One day, Pam told him to go potty, and Zander said, "Mommy - my penis doesn't have any pee in there!" Biology suits him! We've been fishing quite a bit recently - Nikolai caught a HUGE catfish (about 2 feet!), but unfortunately the line broke before we could pull it out of the pond. Max also caught a fish, but it wriggled off the hook before we landed it. I better help these kids land some fish or they are going to lose interest quick! Almost forgot. The pipe leading to our hot water heater sprung a leak, and we had 2 inches of water over half of our basement. Took some quick work, but it looks like we caught it in time before we caused any permanent damage. Not what I needed the night before my checkride! We hope that all is going great with you and your family - Drop us a line when you get a chance, and as always - check out the pictures! 28 Apr 07 Another 3 weeks! Now that Spring has Sprung, it is more and more difficult to make regular updates to the website... It is not that we are not doing anything and have no content - it is that we are doing too much and we are too busy on the weekends to update! Looks like this is the time - I'll try to keep it as brief as possible... Some clean-up from last update - I finally got the pix of me refueling in the B-2 - They are pretty sweet... Max went on a school field trip to Powell Gardens - a cool little area where they have educational stuff for kids and adults from the botanical world - Pam was a great chaperone! Max planted a little seed, and in a week it had already grown over 8"! Pretty amazing stuff... Max's teacher (Ms. Amber) is just ready to have a baby - keep her in your prayers! She has been a wonderful teacher to Max, and he even has a bit of a crush on her... And Hope! 2 Funny Max stories - Hope calls our house and asks Pam if Max swallowed a quarter that had to be retrieved w/ chopsticks. Pam says no. So then we ask Max if he told her this story, and he said, "YUP!" Second story - Max said, "Ms. Amber can't bend over or she will squish her baby." Every time Pam goes out, I always see if I can dress the kids in goofy attire - mission accomplished! Nikolai is still taking karate and he is doing great! I wish I started karate when I was 5... I'd be a bad-ass now, for sure! Last weekend I took a T-38 cross country from Whiteman to Duluth, MN - then to Marquette, MI on the upper-peninsula (I took a couple of pix while flying over Lake Superior...) - then down to Louisville, KY for the 2007 Thunder over Louisville airshow - It rocked! Since I used to do airshow narrations, the organizers had me narrate the B-2 flyby - I got right back in the saddle! Yours truly was broadcast out to 900,000 spectators and 2.1 million TV viewers! I rock. Zander cracks us up at every turn - he is an absolute riot! We had a slight ant problem a few weeks back in the bathroom - Pam went to take the kids out of the tub, and Zander starts screaming - Pam calms him down and figures out that he is upset that his babies (the ants) were going down the drain! Talk about throwing out the babies with the bathwater! While that is funny, Zander also has a weird phobia - he thinks that everything is going to blow away in the wind. He will not take off a coat and leave it outside - he is afraid that it will blow away! No amount of convincing from us will steer him differently... We think that he sees that it makes us laugh so that he hams it up a bit more - rather than a bona-fide phobia. Either way - it was pretty funny for us to explain (and show) the concept of a kite to him! HA! Another funny Zander story - Pam was pretending to "eat" Zander ("I'm going to eat your nose/leg/arm/etc."). Zander says, "Mommy - eat my hair so I can be just like Daddy!" While we were at dinner the other day, we were talking about grades. (BTW, we have never had a conversation about grades with the kids). We asked Nikolai what an "F" stood for, and he said, "F stands for Flunk. Mommy probably got an 'F' in Geography!" We were dying... Societal influence on our kids - Here we come! Last Fall, when I went to the opening day of the NE Patriots game for the B-2 flyover, I did my best to get something autographed by Tom Brady - with no luck. The public affairs guy said that he was going to try to get something for me - and the other day something came via FedEx. It was this! Pretty sweet... It was not just a little ironic that he sent it out on the day their 2007 schedule was released! The included note said, "We are looking forward to you headlining our opening ceremonies again this year..." Shifty... Caleb had a birthday party a few weeks ago, and it was the Tolmoff boy's first exposure to a piñata! Needless to say they loved to beat the little donkey with a bat... And who can blame them?!? And as much as our kids loved hitting the piñata - I think Taylor Rein loved it even more... It looks like our camera is dying again - everything looks bleached and washed out no matter what setting I use. We might be in the market for a new one - anybody have any suggestions? We had a wicked rainbow show up at house yesterday - God's work is awesome! We hope that all is going great with you and your family - Drop us a line when you get a chance, and as always - check out the pictures! 