Day with the Colts
Well, Hannah and I had a wonderful day with the Colts. Thank you so much Jenny!!!! My friend Jenny, sent me a text like at 10:15 pm on a Thursday night and asked if we wanted to go and spend a day with the colts at their training camp. We said YES!!! It was so much fun. We watched them run plays, practice and get ready for a great new season. We even got to get a few autographs. Hannah got our new Head Coach, Jim Caldwell’s autograph. He was so nice and Hannah told him to have a great season. She even got to have some fun with the Indianapolis Star (our Indy newspaper) sports writer. He kept taking her princess lunch box and she just giggled and giggled. The highlight of the day, (besides the wonderful company) was getting Payton Mannings autograph. It was CRAZY, Hannah got right up in front and just stood really still and handed her shirt to him and said good luck Mr. Manning. He said, Thank you very much. What a fun day!!!!!
Here are a few pix of our fun day.
My Creative Writing Exercise
Sorry, apparently our account was hacked yesterday. Something about me being in a Paris jail. 24601
I’m not, I’m carrying pianos in Ohio.
Happy Birthday Song (+Fire) *VIDEO*
During the singing of “Happy Birthday” at Hannah’s 4th birthday party, the blowing of the candles turned out to be TOO exciting!!
Hannah’s House (4th Birthday) *VIDEO*
This video shows the first 10 minutes of Hannah’s fourth birthday. At 7am, Hannah follows clues to find her present.
Dad Inducted into ODNR Hall of Fame
Thursday, December 11th dad was inducted into the Ohio Department of Natural Resources Hall of Fame! This is a very big deal and usually is reserved for people outside of ODNR that are famous for natural resource conservation in Ohio. Dad joins previous winners Bob Evans and Johnny Appleseed! Dad’s plaque will be on a wall at the ODNR headquarters with those guys.
Dad’s Retirement from ODNR
The Monday night before Thanksgiving was a Retirement Dinner for my dad, Tim Gerber. Dad had spent almost 40 years working for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. Dad’s coworkers did a great job of tailoring the evening to what dad would want. Mainly that our whole family was included front and center, all 15 of us. There wasn’t any pomp and circumstance, just coworkers saying wonderful things about my father. Some things I already knew… some I didn’t.
I helped organize the family and then his coworkers to all chip in for a really nice digital SLR camera for dad. I think you can tell in the photo that dad was quite surprised! After it was over the whole family went over to see dad’s office for the last time. It was a great tribute to a great career!
Hannah Photoshoots
After getting a comment about only having outdated photos of their granddaughter, we took Hannah out back into the Fall leaves to take a few. We got a couple of cute photos, but no great smiling portrait.
A few days later, I took Hannah into my office on a Saturday morning to take care of a few things including taking down my portrait studio that I had used on Friday. After I got the thing half put away, Hannah says, “Are you going to take MY picture?” I said, “Are you going to smile for Daddy?” She said yes, so I put it all back up and we had a very fun photoshoot.
Tribute to Favorite Author
I was sad to hear that Michael Crichton died Tuesday from cancer. Crichton was the writer of some great books, including Jurassic Park and Sphere. Some of you might be laughing at the thought of me mourning the death of a writer, but I was a big fan of his books.
My senior year of High School I had to take one more English class and looked for the easiest class I could take that was the farthest thing from literature and english grammar and other such nonsense. I found “Reading for the College Bound”. The irony is that I might have been the only one in that class that did actually go to college 
Anyway I had to read a lot of books, but they could be whatever I wanted. So I started with Jurassic Park, I think just because the movie was coming out. I was hooked! There was a ton of technical detail in all his books. If he referenced a device, he’d then describe it in great detail. His characters were always a team of experts from unrelated fields that were thrown together to solve a huge problem. I probably read 10 of his books. That’s huge for me!
Covered Bridge Festival
We're having a great time on our annual camping trip in Parke County.