Way too Long

So it's been waaaaay too long since my last update.  I can't even begin to recount all the events that have gone on during the past 6 months....really? It's been that long? Sigh.  Anyway, the good news is I am renewing my commitment to keep this blog up to date.  Maybe I need to work on a means to fine myself when I go too long without posting.  Maybe a token amount to our family fun fund?

 I blame Facebook...really I do.  But now I've even been neglecting posting there.  So back to the blog I come.

I won't go into details of all the goings on over the past 6 months, but suffice it to say we had a fabulous summer, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and everything else.  The zoo is very much looking forward to the holidays and while we aren't trekking away from home, each of you will be in our thoughts.

I promise to at least have a Christmas posting, if I don't provide one before that.

Emotional Day

Today we said goodbye to our great friend and family member, Titan. We have spoiled him the past few days. Last night he had steak for dinner and Frosty Paws ice cream for dessert. We spent this morning at the dog park and then bid our farewells. He went very peacefully, looking as if he was simply laying on the floor like he does at home.

After a day of grieving, laughing, and crying, we were treated to Titan smiling down over our home in the form of a beautiful rainbow. On a day that called for no rain, we had a few showers followed with an amazing double rainbow directly over our house. We know in our hearts it was a special request from our best boy ever. All our love. We miss you Titan.

Sweet Titan...

Many of you received an email from Angie earlier letting you know of our painful decision to let Titan move on to the next stage. I'm sure I can not express our true feelings any better than Angie already has, so I will just copy her email here:

Hello All,

As most of you know, our sweet Titan has developed a neurological issue since November of last year. We have decided to let God take over and leave it to his hands. Titan has lived a full, blissful, happy 11 years and it is time where we believe his life isn't quality enough to continue the battle. This decision has been hard not only because we are losing a best friend, but he is mentally fine. As a family, we will lead Titan into another world Saturday morning. He will be deeply missed but we are excited for his journey.

Titan sends his lasting love.

Since Angie's email, we've received a number of replies providing support. Thank everyone of you for you thoughts and prayers. While this has been a difficult decision, we know it is for the best. Titan is being spoiled for the next few days before he goes to his favorite dog park to play with all his new friends. One day we will all be together again.

The Travelling Man

Pictures from NYC

This quarter has been a busy travel one for me. I've been out of town 4 of the past 5 weeks, visiting Mountain View, CA, New York, and Dublin. Travel is one part of my job I really enjoy, but when it all comes at once, it can be overwhelming. Add that to starting the process of selling the house, Angie finishing up school, taking tests, and Alex graduating has proven to be very busy times for us.

Pictures from Dublin

The Graduate!

It's hard to believe Alex's graduation day has finally arrived. Eighteen short years have passed and she has reached that milestone we all remember looking forward to throughout our teenage years.

Debbie and Robert flew in from NC to attend the graduation and we all spent the night at a hotel in Greeley the night before the graduation since the ceremony was at 8AM. Taylor stayed with us at the hotel and we all enjoyed sitting by the pool after dinner. My sister Nancy and my mom stayed at a nearby hotel, so we all met up and headed to the high school the next morning.

It couldn't have been a more beautiful day for the ceremony. The sun was shining and the skies were blue. If anything it was a bit too warm considering there was no shelter from the sun. It could have been much worse if the graduation took place later in the day.

After the ceremony, Michelle and Troy held a graduation party at their home. They cooked most everything, including delicious BBQ. Alex was so excited to be finally done with high school, you could just see the glow on her face. All in all it was truly a great day and I have never been so proud.

Alex recently accepted an appointment to the Air Force Academy prep school and is awaiting to find out when she reports. This has been a long time goal for her and we are all very proud.

WAY TO GO ALEX!!!

Horse Show

Many of Taylor's favorite activities include anything that has anything do with horses. She has been active in 4H over the past few years, nearly always involved in a horse project. Fortunately she has 2 horses she gets to take care of and enjoy. Every time I see her around them, she truly shines and is completely responsible for them.

Today was one of her horse shows, so I went up to Kersey to spend the day attending the events. I didn't get to spend too much time with Taylor, as she was very busy tending to the horses and participating in various events. She did very well, winning several ribbons and even Reserve Grand Champion in one of them.

When the show took a break for lunch, Alex, Taylor and I went to Kersey Pizza and enjoyed lunch together. It was great to spend some time with the busy girls.

Volunteering for Salvation Army

Every once in a while I get an email form the volunteer coordinator at the Salvation Army. My original intent was to volunteer around the holidays, serving food or something like that. It turns out they have many other opportunities throughout the year.

