The Ruppel Family

July Fun

2010-07-05T17:11:00.003-05:00

How's everyone doing? We all had a great weekend down here celebrating the fourth. The weather has been agreeable and with wind out of the east the oil has been kept at bay...for now.

Earlier in the week we set out the sprinkler and let Aidan run through it. He had fun trying to get Mommy and Daddy wet...which I don't have pictures of since I was running trying to keep the camera dry!

From Jul 10

Saturday we woke up as Aidan ran into our bedroom. He jumped up on the bed and said he wanted his tooth to come out (this is the tooth that he knocked loose in Nov when he fell on the kitchen floor and used his face to break the fall). He started wiggling it and it just popped out (finally!). Of course, if anyone asks, the story is that he got into a fight at the bar. Then we went to the Farmer's Market in Pensacola where we got some corn on the cob and spent the afternoon just goofing around the house until Scott went out to watch the UFC fight. Sunday we did the obligatory yard/house work prior to celebrating the fourth. Scott made smoked jerk chiken wings on the grill and boiled the corn. It was a tasty meal followed by amateur fireworks at our church. On the way home from the church we saw the professional fireworks from the soundside beach.

From Jul 10

Unfortunately we got to the formal fireworks show a little late and it was sprinkling a little so Scott didn't get to try the Canon on the big show.

And today (Monday the 5th) the weather has been rainy so we've been resting up and watching movies. Scott got to introduce Aidan to Star Wars this weekend. Choruses of "Look, a spaceship!" and "Look, an alien, daddy!" filled the house.

Latest Happenings

2010-06-22T21:24:00.003-05:00

Here's the rest of the summary from June. Brett finished his visit and his friend Tallie came down for a day to visit and provide him company on his long trip home. Following that, Heather's Mom and Dad came down with Kevin in tow. We had an action packed four days of fun which included boating, beaching, bowling, golfing, drinking, grilling, shopping, and brunching. It was a solid success of a vacation.

So, without further delay, let's get to the pictures.

The rest of the pics from Brett's visit:
We went fishing and caught some serious snapper!

From Jun 10

Then we went to the beach

From Jun 10

Brett and Tallie enjoying the beach and getting too much sun!

From Jun 10

Then a storm came in, and with it, the oil!

From Jun 10

The Urban's came a week later, and the party started all over!
Grandma Urban and Aidan at Juana's

From Jun 10

Scott and Heather on a Jet Ski

From Jun 10

Scott and Aidan on the boat

From Jun 10

Kevin and Aidan on the Sound-side of Santa Rosa Island

From Jun 10

Grandpa Urban enjoying the sun

From Jun 10

Not everyone could keep up

From Jun 10

But dessert at Harry T's brought him around!

From Jun 10

It was a nice night on the Harborwalk

From Jun 10

Kevin tried his hand at golfing - we played 18 at Eglin in the morning...it must have been in the 90s

From Jun 10

Finally, we all went bowling. Grandpa helped Aidan out

From Jun 10

Good times!

WAY too much going on

2010-06-06T19:55:00.002-05:00

Thing have been busy around here. Heather has been on the road, Scott has been on the road, we got new windows installed, and we are trying to suck as much Florida fun as we can this summer (since Scott isn't deployed) and next summer should bring a PCS.

With that said, we have also been negligent and slow in our updating of the blog. We have been posting pictures on Picasa and keep most family up to date with Facebook entries and mobile picture uploads. However, if you are an interested reader/follower/stalker and don't have access to that stuff please let us know by emailing at madrupe@gmail.com and we will hook up with necessary invites.

So here's the quick summary of May, and Jun will follow shortly...
Aidan has mastered his tricycle!

From May 10

We celebrated Mother's Day

From May 10

We went camping at the Blackwater River State Forrest

From May 10

The neighbor had a birthday pool party

From May 10

Brett showed up to spend a week with us

From May 10

More pics of Brett's visit will posted for June. Like I said, we've all been busy. Hopefully you enjoy some of these pictures.

St. Patrick's Day and Easter

2010-04-26T21:04:00.007-05:00

The fam went on vacation in March to Wisconsin for the big St. Patrick's celebration in New London. We drove instead of flying and Aidan and Bailey entertained themselves in the backseat for 20 hours on the road (yeah right, but they did okay).
On our way up north we stopped in Chicago at my grandparents house for a visit.

From March/April 2010

Once we got to Wisconsin we stayed pretty busy.

