Another Month Gone... March

March was a pretty busy month, but with the weather the way it's been we didn't get to go outside too much. We started the month off with a visit to my cousins in Rolla. Thanks to Tammy, JD, Sherry, Mary and Simon for a great visit. We spent the afternoon with them and had a great dinner. It was nice to catch up with what they have been doing and we got to congratulate Mary and Simon on their new home. Unfortunately we didn't bring our camera, so we don't have any pictures to share. That same weekend we had my other cousins out (Rae, Charlene, Carla, Barbara and my Aunt Betty) to my Mom's house to go through it one last time before we turned it over to the auction company. Father Time Auctions did a great job setting up and taking care of everything related to the auction. But more on that later. My crazy cousins were wanting to surprise Savannah with a new bicycle, but Savannah wasn't with us at my Mom's that day, so we had to surprise her with their gift when we got home. She absolutely loved it! Later that week we had a whole lot of fun making Pizza! Savannah loves pizza, so, as a family, we rolled out the crust and put all the toppings on ourselves. Savannah, Mommy and Daddy all had a really good time putting it all together. Savannah was very proud with the final product and had no problem eating a whole bunch of it for dinner. The following weekend we had the Schneider’s over for dinner. They came out mid afternoon and we lucked out, it was a fairly nice day. Since they moved out to no-man’s-land Illinois, we don’t get to see them very much except when the Rolla crowd gets together and Linda and I missed a couple of those gatherings this year, so it was a lot of fun hanging out and catching up. Savannah and Cayden played really well together and pretty much wore each other out. Their youngest, Delanie, is just cute as a button, but for some reason, I didn’t get any pictures of her. Sorry about that Jay & Jen, I don’t know what happened. The next weekend was the big auction at my Mom’s house. I didn’t go. It was just a little too weird for me. But my lovely wife went to represent the Denison’s and to make sure everything went well, and it did. Father Time Auctions did a tremendous job. They came in and set everything up. From taking things out of the drawers and closets, cleaning them up to be shown, setting them on tables and then conducting the auction and cleaning up. They were a one-stop shop and 100% professional. If anyone is ever in need of these types of services, I highly recommend them. The week after the auction was a very exciting week here at the Denison House. See, the Denison’s were going to purchase a piece of ground with the money from my Mother’s estate (a small piece as there wasn’t much there). But as we discussed it, with Savannah growing up, and as she starts getting into sports and other activities, we probably wouldn’t get any use out of ground. So, we decided to save the majority of it and take a small portion and get Daddy that fishing boat he has always wanted. I cannot be more happy about this decision. We got a 2009 Skeeter ZX190 which is a 19’ (18’-5”) bass boat. Complete with electronics and a Yamaha 175. We haven’t had a chance to get it out very much as the weather hasn’t been very good, but we have gotten out a few times. Matt Maher and I took Savannah out last weekend. She LOVED it. When we first took off she started to scream and cry, but once we planed off, she was cool. Then she played with her toys and had a snack while we fished a bit. After we made the 65 MPH run back to the harbor, she was laughing. She had a grin ear-to-ear and kept saying “Go Fast Daddy, Go Fast”. It was awesome. That was the near the end of March. The following weekend I fished my first tournament at the Lake of the Ozarks with Steve Moore. We caught fish where some people didn’t. It was just a work tournament so the there wasn’t a lot of pressure and we had a really good time. That was March in a nutshell. Hopefully we will do a better job in the coming future keeping this Blog up-to-date. My work laptop quit working and we have been without for quite sometime. Without having a laptop, it’s not as convenient to update this thing. However, we hope to have another laptop for our use soon, thus more updates!

