How lucky I am!

Let me tell you a little about what my wife has been doing.

About three years ago myself and another guy got the great idea to start a Bowfishing tournament. Well last year he decided it was to much work and up and quit. This left me to deal with all of this by myself, I am really good at thinking of crazy things to do but am not very good at organizing them. So with that said this caused me much stress. So she did all this plus directing me on what I needed to have done and when.

So here's what she did. Made a website (www.oregonbowfishing.com). Got enough sponsors to fill a raffle table that genarated over $1,500.00 worth of raffle tickets sold. Got a dinner for 80+ people organized and done without a hitch. Ran sign-in all Friday night and got everyone a packet, t-shirt, and weigh in card. She also made sure all of the kids under 16 got there kids packets with arrows and stickers and other goodies. She ran weigh in for 2 days which in-tails weighing about 12,000lbs of fish from 25 boats. Organized and directed about 12 volunteers. She did all of this and so much more I can't even begin to think of it all. In the end this thing goes no place without her. I am lucky to have her, and have her to tell me what do to and when to do it. I know this post doesn't even come close to telling everything she really did but well, maybe it's a start.

Thank you sweet pea I love you!
Neil

P.S.
Wanna go shoot some fish?

Gunnar's Happy Birthday

Well, folks . . . 10 years & 4 hours ago today, baby Gunnar entered the world at 2:14am.  He had a rough journey.  We like to attribute that to his large size and being the first kid.  He had a good sized head and pretty good shoulders and they literally had to suction him out.  Poor little babe.  It was only, oh . . . about 24 or more hours of labor and he was about to be yanked out via c-section. Glad the vacuum worked because after all that, cutting up my mid section might have been more than I could handle - maybe.

Anyway, we had the bestest nurse at the end, Becky.  She was so sweet.  Once I finally got the epidural and could rest for a while, she and I were talking at one point about newborns.  I was hoping my newborn would be cute to everyone, not just me.  There's many babies that only a mother can love - never believed that cliche until I started going to the OBGYN and seeing all the baby pics on the wall. :)  So, when Gunnar finally decided to show his little face, I didn't get to see him right away.  His long, stressful journey caused the medical staff to want to check him out first before they let me hold him (contrary to Paden where they just plopped him on my chest slime and all).  So, she tells me that "he's beautiful".  In an exhausted breath, I replied, "you aren't just saying that, are you?"  I really didn't need someone to lie to me at that moment, I guess.  Although he was pretty red and had a giant bruise on his head from the vacuum, he was pretty dang cute.  Of course he was, he looked just like me when I was born!  Ha ha ha ha.

The nurses commented a lot about how alert he was.

Not to long ago, I was cleaning the garage and found our old video camera with lots of videos of Gunnar as a newborn infant not doing anything.  We were silly parents.  They were pretty fun to watch though, even though at 3 days old, babies really don't do anything. 

Gunnar arrived early by just about 2 weeks.  I remember my co-workers were going to throw me a surprise baby shower and then I didn't come to work that day.  Funny thing is that with Paden, they did the same thing and Paden came even earlier, so I missed it again.  They planned it one week earlier and Paden came one week earlier. 

I love Gunnar to pieces.  He's still my baby (especially since Fischer constantly tells me he's not a baby).  Gunnar is awesome.  He's a good kid, although still a boy, he's a good kid.  He does boy stuff sometimes and makes silly boy decisions, but for the most part he's a good boy.

He's a fantastic big brother.  When Paden was born; he came into the hospital at 2 and a half years old and he just grew up by about 4 years that day.  He was chewing gum when he came in to see us and he was so happy to see his baby brother.  He's always been protective of Paden and Fischer.  He's now into Fischer more than Paden - he and Paden have been fighting a lot this last, oh let's say year.  I hope this coming school year will help that, as they will be in different schools.

Gunnar loves sports and playing outdoors.  He's always been a mud-lover.  He loves building anything out of "hook blocks" (duplo legos), K'nex, wood, metal, mud, etc.  He's also very athletic and loves to stay busy.  He likes video games, but would rather be doing something active.

Yep, he's naked in that mud pit; his favorite spot!

When we moved to Boardman, we couldn't (still can't) keep the boys out of the Columbia River.  We love it! And, oh how the boys miss that dog, Max. . .

Gunnar is pretty stubborn at many things; we're trying to break him of that.  He does take many things literal and sometimes has a hard time seeing the big picture, which I suppose are all teaching moments for us.  He is getting better about trying new things and branching out, but he and his brothers sometimes have a hard time dealing with change.  He definitely tries my patience at times.  He is getting more mature all the time and that makes me happy. :)  I want him to be trustworthy and be able to have a good time as he gets older.  He does have a sensitive heart and wants to be liked by everyone. 

We are having a little friend get together at our house today for him.  I am lamenting the fact that he is no longer single digits and he's almost as tall as me; he's got about 7 or 8 inches to go.  His feet are just about bigger than mine as well.  We'll be buying him men's size 5.5 or 6 boots for school this year.  I am thinking he's going to be a big kid!

It's been tradition since birthday number 1 to have a water park party with the Livingston family.  I think we are still going to do that this year, just having a hard time finding a date.  So, if you are in the Livingston family that usually goes to this shin-dig, it might be the 17th or 18th at Moses Lake.  We'll let Grandma know and she can post it on FB. :-)  I really didn't want to go to that venue on a Saturday, but Fridays probably aren't much better as far as size of crowds.  However, we have some t-shirt orders coming in, so we need to see when we can get those done as well.

I may or may not have current pictures of the kid, but the camera battery is dead and I just plugged it in to charge.  I will get some of him today though. :)

Anyhoo . . . Happy Birthday, Gunnar.  I love you with all my heart!