I fell asleep in a crib tonight.

Let's just say we have been having some trouble getting Brecken to sleep lately. I think he knows that the party dosen't stop at 9:30 p.m. when he is sleeping and it kills him not to be involved in whatever is going on.

Friday night was a late night getting home so we struggled with him. We did the right thing as parents and gave up, letting him fall asleep in our bed...then moving him to the crib.

After a day spent outside, on Saturday, I though he would collapse from exhaustion into his own bed. Nope. After his bath, he didn't want anything to do with his bed. So we faught him on it.

Steph finally got him settled enough that he would lay his head down and scream at only 50% of his volume capacity, so I took over the job of patting his back to settle him the rest of the way. Now, that is tough to do for a long period of time, because you are bent over the railing of the crib, so I decided to jump in with him.

His bed is pretty comfortable, and I must have been pretty tired, because Steph woke me up 15 minutes later...I was all curled up in a ball, and would have spent the night there if she would have left me alone. Now I am awake writing on this stupid blog at 2:30 a.m.

BobbleHeads.

Outside of the history of baseball teams giving away bobble heads, I don't really get the whole bobble head thingy, but if you want a General Lee, Oprah, Jedd Clampett, Pope BenXVI, or Tom Brokaw and Mt. Rushmore, more power to ya.

I prefer my bobble heads a little more classic in nature, even a football bobble is pushing the limits. With that said, I made these before bed tonight...for no reason at all.

Brecken had no choice, he had to be in his dad's favorite team's uniform...Maxim on the other hand has chosen the Boston Red Sox as his team, because he likes Coco Crisp...the player. He also likes Cocoa Crisp the cereal...I think there is a connection there!

Phones and Popcorn

Watch this first...then scroll down to read about it.





Click here to read more about this amazing feat.

The readers like it when I am in pain.

Saturday's post about the beatdown I received via my 2 boys caused many readers to walk up to me and say how funny it was that the boys beat me like that...glad I could give you a laugh.

Isn't it funny how we get joy out of other people's physical pain. Like when someone gets hit by a door, or falls off a bike, or someone slips on ice and breaks a hip, we laugh...and then make fun of them to their face.

I think God built us with a healthy fear of pain so that we wouldn't do things that cause us to get hurt...that being said, I have a sore back and a sunburn today. Not from wakeboarding like you would expect...I am pretty sure I got it from scooping and hauling wheelbarrows of dirt to some holes in our yard left by some tree stumps we had removed. Now why wouldn't my internal "ohhh this is gonna hurt" monitor go off before I started doing the yard work?

No more Kung Fu movies.

On behalf of fathers everywhere I am making a plea to Hollywood...no more kid movies about karate, kung fu, or any martial arts.

It seems every generation has it's karate movie that gets kids to pretend that they can control their "Fists of Fury" like some little Bruce Lee or Jackie Chan. Enter the Dragon, Karate Kid, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Power Rangers, and this year's hit cartoon...Kung Fu Panda.

For the record, Kung Fu Panda was super funny and I loved the movie (I love anything with Jack Black in it), as did Maxim and his little brother. Naturally after the movie it was time to act out the fight scenes with dad as the bad guy...which is fine...when I am ready for it.

Tonight after baths the boys wanted to do a little Kung Fu action and since mom is in Minneapolis I entertained them by turning the living room into our own dojo.

The problem with my kids and their Kung Fu is that they don't pull their punches, or know when dad is expecting to be punched. We Kung Fu'ed for 15 minutes and I was kind of done...as I was getting off my knees, I got caught with a little "Fist of Fury" from Maxim. Let's just say if I was still on my knees he would have hit me in the chest, unfortunately for me I was standing up...and he hit me hard!

I went down in a pile, clinging to life, or what was left of it. As I was reeling with the pain that every man has felt, and trys with all that is in him to never feel again, Brecken came in for the kill. Did you know that 2 year olds have a fist that is the same size as your eye socket?

I actually didn't get my eye closed in time, and I saw his fist smack my eyeball...up close! I turtled up like I was getting beat down by muggers and tried to protect my vital internal organs and at that moment Brecken followed up with a kick to my earhole. I think he broke my hammer, anvil and stirrup. (the three little bones in your inner ear)

Needless to say I cried, "No Mas, No Mas!" and ended the beatdown.

Maxim walks away and says to Brecken, "Come on brother, the battle is over." I was crying and laughing at the same time.

What happened to "gentle rains"?

For the record, I like the rain...it waters my lawn, fills up my lake, makes the landscape of Earth look prettier, washes my Subaru...etc.

My only complaint is...this spring and summer it seems like every time there is rain forecasted it includes 70 mph winds, golf ball size hail, and an insane amount of lightning. Last night was one of those nights, I could actually see the lake's waves because of the constant lightning.