This opportunity came up due to the Avs being in the playoffs. The Pepsi Center solicited the assistance of the Salvation Army to put pom poms on every seat in the house, literally. We took advantage of the opportunity by bringing Sid and her friend Rachael to the event. We spent a couple hours hiking up and down the steps at the Pepsi Center and carefully placing each pom pom on the back of the chairs.

As a special treat, we were also able to see the morning practices for both the Avs and the Sharks, up close and personal. Thanks to our help the Avs won this game. At least that is what I like to think. Unfortunately the luck did not hold up for the remainder of the series.

Spring Break in San Francisco.

A few weeks before Sidney's spring break I found out I was going to be traveling for business to California during that time. Angie and I decided it would be fun for them to tag along and take a mini vacation while I worked.

The night before leaving we received a typical spring snow storm in Denver. We woke up to over a foot of snow (with it still coming down) as we prepared to head to the airport. Along the way, Angie found out that her flight was canceled, but was able to rebook on a different flight leaving around the same time. Instead of a non-stop flight, she had a layover in Reno, just long enough to spend the one dollar she had with her on a slot machine.

The first few days the girls spent some time browsing Castro Street in downtown Mountain View and visiting the famous Winchester Mystery House. Once the weekend rolled around we were able to do things together. We started the weekend out Friday night by going to our good friends' Lance and Katrina's home for grilled steaks and great company.

On Saturday, we drove into the city (San Francisco) for the touristy things like Pier 39, Fisherman's Wharf, and Ghirardelli Square. We enjoyed lunch on the pier and then since it was such a gorgeous day we decided to take the Bay cruise on the Blue and Gold Fleet. The cruise took us under the Golden Gate bridge and around Alcatraz.

Sunday was the day for the girls to head home, but not until early evening. We got up a little early, had breakfast and headed to Santa Cruz. While in Santa Cruz we walked along the boardwalk, where Lost Boys was filmed (one of Angie's favorite movies) and relaxed on the beach for a while. Sidney finished up the day by taking a last dip in the hotel pool before I dropped them off at the airport for their trip home.

Spring Break with Taylor

This past week Taylor was on Spring break and decided to come for a visit. It had been a while since she last stayed with us, so we were very excited to have her.

We had an amazing week that started out with one of our favorite restaurants for dinner, Los Dos Potrillos because she loves it just as much as the rest of us. It was a real treat.

Angie was happy to have another volunteer for facials and treatments so Taylor got to be pampered. One day Angie took Taylor and Sidney to the mall and yet another day Taylor came to work with me and brought Howie along. She is such an animal lover and has aspirations of becoming a veterinarian, which I think is her perfect calling

In the photo, you can see "movie night" where Sidney and Taylor made a bed in front of the TV and watched Zombieland, which I think may be their new favorite movie. Another night, they watched it again in addition to New Moon, which they both were very excited to come to pay per view.

For the New Moon "premiere" the girls had their friend Rachel over while Angie and I each enjoyed a night out of the house with our friends. Angie had a girls night with Danielle and a couple other ladies, while DJ and I coordinated a last minute poker party at the clubhouse. Sidney and Taylor get along so well most of the time, they truly are sisters.

Nomination Reception with Betsy Markey

One of Alex's goals has been to attend the Air Force Academy, going back a couple years. Now in her Senior year of high school she is going through the very involved process to make that dream come true.

A while back she had interviewed with several panels for her Congresswoman, Betsy Marky, and both Colorado Senators. We recently found out that Alex received a nomination to the Air Force Academy, from Betsy Markey.

This past weekend, Betsy Markey held a reception to recognize all the students she nominated for the various military academies. The reception took place at the Kress Theater in Greeley. Several of the the board members attended the reception as did the Congresswoman herself.

Additionally, the Greeley Tribune sent a reporter to the occasion to interview all the recent nominees. Alex was interview and even quoted in the article published in the paper. The full article can be found here.

The process has been a long road, but she is nearing the end. She is now waiting to hear from the Air Force Academy to see if she has been accepted. We're very proud and are crossing our fingers for our cadet hopeful.

Science Expo

Sidney's 6th grade science class at Newton Middle School recently had a major science assignment that they each got to present at the annual Science Expo.

Sidney conducted an experiment on potatoes. She wanted to figure out if different potatoes affected how much current would pass through each of them. The experiment required her to come up with a hypothesis, collect the materials, conduct testing, and report her conclusion.

Angie took Sidney to get all the materials, which she took to her dad's for the weekend where they got to complete the experiments. Sidney then took her findings and completed her project, including a poster board outlining everything she did and her findings. Each kid had to present it to the science class as a report.

