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Well, classes have started to get the better of my time so my posts have gotten very infrequent. I did want everyone to know that I added some new albums to the Photos page. I’ll go ahead and link them all in this post but they are all over on that page also. The first album is from Easter. Yeah I guess that was a while ago. We had a great time at church. Rowan hunted Easter eggs and really tried hard to only get blue ones. After church and lunch and naptime we did a little family Easter egg hunt for both the boys in the backyard.
Next up are some photos from our family bowling night at the end of April. I got the day off from work for my birthday and Ali was off that day as well so we decided to have a “family fun day” and Rowan wanted to go bowling. I think Rowan saw bowling in a Tom and Jerry cartoon and thought it looked totally awesome! He still had a lot of fun it just wasn’t the crazy fun that Tom and Jerry had when they bowled! Afterwards, we picked up some fantastic subs from Bellacino’s and watched Avatar. It was definitely a great “family fun day.”
Now more recently, Auntie La-La invited Rowan to go to the circus with her and Alyssa and Ali and I had to tag along. It was Rowan’s first time at the circus and he was in awe. I think his favorite part was probably the elephants. I snapped a few pictures, but to be honest, I was in awe too. It’s been a while since I had seen a Barnum & Bailey circus.
Finally, for this post’s sake, are some photos from Alyssa’s birthday party with her friends. Ali’s parents were kind enough to let Laurie have Alyssa’s party there. Rowan had fun just swimming around. Ali enjoyed the chit-chat with Laurie and the other kids’ moms. I enjoyed the food and sitting inside watching the Red Sox. Fun times! There are also a few photos of swimming later that night with all the kids. Lily brought over her tea set which Rowan thought was the greatest thing ever. Chris even got in on the tea party for a few minutes.
Alright. That catches me up to around last week or so. I will get some video posted soon. Take care. I meant to add a post about this about a month ago but it slipped my mind I guess. We had our family pictures done in February at Artisan Life here in Tulsa. This was the first time we have done this and we were very happy with the results. I have had the photos on the Photos page on our site for some time and I added some other albums at the same time so check it out. I’ll get some more photos and posts up as soon as I can. We are looking forward to the summer and all of the fun that brings. Click the pic below to open up the album. It has been a long season but Rowan finally connected on a long jumper in the first game of a doubleheader on Saturday. Despite some furious defense, Rowan was able to get his shot off. He’s come a long way since the beginning of basketball. He routinely makes baskets in practice now. Here’s a video I shot of the momentous shot.
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Here’s a short video that captures what Rowan did for pretty much the entire night at Nana and Frumpa’s after he got his new bike on Christmas. He was weaving through crowds of people, zipping through the kitchen, merrily shouting, “Beep beep, coming through!” Since it’s been so cold and ice is still all over the place, he enjoys getting the chance to ride his bike inside Nana & Frumpa’s house. Now we just need to get him a horn or a bell or something . . .
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As promised, this is the post about our Christmas weekend with my extended family in Siloam Springs, AR. We got up and around Saturday morning and packed up the car hoping to make it to Arkansas by 1pm. We left about 10:15 and it was a horrible drive. The roads were in terrible shape. What normally takes us about 80 minutes took about two and a half hours. The highway out of Tulsa was completely covered with ice for long stretches. Once we hit the turnpike we were able to speed up a little as road conditions improved. After getting into town we stopped at the hotel we were staying at and dropped off our suitcase and a few things and then headed over to Grandma’s house. Fortunately lunch was running a little late so we didn’t miss anything. Of course the meal was fantastic as usual, and I ate way too much as usual. After dinner it was time for the annual game of “bushing” to see what 3 losers would have to wash the dishes. Ali hates this as she has lost every year and had to wash dishes. I think last year she went so far as to just start washing dishes without even playing. Needless to say she was very excited when she was out early on in the game. This year the losers were my sister Laurie, my Aunt Shirl, and Chris! After the dishes were washed, it was time for presents! We went through the list and everyone opened their gifts. It was especially fun watching Rowan and my cousin’s daughter Claire opening gifts and interacting with each other and everyone else. After presents were opened it was time for the annual presentation of Gordy! Gordy is a horrifically ugly rooster statue that began as a gag gift for my Aunt Beth and has become a sort of a trophy of hope and good fortune. For instance, the year that I had Gordy I got married and Rowan was born. So in that spirit, my cousin Carrie decided that since Chris officially became a Knight this year that it would be fitting for Gordy to be bestowed upon him. Pretty soon it was time to get the little ones to bed and after some more visiting we all hit the hay. Here are the photos from the first day.
We woke up Sunday morning and got ready to attend services at my grandfather’s church. After church we went over to Grandpa and Grandma Clara’s house (it’s the one with the red bow on it in the pictures below) for more food and Christmas gifts. Again we had a lot of fun and I ate too much. Watching Rowan and Claire was lots of fun. It’s always a shame our visits our so short. About the time Rowan is starting to warm up to everyone it’s time to go. Again we exchanged gifts and took lots of pictures. We got to do more visiting too. Unfortunately because of the road conditions I did not want to do much driving in the dark so we had to leave a lot earlier than we would have liked. Hopefully when this weather gets better we’ll get over there again. I know Chris is looking forward to some target practice with Grandpa. And that was the end of our family Christmases. It goes by way too fast.