From March/April 2010

There were patches of snow left that Aidan jumped right into.

From March/April 2010

He got to ride grandpa's tractor

From March/April 2010

We went exploring in the woods at my parents house.

From March/April 2010

We found some treasures along the way.

From March/April 2010

Making paper airplanes with grandpa

From March/April 2010

And hot chocolate with grandma.

From March/April 2010

Grandma and Grandpa took us to the Children's museum, Aidan thought it was the greatest!

From March/April 2010

We played a little whiffle ball at grandma and grandpa Ruppel's.

From March/April 2010

Scott and I went out and saw some old friends from high school.

From March/April 2010

I didn't take any pictures with the camera of the parade but I got a couple with my phone. Aidan looks good in green :)

We had a great week and Aidan talks about "Sconsin" sometimes :)

Easter came up quickly and we hopped right into decorating easter eggs and talking about bunnies.

From March/April 2010

We enjoyed an afternoon Easter party at Aidan's school and watched all the kids gather buckets of eggs.

From March/April 2010

Aidan happily helped me with some planting when we spruced up the yard for the year.

From March/April 2010

Aidan has become a fan of the squirt bottle, he washes the car, he washes the house..

From March/April 2010

Easter morning came and there was candy, egss, and prizes found all over the house...

From March/April 2010

VIDEO FINALLY!!!

2010-04-15T21:59:00.002-05:00

Here are the videos I've been trying to upload for months! Stupid, but brilliant technology.

Museums are a hit!

2010-03-04T19:45:00.008-05:00

We didn't realize it until I was browsing through our photos from the past couple months but we've introduced Aidan to the wonder of museums. We've been finding ways to keep busy and spend time together during these colder months and I've felt like Aidan's moments lately just have to be captured with video instead of a snapshot because at this age there's so much going on! Videos will be posted separately from this one.

From Jan-Feb 2010

Outside the Naval Air Museum

From Jan-Feb 2010

Special visitor pass

From Jan-Feb 2010

Inside a real airplane!

From Jan-Feb 2010

Of course the Naval Air museum has a Captain's wheel!

From Jan-Feb 2010

We heard about a dinosaur exhibit at the Exploreum in Mobile, AL and we had to check it out!

From Jan-Feb 2010

Digging for fossils

From Jan-Feb 2010

Digital harp!

From Jan-Feb 2010

Toddler exhibit

From Jan-Feb 2010

Twenty-ten or Two thousand and ten?

2010-01-09T11:48:00.004-05:00

I prefer twenty-ten, it's easier to say. I think this year won't be about taking it easy though. We plan to start working on remodeling our master bath this year and Scott has already started working on putting recessed lighting in the kitchen.

I've been working on training for my second half marathon, which is next weekend, and my girlfriend and I are looking into another one later this year. Scott will be starting a new job at the headquarters on base later this month, no this does not mean we are moving, this means he's doing well and there's a lesser chance that he would get deployed again this year.

Aidan is going to work on the potty training thing this year.

From Christmas 2009

We spent New Year's Eve celebrating at a friends house, with their whole neighborhood actually. There was a giant bonfire, lots of food, fireworks, kids, and Christmas trees to burn. It was a lot of fun and Aidan made it all the way to midnight! It was a clear night and the blue moon was beautiful. Happy New Year everyone, we hope to see you all at some point this year!

From Christmas 2009

A holly jolly Christmas

2009-12-26T11:50:00.007-05:00

As you can see I decided to keep this blog going after all, even though I can't always stay up to date with it.

We stayed in Florida this year for Christmas and Aidan was very excited to see a bike under the tree from Santa. He has discovered the movie Polar Express and likes to yell "All a board!" when he plays with his trains now. Preparing for Christmas this year was fun, Aidan thought it was great we had a tree in the house and loved the Santa ornaments on it. He tried to take them off a couple times to play with them. Aidan was especially impressed with the lights we would see on the houses at night saying "Wow! Lights! More lights!" Scott and I enjoyed watching Aidan enjoy the season most of all, remembering when we were kids at Christmas.

From Christmas 2009

Aidan looks like an angry grunge rocker from the 90s to me in this picture with the Ukelele we got him in Hawaii :)

From Christmas 2009

Aidan being Aidan

From Christmas 2009

Aidan checking out the Christmas tree

From Christmas 2009

I keep empty Christmas boxes under the tree for him to play with

From Christmas 2009

Who wouldn't enjoy decorating cookies?