After all that was completed, the school had the Science Expo, where each student had their assignment presented. Parents and visitors went to the school gym where everything was set up and were able to go around looking at each experiment and ask the kids questions. Sidney did a fabulous job on hers as did many of the other kids. We could tell she was nervous, but once she settled down I think she had a great time doing the project and showing it off.

In other amazing news, Sidney made the Newton Knights basketball team. We're very pleased that she enjoys getting involved in extracurricular activities. They keep her busy and she gets to meet so many new friends.

Senior Night

The time has come for Alex's last home game of her high school career. I can't believe how fast time flies. This year, more than ever, that has become evident. Seems like just yesterday she was being born. I know it sounds cliche, but it still holds true.

Angie, Sidney, Nancy, and I met at my office after work, stopped for dinner, then headed to Northridge High School for the festivities. Alex was amongst 5 seniors on her basketball team, all of which started the game for the Grizzlies. Prior to the game there was a short ceremony celebrating each of them.

The game was very one sided as you can see from the final score of 66-12 in favor of the home team and everyone had a great time.

As if this event didn't make for a big enough day for Alex, she learned that she had received a nomination to one of the military academies, most likely the Air Force. She has worked very hard to earn this and is very deserving. There is more to the process, but its starting to look like Alex will be in the Air Force cadet class of 2014.

I'm not usually the emotional type as nearly everyone will tell you, but on this day, I couldn't hide the tears in my eyes or my beaming pride. Even now, I get teary eyed everytime I think about it.

Way to go Alex!!!

Volunteering Rewards

Sunday Angie and I volunteered for the Salvation Army at the Pepsi Center placing "Go Avs" signs on all the seats. In return we were given 2 tickets to the evening's game versus the New York Rangers. There were so many volunteers it really took us about a half hour. Initially we figured we were only getting 2 tickets, so Sid was going to go with me, but as it turned out we each received 2 tickets for our efforts.

With our new found bounty of tickets, which were incidentally very good seats, the 3 of us invited my sister Nancy to join us. Nancy is relatively new to hockey, but was excited to go anyway. Our seats were near center ice and only 17 rows behind the Rangers bench. We all had a great time even though the game was a bit disappointing with the Rangers winning 3-1 because of a hat trick by Marian Gaborik.

Neal's Surprise 40th

With the big Four O coming, there was no doubt in my mind that Angie had something up her sleeve, but I really had no idea what she could possibly have planned.

Friday night, we had plans to go to dinner with our great friends DJ and Danielle to the Cherry Cricket, you may have seen it on the Travel Channel. We were very excited for their famous burgers. Earlier in the day, my friend Bryan, we'll call him the co-conspirator, told me his band the Raygunomics were playing later that night and that I should drop by. Angie has not been a big fan of Bryan, so I was skeptical that she would want to go, but it turned out she did. I suppose this should have raised a red flag, but it didn't. I figured I had at least another week until I needed to be prepared.

Anyway, we had a fabulous dinner and then headed over to Lucky Strike in Belmar for Bryan's show. Much to my surprise, a bunch of our closest friends were there to surprise me and Bryan had been in on it all along. We had a fabulous night out and thoroughly enjoyed my birthday bash. It was most likely the car bombs that even got me to dance.

Thank you to everyone's birthday wishes. Oh, and Angie....WELL PLAYED!

Back to School

A new year, a new beginning for Angie.

Not long ago Angie decided she wanted something different for her career so she decided to go to esthetician school. We have been making preparations for her to be able to do so for several months. She finished 2009 out at Arckey and Reha, where she had been for a number of years. Since the year began, she has been diligently working on homework before her classes had even began. This past week was her first week of actual class and she has been thoroughly enjoying it.

Angie goes to school 3 days a week, but is able to be home everyday after school for Sidney. Not only does she get to spend additional time with Sid, she also gets to drive Sidney and her friend Rachel to and from school nearly everyday.

Her classes last 5 months, after which time she will be able to work in a spa doing facials and other spa services. She already has people looking forward to this, especially Sidney

First Post of 2010

This year started with a last minute business trip to California for me. I spent 10 days in Mountain View. I'm sure Angie was glad to get rid of me after spending so much time through the holidays.

While I was gone, Angie and Sid had a girls day, where they went out for lunch and shopping together. They really enjoy their one on one time when I am out of town, even if they do miss me. Sidney was able to spend some of her gift cards she received for Christmas.

I came back from California on Alex's 18th birthday. It's hard to believe she is already 18 years old. Seems like just yesterday we were welcoming her into the world. She has grown into such an amazing young lady and is a short 4 months away from graduating high school. How did the time pass so quickly?