Merwwwwy Kwissssmassss Ho ho ho

Okay, so we are lame this year.
I always come up with some cool holiday shot to send out in a Christmas card
but not this time! Not this year.
To tell you the truth, It has been very difficult to even get together all three of us at all the last couple months. Keith has after all been working consistent 79.9999999999999 hours per week for two months so unfortunately sleep has taken priority over arranging someone to take our picture for a card. I know, I know, I could have sent out an old picture or just a plain card.
Well, I didn't think of that.
not until I started receiving cards from other people.
So, now I feel lame.
but never fear! I've been inspired to make a little news letter
(like some of my friends & family do)
and send it for New years instead.
I'll probably get to it.........
....just not today

Of slides & sleds

Just a light dusting of snow

I often hear reference to the term "lake effect". Because of our location near lake Michigan, we here in Grand Rapids get especially dumped on all year. In fact, for my Oregon friends who tried to console me about my move to Michigan by saying at least you'll have sunnier weather, apparently didn't realize that this town actually has more overcast and gray gloomy days per year than Portland! and thats hard to beat.

Do you think he liked it?

Blitzen

Here is Dakota's first encounter with a real live Reindeer!

All I want for Christmas is my daddy home

the super binky handoff

We have officially traded the stroller for the sled

A pooped out snow boy

It is my divine right as a mother to post picutres of my nekid baby

Caught after a successful diaper gettaway

Click Here to see the Neaman family elfs boogy!

Kids day out at the gardens

I have a membership to a place called "Meijer Gardens". It's great because they are so nearby to me and they are open year round. Half of it is indoors with big glass rooms that make up different climates. They always have some new theme and of course it is holiday time now. Outside there are acres of xmas lights that we haven't seen yet but just you wait! Inside is a train set that travels through several rooms of plants and cute sets. In another area there are several trees decked out fabulously, each one representing a different country. I will have to return and soak it all in again.

My week with fam & friends

I jus got back from a great little trip to the Northwest. Oh how I am reminded once again of the sweet smell of the fir trees and the grand inspiration of the mountains. I love my northwest home and will someday return for sure.


I stayed with my dad & Lisa & the "trids" (Mari & Duncan)
We all had a great time hanging out, shopping, getting our hair done, eating and of course playing wih the dogs. (they breed havanese dogs and have a new litter - so cute)















I was also able to take a quick trip down to portland where I saw my little sister Michelle, the Bullocks, my old boss, and the Harmons.



After all that I headed down to Salem for a girls night with two of the coolest chicks in the world. Sasha and Marcy !!!! We ate thai food and girl talked all night. In the morning we all (and sash's mum) all went to a yummmy breakfast.
I'll never forget that omlette.....












The weather was horrible, traffic was worse and Dakota's fussing made it all very difficult. There were lots of friends I wanted to see but just missed this time around. fortunately I may just get out there again in the spring.

Other hightlights of the trip include Dakota's first proper shoe fitting at Nordstrom.



(Lisa bought him some great big boy shoes)



and lunch at the rainforest cafe


















A family trip some huge sporting goods store where we shot riffals, saw lots of dead stuffed animals, and ate bison burgers (I have to admit I was a little fleshed out and only had a salad)
















The Traveling was nothing less than long and arduous but i must say it was definately well worth it and quite a treat. Thank you mostely to Lisa and my dad too for letting it happen

Want some good Karma?

My little cousin Ashleigh is only in 1st grade (I think?) Her class is studying the United States and they have asked people to send them postcards from all over. But poor sweet little cousin has been secretly very sad because she "hasn't received a single postcard!" Can anyone help? Can we cure her embarrassment and encourage her studies?
Will anyone out there send her a postcard?
Just imagine what delight could come from a small effort

I am "creating the possibility" that she will recieve a bunch of cool postcards so please help if you can.
Just mention Ashleigh's name and Send it to:
St. Joseph Catholic School
Mrs. Dickey's Class
1355 Motherhead Road
St. Charles, MO 63304.

Happy Birthday Dakota Jack!!!!!!!!

The big 0-1
I can't believe my little bumpkin is a whole year old!
Oh did we have fun today! Here is just a peek at the cake part....

Don't worry, it was a homemade low sugar gluten free all organic triple layer cake with an organic goats cream frosting! Yummmmm

Guess who's going to be a whole year old tomorow?!