And There Went February

We must apologize once again. No excuses, we just haven’t updated the blog in over a month. We’ve been snapping pictures, just haven’t been doing anything with them. At the beginning of February, Savannah had her Second Birthday! We were all very excited, but not nearly as excited as the big Birthday Girl. The week leading to her Birthday we would ask her “What is going to be on your birthday cake?” She would always reply “Cupcakes! Cupcakes Mommy!” because she knew she was going to be getting cupcakes at Miss Jenny’s house. She had a Nemo cake. Actually it was a Clown Fish cake, because Disney/Pixar has copy righted Nemo. On the Saturday before her Birthday we had the immediate family over. Linda’s Brother and Sister came over with their families and Linda’s parents were over as well as Grandma Huster. We had BBQ and Nemo Birthday Cake. Savannah had a lot of fun playing with all of her cousins. Then on Monday she got to open her gifts from Mommy and Daddy and have more Cake! She was really into tearing into her presents this year and would get really excited every time she opened one. Her eyes would get big and she would pull the gift out of the wrapper and say “Oooooh” then take the gift to Mommy and look for the next one. For the week or two following her Birthday she would say “Present Mommy? Present?” Thinking she was going to get more presents. Luckily that finally stopped. This year she got a lot of stuff for her baby doll. She loves playing with her baby doll and has become quite the Mother Hen. She got a stroller from Miss Jenny and a high chair from Mommy and Daddy. I think Pup gets to use them more than her baby doll. She just loves to take Pup for a walk or feed her baby doll. And of course you can’t have a Birthday without balloons. I don’t know why we buy her toys. All she needs is a box, some balloons and a flashlight. She was running around the house letting her balloons fly behind her for nearly an hour. She was absolutely crazy. Then, naturally, she got tired of all the running and laid down on the couch. Did she let go of those balloons? Heavens no. She just hung on to them. One of her newest favorites is to play with the Play Dough she got on Christmas. The first time we got it out she was very excited and there were lots of Ooohs and Aaahs. She made starts and shapes and rolled it into balls. Then we got the little machine out that pushes the Play Dough through the little stencils making long strands of Play Dough. That was fine until we made the spaghetti. She thought it looked like snakes and she wanted nothing to do with it. She would back up in her chair and act as though she was scared. It was quite amusing. But now she just thinks it’s spaghetti and makes meatballs to go with it. We have been having lots of fun here at the Denison house. We’ve also been working really hard. We’ve gotten Mom’s house cleaned out for the most part. At least we have it organized into “sell” and “keep”. We have scheduled the auction of the contents of the house for March 21, 2009. I don’t know what time it will start yet, but it will be in the morning. We have also worked out a deal on the house, so we think we have it sold. Actually we know we do, but we don’t have the paperwork all completed so we can’t count it as sold just yet. Other than that we’ve just been hanging out with friends and playing with the coolest little girl on the planet. We’ll try to get this updated sooner next time, but we make no promises.

Let's Get Everyone Caught Up

We’ve been a little lazy when it comes to updating the blog. I apologize for that. No excuses, just haven’t taken time to sit down and do a little updating. Since I’ve been back from Colorado we haven’t done too much. We did get to finally celebrate Savannah’s birthday with my cousins. The first weekend had to be cancelled because Linda got the flu and then I was in Colorado. Granted, we did miss quite a few, there was still a good crowd. Bob and Barbara brought Bobby II as well as Aunt Betty. It was fun to see Bobby and Savannah playing together. Savannah got many nice things. Rae and Charlene brought out an outside, fold up, plastic table complete with umbrella. Savannah and her friends will get a lot of use out of that this summer when we barbeque on the deck. Then last weekend we didn’t really do anything. As for Savannah, she has started going down the stairs now. So all she wants to do is play on the stairs. Otherwise, she just keeps getting bigger and better at communicating what she needs (or wants). The big news for Linda and I is that Jimmy Buffett is coming in concert! We were so excited to hear this. Tickets went on sale Monday at 10:00 and we got our tickets. We were lucky to get them too. It was my understanding that Verizon Amphitheater (Riverport) sold out in 40 minutes. Our good friend Laura had to get tickets through alternate means because they sold out. But we are all going and we cannot wait. It has been 8 years since he has been here in concert. We’ve had 3 friends have 3 kinds in the last 3 weeks. It’s kind of amazing. Lots of new friends for Savannah to play with! We got to take advantage of the weather the last few days. Savannah loves to walk up and down the driveway. Well, mainly down the drive way. She loves it outside. She loves the wind blowing in her face. She just looks into the wind, squints her eyes and smiles while the wind blows her hair around. I think she is going to love going on the boat this summer. Linda and I are looking forward to getting her out there.

Quick Update, The Birthday

Yesterday we had the Husters, Schusters and Grandma Denison over for Savannah’s birthday. It was a great time. Savannah loves all of her gifts and wanted me to tell everyone thank you for thinking of her and celebrating her birthday with her. She enjoyed her birthday cake quite a bit. It took her a few minutes to figure out that she could eat it, but once she realized that, it was on! We also had the new Denison Family Portrait taken. We think it’s really good and are going to have it blown up to hang over the fireplace. OK, well maybe not. It does capture the essence of the family. Now we are looking forward to next weekend’s festivities.

Happy Birthday Savannah!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SAVANNAH! It's finally here, she is ONE! So this morning she got to open her gifts from Mom and Dad. It took her a minute to get started, but she tore into the gifts, pulling the paper off like she knew what she was doing. It's going to be a busy afternoon. We are all excited for the big girl crossing another milestone.

Tomorrow's the Big Day!

It’s hard to believe that a year ago tonight we went out to dinner with friends and had our last night together as a childless couple. At 0300 tomorrow morning Linda was waking me up to tell me it was time. Of course I had no idea what was going on at first, yet I jumped up and off we went to the hospital. It was some 19 hours later that Little Miss Savannah was born. One year later we are fixing dinner and getting ready to put the (almost) One Year Old to bed. A lot has changed in this past year. Obviously the Little One had grown a bit, but I think Linda and I have changed too. It’s funny how your focus can change overnight. I do have this funny feeling that both Linda and I will probably get a little more sleep this year, than we did a year ago tonight. Thank you everyone for making Miss Savannah’s first year a great one to remember.