8 Apr 07 Ahh... That is more like it - 3 weeks with no updates! Giddy up - fret not, however - we'll quickly get you up to date... A few weeks back a friend of mine from my A-10 days swung through town - Lamby is the man! And the kids of course had a blast playing with him... Team Tolmoff got to go to opening day of the Kansas City Royals - and we got to see them SPANK the Red Sox, 7-1! Might as well give the Yankees the pennant right now... The kids were excited for the first 30 minutes (especially the B-2 flyby), but they soon lost their interest and wanted to go home (I'm bored/hungry/thirsty/tired/etc.). Oh well - they are still pretty young to enjoy a 9-inning baseball game - we won't give up on the game just yet! I got to retire a Master Sergeant who has been in the Air Force for 20+ years. It was one of the coolest things I have gotten to do since I've been in the military. So long MSgt Ron Cook - It was my honor... Zander is learning how to potty train! Pam and I noticed that the tubby was a bit quieter than normal the other night, so she went in to investigate - and Max was alone in the tub. So she started to look for Zander - and there he was on the throne saying, "There is poop coming out of my booty!" You could have knocked us over with a feather... Pretty funny stuff! Just like we did with Nikolai (when he took a steamer on the porch), we had Zander running around with no pants on so that he could pee whenever he felt like it (outside of course), and he did! We are soon going to be living in a diaper-free house! And I am very excited... Pam went into Max's classroom the other day, and she heard one of the teachers mention a Quote-Book. Needless to say, Pam was intrigued and wanted to have a look at it. Max had more than 1/2 of the quotes in the book (apparently he is quite the comedian at school). Two of the good ones: A teacher asked Max once, "What does your daddy do?" And Max replied, "He comes home for dinner." Another quote was, "I have an alligator in my tummy - but don't worry - he's a nice alligator!". Where do they get this stuff from? They crack me up... I found a fun computer game that I thought the kids would like. Boy was I wrong - they LOVE it! But not nearly as much as Pam and I. The game is called Crazy Machines - It is a game where you build stuff to accomplish an objective - It is pretty wild... But unfortunately we have not been able to stop playing the game - it is addictive! And now I want to share that addiction w/ you - You can download it here! Good luck - just be advised that when you finish the first 102 levels, there are 103 more waiting for you! (Just Download, unzip and run setup - not for the weak of heart! Let me know what you think...) I flew a B-2 on Wednesday and refueled Herb Kelleher - he is (was) the president/CEO of Southwest Airlines - "Got a job, Herb?" He was the honorary Air Mobility Command Commander flying around on a KC-10 for the day - and he gave me gas... Somebody else has pix of the refueling - I will post them as soon as I get them... We thought that Spring had Sprung - 6 days ago, the temp was 81 degrees - and this morning it was only 21 degrees with a high of 43... Ouch! I had to mow the lawn the past few weeks - but not this weekend! Thank you, Jack Frost... We went to an Easter party, and the kids had an Easter Egg hunt - It was pretty cool - the kids had great teamwork - Nikolai and Max ran around and got all the eggs, while Zander held the Easter Basket - it was very cute. Then they all got to take a picture with the Easter Bunny - and then they got their faces painted - they are adorable! Team Tolmoff rocks... We hope that all is going great with you and your family - Drop us a line when you get a chance, and as always - check out the pictures! 18 Mar 07 Only a week? How do I do it?!? Things have been busy and fun, as always! This week, we celebrated Max's 4th birthday! Pam didn't mess around (again) with the cake this year - she never ceases to amaze me! His actual B-day was Tues, 13 Mar, but we celebrated it today. We had a busy little day planned - first we went to church - then we went to hide our very first geo-cache! Usually we look for them, but today we decided to hide one of our own - check out the Knob Noster State Park (at Clearfork Lake) entry on geocaching.com [might take a day or 2 to become active]. Overall - the mission was a success and the objective was accomplished - the kids had a blast! See Nikolai in a tree. Nikolai looks happy in that tree. Nikolai fell out of the tree and was pissed. After we left the geocache, we still had some time to kill, so we went to a little pavilion-with-playground that was right near our car. Max and Zander found a little puppy and they were enthralled with the puppy-ness of it all - Max said, "I like when the puppy tries to tackle me!!!" There were some other kids there, and Nikolai immediately took to an 8 year old girl named Jordan - he was devastated when we had to leave! That is one emotional little boy - "I'm really going to miss Jordan... :( " Unfortunately for us, the kids were BEAT when we went to Max's B-day party - they were all dragging their tails while trying to bowl. When it was time for Max to open presents, tempers were running high because all the kids wanted to help open the presents! Max was on the verge of falling asleep by the time we went for the car. He made Pam carry him the whole 50 feet to the car! And he was asleep 30" later - with a 6 inch booger hanging out of his nose... Last night I was the DD for a bunch of drunken friends of mine - way better to be the drunken buffoon rather than the person driving the drunken buffoons around! I will admit, however, that I feel way better this morning than I would have if I boozed until 2:30 a.m.! I haven't been to a diner after the bars closed in years - I have no idea how I used to do it - my gut was a bloated mess this morning... 