Is it Spring yet?

So, it seems winter will last forever this time around. I must have missed the memo that I moved to the Arctic tundra…

As you could guess from the time between this post and my last (Christmas), I’ve been a bit busy. Work has really picked up as we work towards releasing a new student system. I’ve spent a lot of time at work and a lot of working at home. It doesn’t look to slow down much until Summer. That’s job security for ya.

Morgan continues to get taller and smarter. She doesn’t miss a beat and really enjoys talking… Annie and I already know we will get “those” letters from school down the road. “Morgan is a good student, but she likes to talk during class…”. I even uploaded some pictures today to Shutterfly. Its a big day!

Annie has been pretty busy at work lately too. Misty had a healthy baby boy a couple weeks ago so they are down to 2 at the office. Annie and Jacquie seem to be managing it well.

I started swim lessons a couple weeks ago. That is going OK. Its a bit frustrating to not just “get it” right away, but it is coming along. Hopefully by the end (2 more weeks) I’ll be able to at least *not* drown in the water. In about a month Morgan starts swim lessons. Its a kind of daddy/mommy and me class. She loves bathes, so we assume she’ll have fun with this too.

I’ve about had it with being on a computer for the week, so I’m making this short. Just wanted to let you all know we are still alive and kicking.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas from the Wittrocks!

We have already began the Christmas celebration as of this past weekend. We went back to Battle Creek to celebrate Christmas with our families. We had a great time seeing family and sharing gifts and time with each other. This was the first year we celebrated early and loved it. We didn’t have to rush home right away and Morgan loved getting to play with her new toys. She got a nice toolset from Uncle Bryce that she has been using around the house this week “fixing” things. She also got a trike from Grandma and Grandpa Wittrock that she has been using to chase the dogs around the house. She can’t quite reach the peddles, but still gets around just fine. The books Morgan got from Grandma Sheila have been a hit as has the Play Doh from Uncle Matt and Aunt Jill. Long story short, she loves all the gifts. Be sure to check out the ever growing Christmas 2009 album on Shutterfly to see all the presents and Morgan and us in all our glory. There you will also see the wonderful sweatshirt from the Mallow’s, complete with our last name on it! You’ll also see our Christmas sweaters. I have to say, I will wear my sweater again. Annie did a nice job of picking something festive and trendy looking out.

We are planning on having a fun family Christmas at home this week. Looks like we picked a good year to do so as the weather doesn’t look like it is going to cooperate with any sort of traveling. We are supposed to start off with some freezing rain, sleet, rain, snow, etc tomorrow afternoon sometime. The weather isn’t supposed to end until sometime Friday/Saturday. At this point the weathermen don’t really know what is going to happen, just that it will not be good. All we have to do is get Annie home from work tomorrow and we can hole up in the house for 4-5 days.

I have been home with Morgan this week. I was actually home last Friday too. I am on furlough (time off without pay) since last Friday through tomorrow. As part of the $10 million reversion Governor Chet (Mr. Incredible) ordered, all UNI staff have to take some furlough days. All except for the stubborn faculty anyways…don’t get me started. Morgan’s day care is closed this week and next so I decided to take my days now and get it over with. We have been having fun playing with old toys, new toys, coloring, watching movies, daddy and Morgan stuff. It has been a lot of fun. We get one more day and then Annie will be home and it will be family fun days.

Keep checking the Christmas album as I’m sure I’ll have many more pictures to upload after this week.

Happy Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving has come and gone and December is just around the corner…

We hosted Thanksgiving this year and had the whole family show up. We had good food and good times getting together. Annie and I are happy to say all the food from Thanksgiving is gone now and we can get back to our normal eating… Morgan picked Thanksgiving of all days to be semi-sick. She complained her ear hurt and had a temp for part of the day. By the late afternoon/evening she was doing better and was just fine again on Friday. No idea was was wrong, but it was a bummer that it happened on Thanksgiving. Here are pictures from Thanksgiving.

Friday morning Annie and I hit up the two Harley shops in town to cash in on a few deals they had. We did not go out in the wee hours of the morning like the crazies, we waited until about 8:30. I did have to run back to the mall just before noon and the crazies were in full force at that point. I got in, got out and vowed to not leave the house anymore that day. Later Friday we put up the Christmas tree and Morgan helped! Check out pictures of her helping here. She has had fun finding various ornaments on the tree since we’ve had it up. She knows which ornament is hers from this year, finds Snickers’ and Harley’s ornaments and finds all the Batman ornaments. I even had her turn the lights on the tree on Saturday. She thinks she’s pretty big stuff.

