| 1.10 – Sean and Jennifer’s | Just a quick visit out to see Sean and Jennifer. We had not seen their new baby, Kaleb yet. |
| 1.10 – Kelly and Jeff’s New Baby. | While in Jeff City, we also visited Kelly and Jeff. Maggie is very tiny here. |
| 1-23-06 – House | House Construction |
| 02082006 – House | House Construction |
| 02092006 – House | House Construction |
| 021006 – House | House Construction |
| 021206 – Maggie Baptism | Maggie Niemeyer’s Baptism in Jeff City. |
| 021306 – House | House Construction |
| 021406 – House | House Construction |
| 021506 – House | House Construction |
| 021706 – House | House Construction |
| 2-20-06 House | House Construction |
| 022206 – House | House Construction |
| 4.01.06 Katie’s Wedding | Katie (Puetz) Garland , Danelle’s former roommate and brides maid, got married. |
| 4.02.06 STL Zoo with Jake and Robin Metheny | We went to the Zoo with Jake and Robin. The weather was fantastic and Corvin had an awesome time. |
| 4.10.06 – Moto Shadows and Beer | Corvin started standing in the window sill and it looked very cool. I grabbed the camera and started taking pictures of him. The empty beer can just seemed to follow and made us laugh! |
| 4.10.06 Corvin At The Arch | This is Corvin’s first official trip to the St. Louis Arch. He was amazed about how tall the arch is. We also walked along the river for a while. He made sure to tell me “Dad, don’t fall in the water.” |
| 4.10.06 House Driveway | Starting to put in an actual driveway in our new house. |
| 4.14.06 – At The STL Zoo | Just another trip to the Zoo. Corvin likes the animals. |
| 4.15 – Basement Water leak | The first in a series of water leaks in our basement. Dave didn’t do the greatest job of getting the water away from the house when it rains. We had rip out some of the dry wall in the basement to see the exact nature of the leak, but we did find it. I won’t go into detail for fear of ranting and saying mean things about Dave… |
| 4.16.06 – Easter at STL Grandparents | We stayed in town for Easter and this is us hanging out at Danelle’s parents house. |
| 4.20.06 – Driveway Construction | The action continues on our driveway. Some day it may even be finished. |
| 4.29.06 – Basment Water Leak | One of the great features of our new house is a leaky basement. This is after the builder had been back to “Fix” the leak. You can see the water pooling up against the foundation and where it is coming through on the basement side. |
| 4.30.06 – Brian Birthday | Happy Birthday to Brian. We are at Danelle’s parents house celebrating. |
| 5.07.06 – Transportation Museum | The Transportation Museum in St. Louis is an incredible place to see trains. Corvin is fascinated with them, so we got a membership. He is a big fan of the smaller riding train and the working trolly. |
| 5.15.06 – Sonora Birthday | Happy Birthday Sonora Janet Haake. Our beautiful baby girl is here! |
| 5.17.06 – Sonora Hospital and Home | Sonora came home from the hospital today. We are excited to be back home. Now the real fun begins of staying up all night and not having a nurse to take care of us. I’ll really miss it though, cause every 12 hours new (cute) nurses showed up!!! |
| 5.17 – Laura and John Visit | Laura and John Redinger came over to visit and see baby Sonora. |
| 5.19 – Holly Jim and Dad in St. Louis | Holly and Jim Pinegar came in to see the new baby Sonora and were conveniently also on vacation at the same time. Dad is too kind to come into town. His mom, Grandma Marion, had died on 5/14/06, just 5 days earlier. Seeing a new baby certainly cheered dad up. We’ll miss you Grandma! |
| 5.22 – Tree Falling In Backyard | When we moved into our new house, both sides of the back yard were lined with trees/shrubs/and a nasty fence. As of the time these pictures were taken, I have taken out the shrubs and fence on the right side of the yard. There is a large tree that is in the middle of the property line. It was too tall for me to cut down, so I found this guy down the street working on a neighbor’s house. He came over and gave me a cheap quote. I cut him a check on the spot, and the tree was removed. |
| 5.25 – Sonora 10 days old | The visitors don’t stop. Danelle’s Uncle Gene came over for 2 reasons. First to see the new baby. Then second to take firewood from the tree that was cut down on the 22nd of the month. He has a wood burning heater for his house, so it is free heat. You might have also noticed that my mom and brother Henry are visiting us. The took Amtrack in town to stay for a few days, It was great to have their help! |
