Our 5th Wedding Anniversary
Can I just tell everyone...that I have the most amazing husband in the world...he would win the Gold Medal in the Husband Olympics. It really is the truth. Anyone who know's Mike, know's what I mean. Even if you take out the fact that he is a great Husband and Father...he is just such an awesome guy! I often ask him if he is one of the 3 nephites...jokingly of course...(but would he tell me if he was???) The patience and intergrity that he shows on a regular basis is pretty amazing. And then to be so HOT on top of all that. Daaaaang Babe!!
So for our 5th wedding anniversary, Mike took the day off from work. That was a gift in itself. We then dropped the kids off at the Dawkins House for the day, another gift in that he found the babysitters. (Thank you guys, by the way!) We then headed downtown to get massages...and do some shopping at my favorite store. If that wasnt heaven enough....we went to eat at Canoe...I had never been there before...and it was amazing.
It is right off of the Chattahoochee River in between The Vining's and Buckhead. Mike made reservations for an outside table near the river. The weather was beautiful and dinner was amazing. Mike ordered the Swordfish, and I had Salmon. Guys..this is totally the place to go if you want to impress the ladies!
I also got flowers, a card, and a porch swing. Mike has learned that every true southern girl needs a porch swing.")
Thanks Mike...I love you and can't wait to spend eternity with you!
Karlie's new bed
I found a deal on a new toddler bed for Karlie about a week ago. We set it up today and wondered if she would know it was her bed so we put her favorite blankies, and bears into it and left her alone. It was nice to come back in and see her fast asleep on her Big Girl Bed.
Spicy Gumbo, and a New Wii! Rockband party at our house!
The other day we were invited to Laura's parents for some famous Cajun Gumbo. For those who don't know Laura's family makes the best southern/cajun food without a doubt. So when invited over it is always a mouth watering experience not to pass up...ever! Well the Gumbo did not dissapoint as I gulped down 3 bowls of it. Afterwards we spent time with Laura's grandparents who are in town from Beaumont, Tx, Jenn, and David.
The suprise of the night was the Wii, Carl gave us a Wii with the Rockband kit which we setup and started rocking away. It was a night to never forget with Laura jamming on guitar, Jen singin, and David drumming away. We also got in some bowling that Laura's grandpa played, Baseball that Carl hit a grandslam on and some good ol tennis. We are very greatfull for the new Wii and me n Laura have started a band "Your Momma's." We play almost every night which has been some fun times together. Thanks y'all!
Hopefully we can reach the level of these guys sometime.
What is the best way to practice? Ask these guys...
New job at CheckFree
Florida Trip
Even though Tropical Storm Fay attempted to rain us out in Orlando it definitely did not keep us from having an awesome trip. We arrived at Uncle Bills new place just south of Orlando. They had a beautiful room waiting for us where we setup Karlie's portable crib and Janie's bassinet. The next morning we headed to Disney World with Karlie while Aunt Brenda took care of Janie for us. We were able to get some fun times in before the rain started coming down. Karlie's favorites were "it's a small world," and Monster's Inc. Laugh floor. The next couple days were rainy, lazy days but had lots of rockin fun with Rock band and just hangin' out. We did manage to squeeze half a day in a Sea World where me and Karlie went with Jeff and his family. Karlie liked pretty much everything there and her favorites were the Elmo show, Shamu, Walruses, stingrays, and the penguins. We spent our last 2 days at a condo on Melbourne beach where we enjoyed some sun finally. Karlie and Janie loved the beach. Janie chilled next to mommie in her Bumbo seat in the shade while Karlie and I splashed in the waves. Karlie was fascinated by the beach birds and spent about an hour chasing them up and down the beach. When she finally realized that it was hopeless she let me build a sand castle around her. We had a wonderful time and can't wait to go again! Here are some pictures from our trip and I will post some more videos from Sea World when I get a chance.
Karlie doin some computer work
If you have a baby you know how much they like the keyboard. I have an extra one that I have let Karlie bang the keys on, one of those old and loud keyboards and she loves it. The only problem is she wants to use the keyboard mommy and daddy use. Welcome Baby Smash! This free program allows your baby to use the pc worry free and makes it fun for them. As babies smash on the keyboard, colored shapes, letters, and numbers appear on the screen and you can set options for laughing or speech. If they use the mouse a bunch of colorful circles follow the pointer.
Some other sites for your kids:
Quintura
A kid friendly search engine powered by Yahoo Kids, so all search results should be G-rated.
TOTLOL
A youtube for kids.