From Christmas 2009

And tasting cookies!

From Christmas 2009

We had dinner Christmas Eve at a friends house and we shared a little bit of our family traditions with them (wafers and honey). The kids stayed up late and enjoyed playing with each other while the adults threatened them with warnings that Santa would pass the house over if they didn't go to bed!

From Christmas 2009

Christmas morning came and Aidan wanted to play with each present as he opened them but we made it through them all.

From Christmas 2009

Aidan is thankful for all the presents he got from grandmas, grandpas, and aunts and uncles.

From Christmas 2009

Classic, Aidan trying on the Mr. Potato head glasses.

From Christmas 2009

We missed our families and friends of course in other parts of the country but Scott was just happy he was home for the holidays, that's all he wanted for Christmas!

The quick and dirty

2009-12-25T16:14:00.005-05:00

Here are the photos you've been missing since Aidan's 2nd birthday, Scott's homecoming in November from his 3rd deployment Iraq, Thanksgiving in Tampa/Busch Gardens, and our vacation in Hawaii at the beginning of December. Christmas pics will be posted in a couple days. No narration will be provided for this post enjoy the pics of our growing boy and our crazy life!

From Aidan's 2nd b-day and Thanksgiving 2009

From Hawaii Dec 2009

The latest

2009-11-23T21:01:00.001-05:00

So a lot has been going on lately. Aidan turned two. Scott has returned. We’ve been to the beach on a sunny Saturday, we’ve watched some good football games, Scott and Aidan have been hanging out on Scott’s comp time off, we purchased new laptops, and now we are gearing to drive to Tampa to visit some friends who moved down there this past summer for Thanksgiving. We may be going to the Florida Aquarium and Busch Gardens (currently providing free tickets to active duty military) while we’re down there.

Of course, after that we have our big trip to Hawaii to look forward to. Grandma and Grandpa Ruppel are going to come down to watch Aidan while we adults go have fun. The primary reason for the trip is to go watch the Badger game, but I’m pretty sure that we’ll find enough extra stuff to do!

We will be making a big picture upload here shortly – we’re currently transferring files between our computers as we set up our laptops. For those of you on Facebook, Heather has been updating pictures sporadically, but I think we have a few blog followers who are not yet hip to “the book”.

Almost Done

2009-11-11T10:09:00.002-05:00

It's Veterans Day and I'm still in Iraq.

Things have gone slowly since we wrapped up our mission here. Getting airlift out of the country is a lot lower on the priority list than getting airlift in! I sort of expected this though and I'm not overly bummed about it. The guys have enjoyed a little break in the action. Everyone has worked very hard over the three months of maintenance that we've been doing.

This has been a very rewarding and very challenging deployment. Each of my three have gotten progressively difficult. Hearing Aidan on the phone or seeing him on Skype as he tried to hug the computer monitor on the other side of the world tugged at my heart in a way I have never experienced before. My fear is that being away from him - and Heather - will only get more painful as he gets older and comprehends that I'm away. Hopefully, with age and understanding it will get a little easier again.

Not that I'm looking to be on the road again soon, though that's always a possibility in my line of work. We'll just continue to roll with the punches and see what happens.

For those of you not fully aware of the position of my career in the Air Force, I'm currently in a "career broadening" assignment. My "main" job in the Air Force is as Program Manager, where I work in an office and deal with budgets, schedules, contractors, and that sort of thing and make sure we're buying the right stuff for the Airmen in the field. This maintenance job I'm on is meant to teach me what it is like to lead troops, see field conditions, and gain a better understanding of how stuff I buy is used in the field. I'm a little over halfway done with this "career broadening" job and will soon find myself in an office again.

The thing is, I've really enjoyed this time in maintenance. It can be brutal. It can wear me down. But helping people and developing a team that deploys for the first time with a new weapon system and absolutely surpassing all measures of success is amazing. I can't take much credit for it; the maintainers know their stuff and my primary job while I've been over here has been to get them what they need to do their jobs and get out of their way. They responded well to that and did some great things.

So, being that its veterans day...and being that about half my troops are already either home or on the road...please, if you see some young Airman, Soldier, Seaman, or Marine in an airport while you are on your travels thank them for the sacrifices they are making on your behalf. Because most of them are leaving a little Aidan or a Heather alone to hold down the fort while they go out to take care of a business that only a few volunteer to do.

