FCA Banquet with Ryan Hall

I know most of you don't know who Ryan Hall is, but that's ok. He's a world class marathoner with an amazing faith. He's a really nice guy on top of it. It was an awesome experience to hear him speak to the Nebraska FCA group. The top picture is Rex Burkhead - a NU Football player who also gave his testimony. Pretty cool!

Halloween

This year we continued the tradition of going to Ravenna to the Keiligs' house. Once again, the dads took the kids out while the moms stayed and handed out candy. Seafood lasagna is a staple every Halloween. This was Cael's first taste of it. He loved it so much that he shunned his plate of regular lasagna to fill up on the good stuff! This was Allen's last Ravenna Halloween, so that was sad, but Cael and I will be back next year. Cael was going to be Dearth Vader (he was at Stuhr Museum earlier in the month), but at the last second he wanted to be Bumblebee. He and Elly had a great time getting lots of candy!

5 years old

I like to take Cael out to take pictures around his birthday. I took these last weekend after church at Stuhr Museum.

Scarecrow Patch

We went out to the Scarecrow Patch by St. Libory today. Always one of our favorite times of the year! Cael and Dad each picked out a pumpkin. Zipline! This is the first year that Cael went on the big one. The big slide. The corn wagon.

MEPS

Well, Allen passed MEPS, which is where he had to have his physical and mental exam. He's sworn in and the contract is signed. No turning back now! Allen brought home a backpack (courtesy of Sgt. Christiansen) for Cael, who absolutely loves it. He had to transfer everything from his super hero bag to the cammo one as soon as he could! I'll try to get pics up.

Career Change

Our family knows, but not a lot of our friends do. Allen is embarking upon a career change. He will be working with Satalite Communications for the US Army. He's wanted to be in the military since he was 17, and almost went into the Guard when we were 23. I, of course, was stupid, scared, and selfish, so I let his brother talk him out of it. We are on board with this decision as a family, though, and I am very happy that Allen has made a career choice that he's excited about. I've never seen him so happy, upbeat, and motivated. He's been pretty miserable in his jobs for the past 9 years, so it's about time that he choose something for himself that will be good for the whole family. Cael is excited about this adventure, as am I ("Daddy's going to be a soldier!"). Allen goes to MEPS on Thursday for his physical, swearing in, and signing of his contract. His ship-out date is Feb. 23rd (which, for Allen, can't come soon enough!:) He will finish Basic around the end of May in Fort Leonard Wood, MO, then head off for 27 weeks of Sat. Comm. training at Fort Gordon, GA. He'll get done with that around Thanksgiving. Cael and I will have plenty of "quality time" together if we survive each other that long. :) We'll find out where we will be stationed toward the end of Basic. That's what I'm excited about. Hopefully, we'll get somewhere really cool, so everyone will use us as their vacation destination! We'll keep you updated as things progress.

First day of school

Cael's long-awaited first day of school finally came in August. He's in the Monday-Thursday class, and loves it. With the look on his face, his teacher should have her hands pretty full! Some of you know that our wrestling program was cut at HLHS. Unfortunate as that is, Allen has had the offer of taking over the Centura Wrestling Team. This is pretty cool, since his dad was the head coach of that team when he was principal there in the 80's. I was looking forward to seeing Allen more this winter with no wrestling, but you can't take wrestling away from the Blake boys. It doesn't work!