Saturday was a gorgeous day so I put up the outside Christmas lights. Later that night we took Morgan out to see the pretty lights. She was very impressed with Dad’s good work.

Here are some more miscellaneous pictures from this month.

Still here!

I have been hearing a lot of mumbles about the lack of posts on this blog lately. Oddly, nothing has been said to me directly until Annie told me I needed to sit down and do a blog tonight. I haven’t posted since just after we got back from Sturgis in August, so grab a cup of coffee, this could be a long one…

Training has slowed down some at work, but the meetings have picked up even more. We are neck-deep in the planning stages of this new student system and its been a bit hectic. I spend most of my days in meetings or training lately. I’ve even been doing quite a bit of work from home to try to keep my head above water at this point. I’m not expecting things to let up any time soon (maybe in 2 years??). As I’m sure many of you have heard, there are more budget cuts at the state level that trickle down to the state universities. The Board of Regents meets this Thursday at UNI to discuss each campuses plans to handle these cuts. Not sure what exactly UNI’s plan is, but we will know soon. I’m not too concerned about losing my job, but I could see some benefits reduced or some furloughs coming down the pipe. It will definitely be interesting around UNI. My department is already overworked and underpaid and it could just get worse. But at least we all have jobs.

It had slowed down a bit at Annie’s office lately with school starting back up. They have their busy weeks still, but they actually have time to breath now. The time around Thanksgiving is already booked for them though. Nothing like getting your teeth pulled around the biggest eating holiday of them all. In other office news, Misty (Annie’s co-worker) is pregnant. The doctor’s tell them they are having a boy.

Annie and I have been on our new healthy “lifestyle change” for about 9 months now. We both lost quite a bit of weight early on and are happy to say we’ve kept it off. I lost almost 40 pounds and Annie lost almost 20 pounds. We both feel great and have really gotten used to the healthy versions of our favorite meals. The only downside is that most of our clothes are too big for us. We’ve started slowly replacing clothes with things that actually fit us. It definitely been a big positive for us.

The weather has turned colder here which means a couple things, its football season and its about time to put away the bike. I haven’t given up on riding yet this year, in fact I rode today, but I think my days are numbered. I joined the local H.O.G. (Harley Owners Group) Chapter a couple months ago to meet other riders. I’ve attended a couple meetings and helped out at an event at the Harley shop in Waterloo so far. It’s a nice group of people and I look forward to getting to know them better and get in some more riding throughout the year.

Football season! This is the first year Annie and I have had season tickets to the Panther’s football games. The season started off great. We almost (and should have) pulled off a victory over the now #4 Iowa Hawkeyes. After that game we rolled through the next 4 games. Then we hit a speed bump… The Panthers have dropped the last 2 games essentially taking them out of the running for the conference championship and possible out of playoffs. It’s been tough watching them the last 2 weeks, they have been beating themselves. We have had a lot of fun tailgating before the home games. The Morris’ have season tickets next to us so we get together around noon every home game and tailgate until game time. The first 2 home games we had 80 degree weather. The last 2 has been in the 40′s and windy and rainy. Let’s hope we don’t have snow for the last 2 home games. But even if we do, we’ll be out there having fun.

I’ve gotten a lot of comments on my bean bag boards and drink holders at games. So much so that I have a couple “orders” to make some for people. Of course everyone wants them by Christmas… So far I have one set made and delivered with 2 more to go. I really enjoy making the boards so it’s been fun coming up with new designs and making them. It has been interesting juggling making boards and my hectic work schedule, but I’m pretty sure I’ve got everything under control. :S

I’ve posted a bunch of new pictures to the Shutterfly site, which I will link to down below. You’ll notice an album, “Harley tattoo”… Yes, I got another tattoo. For those of you keeping track, that is 2 this year. Earlier in the year (June), I finally got my Panther tattoo when I went in with Jacquie to get a tattoo for her 40th birthday. After we got back from Sturgis I went in to get the Panther tattoo touched up and get a tattoo to cover up my previous tattoo on my ankle. I had a design of a motorcycle chain in my mind for weeks and then about a week before my appointment Annie suggested something else. I loved her idea and had the artist run with it. The design turned out so much better than I could have ever imagined. Words don’t do it justice, so click the link below to see pictures. Keep in mind those pictures were taken right after I got home from each appointment so they are a little “raw”.