| 5.26 – Attic AC Water Leak | What a tale of a story this is… Our house has a furnace/AC in the basement for the first floor, and one in the attic for the second floor. It finally got warm enough to run continuously. It seems that the drain pipe didn’t exactly drain, and so the water came into Sonora’s room. The photos are of the damage caused by it. Dave (the builder) came out with the HVAC guy quickly to fix this. It would be sweet if this was the end of the story. I don’t have photos, so I’ll describe the rest of it… It took Dave about 2 months to come out and start to repair the dry wall. After his first visit, the AC leaked again worse than ever… He ended up needing replace a large part of the dry wall on the ceiling to correct it. If I wasn’t writing this several months later, I probably would have use unkind words to describe the situation! |
| 5.26 – Corvin on Tractor | The inspector for our house decided that the water meter was not installed deep enough. Because we still didn’t have a lawn, this was an easy task to come out and dig it deeper. The workmen came out and started around 7:30am. Corvin is fascinated with Bob the Builder and construction equipment. I asked the guys if they would mind if I let Corvin sit on “Scoop” and get some pictures. They thought it was a great idea, so here are the photos. Ohh, our yard is only green in the photos, because those are weeds! |
| 5.27 – Kelly and Jeff Visit | Kelly and Jeff were in town, so they stopped by for their first glance at Sonora. We have some photos of them in here. |
| May And June Sonora | This is a random collection of Corvin and Sonora in May and June. They didn’t really fit in any album, so I put them here. |
| 6.9 – Grass Seed Backyard | We have been in our house for a few months now and we are finally getting grass seed for our back and side yards. That is Dave the builder applying it. |
| 6.16 – Laying Sod | Instead of grass seed for the front yard, we got Dave to buy sod if we put it down. A little hard work is fine with us, so this is the delivered sod. Time to get to work! |
| 6.22 – Steve At Zoo | Steve Bueg came in town for Sonora’s Baptism. He is the Godfather. This is our trip to the St. Louis Zoo while he is here. |
| 6.25 – Sonora Baptism | Sonora’s Baptism. |
| 6.27 Jake N Byron Visit | Byron Kimmerly and his wife came into town to visit. They were staying with Jake and came over to visit. They are getting ready to move out to Western Kansas and teach. It was great to see him again. |
| June Family | Bunch of random pictures from June. |
| 7.1 – Garage N Grass | The house is starting to look nice. I took some photos to commemorate it before the kids start destroying it. Notice that I put up insulation in the garage and put down an epoxy floor. It compliments the red Sandpiper sailboat in there. The grass is also starting to look nice. |
| 7.3 – STL Cathedral | Steve happened to be in town for a job interview and wanted to see the cathedral. We decided it would be fun to see ourselves. The doors were locked, but we got a nice view walking around the outside. |
| 7.9 – Drywall Garage | This is the start of the drywall project for the garage. You can see the pile of drywall and other assorted construction materials that were delivered to our house. Now if I could just do it right! Jake and Robin will help us out. |
| 7.12 – Brother Tom | Danelle and I were extremely pleased to have Brother Tom come and visit us. He was actually en route between cities, but stopped overnight in St. Louis. We put him up in our house and took him out to dinner. He was an inspiration to us in college at CCM. I wish I got more pictures of him when he was at our house, but we were so excited to catch up with him, that it just slipped away. |
| 7.15 – Drywall Garage | Jake and I are nearly finished with the drywall portion of the garage project. If you couldn’t tell, the ceiling is 16 feet up in the garage. That made for some difficult lifting and took many nights to complete. The portion over the garage is still left to do and will take quite a bit of time, but it is starting to come together! |
| 7.23 – City Museum Museum Mom Hayden and Hannah | The St. Louis City Museum is one of the coolest museums I have ever been to. I’m not sure it is even a museum. It is more like a playground for kids of all ages. Just look at the photos to see all of the stuff we climbed through. I could easily spend a whole day there sweating and having fun! It is a must see if you are going through St. Louis and want to have some fun. |