YUVA
Karlie is too young for this but for older tots a good way for kids to create art with shapes. This "creative playground" (basically an online drawing program) lets kids create artwork using shapes that can be dragged, expanded, flipped, rotated, doodled, and so on. The resulting masterpieces can be saved in "sketchbooks," turned into e-cards to share with friends and family, or printed.Is not free but can try it for seven days and if your kid likes it only 29 per "artist".
Printable Car Activities
Some fun stuff to do with your kids while taking that summer vacation trip.
Free Sesame Street Ipod videos that teach kids valuable lessons
The iTunes Store is offering six free Sesame Street videos, each designed to teach kids an important life lesson. The videos range from 13-42 minutes; they're free to download and can be viewed on your PC or iPod. You will need to have itunes installed to download the videos. Also tons of kids audiobooks can be found here at Storynory.
Print your own coloring books
For those of you who love to color (or who have kids who love to color) coloring-book.info has a whole bunch of printable coloring book sheets.
Here is a video of Karlie mashing away at Baby Smash!...
Geek Squad Academy Graduation
Geeksquad Summer Academy was AWESOME! Here are some more pics and some small videos of graduation. We had most of the students take a survey online and it was very interesting to see what an impact this event had on the kids lives.
Geek Squad Summer Academy 2008 Atlanta
Since Sunday I have spent every day helping as an instructor at Atlanta's first Geek Squad Summer Academy 2008. This by far is the most meaningful event I have had the opportunity to be part of, in a work related activity. Geek Squad Summer Academy is a program designed to inspire a younger generation to get involved firsthand with technology. This year in Atlanta we are having 4 different classes for the Girl Scouts of Atlanta. There are about 100 "ladies" as Girls Scouts are reffered to attending. Throughout the 4 days they take classes on how to build their own computer, setup and secure a wireless network, learn about HTML and design a webpage, and are educated on "Green Computing." It’s amazing to see these young ladies put together a desktop computer themselves, power it on and smile in amazement as it actually boots up. They build their own Ethernet cables and understand how to secure a wireless network. They build all sorts of solar powered electronic devices; make gadgets and jewelry out of recycled computer parts. I am one of the instructors for the web class in which we teach the basics of HTML and watch them excitedly build their own "Junior Agent" websites. You can check out mine here
Tomorrow is the last day of the event and graduation. I will make sure to post some more pictures.
Karlie in the Water
Texas BBQ
I ate a huge beef brisket sandwich, but what was even better was the piece of Homemade Chocolate Meringue Pie that seriously made it worth driving 750 miles to Texas for. YUM!!YUM!!
Now I need to drink water and eat soup for the rest of the trip...yeah right")
Stormy afternoon
Tuesday July 8,2008
Here are the pictures that I took today of Karlie. We went to Angie's and rode around in the VW Bug.
Also, look what else I found today at Walmart. It's Karlie's favorite thing in the whole world. An Elmo Juice Box with a Straw, Awesome! She loves it!
Hope you sleep well. We miss you!
Love, your Babies!
Our Trip to Texas...Summer 2008
So yes, I decided to take a trip 735 miles one way to Vidor, Texas to visit family. Karlie and I really needed to get out of the house and do something different. We decided to stop half way and spend the night in New Orleans. I had never been and was totally excited about sightseeing and taking tons of pictures.
Well, we got there, showered up and went to go eat some good Cajun seafood at Landry's, (an awesome seafood restaurant). I envisioned beautiful streets with trees and moss hanging down, statues, pretty much a peaceful evening in Louisiana. When we arrive in downtown New Orleans, the streets were packed due to the Essence Music Festival being in town...so here is what the Essence Music Festival is for those of us who do not know!!
It’s apparently a Black American Empowerment Seminar. The participants included: Tyler Perry, Rev. Al Sharpton, Tom Joyner, New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin, Louisiana Lt. Governor Mitch Landrieu, Lynn Whitfield, Regina Belle, Roland S. Martin, Soledad O'Brien, Dr. Juanita Bynum, Bishop T.D. Jakes, Bishop Paul S. Morton, Bishop Debra Morton, Tye Tribbett and more."
WOW!!
