Annual Tree Picture & Rangers Awards Ceremony

Every year since we planted the tree in our front yard, we have taken a picture of us in front of the tree. We do this to see how the tree has grown and to see how the family has grown. The photos will have this year's picture and pictures from previous years.

Levi and Samuel wrapped up their Royal Ranger year by participating in the annual awards ceremony. It is a time when the Commanders are able to recognize the boys' accomplishments from the previous year.

Chris

Beautiful Day in Central Wisconsin

Today was a beautiful Sunday in Central Wisconsin. This morning Levi and Samuel helped me with setup at Grove Elementary for our morning worship service. I was pleasantly surprised at how helpful they were with the setup and tear down. We use the school library for our nursery area. This requires us to setup panels to keep the kids contained. It didn't take the boys long to figure out how to clip the panels together. It was really nice. I was the supervisor and they were the workers.

This afternoon the kids enjoyed spending time running through the sprinklers. Enjoy the pictures and videos.

Chris

King Day and Landscaping

Today was “King Day” as part of the ABC countdown at school. King Day means that the boys were first in the lunch line, the girls had to stack the chairs for the boys, etc. We thought this was cute what Levi said this morning about King Day. He thought that we should have King Day at home. When I asked him what King Day at home would be like, this is what he said. “I would tell mom that she doesn’t have to do any work around the house and could take a nap all day.” We were totally expecting that he would say that mom would do everything around the house and that they would order her around. I guess kids can surprise you sometimes.

Tomorrow is Lollipop Day at school. That means only 15 more days of school.

Cari has spent a lot of time getting the outside of the house to look very nice. She painted the front and back doors and put in flower boxes by the windows. It all makes the outside of the house look very nice. The tulips in the front of the house, and the “worshiping girl” lawn ornament add even more to the landscaping.

On Sunday we had our small group from church over to our house for dinner. We had a total of 26 people at our house. 10 adults and 16 kids, with the oldest kid being 9 years old. We were very glad that it was a nice day and we didn't have to be in the house. That would have been crazy.

Chris

Mother's Day and ABC Countdown

Happy Mother's Day to all the mommy's!

Cari was so impressed with how I color coordinated the kids for church on Mother's Day, she had to take a picture. It's the last picture in the slide show.

The kids have started their annual ABC Countdown at school. During the final 26 days of school there is a new theme, based on a different letter from the alphabet. In the slideshow you will see Levi dressed up for career day. He was dressed as a doctor. Dr. Payne. The other pictures are from "Dew" day, when the kids do crazy things to their hair.

Mr. Payne goes to Washington

**Click on the photo album to see the captions for the pictures.** Not all pictures have captions, but many of them do.

This past week I traveled to Washington DC for a business trip. I was able to take one evening to walk around the National Mall. I left my hotel with my camera in hand and didn't stop walking for over 2 hours. The weather was perfect. I couldn't have asked for a better day.

As I walked I was able to visit three war memorials. I started with the World War II Memorial. As I walked around the memorial I tried to get pictures that represented Grandpa Wally's (Cari's grandpa) service to our country during WW II. He served in the Marine Corps in the Pacific. The next memorial was the Korean War memorial. After that was the Vietnam Wall. I traveled to DC as a teenager and I still remember the first time that I saw the Wall. Although the Vietnam War was over by the time I was born, it is such a powerful memorial. What makes it so powerful is viewing all of the names of fallen soldiers. The saying "All Gave Some, Some Gave All" is posted at the Wall. The message is even more powerful when you see all of the names, and the cards, flowers, etc. that people leave at the wall.

I also had an opportunity to visit the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument. I didn't realize how steep the steps were to the Lincoln Memorial! After walking for over an hour it was a bit of a challenge. The Washington Monument is just amazing. It's so tall and in the center of everything.

My photo album also includes a couple of work related pictures, just to give you an idea of what we do at a large trade show.

As I was waiting in the terminal at Washington National airport to catch my flight home, an airport representative announced that a group of WW II veterans was going to be getting off a plane and they asked that everyone in the terminal acknowledge them as they got off. It was really cool. As the veterans got off the plane (there had to be at least 3 dozen) the entire terminal stood and clapped as they all walked, or were pushed in a wheelchair, into the terminal. This went on for at least 5 minutes. It was a neat thing to experience.

Being from a small town in the Midwest I don't experience big city traffic very often. I lived in Minneapolis/St. Paul for a few years, but I have never seen driving like what I saw in DC (after talking to a co-worker from the East coast I found that DC is nothing compared to New York and Boston). I heard more car horns in the 5 minutes that it took me to walk to the convention center, than I have heard in the last year. That is not an exaggeration. People use there car horns more than they use their brakes!

Enjoy the pictures.

PS: And if my mom is reading this, I know that you like pictures with people in them and not just things that you can get from a post card. I was by myself on my walk so all you'll see are buildings and no people. Sorry. But I did get a nice shot of the Ronald Reagan building for you.


Chris

Shorts in April

It is a beautiful 72 degrees right now and the Payne's have been able to enjoy a lot of time outside. Levi gets to ride his bike around the block; Josiah gets to wear his bike helmet around the yard (for some reason he really likes to wear it); Chris, Samuel and Levi get to play football (make sure you watch the video, Levi has a very good arm); and everyone gets to enjoy the great weather.

Chris

Yo-Yo Levi

During our recent visit to Nana and Papa Payne's, Levi got really interested in yo-yo's. While we were there Papa gave him a few pointers on how to use a yo-yo. Papa will be glad to know that Levi has started to get in a rhythm with his yo-yo. We even had a contest to see who could yo-yo the longest between me and Levi. We did a two out of three competition and I just barely beat him. Enjoy the video.

Chris


PS: Samuel is pretty funny in the background as well.