So we apologize for not keeping up with our blog. I think the kids and our awesome jobs keep us going in so many directions that the blog gets overlooked some times. I will recount some things that are going on or have happened recently.
Reese has been potty training and doing an amazing job. Holly got her hands on a 3 day intensive potty training course through others in the Relief Society. It consists of 3 days where the child has no pants on and you follow them around waiting for them to tell you when they need to go. Reese was starting off on a good foot as she already had been telling us when she was going or had just gone and woke up in the mornings dry. So thanks to Holly's mom, Linda, who took Reese for the weekend and got things going. I won't lie, there were a few accidents, but not that many. She's in panties and loves it.
I have had some crazy things happen at work. I'm currently wearing a brace on my right ankle after I tore up a tendon after jumping out of a parking garage (10-12ft up) to the side walk in order to break up a domestic between a couple on the 16th of September. I'll be scheduling an MRI tomorrow as it's failed to get better in all this time.
Just after that I had a run in with two students after work. I mistakenly veered away from my normal route home early one morning and a student knocked my passenger side mirror off. When I got out and confronted him and his buddy they got a little physical. Even after identifying myself as a police officer and showing them my ID they attempted to flee the scene and fight me in the hall ways of their residence hall that I followed them into. they got away but I had an idea of who my offender was due to eye witnesses. When I came to work at 4pm I was mad and ready to get these guys. The offender happen to run into me in the hallway and now that I was in uniform he was promptly arrested. His buddy and him spent that night in jail and added to their criminal charges, they are being dismissed from the university.
This last Saturday we had a home football game. They are pretty big events with a stadium that holds 63,000. After the event a Sergeant and myself were questioning a guy and girl over some damaged property when the girl tried to walk off. The Sergeant told her to stop and when she didn't he went after her. Her brother (the male) reached out to stop the Sergeant and I quickly grabbed him and pulled him away to tell him laying hands on a police officer was a no no. He shoved me and the tussle was on. He spent the night in jail and if the pattern holds then I assume he'll be dismissed from the university as well.
We've gotten our projector up in the basement. We are no really utilizing this area and it's awesome. Watching Texas football on 100 inches of High Def DLP is like no other. We all watched the cartoon Monsters vs. Aliens last night for Family Home Evening and it was cool. I got to warn you though. Once you go projector....any flat screen seems small and you'll never go back. Just need some decent theater seats now. I'll put some pictures up soon.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Saturday, September 12, 2009
She wears high heels, I wear T-Shirts...
Reese has a shoe fetish at such a young age :)
She points to my shoes and cries for me to take them off so she can wear them around the house. She walks pretty good in heels too!
She points to my shoes and cries for me to take them off so she can wear them around the house. She walks pretty good in heels too!
Horses, Lizards, and Pools
It has been awhile since I have put any pictures up so I thought I'd get my camera out and give you all an update. Piper is 10 months old already and loves to do anything and everything her older sisters do. She is quite the eater unlike her sisters. She ate as much as I did tonight at the Olive Garden!
Alyssa loves preschool. Her speech teacher said she no longer needs help and talks a lot in the classroom. She also said she is a natural leader in the class. Alyssa is a great big sister too.
Reese...the problem with Reese is that she is so cute it is hard to punish her :)
Grandma Linda and smiling Piper
Our friends Jeff and Becky went swimming with us.
The 3 Rascals. Everyone accompanies Piper as she finishes her bottles on the couch.
Our neighbor Elaina has lizards and the girls love holding and petting them. The only problem is when Reese is finished with anything..cell phone, sippy cup, toy...she throws it. Shortly after the lizard got it too. She was ok though.
Alyssa loves preschool. Her speech teacher said she no longer needs help and talks a lot in the classroom. She also said she is a natural leader in the class. Alyssa is a great big sister too.
Reese...the problem with Reese is that she is so cute it is hard to punish her :)She is the mischievous one always pushing the limits. She only weighs 3 lbs more than Piper baby (as she calls her) and the two of them like to wrestle.
