2005

Posted on by hogan
New Years Day with Niemeyers In an annual tradition dating back to New Years 1999/2000 we have celebrated with Kelly and Jeff. They made the four and a half hour drive north to Des Moines, Iowa. It is always nice to have our friends visit and see where we live. Once Corvin went to bed, we decided to start dipping pretzels in chocolate. My mom has done this for years and I thought it might be fun. Needless to say, it was a hit. We dipped chocolate for almost 4 hours straight talking and having a great time! Soo good a time, that Steve and I had to make a trip to the store to get more chocolate and pretzels. We had chocolate pretzels for a few months after this.
Corvin in Jan and Feb A random collection of photos centered around Corvin. He is getting big very fast. Making us laugh every day. There is also a picture of Steve and Lou Stevenson, our next door neighbors over at our house.
2.17 – ChicagoBoatShow My first ever sailboat only show! Danelle wasn’t interested in going as I was quite single minded about the event. She would have wanted to see other things in Chicago. I had only one thing in mind. So Steve went with me. While Steve isn’t single minded like me, he is always in for an adventure. I always like to mix things up, so he was bound to have a great time! We started out the show by taking a long walk around Navy Pier. It was just fun to see all of the scenery around us. When we finally did go in, we stopped by almost every booth and toured several boats. We took lots of photos, but hardly any of the boat show. This is because we were so engrossed in the show that we didn’t even think about taking photos. I’m not too worried though, I will be back!
Corvin in Mar and Apr An assortment of photos with Corvin.
11th annual Monolithic Dome Conference Danelle and I heard about Monolithic Dome houses on NPR one day in the car. Curious by the description, we decided to check out their website. One of the great features of a monotolithic dome is the energy efficiency of it. That immediately got Danelle interested in them. I like them cause the look a little weird. There are tons of benefits to them. Anyway, we decided that we should go to the dome conference in Italy, Texas. It was a good way to find out if these houses were real or not.
We left the trip mildly disappointed. While the houses were cool and the conference fun, the whole operation seemed amateurish. The conference was not run professionally and the finish quality of the houses was not to the standard I expected for show houses. I would still strongly consider building a dome house for myself, but I would need excellent references from the builder before continuing. Anyway, if you are curious, give them a look.
Park in Oklahoma off I35 On the way back from the trip to Italy, Texas for the Monolithic Dome conference, we saw a sign for a state park off the highway. We decided it was time to explore. Off the highway we went and were greeted with a pleasant park. It has a natural sulfur spring that was nicely built up. We took a hike in the woods a bit to enjoy nature.
3.17 – Moto in KC We left Corvin with my parents in Kansas City while we went to Italy, Texas for the weekend. My parents loved having Corvin there for a few days and took some photos to prove it!
Easter in KC We celebrated Easter in KC this year. We got to see both sides of the family and do Easter egg hunts. Corvin hasn’t quite figured things out yet. He could find eggs all day. As he puts them in his basket, they fall out while he goes for the next one. He never figured out that they were falling out.
Corvin in May and June This set consists of some random Corvin photos coupled with a trip to St. Louis to visit Danelle’s parents. The day was perfect for playing out in their backyard with Corvin. He also tried to “drive” the van.
5.6 – Moto at home in Iowa Here are a bunch of pictures of Corvin hanging out at home.
5.7 – Random Moto/ Okay, so this should have been named Random… I have Eric Kennedy and Joe Burch in the first few pictures. There is even a picture of Hannah, Holly and Dad in this set in KC. Rest assured though that most of the pictures focus on Corvin growing up.
5.14 – Wind Energy Trip to Denver Colorado Joe Burch and I drove out to Denver Colorado for an wind energy conference. We were representing Mindspace Ventures LLC. A trip out to Denver wouldn’t be any fun if the mountains were not visited. The photos here are of us in the process of climbing St. Mary’s Glacier just outside of Denver. I swear I”ll go back someday and make it to the top of the mountain. If I can keep my breath! Boy did I feel out of shape.
5.20 – Jake & Robin’s Wedding Jake and Robin Metheny got married today. It is incredible seeing Jake so happy. He deserves it and Robin is a great woman! While at the wedding, I got to see Byron and Christi, Liz and her husband, and Lauren who married a distant relative of mine and is now a Haake. Its amazing how so much good stuff can happen at once.
5.28 Chris & Marybeth’s wedding I can’t say much more than they got married… I’m sure it was awesome, but I wasn’t there to see it. Danelle and Corvin went to St. Louis for this wedding and I went to Wichita, Kansas to see my sister Holly get married. I wish it had worked out that I could have been there.
5.28 – Corvin in St. Louis You know that we couldn’t come to STL. and not see Danelle’s parents. Besides the fact that we like them, they give us free room and board 🙂 We ended up at Kirkwood park playing on the equipment which was a definite plus for Corvin.