| 7.29 – Hogan Spider Byte | The two photos here are not for people that get grossed out easily. They are photos of me in the hospital looking at where I received a Brown Recluse spider bite. That bite put me in the hospital for 5 days! |
| July Family | Assorted family photos for July. |
| 8.1 – Danelle In DC | Danelle took a business trip to Washington DC and these are the photos she took. |
| 8.12 – Metheny party | Jake and his family know how to throw a party! And why not celebrate, Jake’s dad Stan is in town and little Anna Marie (Jake’s Sister Rachel’s baby) is also there to hold. |
| 8.19 – Colleen Baby Shower | Colleen Haake’s baby shower. |
| 8.19 – Mom and dad’s 34th Wedding Anniversary | This was an awesome time. Probably the best present for my parents was having all of their 7 kids in town for a single event. It had probably been 4 or 5 years since the last time all of us were in the same place at the same time. I was quite happy myself to see us all together. Even more surprising was that there wasn’t much fighting! |
| 8.25 – College Super Friends Weekend | I’ll start with Attendance: Sean, Jennifer, Emilia, and Kaleb Godwin; Melanie and Brooke Caudill; Heather (sexy) Barnes; Kendal, Candy, Andy, (insert missing child’s name here). These were some of the great people I hung out with almost every day in college. It is great to see them again. Hopefully more people will be able to come next time. |
| August Family | Random August photos. |
| 9.2 – Museum of Transport | Corvin just had to go, so I had to get 1 photo… |
| 9.9 – Picnic at Cliff Cave Park | We purchased the book 60 hikes in 60 miles of St. Louis. This was the hike that we decided to take this day. The park has an amazing view of the river and is far enough from traffic to feel secluded. We took food so that we could have a picnic dinner out overlooking the river. It was mostly peaceful… I am learning to understand my dad more every day. Corvin wanted to go to the edge of the cliff all by himself and look over. He is way too clumsy for that so Danelle and I had to watch him the whole time. I would do it again. The picture of the bridge is the Jefferson Barracks Bridge (I-44) going over the River. |
| 9.12 – Sonora and Corvin | More photos of the kids growing up. |
| 9.16 Crowded Bed | Danelle usually wakes up in the morning sandwiched between the kids. Petra decided to add to the mix and I had to get out of bed. Too much for me! |
| 9.16-9.17 – Greentree Parade and Festival | Every year, Kirkwood Missouri has the Greentree weekend. We decided to see it. Corvin was completely fascinated with the parade. We were at the beginning, so we got more candy than most kids get on Halloween. Being this close to the fire truck and police cars was a huge treat also. |
| 9.23 – Grandpa Dan Visits | Grandpa Dan had a business trip in Columbia. Since he was half way to St. Louis, he came the rest of the way. He spent the night and went back the next day. While he was here, he got to hang out with his grandkids. We went to Corvin’s favorite place in the world, the Museum of Transportation (“Train Museum”). |
| 9.28 – Jake and Robin Visit | Jake and Robin came over to hang out. Okay, Robin really wanted to hold Sonora, so we let her. They are going to make great parents some day! |
| 9.30 – Steve Move To St. Louis In Iowa | Steve finally got a job in St. Louis. This is the start of the trip to move him from Des Moines, Iowa down to St. Louis. I was looking forward to this trip for quite some time as I had not seen our Des Moines friends since February. Many of the people here I used to work with at GeoLearning. Best of all, I got to play 2 rounds of Disc Golf with Jason Hilton and Joe Thompson! |
| 10.1 – Hogan with Hayden’s Kids | On my way back from Iowa (moving Steve to STL), I stopped in KC. Hayden, Jennifer, Brian, and Zach had just moved back from Puerto Rico. Hayden was working, but I got to see Jennifer and the kids. Boy are they growing fast! |
| 10.1 – Michaela Haake | Hiatt and Colleen’s first baby was born earlier in the week. I didn’t get to hold her cause I was feeling a bit sick, but I did get to see how awesome she is in person! It is hard to go wrong with new babies. I never thought my tough brother Hiatt could be such a sissy. I guess a baby daughter does that to you. |