4 weeks of no booze and I feel great - only 2 weeks to go! I am 9 lbs down with (hopefully) 5 more to go! Wish me luck... We hope that all is going great with you and your family - Drop us a line when you get a chance, and as always - check out the pictures! 11 Mar 07 Yes. It has been 3 weeks - my bad! You see - I have given up boozing for 40 days - coincidental with Lent (not that I'm after a great religious experience or anything - I just need to shed a few LBs). Whenever I do this - I end up undertaking task after task that I have wanted to do for months! Pam says I am running around with no direction for 40 whole days - I will clean out closets that have not seen humans in years - and all the little things that I think she should be doing come right to the surface as well... Pam said, "Would you drink a bottle of wine already?!? PLEASE?!?" That being said - I have been focused on other tasks than the website - the biggest of which was taking pictures... of all of our pictures! We had ~20 full photo albums from 1991-2000 that were in a suitcase and stuck in a closet - therefore we never looked at them! I knew that there were some great pix in there, so I dug them all out and one by one took ~4000+ pictures of the pictures - the quality is not that great - but it was way faster than scanning each pic individually. Not to mention it was a great walk down memory lane! All told, the project took ~ 16 hours (ouch!) But now it is complete, and I have our entire photo collection on the computer... Including many old-school gems like this! Zander is now in a big-boy bed! Since he is almost 3, we knew it was time to get him our of his crib and into his own bed - and he loves it! Nikolai and I went out yesterday and shopped for his bed - Nikolai even helped me drive around the parking lot! Zander grinned from ear to ear as we were tucking him in... He looks like such a little man in his huge bed! He didn't even come downstairs once last night - Pam and I expected us to come upstairs from watching a movie, and Zander would be on the couch watching Letterman... HA! We also got Zander's School Pix this past week! He is so cute! Always the little prep of the class... Max turns 4 on Tuesday! I can hardly believe it - these kids are growing up so fast! Max has learned that if you help Mommy or Daddy, sometimes you will get rewarded with a penny, nickel or dime. He has been going way out of his way to be the most helpful little boy! He has a WTF? look on his face if you don't give him anything, though... It is good to see that we are raising a good little capitalist! Max loves Nikolai's Leapster and plays with it all the time - He will point out words on TV and around town that he knows what they say - and he is very proud of himself when he does so! And we couldn't be more proud of him, either... Nikolai has gone 4 straight days without a single card! Pam called a meeting with the JCCA kindergarten teacher and the principal, and was joined with 2 other families (I could not go because of work). They voiced various grievances about how the school was functioning, and it looks like things are getting fixed! Nikolai has never been happier or more excited. BTW - the straw that broke the camel's back that caused the meeting was: Nikolai was sent home one day for pushing another student. Our take on it was that, "Hey - 5 year olds push each other." However, if he hurt the other kid, then maybe it was justified. When Pam asked how hard he pushed the other boy, the teacher said, "I don't know - I didn't see it." So Pam rightfully asked, "Then how do you know that he pushed him?!?" And the teacher responded, "Because Caleb [the 5 year old who got pushed] told me." So Nikolai got sent home on the word of a 5 year old. But that is not the best part! Nikolai got another card that day for talking in line on the way to prayer. But the card did not say, "Talking in line on the way to prayer." Nikolai's card said: "Disrespecting God." I always knew we were raising a bunch of God Disrespecting Heathens! Anyway - things seem to be better now... Funny Nikolai story. We were playing Rock/Paper/Scissors one day, and then Nikolai made some funny shape with his hand, so I asked him what it was - he said, "Fire." So he started telling me how he played Rock/Paper/Scissors in school. There was of course your standard RPS, but then there was fire, water, mountain, hammer, brick, volcano. And God. God beats everything. I am still not sure of the hierarchy of the other items, but Nikolai was pretty adamant that God beats everything... Pam smashed her finger in the car door the other day. We are pretty sure that it is broken, but she has not had the chance to make it to the Dr. yet. It looks pretty nasty. We have been taking the kids geocaching the last couple of weeks after church. Geocaching is a basically a treasure hunt where you use a GPS to find a hidden treasure [left by another geocacher]. It is pretty cool, and the kids get a big kick out of it! The last 2 places that we went had huge ponds next to where the treasure was hidden, which naturally led to a long rock-throwing afternoon. I am so glad Spring has Sprung! Long update. My bad. I'll take the hit for that. We hope that all is going great with you and your family - Drop us a line when you get a chance, and as always - check out the pictures! 