Expect cake pictures next.....

boy meets "Bushy"

My Ravioli Face

Guess where Im going? then let me vent

I'm busting this joint and heading back to the sweet northwest for a little visit! This happened quite spontaneously thanks to Lisa hooking me up with an impromptu ticket. The family is actually in the Tacoma area but I may be able to get down to Portland for a day or two and would just love to see my peeps.
Here is my honest ugly opinion on my new midwest home: It stinks. Michigan is a hole. the stores are dirty with little variety. the landscape is flat and uninteresting. They smoke in restaurants. It is freezing already. I am bored, lonely, isolated, very poor, stressed and I feel like im struggling to get through each day. I cant join anything or do anything that cost money or is unbaby friendly. I have not had a real break from my baby in almost a whole year! Our house projects are at a standstill because we underestimated (of course) the cost/time/difficulty of finishing them. So home feels unhomey. Im tiered and worn out and so is my wardrobe. I see my husband maybe an hour a day. Many days not at all and he is naturally tired and grumpy with the weight of the world on his shoulders. So, here I am alone in my house feeling miserable for myself and wallowing in despair with itchy skin and another flea found.
Thank goodness for this magical ticket! A short visit home should do me good.
This girl needs a refreshing.

ITCHY itchy bo b-itchy

At first I thought it was just a few flea bites - and it was.
Then it started getting bad so I thought maybe I have FAD (flea allergy dermatitis)
Keith wrote me a Rx for cortizone but it was only getting worse
After 5 days of horrible scratching and tossing in my sleep i went in to see the dermatologist

























Poison Oak! Now when did I come in contact with that? I can only think of the pumpkin photo shoot in the backyard but, Dakota was rolling all over everything and he is fine.

Baffled and Itchy

it's cool mom, this is my thing

Walk in the park - its getting cold.....

Halloween Trick: Taking candy from a baby

Which one?

A

B

This was a horrible photoshoot! We were both too tiered and frustrated and he was antsy to crawl around. (being quite natural for his age of course) So these are my two best ones - I think. The others are more like this. but all I really wanted was one good holiday picture so I think these will do.

First workout

My "Pops" in the local paper!

Charles Neaman: Hands of a craftsman
Story by David Campiche Photos by Laurie An
Active Times
Friday, October 19, 2007

Chuck Neaman holds a power activated fastener known as a "Hilti Gun". This fastener will drive nails into concrete or steel that is 1-inch thick, and has been an indispensible tool in the construction of the multi-story water tower near Leadbetter State Park.

Chuck Neaman stands in the foreground next to two very unique construction projects that have taken much of his time over the past few years. An old wooden boat, on the left, was converted into tastefully appointed bedrooms and the tall structure is a water tower that also houses bedrooms a common rooms with lavish 360-degree views.

A spectacular and sometimes controversial tower some call the lighthouse rises nine-stories or 124 feet above the northern tip of the Long Beach Peninsula just south of Leadbetter Point State Park.

Today, a welder's bucket swings precariously on a long metal arm in the salty ocean air, nearly 90 feet above the earth. A 57-year-old man known to friends as "Chuck" is inspecting the steel structural supports - metal 4-by-4 counterparts - held together by welded joints and heavy steel bolts. The carpenter takes the height and danger into consideration and rises to the challenge. A man of strong skilled hands and a keen engineer's mind, Charles Neaman is simply doing his job; doing it - as is the habit of this master craftsman - to the best of his ability. He began carpentry like father and his before him, apprenticing with a skilled mentor. Neaman picked up the saw and hammer as a very young man and never looked back.

Neaman was raised in the small Long Island town of Massapequa, not far from New York. During his youth, Massapequa felt like a small New England village. Neaman matured like any rural boy. His grandfather was a bayman, a gatherer of oysters, fish, mussels and bait. Neaman spent a good part of his youth on Great South Bay, kicking around with his grandfather or hunting ducks and geese in his small wooden punt. The most important lesson he garnered from his grandpa was more specific: "Nothing is more important than a man's honor." The second value was a strong work ethic.

With the work ethic came skill. Neaman spent a good part of his apprenticeship with a German carpenter named Heinz Pfaff, a barrel-chested man with huge muscular hands and a big heart. One Sunday morning, the Neamans went to church. When they returned, their family home had burned to the ground.

Neaman remembers how Pfaff came around that afternoon and stood looking sadly at the rubble and at the dejected family. All they had left were their church clothes and shiny Sunday shoes. Speaking with a strong German accent to Neaman's father, Charles, Pfaff matter-of-factly declared, "You are going to need work shoes tomorrow." It had snowed hard that day on Long Island. Pfaff took off his shoes and handed them to the father, and then walked through the snow to his car.

The next morning they began to rebuild the house. Family and community hung together like the foundation of that new home, each board bound together with shiny steel nails and a liberal dousing of love and commitment.

