Shaw Family Update

We bought a new 8' artificial Christmas tree on Sunday and put it up. We put up the net lights and icicle lights outside. It really looks like Christmas at the Shaw house.


Blaze has claimed the tree skirt as his bed. It wouldn't be so bad if he didn't leave his fur all over it when he moves away.


Austin colored some Christmas artwork at school on Tuesday. Good job, Austin! We received his preschool class pictures today too. What a handsome little boy he is.


And, Jennifer pulled herself up for the first time today. She will be walking soon. Maybe by Christmas. How wonderful would that be.

Happy Thanksgiving to All

We had a wonderful day. We invited friends and family over for lunch and dinner. It was a house full of people, noise, and games. Even Jenny had a great time. She mostly wrestled with us bigger kids. We took this month to help Austin understand the spirit of giving. We start with a few chores at home that earned him money so he could offer it to help others. We further instilled the spirit by creating care packages for soldiers in Iraq.
The response we got was very well received and Austin was hooked. We spend a few hours a week talking to a few buddies in Iraq via the computer. Austin mostly likes to get in front of the webcam. Today was no exception. We talked to our friends there and wished them a Happy Thanksgiving.


Austin made a cornucopia for school in the spirit of Thanksgiving. Mom helped him stick pictures of the family on the cornucopia.

It truly was a great Thanksgiving.






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Earnhardt - Real winner

Oh baby! How does #8 not win today?!? He has a 5 second lead on the second place car. Jr. is kickin' ass and taking names! He is a true champion!!!

Austin's Theater Presentation

Saturday morning was Austin's theater presentation. He did a fabulous job! He was a mouse, one of the main characters. Aunt Karen and Uncle Dave came to watch the performance as well. We are all so proud of him.


Before his theater class started, the Raptor Center was giving a performance. They brought a red tailed hawk and a gray horned owl for the kids to see.


After Austin's performance we all walked to Rock Bottom for lunch and to celebrate. Everyone was putting up Christmas decorations around the city. We found a few decorations that were completed and snapped some pictures.

When we got home, Austin wanted to play outside, so we gathered with the neighbors and watched the kids play all afternoon. It was sunny and about 54 degrees, a little chilly, but good weather to be running around playing in.


During dinner Daddy made some silly movements and silly noises and Jennifer started laughing and trying to make the silly movements as well. She is so adorable.

Iraq care package update

I got an email from my long time best friend, Jason, who is serving in the Army in Iraq. I was so moved by his response. Maybe it was the thoughtfulness, or maybe it was something else. At any rate, the care package we packed was a big hit. We were so tickled to hear how they liked the offerings this Thanksgiving. I was surprised that it had arrived so quickly. It was only a few weeks ago when we start the whole process. Wow, that was fast.

We shot a few emails back and forth. I was shocked by that as well. I thought he might had been able to squeeze in a few batch emails and move on. But we exchanged a few. In the last one, he told me to get Yahoo messenger up and running and that he'd IM me. Wow! That was really cool. So, about 2 hours ago we were IM'ing back and forth. It was truly awesome. I can't tell you how wonderful that was. I thought he was just around the corner, like the rest of the people I communicate with daily. Ok, every minute! However, reality was he was in Iraq. So I asked about the computer. Is it a public share computer or what? He said 15 of them pitched in $5K and $120 a month for the computer and satellite service. How damn cool is that?!? I was shocked. He has a webcam, speaker, microphone, and who knows what else. I was dumbfounded. I would have never guessed they were that connected. Hell, I think I woke him up when I started the IM thing and request I join his buddy list. He says he leaves it on so his son can call him on it. Damn, how cool is that?!? WTF???!!!??? This is some good times for technology. I would have never suspected he was in close communication like that. Oh, I know it exist, I engineer a lot of it. But, that they all pitched in and made it happen. Very cool!

Below is the email. I've taken his email address out. You can either leave a comment here or email me and I'll really a message for you.




-----Original Message-----
From: jason
Sent: Friday, November 17, 2006 12:38 PM
To: Shaw, David
Subject: YOU ARE THE BOMB!!
Hey there POWER PUP,
Man that was so cool I got your care box yesterday and man let me tell you that you nailed the spices and salt and BBQ sauce on the head. Me and my team are going to have a BBQ on Thanksgiving day. I took the mags and put them in the MWR room just the ones I didn't want to look at. I was just about out of soap and tooth paste so those are great and of course the sunflower seeds. Well man I can't tell you how much I appreciate that. Tell Kristi I said thanks too I know she did all the work.LOL. So how is everyone doing . . .Well I just wanted to say hi and thank you guys for all the stuff that you sent me. It is folks like you that makes what I am doing over here worth it all. I am also hoping maybe we might take a ride on the bikes some where. The PUP AND BIRD ride again huh. Hey I am going to go now ohh don't forget that I love you guys and hope to see you soon.
Jay

Jenny's got a cold!

