September 3rd, 2005
It was a toss up as to whether to label this with Haylie’s entry into High School or to recognize the specific event she was celebrating with her close friends (Kalee, Emily & Amy above). Her dad set the four girls up in the Walnut Street Inn for a Thursday evening before school started. The evening included a trip downtown (about six blocks away) and who knows what other adventures ensued. The next morning included a visit with a photographer to capture this brief moment in time. Raise your hand if you think it goes too fast.
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August 18th, 2005
Pictured above are Julie with her two youngest during their two week vacation in Anchorage this past July. Julie & family were visiting a high school friend and his family. Ron is a Master Sgt. in the USAF and has been in Alaska for twelve years now across two seperate tours. In what is quickly turning into an annual tradition, the kids got to celebrate the 4th of July and tour glaciers, white water raft and camp. Do you know how hard it is to enjoy fireworks when you are only 100 miles from the Artic Circle? It never gets dark enough!
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August 17th, 2005
Word locally is that Camp Barnabas has been chosen by the ABC Extreme Makeover team for their special effort. The construction got underway today and the results will be presented on the show in October. The picture above was one I found on the Camp Barnabas site last spring when I was helping Dave create the photo site for his wedding. The Camp obviously is dear to all of our hearts as that is where Dave met his beautiful bride, Greta Grawburg. More pictures can be found on their wedding photo site at Flickr
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August 10th, 2005
Chris’ senior photos came in this week and we are very happy. Sarah Hicks, an SMSU (MSU later this month) student did the ”shoot” and provided the pictures on CD for our use. I’ve uploaded Haylie’s favorite and I’ll add some more soon (I have a limit on the photo sharing site, may have to pay to go “Pro” one of these days). If you’d like a copy click on the photo and go to the site and download it. Ahh, technology!
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August 6th, 2005
Thursday August 4th was the date of this summer’s float trip as well as Wedding Anniversary’s for Mary Pat & David and Margaret & Art. We celebrated on the Meramec River with 20 attendees including
Mary Pat and her sons Dave, Dan & Drew
Mary Kay and Monte with their son Joey
Jack
Bob and Christy with their two youngest, John & Julia
Julie with her two youngest, Chris & Haylie, along with Haylie’s girlfriend Emily
Lucy and Bob and their son Eric
and of course, moi
David was working hard at his new job, JoAnne is somewhere between the UK and DC along with Peter, and Jessica was taking advantage of her new swinging girls bachelorette pad just West of the SMSU campus. We somehow were able to stretch the five mile float into a 7 hour adventure, returning just before the 6:30pm closing time. We used the Blue Springs Resort out of Bourbon Missouri like last year and got to sit out a brief lightning show early into the adventure which gave us a good excuse to hang out on a gravel bar for an extended period. We had one or two folks feel the hair on their necks tingle but otherwise didn’t feel endangered by the conditions. Bob seemed to be on a personal fishing trip for the majority of the day but Lucy & Eric were in the middle of things as her son and Joey, the two youngest floaters, kept things lively and interesting for the rest of us. Oh, and Julie got to share her new tattoo with us!
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July 31st, 2005
As noted in the earlier post, Chris is beginning his senior season at Glendale HS. While formal practice, as mandated by the Missouri HS Athletic Association, doesn’t begin until August 8th, there is a Team Camp put on by SMSU as part of their summer soccer camps. It has become a regular tradition for several of the schools here in Springfield and this year it began on Friday July 22nd and ran until Monday July 25th. There were 11 teams participating including Glendale, Kickapoo and Parkview locally. This photo is from camp and it’s good to see Chris out and working hard. He took the spring club season off and if he can shake off the rust it looks like it will have been a good choice. There are more photos on my soccer site if you are interested.
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July 31st, 2005
I celebrated Independence Day with my parents as well as my youngest sister Lucy and her son Eric this year. As is our tradition, after dinner we walked across the backyard to your neighbors house and then onto their front lawn across the street from the Florissant Civic Center. From there we were able to enjoy the fireworks display that went off less then 300 yards away. The Johnson’s have been our neighbors for many years now and they have a six year old daughter who enjoys it when Eric is visiting his grandparents. There are more photos available by clicking on the photo above.
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July 31st, 2005
The Springfield Business Journal did a recent cover story on downtown housing development where several hundred new loft apartments will become available in 2005. As part of the story, which ran in the June 27th issue, they featured three individuals who have chosen to live in lofts. One young man of 22 was moving into a new space that same week, a young woman of 26 who works for a photo studio downtown has been living here for five years and then there was me. I was the token old guy of 49 (it’s true!) and I’ve been downtown since January 2004. We were each pictured on the front cover, the photo on the left was taken in my loft and was on the cover. That’s my wine cooler in the background along with a couple of batiks done by Robert Saupan on the right and my sister Julie on the left. There was another photo taken in the hallway outside the unit featuring a stained glass decorative insert that was featured on the inside finish of the article.
Two weeks earlier the Business Editor, Eric Olson (I kid you not!), wrote a column where he discussed the “Blogging phenomenom” that is getting attention in the media. He pointed to one busines blog and noted there were not any others that he could find but he then pointed to several that had come to his attention. My soccer website, which is blog-based, was one of those sites. He found me for both articles because his graphic designer & layout editor is developing a logo for my soccer website. Another example of ‘it’s who you know’.
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July 31st, 2005
Chris is going to be a senior at Glendale HS on the Southeast side of town this year. On June 24th an SMSU student in the photography program did a photo shoot in downtown Springfield for his senior photos. Sarah Hicks attends RiverBluff Fellowship church where Chris’ Dad is the head pastor and that is how we found her. This particular location is a block away from my loft apartment downtown. I suggested it since I regular see photo shoots occuring there while working in my office (unit B) or at home (unit A).
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June 10th, 2005
Mom & Dad, along with Lucy & Eric and I attended the wedding of Dave Bishline and Greta Grawburg in La Crosse, WI on June 4th. The photo above is of Eric along with Joey Caldwell, who is two months older then Eric and the son of Monte & Mary Kay Caldwell. Mary Kay is the youngest of the Wagner girls and Dave’s aunt. We spend all of our holidays with the Wagner siblings and their extended families, usually hosting Easter & Thanksgiving while Mary Kay or Mary Pat (mother of the groom) host Christmas Day dinner.
The weather was beautiful in La Crosse, the reception was held in the Radisson located on the Mississippi river in the restored downtown area of La Crosse and a good time was had by all. We also had a chance to visit with Larry & Claudi Olson and their children Andrew & Hannah on our return trip to St. Louis. The Olson’s live in Waukon, IA which is less then 90 minutes from La Crosse. Andrew graduated from Dubuque College this May with a degree in Airport Operations while Hannah is a freshman at Mt. Mercy in Cedar Rapids.
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