5.29 – Hayden and Family Before heading down to Wichita to get to Holly’s wedding, I stopped in the day before to see Hayden and family in their KC apartment. It was really fun playing with Brian and Zach.
5.30 – Holly Pre Wedding These photos are the time before Holly’s wedding. Mom is loosing her first girl and I can tell it is getting to her. We all have hotel rooms in the same hotel, so there is some crazy partying/antics going on here. As always, dad seems to cause the most trouble. I just don’t have what it takes yet, but I’m studying him closely. Check him out walking Holly down the aisle in the rehearsal. At the rehearsal dinner, I got the cute waitress to get in a photo next to Leslie Robinson. Got to love that! Each morning, we walked over to the Ihop and had breakfast. They were probably sick of us at the end, but we didn’t care!
5-30 – Holly’s Wedding Holly and Jim’s wedding day is upon us and what a great day it is. Holly is wearing the same wedding dress that my mom wore when she got married. I don’t think she could look more happy! There is something special about an out of town wedding. Other than Holly, nobody else lived in Wichita. Everybody stayed at the same hotel where the reception was, so nobody had to leave early to get home… Well, now that I say that, I did turn around 10 so I could drive to St. Louis early the next day to pick up Danelle and Corvin so we could go home to Des Moines. Holly had never seen me drink that much, and I could have had a few more, but I did have to drive.
Corvin in July and August Random photos.
7.29 – Indianola Iowa Balloon Festival An annual tradition in Indianola Iowa is the Hot Air Balloon classic. I believe it is the second largest balloon festival in the US. It is a week long event of skills. We just went to see them all take off at dusk. Every time Corvin would see a new balloon, he would take an audible breath in and “Balloon” as if it was the first one he had ever seen. That made the whole time worth it.
7.30 – Moto Room Iowa We had an artist come in and paint a sailboat and light house in Corvin’s room. We spent too much not to take photos of it to remember it by. It also went along with his sailboat bed theme. I’m making Corvin live my childhood dreams now.
8.12 – New Moto Bed Okay, so if I am so proud of Corvin’s sailboat crib from the last photo set, why am I getting him a new bed? On July 27th of this year, Corvin got his first stitches. He climbed out of his sailboat crib and fell onto a wicker chair, splitting open his eyebrow. We didn’t want him falling out again, so we got him a new bed closer to the ground.
8.13 – Ledges State Park with Steve What better way to spend a warm August day than splashing around in the creek and hiking some trails. We started off with a picnic lunch, then worked it off with a hike in the woods (“look at the deer, Corvin”). And no trip to Ledges would be complete without a big SPLASH!
8.17 – Racoon River Beach and Red Boat Hogan and Steve went for a spin in Daddy’s boat on the water while and Danelle and Corvin played along the beach.
8.20 – Hiatt and Colleen at their house-farm This weekend we took a trip to KC. During this visit, we went to Hiatt and Colleen’s house. Corvin enjoyed playing with Cujo and Zeus. Then he got to ‘ride’ on Colleen’s horse, Misty. But his favorite part of the trip was climbing up and down and up and down and up… the white fence. There was soooo much excitement that he just couldn’t keep his eyes open on the way home. At least cookie monster was there to keep him company.
8.31 to 9.9 – NY Vacation We finally took a much anticipated and needed vacation, leaving Corvin in KC with my parents. We booked our airfare for this trip back in February. This trip was multifaceted. The destination for this trip started with Steve’s Brother’s wedding. Beyond that, we could do whatever we wanted. So we started the first 4 days of the trip hanging out with Steve’s family. Danelle and I took a day trip to break up hanging out with Steve’s family. While on vacation, I conducted 2 phone interviews for jobs and landed in person interviews the Monday after we got back. So we went to Rochester to see the family. Then after that, we worked our way around Lake Ontario counter clockwise. There is so much cool junk to talk about that I should have split this up into several albums, but its too late, Next vacation. Renting the motor boat for the day and stopping at Boldt Castle was probably the highlight for me. Okay, Niagara falls was pretty cool too.
9.17 to 9.25 – Leaving Des Moines I never thought the time would come to leave Des Moines, but it did come. Danelle got a job in St. Louis and moved there with her parents. I landed my job right before she started, so we only had 2 weeks living apart. It felt like forever because I had to pack most of the house by myself and take care of Corvin when I wasn’t at work. More than just that, I was sad and a bit afraid to leave my friends for something new. This album represents a few of the friends that I love and a house that was good to me. It will never be the same, but I hope the new can be just as good.
10.3 – Corvin’s 2nd Birthday We celebrated Corvin’s second birthday at Henry and Carol’s house. We are living there now while we look for a house. We didn’t do anything out of the ordinary. Cake, ice cream and a few presents.