We eventually decided we would still go eat at Landry's just in another part of town. We got lost on the way there...Went through neighborhoods that included houses reconstructed worth $500,000 next door to homes with FEMA trailers in the front yard. Once we finally get to Landry's, the wait is 45 minutes long. We should have turned around and gone to Taco Bell at this point, but we stayed and 25 min. into the waiting period Karlie decided to go pretty much ballistic. I have never seen her act this way. (Well, maybe that one time at Ann and Gary's) She seemed practically uncontrollable! I thought maybe when we got seated she would calm down, but she never did. I told my parents that Karlie and I would just sit in the car and wait until they were done. We went to the car and sat...and Karlie totally calmed down so we went back in. My parents had ordered my dinner, (grilled shrimp, field peas, and dirty rice) and while we were waiting on it I fed Karlie some crackers and water. Finally after about 30 minutes, they brought out my food and it was completely wrong. At this moment Karlie hits her head on the table and goes back to being uncontrollable, so outside again we went. People are of course staring and I am almost in tears. My dad comes and gets Karlie while I go back in to eat my food, but at this point I am irritated and stressed, so I ask the waitress to take my wrong order off of the ticket. Then my parents and I got into a huge fight that we did not resolve before going to bed. It was awesome. Good Times. The next morning we woke up still upset, and drove another 4 1/2 hours. Enough time to make up. ")
Here are some pictures from our road trip there...the first is of my sweet precious angel and the other is of my not so sweet precious angel.")
Love ya Baby.
Laura
The Vacuum Demos Paid OFF!
So as many of our close family and friends know..due to the fact that most of you watched hours of Vacuum Demo's(Thanks again for doing that!)..We are now the proud owners of a Rainbow Vacuum Cleaner Air Purification System"). We finally got our Payoff check in the mail today. Wahoo..It was so worth it. We have used it so much already. Just the other day, Mike shampooed the carpet in the living room..and it looks brand new. My house always smells great too.
Karlie is sick today
Laura's Big Sale & New Site
If you have kids you probably have or know someone who has a bumbo seat. If not here it is..
Janie
Janie is 2.5 months old now and is at one of my favorite stages. She now notices her surroundings and can see us and will offer a big smile whenever we give her attention. I will make sure to update this post with a pic or video clip as soon as I can but I thoroughly enjoy this time. I feel as though this is the time where she gets to know me and recognize me as being her daddy.
Janie has a very different personality from Karlie. She seems for the most part more laid back and easy going. She definately is alot stronger, already holding up her head and even able to balance sitting up pretty well. Sometimes her strength amazes me. She has this death grip where she will hold onto things or just grip really tight with her fingers and toes that moving her becomes just a little difficult making me laugh. She'll also give out some good beatings with her leg reflex kicks when she is sitting next to you so watch out.
Cat Power & Geekmobiles
Yesterday we had a meeting to discuss our new services initiative Geeksquad 3.0. After our meeting we did a swarm where all of us drive along in a line. Pretty crazy driving around Atlanta 20 Geekmobiles all lined up going to different Best Buy stores. The reactions were great. Saw everything from cops taking pictures, honking, thumbs up, and flip offs. Here is a pic from my mirror.
Etsy
Her shop was also featured in a couple of blogs
Boutique Sweet Cheeks Trendy Fav featured on Trendy Tots
Boutique Sweet Cheeks Featured on Blessings & Bows Blog
Stacey, Robert, & Root Beer
Oh yea I had the best tasting root beer EVER! Stacey and Robert got it for my birthday and I don't know how I missed it. It is called Virgil's Root Beer and lives up to its claim of being a "slice of heaven" It is definitely worth trying at least once and can be found at the Whole Foods Market. Here is a review that says it all.
Virgil's Root Beer: A Slice of Heaven
Geneology
I then asked of his research and found out that he has not gone as far back as his great great grandfather in his family tree. He stated that he has some suspicions of where his lineage goes from there but he cannot PROVE it. He then began admonishing me the importance of discovering your true genealogy based on documented facts and not hearsay. He explained in details about his research, how he had paid researchers to gather information only to find out much of it was taken from sources that did not exist. Specifically he mentioned a man who stated to have found some of his family history and documented in details certain sources. When he went to validate the sources they never existed or were irrelevant. This was very new to me in that my interest in family history has been merely to gather what research has already been done. I never considered that the cited Church history documents may have been fabricated or cited films may not exist and so on. As I have thought about this conversation I have realized a couple of things.
Family history research evolves and in this information age we have the greatest opportunity to gather and share information than ever before. With this blessing comes great responsibility as well. It is important to be as accurate as possible in your research. To detail how you came about the data you are submitting. Geneology.com has a great article on the value of documentation in family history research. They discuss the following benefits of detailed documentation.
· Documentation Will Make Your Research Easier and Faster
· Documentation Helps Prevent Duplication of Research
· Documentation Gives Others Confidence in Your Research
· Documentation Doesn't Have to Be Hard
That said it is also important to realize that Family History is like any History. Not only is it history but herstory too. Some of the greatest moments in history cannot be proven without a doubt but it is these “stories” that create the historical moments that captivate and motivate us. There have been many such stories told to me by my family true or not they are now a part of our family history.