Then when the thunder hits, we get a new visitor to our bed. Brecken has figured out how to escape the crib, and then wanders into our bedroom during storms, or points where he is done sleeping and wants to hang out with other humans.

He has been doing this for a week or so. One night he couldn't find the door and he ended up sleeping under his bed for the rest of the night. Steph was surprised to find him all curled up under the crib when she went in to get him in the morning.

We did get the gentle rain this morning which was very nice, but just once this summer I would like to go to bed with the windows open and the rain falling...instead of the windows closed and the hail pinging into the glass.

SIDE NOTE:
By the way there was some excitement at my Uncle and Aunt's lake in the Huron city limits today (Ravine Lake)...you might want to check out ksfy.com or keloland.com tonight to get the full "actual" story...right now the rumor mill in Huron is in full swing.

I heard 3 or 5 aliens from the planet "ROutekliNg68U" found the old snowman that used to sit on the roof of Newberry's on the corner of 3rd and Dakota submerged in the lake and they notified local news icon Mike Carroll with the Daily Plainsmen that he should do a story on it. Mike and Roger Kasa went out this morning and found something underwater, but couldn't figure out if it was the snowman, so they called over to Ida Mae's to get the cops to come out and check it out...the rest will be on the news tonight. (seriously, the stories surrounding things like this are like movie plots from the '60's, I actually heard that an airplane with "dead body surveying technology" flew over the lake and found a car and a body. If that's true that's pretty cool technology, since the body has been in the lake since '95.)

Yeah, I took a little vacation from the blog...

I don't plan the breaks from the website...they just happen. We have been pretty busy around home and I have been traveling the mountains of Montana and Idaho over the last 2 weeks, so don't feel sorry for me. I hit the Craters if the Moon National Monument yesterday, very interesting landscape. Check it out if you are in the Eastern Idaho foothills.

You will also have to go through Arco, Idaho...drop in for lunch at the Pickle Place...super good "road food". Also a place with some character and characters!

The areas I have been to are simply beautiful, the Bozeman area and Sun Valley/Hailey, Idaho area are places everyone should visit once. Imagine the Black Hills on steroids.

Brecken and Steph are enjoying some time alone this week as Maxim is staying at his best friend's house in Sioux Falls...his first real stay over away from home. I'm going to pick him up when I get back from Idaho, it will be fun to see him.

Brecken has added a couple of new talents to his 2 year-old resume...he is a huge skateboarder, and also rode the skim-ski last week. The skim-ski is a one piece ski that most really young kids learn to ride before they double ski. I'm not sure 2 years old is the right age for a kid to be skiing on his own, but he wanted to and he loved it. Thanks to Erkel and Ray-Ray for helping him get started. He might be the first wakeboarding-skateboarding-cowboy, but that would make him very well-rounded.

Can't wait to get home, get on the lake and slow down enough to enjoy what's left of summer.

Perfect Weekend

The 4th of July is usually too busy to enjoy, but this year was different. We felt very compelled to throw a big party at the house, but we never really did. I think the most people we had last weekend was around 25, which is a perfect number...considering a lot of them were under the age of 13!

We watched the fireworks around the lake a couple nights and just enjoyed the whole perfect weather weekend. Only one day was really windy, but that made the annual Lake Byron paddle boat races very interesting.

Monday was a snap back to reality as I had to catch a 6am flight to Montana...gotta work, I guess.

Toad Scares Man To Death...

The above headline almost made it into the local paper.

Last night, as I was walking from the lake up to the house, a frog or toad jumped on my foot, and scared me...almost to death.

I had flip-flops on and when it landed on my foot the first time I screamed and kicked my foot to get it off of my foot, but it must have got caught on my sandal strap and hung there for another kick. I was dancing around like a little school girl and kind of half screaming...then I lost my balance and almost fell down some steps.

When I finally regained my composure I did a quick look around to make sure the neighbors weren't out watching or there wasn't any boats going past the house. Nobody else was around, it was just me screaming, the toad jumping and God laughing.

10:45 p.m. supper.

I spent most of the weekend at one church or another as a relative of the family got married this weekend. Basically it was the biggest party of the summer. I did some video and still camera work and stayed out of the way.

Maxim fell head over heels for the flower girl from Kansas, and also liked her brother a lot because he liked to play Super Heros. It was a great weekend for a wedding because the weather was not the best if I wanted to play on the water.

So this afternoon I get an e-mail from Cousin Erkel asking if I can come out and play tonight...I got permission from Steph and while they were at an after-wedding-party-party, Erkel, C-Hof and I spent the night on liquid. It was the best night of riding I have had all year.

Brecken with a little help from G-Pa Roger caught a 16" walleye tonight, he was so stoked!

That made me hungry for fish, so after a long day at the office and a night on the water I finally just ate some frozen fish for supper at 10:45 p.m.