10.10 Daddy’s Train Daddy, my grandpa, is an amazing engineer. Some of you may look at the photos and think that the train set he is working isn’t too special, and others think that they could never do it. I find it amazing because it all closes up into a box and is portable. What you won’t get to see is that he made several tools just to create this. Every time Daddy works on something, he invents some new tool to make the job easier. There is a photo of the bottom of the set. You can see some of the mechanical things he created. The water tower in the set links to the bridge to raise it up. This is all done with dowel pins and gears that he created. I would have to buy something to do that. He is the man! There are three levels that the train ascends only to go back down and do it all over again. Its N scale if you couldn’t tell.
10.10 Mini Golf We went to a glow in the dark indoor mini golf place in the Mall of the Plains (Olathe, KS). I wore the orange wig from my parents house to the mall and back without taking it off. I guess I was feeling outgoing or something. Must have been practice for Halloween. I’m not sure who won, but we had a good time. Ohh, and a small miracle happened, Hiatt didn’t divot the green when he didn’t get a hole in 1…
10.15 – Pumpkin Patch Jake and Robin invited us to go the pumpkin patch with their family. Corvin got to ride a horse and mostly thought it was fun. I stood there to make sure that he didn’t fall off. He also found the pumpkins to be awesome. He wanted to take each one of them home. Every one seemed to be bigger than the next! We didn’t get a photo, but he and I went through an inflatable haunted house two times. Once he made it the first time, he wanted to go back and even laughed. We invited Danelle’s dad Henry to come along and he enjoyed the trip also.
10.29 – Kirkwood Model Train Show I wasn’t sure that I wanted to go to a model train show. I expected a bunch of old people hanging out with their trains and goofy conductor hats. That was until I heard that they had Lego train displays. Then I just had to go… err Corvin needed to see this. One of the things that really caught my attention (Lego) was the train clock. Some guy used a laptop and sensors to create a clock with a model train set. I would say he needs a hobby, but he already has one!
12.29 – House So we finally made an offer on a house. Here are the photos of it so far. That is because it is being built. The framing is almost complete and just needs some inspection, plumbing, electrical… okay, so it isn’t even close, but it will be ours. Check it out if you want to know where any electrical or plumbing is going to be.
Turkey Day at Holly and Jim’s We started off this trip by going to KC for the night. My parents had already headed down to Wichita so we had the house to ourselves. We would have been there for Turkey day, but I got sick and had to make offerings to the porcelain god. Our Thanksgiving dinner consisted of hot dogs and bread, Hogan didn’t feel like eating and Danelle didn’t know where to find anything… Once that was done, we decided to head there anyway. We called first to make sure they didn’t mind the germs. The most memorable part of this trip was going to Jim’s parents farm and firing Daddy’s WW2 German Mauser rifle. Daddy also took part in the potato gun! Too bad it died after the first shot.
12.10 – Christmas is coming. We were hanging out and Henry and Carol’s and decided to squeeze in some family photos. So if you have lost yours from 2005 or just plain threw it away, you can re-print it from the web now 🙂
Moto Daycare Christmas Program We put Corvin in Kinder Care when we got to St. Louis. We didn’t want a large center like that but knew we would find a good place once we moved into our house. So this would have to do for the short term. Corvin didn’t like it at all. He cried almost every morning. I on the other hand loved it… The administrator lady was HOT! Too bad I didn’t get any photos of her in this set.
12.25 – Christmas What is Christmas without a little drummer boy. Too bad Corvin decided to play a rock concert. He had to take his shirt off, cause he likes to be “naked”. He went NUTS on the drums for quite some time. He finally has started getting the hang of unwrapping presents. It isn’t just about eating the paper anymore. A few train sets from Santa and he was very happy. He also got some Duplo blocks. Grandpa Henry was kind enough to make something different every day with the blocks. One day a robot and the next a bridge. Okay he made about 50 different bridges, but they were all cool!
12.26 – Moto Driveway Art It was so warm outside that we decided to take Corvin outside and use some of the sidewalk chalk that Santa brought him. Check out our art.
Bonus Cakes GeoLearning (where I work) has random days where people bring in food. They try to make it fun by naming the food crazy or bring in something different. I was in the mood for crazy, so I made cupcakes with dollar signs on them. Hence the name Bonus Cakes. As a side bonus, you can see part of the coffee cup speakers I created.
Corvin and Daddy While in KC we went to Daddy’s house to see him. We have some photos of him with Corvin.
Jason And Brandi Hilton There may only be two photos in this set, but they are two of our very dear friends.
MadHatDay GeoLearning also has random days to boost employee moral. One of those days is hat day. They range from normal to weird, but that is what makes it fun.
Random Moto I couldn’t find any better places to put these photos.
Danelle’s tree identification in Chicago Danelle took a trip to Chicago to identify trees. The photos are documenting some of her work.