Aqua-man

On Monday night, November 19th, Robby had his first swim meet.  It was likely to be his second but he was bad sick at the moment the first one rolled around.

He was as wound up for this as any football game he ever had this Fall, so it was good to see that kind of passion for a sport that did not involve a football/mouth guards.

All signed in and a little nervous! Oh, and a LOT proud!

Waiting...

Jacking around with his little brother and generally trying to burn up some nervous energy, me thinks.

He wanted to do a Clay Matthews pose... so, he did.

Finally, lined up to swim and he's with his buddy, Jack (aka 10'6") from his football team this Fall.

uh...  Swimming.

This is a warm up jump in prior to doing some laps in the pool.

Caleb, already tired of waiting and wanting to ham it up a little. He made his motion for daddy to take some pictures of him.

...and so he posed.  That's gold!

This is getting lined up for the relay race, his second event.

Robby and 10'6" were on the same team for the relay. Robby is waiting for his teammate to get there so he can launch.

The heat of the ensuing battle.

The proud boy coming out of the pool after a great swim!

Overall, he did great, swam great and his coach told Mama tonight at practice that Robby did really well at the meet.  They will find out results of it all on Sunday when they have practice up at the Altoona Campus.

Why we laugh...

Just a short little post to relay a funny story while Robby, Caleb and Daddy were in the car waiting for mom to come out.

A little back story first. 

Robby has a girl at school who threatens to kiss him.  It's an ongoing saga that humors us quite often.  So we get in the car, and the following brief conversation ensues:

Robby: M---  just about kissed me today dad.  She pulled me close to where our noses were just about touching. She says I'm cute and dreamy.

Dad: You are cute and dreamy.

Robby: Well...  I'll give you cute, but I'm not dreamy!

Dad: Oh, you're not?  Do you think that M--- dreams about you?

Robby: Yeah, she does.

Dad: Well then, you're dreamy.

Robby: (hesitation) ...Ooooooooh man!


And that was the end of that conversation.  Priceless.

Momma just told me this story from this morning. She's combing his hair, which is getting quite long, and doing a little feathering by the ears.

Robby: Don't do that. I don't want to be handsome.

Mom: Are you trying to keep the girls away?

Robby: Oh, I have enough girl issues...



You simply can't make this stuff up!

The Mobile Chaos Units new chaos mobile...

Saturday was intended to be day of looking/driving various new vehicles to find a gas friendly replacement for toodling around town for Momma and the boys.  Our old Escape had become somewhat scary to ride in and it was time to "put'er to bed".

Aunt Molly came over Saturday morning so that Ma & Pa Chaos could go out and visit multiple dealers and drive a sundry assortment of vehicles/brands.  She took the boys the zoo and we went about our mission.

By chance, we stopped at the Nissan dealership as it was first off of the Interstate and we drove a Versa, Sentra and an Altima.  The Altima was a thing of beauty as far as cars that I've driven, which is truly, not that wide of a variety.

We decided while driving it that if we could get a certain amount of trade in for our dying vehicle that we would end our search here and now.

That's what happened...

The varmints at the zoo.  They are getting B.I.G.!!!

And the new vessel...

As a small aside, we already have a small scratch on the new ride and I was wanting to move the van over to the pick-up side of the garage, giving the new car the prime spot in storage.  So, up the ladder I went to hang the string/tennis ball to determine how far to pull the van in as there is not much clearance at all, when I dropped my new cordless drill onto the engine hood of the van! The drill seems fine, but there's a fine scar on the van where she landed...

Oh well...

The first big rock n' roll show!

This past Sunday at the 11am service at our church, Lutheran Church of the Cross in Altoona Iowa, we had our Sunday school kids singing a song. I'm not sure how many kids were there but there was a whole pile of them!

I wish I had a video of the performance, but I do not.  I only have a few pictures and some of those did not turn out very good either.

Robby has sang in front of church a couple of times previous to this as well as went thru a pre-school graduation, and had a speaking part in his first grade school concert (and sung with the class) so we would consider him an old pro at this by now. So it is without further hesitation that I present Master Calebbers first ever public performance.

Robby (and I think Hannah) are giving Caleb a little pep talk as we're waiting for the kids to be called up front.  Caleb didn't think that this seemed like a good idea... at all!

Can you spot the little China boy in the front row there?  He did pretty good.  Where's Robby you ask?  He was pretty well hidden from my camera from this angle the whole song. I could point to the two boys that he's hiding between, but that wouldn't serve much purpose.  Just know that he's in there somewhere...

 

So what did Master Calebber think of all of this?  When I went up to get him and help lead the Sunday school back out of the sanctuary, I grabbed his hand, waited for Robby and then, when we were started towards the back, Caleb stopped me with a big ol' smile on his face, pointed back to the alter where the kids were stationed, and said, "Tomorlo", which is his way of saying, tomorrow.  Meaning, he wants to do something again, later, and so on.  Very cute.

He had the exact same reaction when we were watching an infant baptism and I was explaining that we were going to do the same thing with him when he was able to understand what was going on with the situation and what we as parents were doing for/to him.  In that instance, he wanted to be sure that it was NOT happening on that very day!

Good stuff... all of it.

I wanna rock n' roll all night...

I was looking thru pictures for something specific and I ran across these gems from nearly two months ago.  

The boys both went thru a phase where it was all guitars all the time, which is both a blessing and a curse.  

You see, while I like to play guitar, a LOT, I like to be able to hear myself from time to time and I like to be able to do it without pretending that I am putting on a concert.  However, I would like it very much if both boys would learn how to play an instrument at some point in their development and guitar would suit me just fine. 

Regardless, that phase has passed and they're off to other things...

I just thought there were too good not to share.