I had my 33rd birthday over the weekend and had a great time. I have to say this was probably one of my funniest birthdays. I took the day off work to relax and spend time with my family. The morning of I just relaxed and played video games for awhile in the morning. I also spent time getting my new GPS device set up for some afternoon geocaching events. When Logan got home from school we got some lunch and headed out geocaching. This was our first attempt at geocaching. We tried to find a couple in the park close to my house. It took us awhile but we found 1 of the 2. The girls did not really like walking through the trees and brush. In fact Logan almost walked right into a snake and from that point forward she was pretty freaked out about it (I think geocaching will be my way of breaking my girls of the 100% girl-ness :)). Geocaching is great fun though (we call it treasure hunting), the girls really want to go again, so we may start doing more treasure hunting for Family Home Evenings.

I was hoping to go swimming with my girls as well but got a little sick from lunch so I had to stay home and take it easy for a bit. Kat was great and still took the girls swimming. That night (since I was feeling better a few hours later) Kat and I went out to dinner and a movie. It was a great relaxing night with my wonderful wife. It was a beautiful night as we sat out on the patio at P.F. Chang's and just talked about life. I wish I could spend more time like that with my wife it was really enjoyable.

It was a great birthday!! The girls did a great job decorating the house and all of us having fun.

I use to think I was a good parent. I have three kids at home now and I thought I did a good job so far raising the 5 and 3 year old. The newest addition at 8 weeks old has made me question rather or not I am good at this parent thing. I am the type of person that cannot handle screaming. Screaming puts me over the edge and makes me shutdown pretty much as soon as I hear it. The reason I mention this is because our 8 week old is a screamer, I say screamer here not crier, she screams. My brother has even pointed out that she sounds like cats fighting when she screams because she starts to go hoarse.  She use to scream anytime someone was not holding her. As of late she has gotten better and only scream at night when it is time to sleep. Pretty much every night she starts screaming around 9 p.m. when she is getting sleepy. I have realized I am not a good parent when it comes to dealing with a baby that screams for hours. I get short with everyone. My wife has been hanging in there amazingly and I make it even harder on her because I cannot deal with the screaming. Honestly, It has just drained all my energy trying to deal with it and now I have just become a pain to deal with. I need to fixed my attitude.

Life has slowed down a little finally so I figured I better post that we have a new baby girl in our family. Aubrey was born 11/5 Monday morning. Mom and baby are doing great. You can see pictures here.

Well it has been a busy week. I took the week off last week for a family reunion. We had a great time. I would dare say it was one of the funniest family reunions my family has had. All the family that did not live here in Denver flew in for the week. My sister Crystal and her husband and baby were the only ones that could not make it. They were here in May though which made it easier since we had just seen them.

We celebrated my mom's 60th birthday when everyone was here as well. It was a great Birthday. We spent the morning off-roading with friends and family. Brett and Adam brought their Jeeps so with their cars and Taft's FJ we had room for almost all the adults. We went up to Bill Moore lake which was beautiful. You can check the pictures here. When we got back from the lake it was time to take my mom sky diving... or as close as she could get.. we took her to an indoor skydiving place where she got to fly in a vertical wind tunnel. My mom has wanted to skydive for years so at 60 we thought we would give her the next best thing, and safer at her age. She had a blast too. I was happy to see that for the next couple days that was all she could talk about. After that it was time for dinner at Texas Road house (good food) and cake and more presents.

The rest of the week was more of the same. Time spent at the zoo, swimming pools and playing Guitar Hero for the Xbox 360. Something that was a ton of fun and everyone in my family, including grandma, had a great time playing some classic rock riffs.

Hats of to my family for a great, fun week.

I just got back last night from a family trip to Mount Rushmore. It was a great trip and the whole family had a great time. A family trip to the Black Hills of South Dakota is actually a lot of fun. There is a lot more to do there then you would think. The main attraction of course is Rushmore and it is great! The family also spend some time in Bear Country, Reptile Gardens and Storybook Island. The girls really had a great time.

The lighting ceremony at Rushmore is wonderful and really helps you remember the great vision the founding fathers had for the country and the determination to not waver from it and pay some very hard and serious prices to see that vision move forward. It is a place I think everyone should visit in their life to remember how great the vision is and that the vision has not been cared forward without a heavy cost. God bless the leaders that have held strong to this vision and those that serve this country and have or will pay the ultimate price. I feel that to many leaders of the country have begun to capitulate on this vision because of outside pressure or their own greed.

Here are some pictures of us at Rushmore.