Today

Today I learned that life is too short to let life get in the way.  From now on I will work less and play more. I will smile more and let by gones be by gones. I'll  keep in touch as often as I should and I won't MAKE time for friends I'll TAKE time for friends. When I was 20 I looked ahead of things to come- now at 40 I look behind at things that are gone. I don't like it- not one bit. I love life I wish I could hit the pause button but there isn't one. I have a top 10 most influential people in my life... sounds weird I know- I honestly hope there's been so much time between this post an the last no one even checks this page. But 2 of those 10 have passed away this year and I absolutely hate it. This talk of heaven and a better place with no pain, sickness or sadness I understand- in my head; my heart....maybe not so much.

Doesn't it make you want to go nail your own sign to it?  "DeLong's Cabin ===>"

Karla traveled to the Astoria Column to take photo's of the closest moon pass in over 20 years.

There are some pictures that shouldn't get lost in mega bites on a computer somewhere.  This may be the perfect picture of Gunner.  Big smile, hair blown in the wind, eyebrows high as as they can get and pure joy.  So awesome.

The will power of Gunner

Tonight Karla said Gunner was getting really strong and is hard to take down. I promply started to wrestle him to the ground and tickling him as hard and fast as I could. Tucker came to his rescue by jumping on my back and tried to pull my hands back. I was able to ignore the presents of this light weight on my back while I tried to break Gunner.

"Who's stronger"? I'd ask.
"I am I am",Gunner would say almost wetting his pants. He never broke.
I grabbed Tucker from my back and started tickling him at the same time and asked the same question. Before I could even get the question out Tucker was yelling, "You are YOU ARE"!!!! as fast and loudly as he could.

I find it so funny that those two boys are so predictably different.

A new year in Levensworth

When you frget the password to your blog I guess it's been a while. We soent the days between Christmas and New Years in Levensworth "The Chirstmas Town". If you google the town it's easy to see what all the hype is about. It's a planned community that is absolutley

We have eliminated fighter pilot from Calvin's career choices.

We traveled to Newport for our Memorial Day.  We visited the Ripley's Believe It Or Not museum where they had a bridge that went through a rotating tunnel.  The tunnel was painted and lit up to look like a starry night.  The tunnel spun quickly and gave an optical illusion that you too were spinning.  Calvin went through and turned around to watch us come after him.  As he stood at the end of the tunnel looking back he began to lean until he got to about a 45 degree angle before realizing he was falling.  I'm not sure what tipped him off; it might have been that he began to feel gravity on one side of his face, or his eye spotted the now perpendicular handrail, or his upright parents; regardless when he reached a 45 degree lean his legs sprung into action.  He launched himself head first into the handrail.  He did cry but it was so funny Karla and I couldn't stop laughing. Tucker was appalled that we would laugh after Calvin incurred yet ANOTHER head injury, but seriously..... if you saw this little brown eyed boy looking up at you and start to slowly lean to to his left before jumping sideways- you'd laugh too.

This kid is a magnet for head injuries.  Of course there was the rock slide where he had a few, but once before that he ran to the front door to greet me home and as I opened the door, BAMM! His skin split open in the middle of his forehead (you can slightly see that scar in the picture below).  This baseball season (btw, Calvin wasn't even in baseball, he was a spectator) he got whacked 3 times in the head with a ball.  Once, he was just walking in the middle of a group of adults and as he walked through some kid threw a ball OVER the dug out and it hit Calvin smack center in the top of his head.  Another time I arrived at one of Tucker's games late and Calvin came running over to give me a hug.  With arms stretched out he gets flattened by a ball to the side of the head.  And look at the unicorn horn he has below.  He said he was jumping on his bed and fell on the corner.  Good thing we have good insurance.