Grandma Linda and smiling Piper
Our friends Jeff and Becky went swimming with us.
The 3 Rascals. Everyone accompanies Piper as she finishes her bottles on the couch.
Our neighbor Elaina has lizards and the girls love holding and petting them. The only problem is when Reese is finished with anything..cell phone, sippy cup, toy...she throws it. Shortly after the lizard got it too. She was ok though.
Monday, July 13, 2009
The Softer Side of SWAT Training
Bobby is in Missouri for the week doing SWAT training. I am usually the one traveling and this is his first time away for an extended period of time in awhile. You can tell he misses being a dad by the videos he has sent. Here are a few of my favorites :)
SORRY. THIS VIDEO WAS DELETED AS IT WAS TOO EMBARRASSING.
The girls know all the the lyrics to this song, You Belong with Me by Taylor Swift and apparently so does Bobby!
This is a favorite of Reese and Alyssa!
SORRY. THIS VIDEO WAS DELETED AS IT WAS TOO EMBARRASSING.
The girls know all the the lyrics to this song, You Belong with Me by Taylor Swift and apparently so does Bobby!
This is a favorite of Reese and Alyssa!
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Piper Crawling
On my way to the gym the other day Holly sent me this video. Seems Piper was seen crawling for the first time after a Cheeto of all things. Enjoy.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Big Screen
2 big new additions in the basement were completed this last week. The hidden media center and the fixed frame screen. The oak bookshelf holds dvds and VHS and then opens up to reveal the swivel and pull out media rack. The screen is 100"x 42.6" and is meant for wide screen viewing. If you recall there are speakers behind it, just like a movie theater, and the screen material is acoustically transparent for that reason. I didn't add it, but you can see the carpet and base boards are in aswell. Now the seating, a projector, and some decor are all that's needed to complete the project.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Coming Along
Here's an update to the basement. The paint has been going up as the flooring is coming in on Monday. The finishing work is much slower than the framing and drywall, but we are anxious to movein.
Monday, April 6, 2009
Friday, April 3, 2009
More on the basement
So here are some more pictures of where we are today. Actually, we are waiting for the drywallers to come inside and get to work. Looks like they are amassing in the driveway as we speak.
In these pictures you can see the south wall and indention for the media rack which I think I've mentioned will be covered by a bookshelf for dvds that opens on a piano hinge. Next is the kid's knook. There's the bench/toy chest and the green tape signifies where the drywallers are not to hang drywall as that is the built in bookshelf.
Here is the screen wall with speaker enclosures.
This is the new closet Holly had added in her office for when everyone comes to visit and stays in this spare bedroom.
This picture is from the screen wall out.
And this is the drywall that somehow made it's way in through the egress window.
In these pictures you can see the south wall and indention for the media rack which I think I've mentioned will be covered by a bookshelf for dvds that opens on a piano hinge. Next is the kid's knook. There's the bench/toy chest and the green tape signifies where the drywallers are not to hang drywall as that is the built in bookshelf.
Here is the screen wall with speaker enclosures.
This is the new closet Holly had added in her office for when everyone comes to visit and stays in this spare bedroom.
This picture is from the screen wall out. And this is the drywall that somehow made it's way in through the egress window.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
The Basement Remodel
So I've meant to keep everyone posted on our remodel of the basement through weekly pictures. unfortunately with Holly traveling a lot lately the camera found it's way with her and so most of the pictures I have are on a cell phone I have no idea how to download. Yet, I do have some pictures. Just so everyone is on the same page, the basement was somewhat finished. If you call slapping some drywall up to 2x4s and painting concrete walls red a finished basement. It was extremely cold in even the hottest months and the kids had no desire to be down there. This left us with 700 unused square fe
et of house.