19 Feb 07 Just wrapping up an AWESOME four day weekend! Life is pretty sweet... We had some friends come down from Omaha, NE (Heidi and Aaron) with their 2 little girls (Samantha and Evie) - no doubt that all of our boys are not gay... They chased those girls around like drunken little frat boys! It was pretty funny to watch. Nikolai was especially taken with Samantha. At one point he was running around yelling "I WANT A KISS! GIVE ME A KISS!" Made us all giggle! On Saturday we went to a place called Tunnel Town and Pirate Voyage - a place for kids to run around and climb/jump/swing and play - it was torture for the parents, because we could not always keep the kids in sight - there was a few times the kids got into different sections of the amusement center without us seeing them - a heart attack in the making! We left unscathed, and no one was worse for the wear. The next day we went bowling, too! It was a lot of fun... I feel it important to mention here that I SMOKED Heidi in bowling - but what did you expect? As we were leaving the bowling alley, Nikolai was walking hand in hand with Samantha - I thought that it was so cute that I felt like the paparazzi taking a bunch of pictures as we left... While bowling, Samantha and Taylor asked Nikolai if he could whistle. He said, "This is as close to whistling as I can come," He then put a finger in each corner of his mouth and yelled, "EEEEKKK!!" Pam almost fell over... Pam asked Zander if he had poop in his diaper, and Zander's response was, "There are little, tiny, tiny, little poop-balls in there!" I think it is time that we potty train him! When Heidi and company were here, we were all enjoying Mojitos (a fine beverage if you've never had one) in our family room. Zander pointed his finger and knocked one over, spilling it perilously close to our laptop computer - Zander could see the agitation in our eyes and said quickly - "It was an accident!" Max is still doing great on his reading! He has taken to Nikolai's Leapster with a vengeance - he can play that thing for hours! A lot of his speech problems are clearing themselves up, too! He can even say the word "Yellow" now - he used to just say "de-do." He is so cute - he still loves to cuddle and gives hugs and kisses for no particular reason at all - the best kind! Funny Max story - Last night Max comes downstairs after we put him to bed - Pam asked him what was wrong as she carried him back up to his room. Max said, "I am scared of something in my room." Pam asked what it was, and Max looked around the room [trying to find something plausible] and said, "Ummm..." Pretty funny! I was going to re-furbish our 3 year old grill. I bought pieces and parts, and it came to $144. So I returned them and bought a brand new grill for $168 - already assembled. I love our capitalist country! Pam went to Nikolai's school last week for their 100th day of School celebration - she is the "Room Mom," so she played a huge roll in the outcome of the party. What was funny about it was that there was a snow day on the 100th day, and there was also a snow-day the next day (Valentines day), so she finally got to have her party 2 days late! And as everything that Pam does - it turned out great! She helped Nikolai make a flag using 100 stars - very cute... Speaking of Valentines Day - the kids took a picture for Pam - it was very cute. And I got Pam the funniest card ever - still makes me laugh... I also got her a little gift certificate - needless to say I will be in her good graces for quite a while! We hope that all is going great with you and your family - Drop us a line when you get a chance, and as always - check out the pictures! 11 Feb 07 Ouch. My Bite still hurts. The more I think of it - What 33 year old gets bit? Although a friend of mine (Thanks Bryant), pointed out that a lot of people spend good money to get bit by younger women! HA! This actually has been a quiet week! Except for the fact that Nikolai got 13 cards in 4 days... He'll learn! We have him going to karate now, and he likes it quite a bit - I won't say that he loves it - he is still a little unsure about why he has to do so many jumping jacks... We downloaded and printed out the "Dojo Kun" (school rules) and he quickly memorized the rules, as well as how to count from 1-10 in Japanese so that he could count while Sensay is counting! Pretty cute. If only we could get him to bite his tongue in school - we would all be much better off! (Perfect example - they were talking about monkeys - and the teacher asked, "What do monkeys do?" The class started going around the room, "Swing from trees, eat