Tomorrow morning is gonna be a big coffee morning!

Bumper Boats

G-pa Bob got Maxim a bumper boat for his birthday. I was a little skeptical about it's quality, as was Grandpa...the reason he only purchased one.

I pumped it up and put the small fortune in batteries into the control panel and Maxim took off with a perma-smile. Brecken seems to think he needs to wear goggles when he rides in it, which makes the people who drive by in boats laugh at him even more.

It goes pretty good and has a water gun that shoots about 15' as well. So when Grandpa got the news that his purchase was a hit, he bought another one. Now Maxim and Brecken or a buddy can terrorize each other and the folks on the dock with their water-shooting bumper boats.

We have enjoyed cousin Cassidy in town for the last week and are looking forward to her brother Carson coming next week. Should be a busy 4th of July again...just hope we don't burn down the houses.

Coke + Peanuts = Pure Pleasure

I try very hard to eat healthy and limit my intake of junk, but I have a strong sweet tooth.

Yesterday a co-worker had a huge jar of Planter's Peanuts on her desk, and asked me to help her eat them. (Like you have to ask me to help eat things) I declined, trying do the right thing nutrition-wise. It worked, I went the whole day without eating any...but all day, all I could think about was getting a Coke and putting peanuts right in the glass.

Last night around 11:30 p.m. it even crossed my mind that if I would ride my bike to work again on Friday, I would reward myself with a Coke/peanuts cocktail. I rode my bike to work today.

The peanut jar is more than half full, and I am trying to come up with an excuse to have another Coke. (Thanks for giving me this addiction, Dad.)

You are thinking about going to get a Coke and peanuts right now, aren't you?

The Shadow Chaser Turns 6 Today.

Maxim turns 6 today.

Last night as we sat on the dock, in the moonlight with a big fire keeping us warm, it hit me that he is no longer a toddler. When you are 6 you are kind of a grown up kid. He sang himself to sleep on Steph's lap around 11 p.m., and we just sat there for a while laughing about "Maxim Stories".

6 years ago today we were at Sioux Valley Hospital watching the U.S. Open and waiting for Maxim. Funny that Tiger Woods won the U.S. Open that year, and he won it this year as well.

I took the above picture about a week ago and it really sums up Maxim. Barefoot, chasing his shadow, free-spirited and carefree. So much artistic and creative energy in that skinny little body running under the big sky.

Right before we put out the fire last night, I said to Steph, "Where will this boy be in 20 years?"

She said, "Probably living at home."

...if only we should be so lucky...kids are pretty amazing.

Shopping With Brecken.

Shopping with Brecken is never a good thing.

For the most part Maxim is cool with the process, as long as you can hit the toy aisle or the comic book section.

Brecken feels like most men while shopping...let me sit on the floor and cry while you do this shopping thing.

By the way, in this video, he is crying because I wouldn't let him have Cocoa Pebbles and Fruity Pebbles...real tough parenting...he went with the Fruity flavor.

Father's Day Weekend.

We had a brilliant weekend at the Living On Liquid home front.

Deck & stairs building, boat lift floating and installing, kayaking, cage wrestling in the trampoline, horse riding, shooting gophers with a Red Ryder BB gun, Kathy's (AKA - ByronBum) world famous grilled walleye, no wind, temps over 75, and a great Father's Day present from an unlikely source.

Saturday was an amazing day, no wind and warm...I was busy building some steps and a deck landing into the boat house when I noticed a motorcycle pull up to the house and this tall, helmet wearing, "yellow-coated" person gets off. For a minute I thought the guy had the wrong house or something.

Then the helmet came off and it was my buddy Brian Wipf (AKA - HUB). He rolled out to Byron on his new Suzuki V-Strom.

Brian and I go way back to my first real job, he and his family lived just down the street from us and I always looked up to him and his brother as they were and still are great athletes. Hub is like 4 or so years older than me and we worked at the City Water Department together. Which means we drove around in a yellow pick up for a summer.

One day we were conserving gas or something over our lunch hour, and I jumped on the back of his motorcycle. He popped a little wheelie, and the little backrest bar behind me snapped, and I got dropped right there in the middle of 3rd street...one little scratch on my elbow was all I got.

I don't think our folks ever knew about it until a few months ago when I blogged about it. Sorry, Verlie and Bob. I am sure you 2 did some dumb stuff growing up too.
Anyway Brian gives me this great Father's Day gift...he used to ride and race the non-motorized version of bikes and he had all this great gear left from those days, and he brought me a couple of jerseys and coats. I can't tell you how excited I was to get this stuff from a real bike athlete, thanks HUB, hope the hot dog and chips paid the bill!

I wanted to jump on my bike right then and there with the new gear, but I had work to do...I am a little dissapointed that I won't be able to wear the coats until the weather gets a little cooler.