Our good friends and neighbors across the street who share the same floor plan got the ball rolling when Ryan finished his basement after 4 yrs and I must say he did an outstanding job. Ryan really knows what he's doing and took time to put a lot of detail in his work. His results really inspired our build
. Here are 
some photos of his basement bef
ore the finishing touches.
Since in use our neighbors say the spend a majority of the time downstairs now and the rest of the house is uncluttered and kept a bit cleaner. This sounded very appealing to us so we resolved to do likewise with our basement. I figured I'd watched enough of the DIY network to do the project myself and with my days off I could easily be done in less time than Ryan. Well if the tools I used for the demo was an indication of my skill level then I was terribly wrong. I have no tools. I ended up pulling trim and drywall off with a pink hammer that came as a Mary Kay gift for my wife and 2 chisels my mother-in-law brought over. That and a borrowed reciprocating saw I was able to do 90% of the demo.
At this time I quickly figured out that I wasn't going to have the time nor the ability to do a job that was 1/8th to what my neighbor Ryan had done so we went to a family friend who is a General Contractor. Our needs for this project were a place that kids and parents migrated to. We wanted to turn the old room that house the 30 boa constrictors at one time into an office for Holly. One week later Jack and his partner Ron were finishing up the cleanup and knocking down walls.
First order of business was the HVAC system. We needed two extra vents ran to make one in Holly's office and 3 in the remainder of the basement. When the guys were in doing the duct work they found a large hole in the return that was sucking cold air in, causing the furnace to believe it was colder than it really was. Problem now solved and by widening the main ducting coming off of the furnace by 2 inches they were able to put two vents in the main seating area of the living room and one in the kids knook while still being able to add one in the office.
You can see in the above photo that the wall that followed the stairs out has been halved. As you come down the stairs to the right is the door leading into the office/spare bedroom. Originally, this wall went the length of the basement and was literally a junk room of Mary Kay stuff while the office was used to house my snakes. The wall was taken out and in it's place we planed to have a kids knook with a built in bookshelf and bench/toy chest for the kids. The wall with the two white doors is our main screen wall. It will house 3 in-wall speakers and a 92" diagonal screen that measures about 102" in width. Behind it is some storage along with the furnace and water heater. The right door will be framed off and eventually a bathroom will be added, but probably not with this build.
I must apologizes at this point because most of the build pictures are on my phone which I've yet to down load. So we'll skip two weeks to where we are today. Framing went up, electrician came in and hung 9 recessed cans along with a slew of outlets, and the insulation was added. My part in all this was the theater portion. Iwant this to be a place we can gather as a family and watch some movies together as it's hard getting all 5 of us out and about. Plus, come college football season I want to seem like I'm on the field with the Texas Longhorns. So I opted for some real nice Polk Audio in-wall speakers and built enclosures for them to optimize the sound. You can see how they are mounted flush with the walls and only the painted screens will be visible once it's all said and done. We upgraded the reciever and now have the PS3 for bluray. We will be getting a screen that is acoustically transparent. Basically it's micro perforated to allow the audio to pass through from the front speakers so things will seem like thier jumping out of the screen. A 500 watt HSU subwoofer next to the seats and a Panasonic AE3000U 1080p LCD projector rounds out the media.
This is the entrance to the downstairs. we opted to take the door out and move it to the base of the stairway. This gives a more inviting feeling to me and mimics the upstairs.
Here is the new doorway and Jack our general contractor.
Where Jack is standing, Holly's office is just behind him
I'll post more tomorrow.
et of house.
Our good friends and neighbors across the street who share the same floor plan got the ball rolling when Ryan finished his basement after 4 yrs and I must say he did an outstanding job. Ryan really knows what he's doing and took time to put a lot of detail in his work. His results really inspired our build
. Here are 
some photos of his basement bef
ore the finishing touches.