Neaman's parents were members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. His father was a bishop. A strong sense of family and commitment to God followed the boy like a long shadow. Along with those values he learned about prejudice. The history of that church is fraught with hardship, but the reality of discrimination only made Neaman stronger.

Like most teens, Neaman rebelled against the authority of the church and against the strong hand of his father, but not for too long. He joined the armed services and was sent to Germany, narrowly avoiding combat in Vietnam. The young man was patriotic, but Neaman was one of two in his company who weren't sent into the conflict. A number of the young men in his outfit died.

Out of the service, Neaman enrolled at Brigham Young University where he studied for a year, then moved back to New York. Carpentry was on his mind. At 23, he was cajoled into a triple date. He met a lovely 17-year-old student with curly lustrous hair, soft brown eyes and a determination that would guide her and her family in the decades to come.

As Neaman recalls, "She was a hot-looking honey with a tube top and hot pants." Like most young men, Neaman was smitten. As it turned out, the woman had more than just good looks. Neaman credits his wife, Debbie Ekelman, with bringing him back to God, the church and his core values.

Ekelman was a Russian Jew with strong heredity back to the old country. "I brought a Jewish girl home and mom cried," states Neaman. But attitudes change and the family became tight. The Neamans had three children: Keith, Chris and Nicole. The oldest boy is now 30 and a doctor doing reconstructive surgery in Michigan.

Debbie is an active woman with energy to spare. She has been an alcohol and drug abuse counselor, and nursed the infirm. She describes herself as "a seeker of knowledge, a connoisseur of life and an entrepreneur." Like her husband, she is also a believer in the work ethic. "What I'm thankful to my husband for is that he taught my children to work."

After spending most of their lives in New York, the Neamans spent nine years in Utah, and have lived the last five in Chinook, Wash., where Chuck Neaman has built a house with his own two hands, mostly working on the structure after long work days as the foreman at Leadbetter Farms for Craig Tillotson, the entrepreneur and a major principle in Nu-skin. Tillotson bought the land and developed a theme-park-like domain that nestles artfully into the sand dunes just north of the Oysterville Approach.

The property has remained controversial because of the height of the new water tower, a structure that rises like a lighthouse above the Pacific Ocean and supplies fire suppression for his 1,200 acres. Neaman defends the structure and the park-like atmosphere of the private property.

If the building is controversial, no man can condemn the brilliance of the construction. The edifice is an engineering marvel, built on 55 pilings sunk 48 feet under ground. On top of the pilings, Neaman oversaw the pouring of 360 yards of concrete, "Just for the foundation." There are 10 tons of rebar in that cement slurry alone. 55-foot steel beams - 247 pounds each - rise to the top of the tower, offering a view consummate with Sauron's tower in the Lord of the Rings. With the verdant landscape of Leadbetter Point State Park to the immediate north, the view is inspiring.

Neaman also played a major role in the construction of the three-story rock house called the Barn that defines the property. From the woven oak paneling whose idea Neaman borrowed from the Metropolitan Museum in New York, to the Disney-like tree houses that nestle into the old growth Sitka Spruce that punctuate the property, Neaman has left an inspiring mark on Leadbetter Farms.

Neaman refused to fall the small forest in front of his own house in Chinook, a home with a view, but a vista that weaves thorough a pastoral setting. Sitting in his living room and gazing on a salmon-hued sunset through large picture windows across Baker Bay, the Neamans reinforce each others love of the Columbia-Pacific Region and their rich commitment to each other.

"We believe in eternal marriage. Why would I go to heaven if Debbie wouldn't be there with me?" The question is rhetorical. Saying that, he sits down to an Italian dinner his wife has lovingly prepared. "I grew up with immigrants fresh off the boat, the Irish, Italian and Germans from Europe. Peace to me means men treating other men-all men-as brothers."

He talks about the National Apprenticeship Program that he has supported for most of his adult life. Today he has four apprentices of different ethnic backgrounds and remains committed to a hand-me-down program of passing on a craftsman's gift to the next generation.

Flat-bellied with a sandy mustache and leathered face from long days of manual labor, Neaman relishes a marinara sauce with meatballs over homemade ravioli. He takes a short break from the repast, and talks about his three loves: his wife, God and a European work ethic, his own brand of a sacred trinity. Eating pasta while watching a brilliant fireball of sunlight fall over the Columbia River, the man feels lucky; lucky for a full journey through life, for love and for the challenge of the eternal unknown. Studying the capable man, it is fair to venture that he is well prepared.