I saved the best for last, Morgan updates! She is really becoming a young girl. She is talking in sentences for the most part and, I swear, learns a new word every day. Just the other day she told me something downstairs was a circle and then drew a circle in the air for me. She loves to color and is now splitting her obsession between SpongeBob (bob-bob) and Scooby Doo (dooby dooby). A few weeks back I got her a table and chairs set so that she had a place to sit and play. She gets her play laptop and “phone” (old calculator) up there and plays “office”. She also likes to color at her table. Lately, she likes to take her chairs and make a “gate” that she has to open and close for you to pass by. She’s got quite the imagination!

With Halloween approaching, I’ve gotten my Halloween inflatables set up on the yard. Morgan likes to tell us that they are “broke” during the day when they are not blown up. She gets such a kick out of seeing the pumpkin blown up at night. She is really into pumpkins right now, so she will be a pumpkin for Halloween. Our first choice was a SpongeBob costume, but that turned out to be too difficult to find.

My latest tattoos have rubbed off on Morgan. She loves wearing temporary tattoos and showing them off. The nice thing about them is that they work great as rewards for being a good girl. How’s that for parenting, give your kid a tattoo for being good.

The last few weeks Morgan would come up and tell us that either she needed to go potty or just did. It’s usually the later, but to humor her we got out her potty so that she could sit on it if she tells us. She likes to just sit on it from time to time and pretend, but tonight before bath she actually went in the potty. We may have scared her a bit with our celebration dances, but she was pretty excited about it too. We’re not sure she’s quite ready for potty training yet, but she’s getting close. Of course with potty training, that means we are going to have to get her out of the crib. We had already talked about this and had planned on converting her crib into the “big girl bed” this fall/winter. I think that will be something we do in November. That should be real interesting. She usually has a party in her crib after we lay her down for bed, so now with nothing containing her…..who knows how many times she’ll be coming out to visit us until we can get her to understand she has to stay in her room after bedtime.

The weather is not looking to be as nice as last year’s Halloween, but we will still be taking Morgan out for some trick or treating. We are planning on going around the neighborhood and also hitting a couple houses in Waverly this Saturday. Last year she was pretty shy, but I think she will have a blast this year. She is such a ham right now and is a bit more outgoing. She still likes to hide behind Daddy when she doesn’t know you, but that doesn’t last long if she finds out you’ve got something she likes (suckers).

Here’s the picture links I promised:

• Harley tattoo
• Bean Bag boards (this is the set I made for our neighbor, Chris)
• Morgan August 2009
• Morgan September 2009
• Morgan October 2009
• Halloween 2009

Slowing Down

Its has been a busy run for us lately and it may be starting to slow down now. Lets run down what’s occured since my last post (Morgan’s birthday).

I have been in training at work 8 hours a day, 5 days a week for the past 4 1/2 weeks. We are installing a new student system at UNI and have been getting training in all aspects of it. Today is actually the first day I am at my desk for the whole day since Morgan’s birthday, and I’m spending it doing a blog… I just got back from Irving, TX this past Friday. I was there all last week for more training. Texas is hot as hell in August and last week was no exception. The week went well but it was hard to be away from home for a whole week, especially since we had just gotten back from Sturgis the previous week.

We spent 4 days in South Dakota at the start of August. We rode the Harley out and back and had a great time. The final mileage count was 1643 miles in 4 days. Not too shabby. We had a blast getting away from Cedar Falls for a few days and just having some good Channie (Chad + Annie) time. It was good to be back home and spend time with Morg again too. Morgan had a good time at Grandma and Grandpa Wittrock’s while we were gone. She got to see all sorts of people while she stayed with them.

Annie has been really busy at work too. Everybody wants to get their teeth pulled before school starts back up. Of course they didn’t think of that until the week before school starts…

Things at home couldn’t be better. Morgan is picking up a new word daily it seems like. She is quite the character and can really communicate with you now. She is still addicted to SpongeBob and loves being outside. She likes to color (crayons inside, sidewalk chalk outside) and love to play in the water whether that is bath time or pool time. She is finally saying Snickers now (‘nickers). Of course she has been saying Harley for a long time.

