Eating johnny jump-up

For those of you who have seen Liam in action on his dad's lap, you know this is not on account of muscle deficiency or leg strength. He's a pretty funny little guy. He just likes to eat. Looks like his cousins could give him a few tips about how to get the most out of his toys.

Brady's Research (aka his new life)

So I've got my schedule set for this semester. I've only got two classes so the bulk of my time will be spent on my research projects, which I am extremely excited about. I realize nobody reading this will be nearly excited as I am about the topics, but these will be taking over my life so you at least get to know what they're about.


The first is through a grant from the Navy and is about multitasking in dynamic environments. What that means is something like, how do you do lots of different types of tasks at the same time when those tasks are changing and when the environment in which you're performing those tasks is also changing? how do you select people who are good at doing that kind of stuff? how do you train people to be good at doing all of that?) If you want to see more of the basics, go to http://www.iopsych.msu.edu/SPL/index1024.htm.

The other, which is REALLY cool (cutting edge stuff) is just picking up, so there's no cool website to see. It's through a grant from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research and is about how teams (and the individuals in the teams) best change learning strategies in a dynamic environment. What's extra cool about this is that we're going to be getting some hard, quantitative strategy modeling into the computer (for future programs) that should be really useful pretty much everywhere in the universe that there are people trying to learn stuff, or so we hope.

This is cool stuff because both projects (especially the Air Force one) are very theoretical (meaning they've got basic frameworks that are capable of being developed into a lot of different things in applied settings) but will also be implemented in very applied ways in at least two branches of our country's military as soon as we're done.

Dr. Liam

I don't know if it was on purpose, but it kind of looks like Liam and Mom conspired to go for the old Cambridge professor look... if not that, then maybe the studious Harry Potter, complete with authentic forehead scar. Either way, he's cute.

Brady's 1st day of school

Today was the first day of classes for Brady. His backpack has been packed for days and he couldn't have been more ready. He'll choose his year-long research projects this week.

gabe's garage

This might look like Dani and Gabe standing in front of our garage. What you're ACTUALLY seeing is Dani and Gabe standing in front of Gabe's private estate (which, if measured by International Bunny Units, is I'm sure something like 12,000 square feet. Lucky rabbit).

Love him

Great Lakes

This morning we decided that we were tired of cleaning/organizing/painting/doing the move-in thing, so we took off to the beach. We took the 1.5 hour drive to Grand Haven on the coast of Lake Michigan to do some exploring and loved it.



This first picture is mostly for Grandma Flinders and Jug. We couldn't decide if they were calling the pottery names or if that meant that the ceramics were extra cool.
Liam was a huge fan of the water. A good sign for his future kayaking days.
Popeye and DadBelow- looking upstream. The boardwalk went from the lighthouse for a couple miles into town.
Popeye goes Danish.

Find his footprints.



If you don't already have at least a few reasons to visit us, let this be one of the things added to your list.

Settling Down

First, a big thanks goes out to the Comcast dude that slogged out here in the rain today to hook us up with the world. So- we all made it. Just a quick update, as we'll be backlogging and filling in once we get some better pictures available of our summer escapades. For now, we all made it safe and sound to our new place in DeWitt and are loving it. Even Gabe, who has complete domain over the garage (but only for now, Brady says... we'll see). Liam, as you can see, didn't let the jet lag or new place deter him from being adorable. This week he figured out how to roll over and also that those things with five fingers that he waves around are his, that he can use em', suck 'em, slobber on 'em, and even grab stuff with 'em. We've been negligent in our baby photographing, so we'll get some more up and posted for his grandmas ASAP. DeWitt's big party was this weekend (we figure it was a welcome-in party, as well as a birthday bash for Dani, complete with fireworks). Just so you can get a feel for the downhome place it is, please observe our favorite floats below. Also, Liam's showing off his stash from the parade.
Right now we're celebrating Dani's new position as DeWitt Fitness Champion Girl. She got hired on at a new gym that's opening, and was their first choice among tons of applicants. She'll work a few hours a week when Dad can be around with Liam, and they also throw in a free membership and babysitting if she wants it. She'll probably start in about a month or so.
More soon to come...

We think he may have lost one (or two) of his chins. He's still got enough for two people though. Early morning calisthenics with dad

Waaay more candy than Provo's parade-- and we didn't even have to set up chairs four days in advance. The look on his face tells you exactly what he's thinking about the boring sucker the last girl tried to throw at him.

The good ol' boys roll right past the corner of our street in the DeWitt Ox Roast Parade (pronounced Ahhx Roohst by the Michiganders)