LCC's First Day of Sunday School 2014

The first day of Sunday School has arrived, for those of us who attend Lutheran Church of the Cross, that is.

Caleb wanted to wear his "new" shirt and tie that he inherited from some of my cousins kids.

Robby helped him button his shirt and get the tie on.  Yes those are pajama bottoms with black socks...

And in case you missed it above, look at the tie is on!

What is life without a silly picture?  Here is the lad fully dressed and ready to go.

And then there's the other lad.  No long pants for that boy, EVER, if we would let him wear what he wanted.

At least he has a Christian based album t-shirt on.  :-)

That's my boys, and I love them!!

Vacation 2014 Post 7 - Campsites & other randomness

Not a whole lot to say here as we didn't take a ton of pix on this particular subject.

There may be a few missing pics here and there from Robby's camera and either of our phones.  I'm trying to balance the new found difficulties of every stinking human on the face of the Earth carrying a camera even when they go poop.

It seems strange but with having a fantastic fancy-heinied phone now-a-days, it's the unfortunate truth.

Here's what we're left with...

The morning when we had breakfast in Chamberlain SD while "touring" the gift shop.   We took this photo for our neighbors who own various years Trans Am's.

Caleb Crockett in his Washington DC Zoo t-shirt from our previous vacation.

The sunset looking Northeast from our campsite.  The good woman running the place took pity on me, or something, and determined that I looked like a military man,  to provide me a discount for the services rendered.

This was at our second campground in Custer, SD.   The boys are pointing their newly aquired 12 round cap guns at the camera.  They had completed some EPIC civil war battles the night previous!!

In Custer, SD with one of the painted buffaloes.

The moon "setting" in Custer SD from the "mouth" of our tent.

Vacation 2014 Post 6 - Corn Palace, Mitchell, South Dakota

The corn palace. What can you say?

It's silly and amazing all rolled up into one.  This particular year, it was more under construction than it was anything else, but it was still somewhat amazing.  The boys got a kick out out of it.

The outdoor, South wall.

The front of the building, facing West, with the advertisements for the up and coming greatness that they project and predict.

One of many murals inside...

another mural inside...

and yet another...

Robby with his first pocket knife.  I got my first pocket knife as my dad visited the Badlands and so it was fitting that Robby got his here as well.  He's since lost it...

Robby Crockett.

Caleb, completely enamored with snow globes!

The mobile chaos unit in more...   I don't know...  hairy, times.

Vacation 2014 Post 5 - Travelling, and a Little More

Vacation. A time of wonder, excitement, exploration and extreme exhaustion.

We made a plan to get Robby into all 50 states by the time he was 18 and then, probably foolishly, accepted the same challenge with Calebber when we adopted him.  So we do a lot of driving on vacations, which I personally enjoy.

That leads to some funny moments in cars, not to mention some dull ones.

Where were we at this point?  Who knows...  this could have been taken on any one of the days of excessive driving.

Which is not much different than a typical Friday/Saturday night at home with dear ol' Dad downstairs playing guitar and the fam upstairs "watching" tv.  This is what I came upstairs to find last Friday night.

Vacation 2014 Post 4 - Mall Of America

The Mall Of America... what more can you say?  

The mere mention of those first four words is enough to strike fear in the hearts of men everywhere. 

While I quite enjoy watching the boys, and truly, other kids as well, playing and tearing up life in places like this, I was also perfectly happy to stay behind and keep company at the hospital with G'ma & G'pa.

That being said, Grandpa and I did end up at the mall later that night for supper and a few games of pool in a very loud arcade within the mall.

We were playing pool after dinner when some fella from a large office gathering approached me and asked if it was okay if the boys could have two of the game cards that they were not going to be using.  I said sure, we thanked him profusely and the boys went off (usually within eye sight of me) to spend as much of those cards on various games as they could before we were done shooting pool.

Sadly, both of us essentially exhausted by that point, we didn't play for very long like we would in our own basement.  

I told the boys they had to find somebody to give the remainder of their cards to, and they did.  We had a good time and the boys got to do something they rarely every do; playing video games in a real arcade.

While G'pa and I held court at the hospital with G'ma, the other four (Molly is missing from all of the pictures...  the weasel) were doing things like this:

Robby doesn't find these much fun anymore, but in order to ride some rides where Caleb can't/won't and has to wait, he has to participate in rides for the Chinaman.

Can't go wrong with bumper cars.  That's Robby in the foreground with Caleb in the upper right.

I'm not sure who Calebber is gunning for here, but I wouldn't want to be them with that look of craziness on his face.  I have a suspiscion that that is the top of Robby's furry little head at the very bottom of the pic.

The haunted house ride...

The boy appears to be afflicted by something.

It's fuzzy but I had to include it because of how Caleb is ducking.  That's his general way of letting those of us safe on the ground, that he's not having the time of his life.

Is it truly a "selfie" if there's two people in the photo?

LET'S GO! Or not... the 2014 NFL season...

I don't know who to credit for this fine photo that properly represents the 2014 St. Louis Rams season, but whoever it is, they captured it perfectly. That's the fantastic Sam Bradford in the road/under the truck.

I weep for the future of our team...

Should I? Or Should I Not?

Not much time here, but I figured I'd post this nearly forgotten about photo I took when Robby, Caleb and myself were looking for the Como Park Zoo in Minneapolis last June.

It's for all of those "Brett Favre"/undecided types in our lives...