We talked bikes and motorcycles for a couple hours and just caught up...something I think we don't do enough with old friends. So thanks to HUB for spending the $.96 in gas it took the V-Strom to get to the lake and back. Nice bike buddy. Have fun in Montana, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Arkansas and where ever your 15,000 miles of travels takes you this summer.

Storm Chasers.

I kind of understand storm chasers, it's all about the adrenaline rush of the chase, capture, escape and understanding of something bigger than you. Kind of like rock climbing, or a super fast downhill on a mountian bike. I could see myself with a video camera trying to get pictures of the tornado.

The deadly tornado last night in Iowa shows exactly why we should respect the weather, and also why we need to understand the storm more.

I only have one question, were you guys "in the tornado"?

I think the guy says it like 15 times...I lost count...kinda funny video.

Becky Hammon...To Russia With Love.

OK - It's another sports blog.

When I worked in TV there was this young, fun, energetic point guard from Rapid City that went on to play basketball for Colorado State. She was, at the time, our female version of Mike Miller. The South Dakota kid that turned heads on the national basketball scene.

Becky Hammon went on to play in the WNBA for the New York Liberty, and we continued to follow her every move. She was your typical South Dakota kid...hard worker, polite and an absolute joy to interview.

As a sports journalist you get to build a pretty cool relationship with these kids. I had great working relationship/friendship with athletes like Chad Greenway, Thomas Vanek, Brock Lesnar, Chad Lamer, Mike Miller, Jimmy Kleinsasser, Chad LaRose, Kris Tschetter, Becky Hammon, Corbin Lacina and Mark Ellis to name a few. For a brief period in their life, we were their ESPN.

The athletes on the above list all went on to great careers and represent South Dakota quite well. Including Hammon, who at the moment is receiving a little backlash because of what she will be doing at this years Olympics.

READ THE STORY HERE.

I think she made the right decision, I would have played for Russia. She is making a living playing basketball. A great living, I might add. I will be cheering for Hammon and I hope her team of fellow Russians get the silver medal.

Steph is happy.

So the Stanley Cup Finals ended last night with Detroit winning another cup.

Steph, being a Red Wings fan, was happy. I am not sure if she is more happy with Detroit winning the cup or that NHL Hockey is over for a few months. Now I have only 3 reasons to waste time in front of the TV...the Cubs, Twins and cage fighting.

Sports Blog...

I try not to blog too much about sports, sporting events or anything related because that's what most people expect out of me, but I can't control myself. The Cubs have the best record in baseball.

We are on an 8 game win streak and I will say it again...this is our year. That being said I am sure I have just "Bartman-ed" the whole thing by blogging and getting excited about it, but it's nice to celebrate the success a little bit. I like to think it's because Steph and I cheered the Cubs on so well at Spring Training in Arizona, but I'm sure there is some other reasons as well.

On to hockey...the quest for Lord Stanley's Cup almost ended last night around 9:20 pm, with the Red Wings ahead 3 to 2 with :30 some seconds left...but Maxime Talbot's hard work behind the net tied the game up and sent it to a triple overtime before the Penguins scored again.

My son Maxim was watching the game with Steph and I, and he was excited that a boy named Maxime scored such an important goal, and that he played for the Penguins. He even wore pajamas with a penguin on them last night. However, he was very disappointed to find out this morning that nobody won the "big trophy" last night. I was happy because that means there is at least one more night of hockey.

Finally a day that felt like Spring.

Yesterday someone mentioned that it was the 3rd Sunday in a row that was warm and not windy, which are the 2 things you care about while living on a lake.

I have always been a somewhat social person, and would never pass up a social gathering or party simply to get home. Sunday after church all I could think about was getting home...in fact lately, all I want to do when it's nice out, and I'm not at home, is to simply go home.

We had a pretty cool offer for a party at some friend's house on Sunday night, but we had to bail on them because the LIQUID was calling.

Yesterday after church we had lunch at mom and dad's with an old friend of mine who is visiting from MLPS, but at 2pm I couldn't find the door fast enough. Brecken and grandpa had a "cowboy day" which took them to the horses for a long ride, so we were down one boy.

By 5pm we were in the water with a loaded boat, having a great time. Although my 3rd wakeboard session of the year was anything less than stellar, it still felt good to have some fun on the water.

We threw together another impromptu party, grandma and the grandpa delivered a sleeping cowboy to the house, he woke up we put him in the boat and he turned into the boat party chairperson.

Maxim had a pretty big day too, he was playing on one of his favorite spots, the roof of Vic and Peggy's boat house. I think he was up there for 3 hours straight, making big battles with his action figures.

We capped the night with a pull behind cousin Erkel's Malibu and one last run across the lake. Maxim drove the boat the whole way, he did remarkably good, of course I didn't let him run the throttle, or today's post would be very different!