This leads me to my final point. I have a responsibility to document my sources for family history information. I also recognize the fact that my lineage cannot be detailed 100% and that there may be some inaccuracies in my history. My personal goal in our family history is to provide a means for our family to collaborate our own research, “stories,” and histories. Most importantly it is to communicate and share our own immediate family’s history. I hope the work we have done in Geni will provide us the means to do so.
GENI Update
I have removed the screencast from a previous post because it is too small to watch anyways. I know Geni is easy to use but I hope to make a new one that is shorter and larger so I can help those family members who need it in navigating around.
The Greatest Family Collaboration Site...GENI, and you are invited!
I have imported what GEDCOM files I currently have and what I could find on familysearch.org. I have imported most of the following lines: Page, Lee, Brown, Davies, Emery, Cameron, Sheffield. Because familysearch.org doesn't report living persons information I attempted to enter as much as I know.
Most likely you have already received an invite from me to "View our tree" Follow the instructions below to get started and then come back and view my screencast here which will help you become familiar with our Geni tree.
UPDATED SCREENCAST COMING SOON
- Click the link in your email to "View our tree"
- Click YES to the question asked if you are a member of Michael Page's family. Note: Even if you are an extended family member click yes.
- The next prompt asks if you would like to invite others to view our Geni tree this can be done at any time later so for now click skip
- You are now taken to your spot on our Geni tree. If you have watched my screencast then you should feel comfortable navigating the Genie tree. Genie tree screencast
- An email will be sent providing a temporary password for your account, a link to create a permanant password, and a link to view your profile.
- This is the most important step. Take the time to finish your profile. Please take the time to include as much information as possible including dates, and photos. This may be a bit time consuming but will be greatly worth it.
- Make our Geni tree grow by continuing to contribute and participate in it. This can be done by adding/correcting missing/incorrect information, contributing to family news, calendar, photos, profiles. Inviting other family members to participate in our Geni tree.
Below are the pros and cons I have found with Geni. Please comment about what you think of Geni. I want to know if you find it complicated or simple, useless or usefull. Also if you did not recieve an invite for some reason contact me and provide me with an updated email address.
Pros:
- It's FREE! Can't beat that.
- Our Geni tree can grow as big as we want it to. If you want to add your spouses family line, cousins, etc. please do. Remember the Geni tree is dynamic and will adjust to your family name.
- Quick and easy to use interface
- Personal profiles have a familiar "facebook" social networking style to them
- Personal profiles provide features such as, easy photo uploading, about me page, timeline of events, guestbook comments, & contact information
- Permissions can be managed to only allow family and friends to access our geni tree.
- It is easy to contribute your family history to the family tree.
- Logging onto Geni tree renames the family tree to yours and your spouses family line.
"The purpose of this is not to label the single page that you're looking at, but rather to "brand" the Geni site with something that's specific to your family. Users who do not have a current spouse will see their own maiden name or last name. Users who are married will see their own maiden name or last name, a dash, and their current spouse's maiden name or last name. If you have multiple current spouses, all of them will be listed."
- Even though navigating your profile and viewing the tree is very user friendly it does take some getting used to. I will be posting some training screencasts and tips for navigating the Geni tree.
- UPDATE: GEDCOM files can be merged into our tree. If you are interested in having your family file merged please contact me on Geni.
Currently a GEDCOM can be imported into a brand new Geni tree that cannot be merged into an existing family tree. This means currently we will have to manually add information. If you have a large line that currently isn't in our Geni tree you may want to wait until direct GEDCOM import feature is enabled. Or send me the GEDCOM and on my spare time I will manually start importing it. What we wouldn't want to happen is to have multiple Geni trees that aren't linked together as it would complicate the purposes of our Geni tree. "Please Note: Importing a GEDCOM will create a new Geni Tree. If you already have a Geni account you must use a different email address for this import. This will start a new Tree which will not be merged into your existing Tree. We plan to enable GEDCOM Import into existing Trees in the future."
Pictures of Karlie and Janie
For those who don't know Lee & Amy also have their own photography business and are great. They took some time to take some photos of Karlie and Janie for us. Thanks as always for the wonderful job! To see some more of their works visit their website L&A Photography.
Laura's Birthday was Hypnotic
Don ended up taking a friend to the show the next day and he ended up on stage hypnotized. They snuck some videos of it and have some clips posted below. So funny!
Janie Lee Page Blessing
Tomorrow we are going to bless Janie Lee Page at church. This post is dedicated to her.
Janie Lee Page
Born April 2, 2008
Karlie is very curious of her younger sister and likes to try to talk to her and gently touch her. You can tell by her demeanor that she know thats her baby sister and can't wait to show her how to do new things as she herself learns them. She thinks its funny when we giver her a pacifier and gets so jealous when "her" blankie is use to cover Janie up.