Got some new pics up for your enjoyment:

• Sturgis
• Petersen Picnic
• Some new ones of Morgan in July (Be sure to check out the last 2. She wanted to wear a bandana like Daddy one day. She even wore that out shopping with me )

Exciting weekend

It has been a bit hectic (in a good way) around here lately. But first, today is Morgan’s 2nd birthday. She had a really good birthday. She brought ice cream treats to day care and had a bunch of fun with the other kids. We had fun tonight playing with all her new toys, books, pillows and blankets.

Yesterday we had a birthday party for Morgan at our house. We had a lot of friends and family over. Morgan got a lot of nice things and had fun playing with her cousins and the neighbor’s kids. She loved the Penguins of Madagascar DVD Uncle B got her. As soon as she was done opening presents, she had to have the movie put in so she could get her Penguin fix. She got a lot of neat Spongebob things too. She got some Spongebob books, blankets and pillows, which were made by Cousin Sammie and looked great!. She got some clothes, food, and probably more things that I can’t remember right now. Let’s just say she is definitely loved and just a wee bit spoiled. Check out pictures of the party here.

Last week we finalized our plans for Sturgis. Annie and I both have time scheduled off from work, we talked with our friends in Rapid City that we stay with to make sure we were still able to stay with them, things were looking all set. Then Thursday morning I went to ride my bike to work and it wouldn’t start. This isn’t the first time the bike has done that to me and needless to say I was a wee bit upset. We go through something like this each year with the bike and I had finally had enough. I sent Annie a message (still in a huff) that I was going to find a different bike. After the past year we’ve had we both had decided there was nothing that could keep us from going to Sturgis this year. We didn’t expect the bike to be the thing that would put a kabosh on the trip. Well, I started checking out dealers and our credit union’s swap sheet to see what was out there. I found a few Honda’s that were pretty good prospects and told Annie about them. Then she opened a door that I wasn’t expecting to open, she asked why I wasn’t looking at Harley’s… Well, that was all the push I needed and I started checking all the HD dealers on this side of the state. We’ve talked about getting a Harley for a long time and I’ve know exactly what I wanted for years. I found some possibilities in Mason City so we decided to take a road trip Thursday night. We looked at some bikes and then saw that they had a 2003 Heritage Softail Classic Anniversary Edition which is the exact bike I have always wanted. Long story short, we now own that bike. Check out pictures here. We are very excited and put 135 miles on the bike the first day.

A couple weekends ago Bryce came up and helped me add on to our shed. We put an extra 5 foot on the back of the shed and reshingled the whole thing. That was the last part of the tornado claim from last May. Turns out getting that addition on was perfect timing as the new bike is a bit bigger than my old one and the extra room has come in really handy.

Happy Birthday Morgan!

Shutterfly updates

I had some down time at work today (all test servers offline for about a day…) so I uploaded some new pictures to Shutterfly and also made some changes on the Shutterfly page. The direct link to my Shutterfly page is http://cwittrock.shutterfly.com. You’ll see the latest Photo Book that Annie and I (mostly Annie) put together. If you didn’t see the one we made last year, you should see a link towards the top of the page that says “Photo Books“, on that page, you can view the 2 we’ve made so far.

I’ve also upload pictures from Jacquie’s 40th birthday. Annie and Misty got her 40 presents for her birthday. Jac had a good time opening all the “interesting” presents while having a few drinks at Diamond Daves.

We inherited a new pool from our neighbors down the road who are doing some house cleaning, so Morgan and I busted that out this past weekend. It has a little slide and she had such a blast sliding down it. The dogs also liked the pool because Morgan would give them drinks from her cup or put water in the cupholders (cupholders, in a child’s pool??).

I’ve also finally got a picture of my new tattoo uploaded. It is healing nicely. It’s on the second round of scabbing up and peeling, but should be fully healed soon. It turned out really nice. You may remember that Jacquie went with me and got one also. From what I hear, her’s is almost completely healed and she is very happy with it.

It’s been hot here the last few days, but I think its been hot everywhere. And of course hot weather and humidity brings out the nasty storms. We had to go over to the neighbors basement a couple nights ago because of a tornado warning. The storm turned out to be hardly anything and we only got a 1/4 inch of rain. That was just fine with us.

