Christmas 2006

Christmas 2006 got here so quickly! I've just gotten used to writing 2006 on checks, and now I'm going to have to change to 2007 very soon. The older I get the faster the time goes by...

We had a wonderful Christmas break this year. We went to Skiatook on Friday, returning to Edmond on Monday, Christmas day. Here are a few pictures...

Clowning Around!


OSU beats Alabama!

Return of the slacker

So I've been slacking on my posts, but I'm back! The last few months have been very busy.

Professionally, I can't think of a more precarious time. Our company continues to struggle to make it to profitability, and we've lost some very key personnel. But we continue to plug away in hopes that one day we will be able to help even more people that are at risk of blindness from diabetes.

Personally, we've been very busy. Now that school is in session, so are football, soccer, and cub scouts. Joshua celebrated his 3rd birthday, my brother celebrated his (removed to protect the innocent) birthday, and we went camping and it was COLD.

I've also started hunting this fall. I've been dove hunting twice with one of my coworkers, and we got a few. I'm really looking forward to turkey and pheasant. I still like fishing better at this point (you can throw a fish back; it's hard to throw a bird back when it's twice it's weight in lead).

Anyway, here are some photos. I hope to be better about posting more frequently (yeah right).

Cheers...


Josh at his 3rd birthday party

The guys at home, messing around as usual

Back To School

Summer is over. The pools are empty. The kids can't stay up late now. But it's still hot out. Jonathan started 2nd grade on Monday and Robby started kindegarten this morning. They are both enjoying it so far. Jonathan had a note in his backpack Monday asking our permission to have Jonathan tested for gifted and talented classes. The letter said that he demonstrates characteristics that permit him to be tested. So we're pretty excited, and we'll see how he does. Needless to say our expectations of his financial ability to take care of us in old age just went up!

All in all we had a great summer. I was able to take some good time off, playing in the sun. Only regret is that I still haven't been on the golf course yet this year.

Having a Heat Wave

It's HOT! Oklahoma City was up to 107 today, and I think the lawn will probably give up very shortly. The kids were on the slip-n-slide all day today...staying cool.

I just read the Business Week article from last week about Kevin Rose. The article was okay, but it eluded to the fact that he made 60 million in 18 months. In fact, his company is not yet profitable, and has not given in to the pressures of selling the company until they are done building their vision. If you haven't seen Kevin's website, www.digg.com you should check it out. The site is a news aggregator where users (called the diggnation) submit interesting stories, and other digg members either give the stories positive or negative diggs. Stories with more diggs go to the top. And you can add users to your 'friends' and view their history of diggs. So you can associate with like-minded people, and see what they dugg. Pretty great concept.

I continue to struggle getting Wytek IT Services off the ground. I need more word of mouth and networking, which is difficult while continuing to work fulltime. I also need to spend more time developing the service line that I offer.

The kids were at Grandma and Grandpa Wyckoff's house from Saturday night until Tuesday night of this week. They had a great time on the lake; swimming, tubing, and playing. It gave Katrina and me a nice break for a few days.

COOL!!!

Well, we have AC again! You can tell by the smiling kids! As of last Saturday. One of my co-workers put me in touch with his AC guy (if you live in OKC or Edmond and have problems w/ plumming, AC, etc this is the guy!) We replaced the system (furnace, air handler and condensor) and went to a larger system. It's really working great.

You'll notice Jonathan is missing a few teeth! His top two front teeth finally got loose enough to come out. The new teeth were actually pushing the baby teeth forward in his mouth instead of out. We thought we'd have to take him to the dentist or something to get them removed. But last weekend he wiggled them enough, and we got out the floss and gave 'em a good yank! He lost one of them, and I'm sure I'll step on it at 3:00 in the morning or something.

Jonathan and Robby are finishing up their baseball and t-ball this weekend. And summer is quickly coming to an end. We've had a great summer, lots of days off playing in the sun, fishing, boating, and swimming. I'm not ready for the summer to be over so soon, but Jonathan is all fired up about second grade and Robby is ready for kindegarten (mainly because he'll get to go to school with his big brother).

HOT!!!!!

Okay, so it's been over 100F for the past 5 days. One of our AC units in the house (the big one) died last week, and it's still not fixed. We've got a new system that will be installed Friday, but the forecast is 106 today, 107 tomorrow, and 109 Friday. The temp in the house is around 85, which feels really hot when you're in there for awhile. To cool off, we go outside for 5 minutes and when we come back in it feels great!

Jonathan's 7th Birthday

Jonathan's 7th birthday was last Saturday. And man, it gets CRAZY with eight 7 year olds running around a house! Next year, Incredible Pizza gets my vote!

Anyway, here are some pix.

Wisdom from the Rainman

So tonight I had a chance to watch some television. There was a program that I caught at the tail end about the 'real' rainman, the man about whom the movie was made. He was a very interesting fellow, full of facts and figures. But occassionally he blurted out with grunts, laughs, and out of context words and comments.