bananas, etc." When they got to Nikolai, he said, "Fart.") Good job Nikolai... Here is your card... Max is reading! Well - not exactly, but he has made huge leaps in his reading abilities - he sat with me for an hour the other night having me type words on the computer so that he could sound them out - any day now! He is adorable... Zander wanted to trade in puppy last night for a bag of pretzels - he was quite insistent on taking the pretzels to bed with him, and leaving puppy w/ Mommy. But when he got in the crib, he realized that there was no puppy, and he faltered - "I WANT MY PUPPY!!!" We got it all on video - funny stuff... I got to fly with our Wing Commander this week - he is an old bomber guy - so I took him out of his comfort zone (40,000 feet) and into mine (low level). It was pretty fun... Told you - quiet week! We hope that all is going great with you and your family - Drop us a line when you get a chance, and as always - check out the pictures! 5 Feb 07 I can't believe the Colts won the Superbowl. And Peyton Manning is the MVP. This season could not have possibly turned out any worse! Busy, busy! Scooter came out for a visit last weekend, and we had a slice of a time... We went to this wicked WWI museum in Kansas City - it is the only WWI national museum, and it was fantastic! Very well done - I was expecting it to be a random collection of Veteran's old paraphernalia - quite the opposite! It was a multimedia spectacular - highly recommended if you are ever in the area... The kids (as per usual) had a blast w/ Scooter, but they did miss Karen... :( Ross came out for the weekend to watch the Superbowl - Shelly could not make it because she had to work... Booger also showed up - and he even wore some PJs - just like the kids! Now for a weird story... On Friday night, I went to a farewell party for one of the Lieutenants that I work with. Most of these people were between 22 and 25, and then there was me (who brought the old guy?) We were playing quarters and cards - all kinds of drinking games that I have not played since college. Turns out that I still kick ass at drinking games. Poor Lieutenants! Now - just like when I was in college - I would challenge some poor sap to a game of "Mercy." (you basically lock fingers and try to get the other person in enough pain where they say, "Mercy." Another game that I am really good at. The person who accepted my challenge was a 22 year old girlfriend of a Lieutenant that I work with. I was ensuring that I did not hurt her - but somehow she ended up over my shoulder while we were still playing Mercy. And then I asked a question I have never asked before, "Are you biting my back?" As I put her down, I got my answer as I felt her teeth tear off part of my back! It hurt like Hell. Who bites people? Pam was pretty psyched when I got home the next day and showed her this... Since Nikolai still ocassionally acts up in school, the decision was made to have him behaviorally tested. This included an IQ test today - we do not have the results yet, but we'll get them soon... They are also going to do a whole bunch of other tests to see if he has any developmental issues. I think what they are going to find is that he is a perfectly normal 5 year old boy... In the hopes to get Nikolai on the right track of self-discipline and self-control, we enrolled him in Karate! He was so cute at his first class - he had no idea what was going on, but he did his best. When they finally got to a point that he understood (jumping jacks), he was so happy that he had a huge smile on his face and he was bouncing around out of step of everyone else with a gigantic smile on his face! It was adorable... He was standing next to a 6th degree black-belt who started to die laughing when he watched Nikolai - so funny... Max is reading more and more on his own now - he can sound out just about any word now - it still takes him a bit, but he is almost there! He constantly barrages us with books that he wants us to read to him... Max is still Momma's boy (he loves to help her cook!) Funny Max and Nikolai story - Pam asked Max if he was having a good time with Hope - Max said he was, and Nikolai said, "That is because they fell in The Love!" HA! Zander is still the never-ending bully of the fam - and he can make us laugh at the drop of a hat! He has a great sense of humor, and the best stink-eye you can imagine... We have the 3 best kids! We love our family more and more every day. We would like you to keep the family of Kyle Almeida in your prayers - Kyle died this past week in a car accident - I used to work with his father... When I got the news, I had to call Pam and tell her to drive safe... Circuit panel update - $595 and we are back in business. I'm in the wrong line of work... We hope that all is going great with you and your family - Drop us a line when you get a chance, and as always - check out the pictures! 