Since in use our neighbors say the spend a majority of the time downstairs now and the rest of the house is uncluttered and kept a bit cleaner. This sounded very appealing to us so we resolved to do likewise with our basement. I figured I'd watched enough of the DIY network to do the project myself and with my days off I could easily be done in less time than Ryan. Well if the tools I used for the demo was an indication of my skill level then I was terribly wrong. I have no tools. I ended up pulling trim and drywall off with a pink hammer that came as a Mary Kay gift for my wife and 2 chisels my mother-in-law brought over. That and a borrowed reciprocating saw I was able to do 90% of the demo.
At this time I quickly figured out that I wasn't going to have the time nor the ability to do a job that was 1/8th to what my neighbor Ryan had done so we went to a family friend who is a General Contractor. Our needs for this project were a place that kids and parents migrated to. We wanted to turn the old room that house the 30 boa constrictors at one time into an office for Holly. One week later Jack and his partner Ron were finishing up the cleanup and knocking down walls.First order of business was the HVAC system. We needed two extra vents ran to make one in Holly's office and 3 in the remainder of the basement. When the guys were in doing the duct work they found a large hole in the return that was sucking cold air in, causing the furnace to believe it was colder than it really was. Problem now solved and by widening the main ducting coming off of the furnace by 2 inches they were able to put two vents in the main seating area of the living room and one in the kids knook while still being able to add one in the office.
You can see in the above photo that the wall that followed the stairs out has been halved. As you come down the stairs to the right is the door leading into the office/spare bedroom. Originally, this wall went the length of the basement and was literally a junk room of Mary Kay stuff while the office was used to house my snakes. The wall was taken out and in it's place we planed to have a kids knook with a built in bookshelf and bench/toy chest for the kids. The wall with the two white doors is our main screen wall. It will house 3 in-wall speakers and a 92" diagonal screen that measures about 102" in width. Behind it is some storage along with the furnace and water heater. The right door will be framed off and eventually a bathroom will be added, but probably not with this build.
I must apologizes at this point because most of the build pictures are on my phone which I've yet to down load. So we'll skip two weeks to where we are today. Framing went up, electrician came in and hung 9 recessed cans along with a slew of outlets, and the insulation was added. My part in all this was the theater portion. Iwant this to be a place we can gather as a family and watch some movies together as it's hard getting all 5 of us out and about. Plus, come college football season I want to seem like I'm on the field with the Texas Longhorns. So I opted for some real nice Polk Audio in-wall speakers and built enclosures for them to optimize the sound. You can see how they are mounted flush with the walls and only the painted screens will be visible once it's all said and done. We upgraded the reciever and now have the PS3 for bluray. We will be getting a screen that is acoustically transparent. Basically it's micro perforated to allow the audio to pass through from the front speakers so things will seem like thier jumping out of the screen. A 500 watt HSU subwoofer next to the seats and a Panasonic AE3000U 1080p LCD projector rounds out the media.
This is the entrance to the downstairs. we opted to take the door out and move it to the base of the stairway. This gives a more inviting feeling to me and mimics the upstairs.
Here is the new doorway and Jack our general contractor.
Where Jack is standing, Holly's office is just behind him
I'll post more tomorrow.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
High Speed Low Drag
Every boy dreams of it and every guy thinks it's the coolest thing they've seen. Heck, the even make movies of it. Well that one thing is a S.W.A.T. team and I'm excited to say I've officially been appointed a spot on our department's METRO S.W.A.T. team. This is another exciting chapter in my career, let alone my life and it's been a spot I'd been hoping for the day I was hired. Just so happens on of our K9 officers is a S.W.A.T. operator and is leaving the team after 12 yrs of service. I passed a physical test and an interview with team leaders in order to be recommended to the Chief who ultimately decided ya or nay. I've already begun training with the team which consist of 6 other operators, one of whom is an Explosive Ordinance Disposal (E.O.D.) teach and liaison with the Department's Bomb Squad. METRO S.W.A.T. consist of operators from UIPD (my department), Champaign County Sherriffs Department, Urbana Police Department, and Rantoul Police Department. I am slated to attend formal S.W.A.T. school in May for 10 days here at the U of I's Police Training Institute.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