This man has no capability to dress himself, shave, shower, etc. His 80 year old father continues to care for his son 24 hours a day. It was toward the end of the show that this man who could barely carry on a conversation or care for himself said something very profound...

"My dad and I share the same shadow"

What a great testament to this father's dedication and love for his son. And what a great example for the rest of us fathers!

Everyone have a great and safe Memorial Day weekend...

Apple Switch - Real Life!

I was at the Apple store on Friday, and the girl in front of me had a Dell badge on. The clerk asked if she worked at Dell and she said. That she works in the OKC Dell Service Center. The girl quickly became flush and responded: "Yeah, I do. Sorry about that..." and quickly removed her tag and put it in her purse. She was buying a new Macbook and iPod!!

I fairly certain she would receive some type of employee discount on a new Dell? So I think it speaks volumes that she was willing to lay down a few G's on an Apple!

Living for the Weekend

we had a great mother's day weekend! saturday was busy as ever, with two soccer games and two birthday parties. then we had to get the house ready for family on sunday. tim came over saturday night and cleaned the carpets in the main rooms (thanks tim!).

sunday mark & katrina's parents came over, as well as uncle marcus aunt anne and aunt carol. we cooked the ham a little too long and ended up with grilled chicken (which turned out great). had a great visit with everyone and the kids got to play with nathan, ashlynn, and lauren.

so i've been making some dvds lately for church. using imovie hd and idisk hd on my powerbook. its amazing that it takes about 3 hrs. to render and only about 20 minutes to do the actual composing and editing. apple sure has made it easy to get professional results. we're doing some video shoots at work as well to start posting video podcasts. should be interesting...

well, that's all my thoughts for now. can't wait to see mike and carrisa this weekend when they come for jonathans birthday!

Teach Your Children Well...

So kids are keeping us busy, and somewhat driving us insane. but just when you think you can't stand it any longer, they do something that makes you take it all in stride.

friday we had a group of people from church over for a small group bible study. since it was at our house and we were the only ones with kids, we decided that we could forego a babysitter, put something on the dvd player, and keep them occupied. well, josh had other ideas. he spent the entire time in the middle of the study, generally doing things to interrupt the bible study.

toward the end, he was hanging off the edge of the ottoman upside down, which caused everyone to laugh. I said 'josh, have you lost your marbles?'. At that point he looked at me, stood up, pulled open the front of his pants and started looking for his marbles! right when i was stressed and displeased with his behavior he did something that made us all almost need a diaper!

of course, everyone immediately asked what we're teaching our kids...

Weekend Update

So far we're off to a stellar Easter weekend! I took yesterday off (Good Friday) and took the opportunity to do some work for Dr. Sigler, then get our yard in shape. First mowing of the season, and the 'ol Lawnboy fired right up. Once that was behind us, we decided to do some painting in the living room. Some of the tape has been there since Christmas! I hope it comes off without pulling the baseboards with it.

Anyway, we ran over to Sherwinn Williams and Katrina took the kids to Petsmart to keep them busy. Well, they all decided that it's absolutely critical to our existence that we procure and maintain a set of 3 firebelly toads. Being the push-over I am, we came home and setup an old 10 gallon aquarium we had. We went today and picked up Mo, Larry, and Curly (my names for the new additions). Robby and Joshua both had birthday parties today. Josh was at the Oklahoma Railroad Museum ( http://www.oklahomarailwaymuseum.org). Josh had a great time and he got to ride the train! Robby's party was at Pepperoni Station Pizza and they had a good time too. Then it was home to try and finish painting the living room (which I just did, except for the trim).

We'll be at Katrina's sister's house for Easter lunch tomorrow, and will get to see all of her family. Looking forward to seeing her parents and finalizing fishing plans for May 6th!

Happy Easter! Christ is Risen!

Us Wyckoff's Been Busy!

Well, if you used to check this blog with any frequency, you've probably STOPPED DUE TO INACTIVITY. The last few months have been extremely busy, both professionally and personally.

Professionally I've taken on more responsibility at work, as our Call Center now reports to me. So now I have 2.5 full time jobs and only 24 hours / day! It's been pretty fun, however. We continue to see our patient volume increase, and hopefully one day we'll be at a break even point and not so dependent on the VC community.

Personally
Jonathan and Robby are both playing YMCA soccer, and have a few games under their belts. It's been a few years since Jonathan played, since he really didn't have much interest when he was 4. It's great to see how into it he is now that he's a little older. The team he's on has a GREAT coach, and quite a few 'A' players, so he's learning alot. Robby's team is also doing very well, and he's improving with every game.

Josh continues to convince us that the next 18 years are going to be a challenge! He's all over the place, cracks us up at every turn, and drives us all a little crazy.

Here are some pix. Enjoy!