22 Jan 07 What a difference 2 weeks makes! We have had a fairly mild winter (except for a little thing like a 13" snow-storm in early December), with temps in the 50s most days. And then we got a wicked ice storm! What makes it funny is that I was cross-country in a T-38! And I missed it all. But not Pam and the boys! They were literally house-bound for ~ 7 days. There was 2-3" of slick ice that covered all of Missouri - every night there was news of people getting killed by driving off the roads, so Pam felt it best (and smartly) to stay inside. Fortunately we did not lose any power... I even got stuck out for 2 extra days since they could not clear the airfield for my return... I had a blast! Pam? Not so much... On my journeys, I spent a night in Corpus Christi, TX, then 2 nights in Phoenix, 2 nights in Tucson, and 2 nights in Albuquerque before finally making it home... It was awesome! I got to meet up with Korry (the bad speller), Matty B, Cousin Katie and hubby Mike, Albert and Carrie, and even Ulie-Jay! Good stuff... Lots of great flying, too! It was fun to fly around my old stomping grounds... Funny story - while flying out of Corpus Christi, our radio decided to quit working! For ~ 40 minutes! Pretty weird flying around at 500 mph and not talking to anyone... The guy I was flying with (Jason) then touched his GPS and got a massive shock - and then the radio started working again! Really weird... Looks like the airlines are correct when they say, "Please turn off all electrical equipment..." HA! Pam actually fared quite well on her unexpected week in the house - the kids' school was cancelled for the whole week, so she had to get real creative to keep the kids busy! They did more crafts and played more games, and read more books than Pam thought she had in her... She really is a super-mom! Funny Zander story - Zander was going pee on the potty, and he came running out with a look of distress on his face. Pam asked what was wrong, and he said, "I fell off the potty and hurt my booty!" It took Pam a long time to re-gain her composure! Today we woke up to a nice acrid-electrical-fire kind of smell. Turns out our fuze-box had a nice little flame in it. And of course it was tied to our heater. So now we have no heat. No - this shouldn't be too expensive... HA! Looks like tonight will be family fun night in sleeping bags curled up in front of the fire-place! I can't believe the Patriots threw away a 21-3 lead and lost to the Colts in the AFC Championship... I could cry. We hope that all is going great with you and your family - Drop us a line when you get a chance, and as always - check out the pictures! 6 Jan 2007 HAPPY NEW YEAR! It seems I say this every year... WOW! I can't believe another year has flown by... Incredible! Things here are GREAT as always - for New Years, we loaded up the family truckster and headed out to Louisville, KY to see Ross and Shelly. We even drug along Rebecca! It was a fine time... The kids were fantastic on the car ride there and back - It was while we were in Ross' house that they were a bit nuts... No sweat, though - nothing was broken, and we all made it back no worse for the wear... Ross even coughed up a neighborhood girl to watch the kids while we went to a New Year's Eve party. More low key than in year's past - but hey - we're getting old... While we were out there, we took the kids to the Louisville Slugger Bat factory - it is a great little 30 minute tour, and they give you a little bat at the end of the tour - perfect for the kids to beat each other with! After that, we met up w/ Ross/Shelly/Tumor/Kevin at the Huber Winery - it was a bit chilly out, but the kids had fun running around playing outside. There was a 10 year old boy named Christian who was there playing with the kids, and that night, Nikolai said, "I had such a great time playing with Christian today - I am never going to forget him!" Looks like it doesn't take much to etch yourself into Nikolai's memory! Funny story about the travels - Nikolai is not a fan of the Gateway Arch in St. Louis - he won't even look at it... It stems back to ~ 6 months ago when he told Pam that the Washington Monument was the tallest monument in the US, and Pam corrected him - telling him it was in fact the Gateway Arch. Well - Nikolai did not want to hear this - so whenever we even mention the Arch to him - he will bury his face and not even look at it... While we were driving by it, we did trick him a few times ("Hey! Check out that train! HAHA! Gotcha!"). He was not too happy with us. But when he thought no one was looking, he did steal a few glances at it... Might I also add - Happy Birthday to me! I am now old at age 33... It is always very low key ringing in the birthday after the holidays - no problem... Instead of birthday cake, I had a birthday orange! Those holiday pounds aren't going to get lost by themselves... The kids are all back in school now (except for Zander - he goes back next week [that picture is from him rolling off his little mattress at Ross' house - that is how we found him at 2 a.m. when we were ready to go to sleep....]). Nikolai made a resolution to behave better at school - and I think that he is going to succeed! Max made a resolution to act the same way at home as he does in school (angelic!), and Zander's resolution was to play with puppy more (is that possible?!?). I guess these are better resolutions for a 2/4/5 year old than "quit smoking/drop 50 lbs/stay out of prison"... HA! We hope that you all rang in the New Year in style! Drop us a line when you get a chance, and as always - check out the pictures!
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