| 10.1 – Steve Move to STL in STL | Steve and I finally made it to ST. Louis. We had a close call. When we were about an hour out, I noticed Steve was sleeping. I woke him up and had him check his blood sugar. He was at 29… We had to stop at Sonic and get a Route 44 cherry limeade. It took him about 20 minutes after he started drinking it before he was back to normal. Funny how he acted drunk when his blood sugar was slow. Back at our house, you can see the act of unpacking. Joe Thompson and I had a great time labeling the boxes of Steve’s stuff. |
| 10.5 – Chocolate Fountain | We purchased a chocolate fountain at Sam’s Club. It was reasonably priced and we figured it would be a hit around the holidays. Just to be on the safe side we decided to “test” it first before taking it to family. Jake and Robin came over to help us test it. Judging by the photos, you will note that a chocolate fountain is very messy! Corvin was the worst for it ending up needing to take off his shirt in order to prevent a huge mess. Corvin ate so much chocolate, that he fell off his chair three times in a row trying to get more. That freaked us out a bit, so we called it a night! On a side note, the fountain broke on our second use in Kansas City with my parents. We returned it for a full refund. It wasn’t good for us anyway. |
| 10.6 – Bamboo | I planted some of Daddy’s bamboo once we got grass at our house. These are photos of how it is doing after the first year. I can’t wait for it to really start taking over. Bamboo is very fond of water and the area where it is planted ponds for nearly every rainfall. |
| 10.8 – Lone Elk Park | Lone Elk park is a nature reserve located just outside of St. Louis. We found this through our 60 hikes in 60 miles of STL book. We didn’t make it for the hike cause it was getting late, but we did see the elk. It was mating season, so they were making strange calls. |
| 10.8 – Sealing Driveway | Our house didn’t come with a normal concrete driveway. An asphalt driveway was put down with a concrete apron to the street per code. The driveway was very porous and concerned us with winter coming on that it may crack early. I was out there applying driveway sealer to prevent that from happening. I sure hope it works. I’m sure I will have to do this every year for a few years for it to really take well. |
| 10.9 – Corvin’s 3rd birthday | It is hard to believe that our big boy is turning 3. It doesn’t seem that long ago that he was born. Of course all parents make that statement about their kids. Here we are in the same boat. He is already talking all the time using new words only daily. We celebrated at one of his favorite places, Chuckey Cheeze. I think it was his best birthday yet! |
| 10.18 – Hogan’s Unicycle Bruise | So I’m still trying to learn to ride my unicycle. I got it back in May and have been trying off and on for a while now. I have been practicing in the basement where there is little room to “ride”. There is also the added benefit of hanging on to the ceiling rafters. I have been trying to let go and see what happens. Needless to say, I wasn’t ready. Most of the time when I loose my balance, I just fall to my feet. This time I fell and landed with all my weight on the side of a 5 gallon bucket. It took almost 2 minutes before I could get up from the fall! The bruise here is about 12 hours after the fall. Later the bruise took up most of my leg. I did get on the next morning and try again. |
| 10.21 – Pumpkin Patch | For the second year in a row, we have gone out with Jake and Robin to the pumpkin patch. Jake’s dad was in town, so he was there too. Sean, Rachel, and Anna were also there. It is always fun to go pick out pumpkins and see Corvin’s reaction to the fields of pumpkins! |
| 10.21 Our Lady Of The Sorrows Playground | After the pumpkin patch, we were near Our Lady Of The Sorrows shrine and decided to check out their playground. It is modeled after the 7 days of creation starting with little toys, moving on to stuff for bigger kids. You can guess what end I went to. It was a great time and a fun playground. |
| 10.22 – Basement Construction | With Steve actually in St. Louis and living with us, it was time to finish his room in the basement so we could get our office back. I didn’t do a great job of documenting this project, so you will get to see the start of the framing. Later I might include finished photos. |
| 10.28 – At Haake Parents | This is just a fun weekend visit to KC to see my parents. We were decorating outside for Halloween. Almost too late, but just right! We also got to throw the football some! |