Hopefully this finds everyone feeling rested and recovered from a great holiday season. I wanted to take a little time to post photos from our family festivities. I decided to split this up into two parts. This part will be all the pictures from Christmas Day and part 2 will be the weekend in Siloam Springs. We were fortunate enough to make it through the Christmas Eve Blizzard of 2009. We had a slight incident driving to Greg and Carla’s for Christmas Eve dinner but nothing too terrible in the long run. At the time it was a nightmare and I hope I never drive in weather like that again. The snow and ice are still all over the place but it’s starting to get better. As for Christmas morning I was very excited and laid in bed from about 6am until about 6:40 when Chris got up. Then I went downstairs and watched him open up his stocking and the other gifts that Santa left for him. When Rowan and Ali finally came down about 7:30 or so I was very excited to see Rowan’s reaction to everything. We were not disappointed. He was so happy and the boys made quick work of their gifts. We dragged it out as long as we could. I couldn’t get enough of the boys opening gifts. There’s nothing better.
After that it was time to see if we could make it as planned to Beeta’s house (aka my mom’s house) for Christmas lunch and gifts with my immediate family. Things were looking bleak when it seemed that my car was stuck in the driveway. Fortunately Ali’s dad came by with a couple of snow shovels and we made quick work of the driveway. Once that was taken care of we packed up Ali’s car and headed to Beeta’s house. We were treated to a fantastic lunch of Beeta’s famous brisket which we all hope will be a new tradition for Christmas (and any other holiday that we can get!). After lunch it was time for gifts. Again I had the most fun watching Chris, Alyssa, and Rowan opening their gifts. I was very happy to get my electric head shaver (almost as happy as Ali who always had to cut my hair). Here are some of the highlights:
Finally after Rowan finished napping at home we went over to Nana & Frumpa’s house (aka Ali’s parents’ house) for Christmas dinner with her family. It was especially nice this year to have Ali’s Uncle Sam and Aunt Leslie and her cousins Derek and Sierra in Tulsa to celebrate Christmas with us. Dinner was delicious as is the norm with our family dinners and then lots of gifts were exchanged. The highlights for me were Rowan getting his bike from Nana and Frumpa and then cruising around the house on it and Chris getting his first rifle as he continues to pursue his interest in hunting. Of course another highlight was the newest member of the Gorman family – Chowder. Chowder is an English Bulldog that Santa delivered to Greg, Ben, and Lily on Christmas morning. He is as cute and cuddly as he looks in the pictures below.
Once that was over it was time to head home and get some rest before the drive to Siloam on Saturday morning. I’ll try to get all that fun stuff posted tomorrow. Enjoy the photos! We did our annual picture of the boys in front of the Christmas tree for the Christmas card a few weeks ago. It turned out really well. There were several good pictures. I especially liked the last 2 photos. Here are all the pictures from the photo shoot. Perhaps next year Ali and I might be in the picture. Perhaps…
And because I’m a sucker for nostalgia. Here are the last 4 years of Christmas Card Photos: 2006 
2007 
2008 
2009 
Earlier this month Ali and I took the boys along with the rest of the Gorman clan to Dry Gulch USA to ride the Christmas Train and see the sights. It’s located about an hour or so northeast of Tulsa so we all piled into the van and truck and headed that way. It was pretty chilly but we were all bundled up really well. Plus there were several buildings to go in if we were feeling especially cold. We first hopped on the carousel for a quick ride and then walked over to the wagon ride. The wagon ride was pretty fun for everyone. It was my favorite part other than the old-timey buildings with the Christmas lights. Dry Gulch was built as a set for Western movies so all the buildings have a very authentic feel from another time. We then got in line for the Christmas train. The line moved very fast and the kids were very excited to get on the train. It’s a very nice steam engine that was very fun to ride. The only downside is that it is put on by a church that seems to be trying to “save” the riders. I think we all could have done without some of the scenes. I don’t believe a reenactment of the crucfixion is appropriate for little kids, but fortunately most of the little ones were sitting with their backs to that. After that we stopped by a fire to take a few pictures and then headed home. It was a lot of fun and I wouldn’t mind going back. We missed out on seeing Santa and we were in such a rush to ride the train that we didn’t go in many of the buildings. I could do without the train next time. Here are a few of the pictures we snapped while we were there.
As promised here’s a few videos I took at Rowan’s last game. The first 2 videos highlight the kind of hoops performances that Rowan and Lily were giving. What wasn’t captured were the many hugs and tackling that was happening at various times throughout the game. By the way Rowan is #14.
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Here is a video of Rowan taking his 1st shot in the game. It was so close to going in. But he hussled back on D and started applying some full court pressure.
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The 2nd shot was in traffic in the lane. He did an excellent job of clearing out and making room so that he could get his shot off. It just wasn’t falling for him on this day. He did make a shot in practice at halftime. It just didn’t translate to game time action.
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Finally, I was able to get a video of the “Bill Walton of the 4 year old league,” Ben Gorman. He towers over the other kids and in this video makes a great shot in the lane.
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It was a lot of fun and Rowan really progressed a lot from the first day to the last. Hopefully he will enjoy the second session just as much. A couple of weeks ago we went to Bass Pro Shop after church to get Rowan his photo with Santa. The way Bass Pro does it is pretty nice. When you get there they give you a “Bass Pass” with a time on it, in our case it was 1:30. Then you come back to the area around that time and they don’t start the lining up until that time. I’m sure they like it so people walk around their store and buy stuff. I spent the time we waited trying not to lose Rowan or let him destroy the displays of toys stacked up in the area. Ali was able to get a couple of our last gift requirements taken care of while we were there as well. Throughout the wait I hoped that it would be different from last year when Rowan was so excited up until the instant he was supposed to sit on Santa’s lap. He screamed and cried and we got no picture out of the whole thing. This year turned out to be much nicer. Rowan was excited, so excited that when he was 2nd or 3rd in line he thought he should just sneak around everyone to be next. When his turn happened he told Santa that he wanted an eagle (that we had conveniently seen in Bass Pro while we waited). He then took a pretty decent picture (he looked at the camera) which was free. 
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