Happy Birthday Aidan - E-card from Grandpa Ruppel

2009-10-27T19:42:00.002-05:00

Grandpa Ruppel has been enjoying JibJab lately.

Check out the "Guitar Hero" Birthday Card he created:

Try JibJab Sendables® eCards today!

Long over due!

2009-10-12T20:27:00.006-05:00

I've been extremely busy the last couple of months having taken on some extra projects with work and church and then my sister's wedding. I'm finally done and now I can just do whatever I want in my free time! I'm planning a little party for Aidan's bithday, just some friends over for lunch and goodies. My mom is coming for Aidan's birthday this year and I'm going to take him trick-or-treating, I think he'll have fun, he asks me for candy corn already :)

The pics below are from my sister Rachel's wedding. Aidan was a ring bearer and I was the matron of honor and it was a blast, except when Aidan got upset during the ceremony and only wanted me! That didn't make it easy to do my matronly duties! He had fun and stayed up way too late and crashed in my aunt's room while I tried to enjoy a night without him hanging on my legs!

From Fall 2009

Aidan reading stories with Grandma Ruppel

From Fall 2009

Wedding rehearsal, Aidan running out on the golf course.

From Fall 2009

My brother-in-law Jack

From Fall 2009

My sister Rachie.

From Fall 2009

Some of my fellow bridesmaids

From Fall 2009

Can you tell he just loved Brittany? :)

From Fall 2009

My cousin Nicole and hubby Jason

From Fall 2009

Rehearsal dinner

From Fall 2009

Dad and Matthew horsin around

From Fall 2009

Getting all perdy!

From Fall 2009

Dad and Kevin tuxin it!

From Fall 2009

My little man!

From Fall 2009

Nice butts!

From Fall 2009

Awwww!

From Fall 2009

Beautiful bride

From Fall 2009

Mr. and Mrs. Jones

From Fall 2009

Aidan enjoying the cake

From Fall 2009

Dancing with the boys

From Fall 2009

Time to party!

From Fall 2009

My date

From Fall 2009

Hotel pool area

From Fall 2009

My brother and his family

From Fall 2009

Let's do it again mom!

From Fall 2009

Back home again. Aidan trying to be like Bailey :)

From Fall 2009

He loves to hang out in this spot!

From Fall 2009

He's checking out my work :)

From Fall 2009

He was pretending to eat food like our dog Bailey, ha!

From Fall 2009

My girlfriend Angela and I, it was her first 5k, I was so proud of her, when we first met she told me "I don't run."

From Fall 2009

Run for the Reef 5k out on Navarre Beach

From Fall 2009

We ruined our efforts from our run that morning and went to an Italian festival that afternoon, the food was AWESOME! All I can say is meatballs and cannoli's!

From Fall 2009

The best park is at the landing in Fort Walton Beach partly because their equipment is actually shaded by tress from the unforgiving sun here!

From Fall 2009

We made pumpkin cookies to send to daddy :)

From Fall 2009

Aidan is the master BBQer in the family now ;)

Wedding shower, dancing and drinking, painting, houseboats, corn on the cob, and playing with Madi, what do all these things have in common?

2009-09-05T13:45:00.010-05:00

It's the adventures of Heather and Aidan!

The following entry is a collection of pictures from the end of our "summer," and I say "summer" because it still feels very much like summer here and probably will until mid October!

Aidan and I flew up to Wisconsin for a short visit one weekend. I am my sister's maid of honor for her upcoming wedding and I had to attend the wedding shower and bachelorette party of course! Aidan spent some much needed time with grandparents galore!

The Ruppel Family

July Fun

Latest Happenings

WAY too much going on

St. Patrick's Day and Easter

VIDEO FINALLY!!!

Museums are a hit!

Twenty-ten or Two thousand and ten?

A holly jolly Christmas

The quick and dirty

The latest

Almost Done

Happy Birthday Aidan - E-card from Grandpa Ruppel

Long over due!

Wedding shower, dancing and drinking, painting, houseboats, corn on the cob, and playing with Madi, what do all these things have in common?

Update from Iraq

Videos of Aidan from July

JULY

Captain Ruppel - Back At It

Racing into Summer

Getting outdoors

Brett's Surgery

Hanging out and an afternoon at the park

Easter, vacation, and 50th Birthday celebration

Aidan's First Haircut!

Where did the rest of winter go?