I’m adding a paddleboard to my wishlist.

Adventurous people out there, TRY IT!  Here are some local rental providers:

http://twitter.com/#!/SUPindy

http://www.ripplewake.com/

http://www.rustedmoon.com/

Mend a fence:

One of our favorite photos from the weekend.  It’s our niece Cadence; she’s been a subject of ours for so long that she knows just how to ignore the camera.

Tend to the horses:

They always want attention.

Caitlin with her usual smile!  She acted as my assistant while I photographed the horses.

Check on the Hounds:

Trim Some Trees:

Travis is always excited about a tractor ride!

I think the post processing of this image tells a lot about the shot, super exaggerated!

That girl sure is a cutie pie!

Waking Up Early:

I don’t know if you can tell yet, but we love taking pictures of Ellie.  She’s been such a good car.

Here’s what I found in our yard…I didn’t realize we had quite the variety!

These are the leaves of a red raspberry bush.  We got a very small harvest last year…I think (and hope) in year 2 they’ll do much better.

Mom, your transplanted hostas are thriving!

And I didn’t kill your ferns either!  :)

These beautiful red leaves come from bushes in front of our home.  They were here before us, and Kurtis and I continually debate about whether they’ve gotten any larger.

I didn’t discover the droplets of water until I really got close.  I love it.

This is a small rose bush given to me as a birthday present a few years back.  It’s thriving too, and the buds are ready to bust!  Thanks, Tom and Heather.

These are flowers on our blueberry bush.  Now we just need some pollinators to make it happen!

Good ‘ole helicopters.  Fun to toss in the air…not so much fun to clean up.

This apple tree had big blossoms last week, but I think the cold may have gotten to them.  We’re hopeful for at least a small crop.

I couldn’t leave out my cute lawn boy who keeps everything in order!

Happy Spring!

Somewhere in the long list of things to do before I die sits the accomplishment of taking a “polar plunge.”  I’ve wanted to try it since I was a kid and saw these crazy people jumping into the ice-covered water on the news.  This past weekend I had a chance at the Indiana Special Olympics‘ Polar Plunge at Eagle Creek.  However, I was busy photographing the event.  So, I’ll have to wait to a little longer before I get to mark it off the list.  The best part about me choosing the warmer way to volunteer for the event is that I have photos to share.  So enjoy just a “few” of my favorites from the event.

Great Clips was there helping to put finishing touches on everyone’s costumes.

You burn a lot of calories while doing the plunge, Dunkin Donuts was there to put us back at normal.

The costumes were great!

And the winner is!

Scotty from 100.9 Radio Now could not stop squeezing the woopie cushion.

There was even dancing while the water was prepared.

Miss Indiana and Indiana Teen were there to warm everyone up!

The crowd of supporters was amazing.  Way to go fans of crazy people!

A HUGE Thanks to the Police and Firemen there to keep everything safe and fun!

Thanks for stopping by.  Get outside and enjoy this weather a little bit!

Saying goodbye is typically pretty hard to do.  But with how things have been lately, saying goodbye to Winter is going to be a little easier then normal!  Temperatures are finely rising above the freezing mark and it looks like we’ll even get into the low 40′s next week.  Days may still cool down a little in the coming months, but I have a good feeling that we’re seeing the last of the freezing weeks/months like we’ve  come from.  In a way, I’m sure we’ll miss it, we’re just having trouble right now thinking of what that way could possibly be.  So with spring just around the corner and all of the new opportunities that it’ll bring for us, we’re celebrating this weekend, as the last of the cold months.  We leave you with one of my  favorite winter pictures from this year to remember it by.

Here’s to getting outdoors more and more in the coming months!!!

Happy New Year everyone!  I know it’s the 4th, but it’s the first time we’ve been able to say it here on the blog.  I think 2010 is going to be a really good year!  And before we start recapping ’09 with our “best of” we have a couple other things to post.  Like sledding at the Ft. Wayne Bowersock’s house.  This past weekend we went up for Cadence’s 5th birthday (man they’re all getting big, fast).  And before the b-day party started we decided to go out and enjoy the hill in their new back yard.  So here are some of our favorites.

The reason we all came together… CADENCE!!!

Check out the view from the back yard!

The sledding hill was pretty small, but perfect for the little ones… okay, perfect for ALL of us!

Guess who!?!

There’s always fun to be had in the snow… even if all of the sleds are being used.

We hope this is a great year for all of our viewers!  We look forward to making this the best year of blogging EVER!

Clay… that’s “shootin’ the clay.”  As in clay pigeons.  It’s starting to become a tradition for my father’s “ThankChristmas!”  We find a full weekend somewhere in the middle of the crazy month between Thanksgiving and Christmas where we can all get together and spend a few days celebrating.  It’s much more relaxed then trying to see everyone for two hours on both Thanksgiving and Christmas Day.  We like it.  Plus, it gives us extra time to do things like going out to the shootin’ shack and and knocking clay pigeons out of the sky.

We rigged up an arm to hold the pigeon thrower!  If you look closely you can see the couple of welds that I put on.  Man I miss melting metal in sculpture class!

It was a cold day!  But even my little niece Caitlin came out to see the show.

In the past (more then a few years ago) it’s been my Dad that was the person to beat.  Even though he shared all of his secrets with us, he normally brought the trophy home with experience.

So remember how I said “used to be the person to beat.”  Well the past two times that we’ve done this, it’s been Jennifer that’s been the one to beat.  Last time she won with a perfect 5 for 5.  So this year, everyone was after her.  I don’t know if she was just toying with us or not, but in practice she went 0 for 6.  I think at that point we all felt a little better… that was until she went perfect in the first round and ended up going into a shoot off with one of my brothers.

Although she didn’t win in the final round, I think she was pretty happy to beat out 5 of 6 boys with a shotgun.

Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful day!