There's out little happy camper. Ok, so she was a little crumpy. She was more like 23lbs of upset. The pictures is doing her justice. Jenny had a cold off and on for a few weeks. Mom and Dad wanted to get her checked out just in case it was something more then a persistant cold. So we drove on over to see Dr Moore

Southern Christmas Show

What a huge event the Southern Christmas Show was. We left early to get the tickets a couple of bucks off at Harris Teeter. We also were to meet Kris's sister there as well. We luckily got a close parking spot and meet Kris's sister under the flag pole at Merchandise Mart. It was very cold outside. Glad we got tickets ahead of time. Man, we slipped in really quick. Christmas items were everywhere. The place was so large, it encompassed 3 buildings. Thank goodness they were all accessible from inside!



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Charlotte's Veteran's Day Parade

Oh boy did we have a great time. It almost didn't happen for the Shaw's. See, we had too many things to do on Saturday to fit in the parade. And, to be honest, they usually are not that well organized parades in general. We had Austin's theater from 10:30 through 11:10 and the parade started at 11:00, a couple of blocks away. Well, while Austin was in theater Kris, Jenny, and I walked down to see all the bands, jROTC groups, and floats get ready for the parade. Jenny really liked to hear the bands play. She was fixated on them every time they started to play. Her head would twist one way and then snap to another as a different band started to practice. It was neat.

We hot-footed it back to get Austin and take him to, but we had to hustle. It all worked out. Austin had a great time. He got an American flag to wave early on and he waved it to everyone. It was really neat to watch the kids get involved. The parade featured motorcycles, old cars, WWII military motor pool vehicles, bands, jROTC, DAV, and all kinds of great folks showing thanks! It was overwhelming. On the way back we saw a pretty poignant display of boots lined up at the Museum of the New South. It was a different symbol on Veteran's Day. It represented each soldier that had been killed in Iraq from North Carolina. It was very tough for us, me, to observe this awesome display.

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Cool Haircut

Austin gets his haircut. Snip-its is a cool place to get a haircut. When we walked in, it was like walking into a cartoon. Austing even got to watch a funny movie while getting the curls cut. It was fun! After the haircut, you get to take a lock of hair and insert it into this big machine to get a prize. How cool is that?!?

Care Package - Iraq

0930est
Just in time for a Thanksgiving lesson, we are putting together a care package for my buddies in Iraq. We have several items to get. I was once on the receiving end of care packages when I was in the service and it is always a good time to give back! So off to the store we go. If anyone wishes to send items through us, please email me. BRB


1159est
Ok, we are back! We've got Jerky, gum, spices, chapstick (cherry), hygiene stuff, Gatorade, tea bags, and just a load of stuff. We are going to pack it all in a plastic tub. Maybe he can use it to store other stuff, or repack what isn't all taken. Hopefully, it doesn't become extra junk.


1245est
The post office was great. No fan fare for sending overseas, but some real genuine thank yous. Of course, I had to fill out the declaration form, not a real big deal. The package was 49 lbs. Not too bad. And, it was only $20 something to send. Now that was awesome. Not sure if that is the normal rate or special military. All and all, we, the Shaw family, feel really good about this process and see more of the same in the future! Of course, Jenny thought I was being all silly

Incredible Halloween

On Halloween Austin wore his glow in the dark skeleton shirt to school. Lots of the other kids had Halloween shirts on too. They had their party on Friday, October 27. They made Halloween picture frames. Then, they had pizza and frosted their own sugar cookie with orange frosting. All of the kids were excited about going trick-or-treating later.


When Austin got home from school we brought the pumpkins in from the front step to carve them. Austin and mommy cleaned the pumpkins out. Then dad helped design the pumpkin faces and carve them out. We made a scary pumpkin, a happy pumpkin, and a puking pumpkin. They looked fabulous!

At 5:30pm we turned on all of our Halloween decorations and started getting dressed in our costumes. We were the Incredibles. It was Awsome! When we finally made it outside, we caught up with our neighbors and Manny and Austin went trick-or-treating together. Austin ended up with a full bucket of candy. I think we will have candy until next Halloween.



We were done trick-or-treating in our neighborhood by 6:15. Mom quickly fed Jennifer some cereal and then we all piled in the truck headed over to Uncle Ralph and Aunt Gail's house. They had no idea we were coming. We wanted to see if they would recognize us. They didn't recognize Austin right off the bat, but when they saw the rest of the family they clued in. It was a lot of fun.


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