2010 Year in Review

I know I haven't been the best blogger this year.  I could probably blame it on a lot of things like we were living in a rental house, we moved, work was busy, I am going to graduate school, etc... but none of them would be good ones.  I just didn't cut it this year I'm afraid.  One of the nice things about Christmas break is that I get to do some little housekeeping jobs on my computer.  I hadn't been good, either, at keeping this year's pictures nicely filed away so I had to spend some time today doing that.  In doing that I also created a nice little year end video versus the traditional (ok, 2 years worth) slide show I normally post - so here goes.  So much has happened this past year that it is easy to forget how blessed we are.  Here's to a better blogging 2011!

The Frozen Tundra

No, I'm not talking about the general state of Wisconsin weather, but recently I've had a chance to go to two Packer games since the beginning of November.  Cathy and I went to the Dallas v. Green Bay Sunday night game early in December with her dad and sister.  It was her first Packer game and a nice night for it, not really too cold.  The Packers won pretty easily.  This past Sunday I went to the Green Bay v. San Francisco game.  The throwback jerseys were an interesting touch, I'm not sure if I liked them or not.  This game was a bit colder, but still not as some I've been to.

Green Bay vs. San Francisco... wearing the 1929 throwbacks.

Green Bay vs. Dallas Sunday night game...

Fall Fun

Here are a couple of fall fun pictures.  Grandma and Grandpa took Liam and Owen to the pumpkin farm.  This seems to be an annual trip for them.  I have the obligitory halloween pictures also.  Liam was a clone trooper after a failed dracula attempt.  He just couldn't get his collar right so he scrapped that idea.  Owen has been wanting to be Batman for months... I even got him to say in the whispered tone, "I'm Batman..."

The Obligitory "How Tall Are You Picture..."



Pile 'o Pumpkins



The crew...

Attacking the house?

 

Goodbye B-town.

As you may know, we have sold the Chateau in Burlington.  Some of you may think that I say "Goodbye B-town" with an air of celebration, but I don't think that would be accurate.  It is always kind of sad to sell a house and while moving to Burlington wasn't exactly what we wanted to do and buying our house in Burlington was kind of a disappointment after our house in Florida, I think it is safe to say that Burlington really grew on us.  I think "Goodbye B-town" is actually said with some sadness.  Some of our best friends still live there and we are going to miss them and the ability to just stop by at a moment's notice.  

We moved out last weekend and closed today on 549 Briody.  We are no longer home owners.  Here is one final picture of the Chateau with Cathy, Liam, and Owen.  We moved in as a family of 3 and Sofie and leave a family of 4 without her.  Lots of great times and many, many memories.

Cathy, Liam, & Owen one last time at 549 Briody

Birthdays

September is birthday month at the Chateau.  Liam's is on the 18th, mine on the 25th, and Owen's on the 29th.  Frankly, I get jipped out of my birthday.  I did, though, get permission to finally buy a PS3 for my birthday.  I still have to pay for it, but I'll take it.  Here are a couple pictures of the week.

Yes, this is AM and this is when Liam got us out of bed on his birthday.

Wide Awake

Opening our first gift...

8 years old

Opening gifts at Grandma's house

We had twinkie airplanes instead of a cake.

Helicopter!

First Trip to the Holy Land

No... we did not go to Jerusalem, but the other holy land - Lambeau Field.  For those who have never been, well, words cannot describe and I will not attempt to.  But for the familia Dusseau we made our first trip for Cathy, Liam, and Owen for the Packer Family Night.  It was a fun day, we tailgated, went in for the warm ups and scrimmage, and then some really, really cool fireworks launched from the roof of the stadium in a 360 degree spectacle.  It was a good time had by all and only having to drive back to Milwaukee was very nice.  Here are some pictures of the night.

Cheesehead Owen

To the game...

View from our seats.

Not sure what Owen is doing?

Acting silly...

Summer Fun

I know, you checked back and surprise! Rob has updated the blog.  I had this post ready about a month ago and then Liam hopped on the computer and closed out my window in the middle of a picture upload.  I guess that is a curse of a child who is old enough to surf the net.  Anyway, I hope to "get back on the proverbial horse" and keep things updated again and hopefully my faithful fans will return.

We have had some summer fun.  Liam was especially busy with golf and baseball.  We also took a tour of Miller Park the this summer.

Owen in the dugout.

Hopefully I can take this picture when they are older.

Owie in the golf cart.

Liam on the putting green at golf lessons.

Liam got to play a round from the forward tees.

With his new hat.

Batter Up!

Running to first base...

Everybody has to get a trophy...

Rain, Rain, Go Away

It was an interesting night last evening as the earth began to open, and the seas... err, wait, that was the OTHER flood.

Anyway, you may have seen Milwaukee on the national news today as we got a whole lot of rain in a little bit of time.  It was quite the spectacle.  The Chateau Dusseau, Milwaukee location, got about a foot of water in the basement and when the busses drove by the breakers (not an exageration) hit the second step of the front door. 

Cathy has been busy cleaning up today as I went to school to see how the 4 ft. of water in the elevator shaft was doing.  Fun times and more rain tonight they say.  Here are a couple of pictures.

The Chateau... flooded.

Looking toward the backyard.

The basement, early on.

Sherman Blvd.

The neighbors van...

Looking south on Sherman Blvd.

Lots of stalled cars, the breakers came from the busses.

Looking south again on Sherman Blvd.

Yes, that is the Fire Dept. with a boat behind their truck.

All Is Good

Well, I made the jump to the new iPhone 4 this past week. I'm happy to report that I haven't had any problems with the "death grip" or anything else. The major good thing was that when I synced it with my old one, all the icons for apps that weren't standard went away. When I resynced them I hadn't lost any data from games I had played in the past. You can not imagine the anger if I would have lost that high Yahtzee score or my Sailboat Pro score... some heads would have rolled. BUT, all is good.

Videos of Owen

Here are a couple videos of Owen from TX.  He actually did eat the pancake.

TX 2010

I thought tonight that it would be a good night for a post... I know its been a while, but I have been a little busy.  Next week finishes up a class that puts me at 1/4 of the way finished with my PhD course work.  No need for congratulations (not that anyone was going to do that), but that still puts me at t-minus 5 years.

We spent a week in TX visiting Cathy's dad a few weeks ago.  Here are a few pictures from the trip which was highlighted by some fishing, tubing, and a jet ski. 

Liam caught one!

Playing DS

Swimming

A big, ugly catfish.

The yearly cowboy picture.

On the boat...

With Grandpa

What?

So my blog might have read "deleted" recently... I don't know what the deal was, but I tried to log in from TX and it asked me for a special password.  May be it didn't like me logging in from the middle of nowhere, but now I have things going.  Sorry about that.

Randomness

I know I've slowed down on the posts... life has been busy.  Next week we leave for TX for a week so hopefully I can post some vacation picks then.  Today was a big day at the Chateau, it was the opening games of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.  As some of my faithful readers may remember, we went to the 2006 World Cup in Germany.  That was pre-blog, but fun nonetheless.  We watched the first game at home, and then we went to the Nomad for the first half of France v. Uruguay.  It was a good time.  Here are some other pics of the past month.

Owen as Spiderman

Down by the lake

Owen's K3 Graduation

Liam's Baseball