Play structure update

After a weekend of sanding, staining, puzzling, and sweating over reassembly with the help of Nana and Gramps, we have a partial but functional playscape for the kids to climb, swing, and slide on. Missing are still the second tower (shown, unfinished, on the left), bridge connecting the towers, climbing wall, monkey bars, second slide, and fireman's pole. Phew...!

Professors Tanner

Don't they look professorial? Granddad can be proud!

Happy as a Clam

Soaking wet baby gets a wagon ride back to the house (cause Mami didn't want to get wet carrying him). Thanks to Nana for sharing this photo!

I can do it myself!

Baby food is so yesterday - unless of course you dump it out of the jar onto a plate and let me eat it all by myself!

Typical day at the lake

Pretty low-key fun while enjoying warm temperatures before the cold front hits!

Just in case you were wondering what Mami does for a living

My employer, Carollo Engineers, just put together a short video talking about our research on direct potable reuse: http://youtu.be/kz6-ho-_qjI

The guy talking is Guy Carpenter, who hired me at Carollo. They used a bunch of my slides. There’s also a 13-minute version for anyone who really wants to get into the nitty gritty: http://youtu.be/PqYZG0DsaOU

These videos are not focused on external marketing (so they’re not slick high-dollar productions), instead, they are intended for internal dissemination of what we do to other engineers in the company. But it’s still cool to be called out as one of the leaders of this research thrust!

A new toy

I guess this is a belated birthday gift for both boys. It arrived today and was greeted with great enthusiasm by all three kids - and about a half dozen wardrobe changes! Good thing it was warm today.

Hard at work!

Graydon has been taking an active role in getting the parts of our new play structure in ship-shape for reassembly. Here he is painting toner (heavy stain) on the boards that will form the roof of one of the two towers. By the end of the day, we had all the roof boards stained on both sides, the platform sanded and then stained, a couple of wall sections shortened, sanded and ready for staining, and the six main vertical posts shortened to match the walls and fortified. We've still got a long ways to go, but it was good to make progress!

Graydon is ready for his first soccer practice!

Katherine visiting!

As promised, here is a photo of all of us from last weekend on the pedestrian bridge crossing Town Lake. We had lots of fun walking and biking in Zilker Park with Katherine and our whole menagerie.

The Boys' First Baseball Game

Graydon instructing Wiley in the finer points of baseball.

Whole-Family selfie

The bottom of the ninth and Wiley is out.

MS 150

The (BP) MS 150 is an annual bike ride from Houston to Austin to raise money for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.  Growing up in Austin and knowing people with MS, I always thought it would be a neat thing to do someday.  Well, someday is here!

I got a bit of a late start training (kids, jobs, etc...), but I've been trying progressively longer rides the last couple of weeks and after completing a 60 mile ride this morning I went ahead and registered for the ride.  Now I've got exactly one month to train up for the additional 106 miles and meet the minimum fundraising requirement to participate in the ride.

If you would like to donate or track my status over the next month (I won't continue to spam this blog), you can get more information at http://main.nationalmssociety.org/goto/nealtanner

Everybody likes Wiley's Hat!

The boys, Kiwi and Mami Had fun with Mami and Daddy's friend Katherine at Zilker Park today. Katherine took some more photos - will post some when we get them!

The pig was sooo fat....

...it lit the grill on fire. Highest temperature reading was 800F. Neal got a little singed opening up the lid. Whooeee!

Austin rodeo