| 10.31 – Haloween | This is our first Halloween at our house in STL. Check out the pumpkin I decorated with a chocolate banana mouth and mini pumpkin eyes. Something different anyway. I was disappointed with the turnout of trick or treaters. I even gave out full sized candy bars to try to get more people. Maybe they will remember me for next year! |
| Corvin and Sonora October | A random collection of photos of the kids for October. |
| 11.15 – Sonora’s 6 month Birthday | Who wouldn’t want to have two birthdays a year! My parents always celebrated the 6 month birthday of all of my siblings. I wanted to carry on the tradition. Steve baked two cakes. One for Sonora to demolish, and one for the civilized people to eat. Seeing her taste cake for the first time is a huge treat! She had not eaten any solid food before the cake, so she didn’t know what to do. After a small amount of help, she quickly caught on! |
| 11.25 – Maggie’s first birthday | While it wasn’t actually Maggie’s first birthday yet, it was an easy time to celebrate it. We made the day trip out to Jeff City to enjoy the festivities. One of the highlights of the trip was Jeff singing “A spoon full of sugar” with a funky hat on (see the last photo). |
| 11.25 – Sonora and Kaleb | We got to Jeff City before Maggie’s first birthday party started, so we went to see Sean and Jennifer. Most of the photos are of Kaleb and Sonora together. It is always nice to catch up with friends! |
| Corvin And Sonora November | A random collection of photos of the kids for November |
| 12.1 – Ice Storm | There is no weather like bad weather. This was no exception This ice storm knocked out power for about 500,000 people in STL. We only lost power for about 15 minutes. I’m happy about that. The snow that came after the ice didn’t do much for us. There is some here, but not as much as I wanted. Up North got quite a bunch more, but I can’t complain too much. |
| 12.17 – Grandma and Grandpa Boeckmann come over | Corvin is turning out to be quite a photographer. He took many of the group shots (the ones he is not in). |
| 12.17 – Michaela Haake | Here is an album I got from Hiatt that has Michaela in it. As normal, Grandpa Dan is sleeping. |
| 12.19 – Hanging Out | Jake and Robin came over to visit. If you couldn’t tell by now, we hang out with them a bunch. They took a family photo here that we sent out with our Christmas cards. It took a few tries to get us all organized. |
| 12.22 – Lunch Hike at Lone Elk Park | Its the Friday before Christmas and the kids are at daycare. Danelle and I are home alone, and decided to go for a hike. We have been wanting to complete this hike for a while. Jason and Brandi Hilton sent us a Hickory Farms package for Christmas and we used it for lunch overlooking the lake. It was a great time for Danelle and I to be together as a couple and enjoy nature. What a perfect way to start a holiday weekend. |
| 12.22 – Mild Friday | Did I mention the weather was perfect today? We went outside after work and did some straightening in the yard. Inside you’ll find a rare photo of Snorkie! |
| 12.22- Christmas at the Boeckmanns | What a busy day for photos. We finished off the day at Danelle’s parents house exchanging our Christmas presents with them. Corvin is really starting to figure out this present thing and wants to help everybody open their presents. He didn’t even care what was in the packages so much as the fact that he got to open them. Sonora only seemed to want to eat the wrapping paper. |
| 12.25 – Christmas in KC | Christmas is a great time of year with family getting together. This year was no exception. I wish that Holly and Jim would have come in town, but it was still good. While in KC, Danelle and I had lunch with Byron and Christy Kimmerly. I also met up with Christy and Mike Snozek. I had not seen them in quite a while, so it was wonderful to catch up with them! The best part of the whole thing was that Santa Clause figured out that Corvin and Sonora were in Kansas City instead of St. Louis at their house. He didn’t forget any toys!!! |
| 12.31 – New Years Ev..> | To celebrate this year we had the following people show up. Jake and Robin; Kelly, Jeff and Maggie; Brian; and Steve Bueg. Once we got the kids to bed, we played the game Apples to Applies for about 2 hours. Some mild snacking and drinking occurred, but nothing to set any records. Henry and Carol (Danelle’s parents) were there, but didn’t stay too late. |
| Random House | Photos here are random photos of the construction process. I didn’t get them categorized fast enough to know where to put them. So here is a bucket of photos. |
| Random People Photos | If you have been to my house, you may be in here 🙂 |