This weekend Bryce is coming over to help me add on to the shed. Looks like we will have good weather and should be able to get pretty far since its not like we’re building a whole new shed… This weekend is also the Cedar Falls town festival called Sturgis Falls. It always kills me this time of year when I hear people asking each other, “So, you going to Sturgis? Yeah, you? You know it!”. You are *not* going to Sturgis, you are going to a mosquito infested town festival who’s parade doesn’t even throw out candy or have tractors that is call Sturgis FALLS! Grrr…

One year later…

Well…one year ago today we saw the flood waters come rushing into our neighborhood. Its hard to believe where we are now from that day. What looked impossible to overcome that day has brought our neighborhood closer together, made our family much stronger, and actually made our house better than ever. I looked through our flood pictures the other night and still can’t believe what happened last year. All last spring/summer/fall was spent fixing what was ruined in 1 days time. With that in the back of our minds we are making the most of this spring. There isn’t a day where there isn’t some sort of gathering in the street or someone’s yard. It’s just so nice to get to meet up with the neighbors and not be discussing what we just threw away or tore apart.

In remembrance of what we all came through and the progress we made, we are meeting in Dave and Paula’s garage tonight to have a few drinks and celebrate a non-eventful spring/summer. Last year when it got dark and most of us were without power, we would slowly trickle over to Dave and Paula’s for a couple drinks before retiring to whatever dwelling we were calling home that week. We thought it was fitting to meet back there again tonight.

On a more cheery note, the neighborhood is all back to “normal” (whatever that is anymore). Everyone has made their repairs, some upgrades were made to what was there, and all is well. So happy birthday flood 2008, may you grow old and wrinkly and never show your face again…

8 years

Today is Annie and my 8 year anniversary. I can’t believe its been 8 years already. It’s been a great 8 years so far and we will have many more happy years to follow!

Tonight Annie, Morgan and I are going out to eat at the Brown Bottle for our anniversary. We debated on whether to take Morg or not, but she has been such a good girl lately and neither of us wanted to go without her.

We have been enjoying the nice weather lately. It hasn’t been too hot lately so its been great to be outside. The only problem is that it is REALLY buggy around here. We haven’t taken Morgan out too much because she swells up so bad from bug bites. I bought some Cutter lawn bug spray this past weekend that is suppose to help and protect from bugs for up to 8 weeks. I’m hoping to get it put down this weekend and see if that helps. I sure hope so.

The past few days I have been working with our neighbor, Chris, to form up a couple spots for cement. We are finally replacing the rock next to our driveway where our wishing well and trash can set with a cement pad. Also, I added 5′ to the pad the shed sits on. We finished pouring concrete yesterday afternoon and now are just waiting for it to cure. Chris did a great job on the cement work. I just mixed and let him do the smoothing and what not. Once the cement cures, I will start work on the shed expansion. We are added on to the back of the shed. We need more space for the snow blower and whatever summer toys Morgan may accumulate this year. It should be really nice when we are done.

I added some new pictures to the website yesterday. There are more pictures of Morgan from last month. You’ll see the one of Morgan “helping” me drive the lawn mower. She grabs a hold of the spinner on the steering wheel and then doesn’t let go when its time to turn. We’ve come close to running into quite a few things. There are also some pics of her in her pool we got last year. We have since acquired a new pool from one of the neighbors. Its bigger and has a slide. We haven’t busted that one out yet, but will once I get the bugs under control. I have one pic of Morgan relaxing with her baby on the couch. She’s pretty attached to that baby right now. When Morgan gets tired she will tell us that baby is sleepy (because you know Morgan NEVER gets sleepy) . She takes baby to bed and reads her a book at night time. Its so cute. There have been a couple birthdays at day care in the last week or so and now Morgan has been singing Happy Birthday around the house. It is really clear and you can make out every word. We’ve been practicing so that she can sing Happy Birthday to Jacquie this Friday for her 40th. We’ll see how it goes. Morgan gets stage fright when you put her on the spot like that, but she loves Jac!

Here are some pictures of the various flowers we’ve planted in the past month. This isn’t all the flowers, mainly the front yard, but you can see how nice they look. The flower in the wishing well has doubled in size since the last picture was taken. It looks so nice up front (and soon to be on the new cement pad). Also, the flower hanging from our front stairs is covered in flowers and has been for the past couple weeks. That flower in a bag is a really cool idea. Bravo Menards, bravo.