A little bit of everything!

Well a great deal has happened since the last post regarding Dave's footbal. 
I'll try to give you the condensed version. 

Cassie left for Naval Bootcamp at Great Lakes.  Approximately 9 weeks later Tara, Myself, Dave and Tara's parents all made it out to Chicago to see Cassie become a member of the greatest Navy the world has ever known. (Especially Now)  David finshed his football season and began wrestling.  Currently David is undefeated with a record of 6 and 0.  Due to his strength and domination on the mat,  coaches were forced to move Dave from a C ranking (beginner) to an A which is an experienced ranking. (skipped right over B novice)   Go to Youtube.com search for Mr Rowemantic, that should bring up his wrestling videos.

Cassie is now in A school at the Naval Police Academy in San Antonio where she has performed so well that she was basically ranked second in her class of 76 personnel enabling Cassie to choose her orders and the location where she'll be stationed. I'm sure by now you're all aware that Cassie has chosen Naples Italy.  She ships out some time in February. 

At the academy Cassie has enjoyed such training as, hand to hand combat, being sprayed in the eyes with pepper spray, weapons traning including a 9mm Beretta, an AR-15 and the ever popular M-249 light machine gun, affectionately known as the SAW.

(Squad Automatic Weapon) 

Which Cassie suprisingly admitted almost caused her to pee her big girl camouflage pants. In her defence, Cassie excitedly rushed out to the firing range and forgot to visit the BMATTR..Short for

Badass Master at Arms Tinkle Tinkle Room (Naval term)

When she fired the weapon, it rattled her to the core....

Apparently Cassie's core is located directly adjacent to her bladder! 

Here's a bunch of pictures spanning the last 3 1/2 months.

Saying hello to mom for the 1st time in awhile.

I am here to pump....You Up!



 

 Sears Tower - Chi Town

                                    103rd floor of the Sears Tower Building in Chicago. 

1100ft straight down!

There seems to be a theme in Cassie's pictures she sends home.

Theme.....

Cassie Surrounded by men...

Or women who wish they were men!

Ha!

During Graduation.



Cassie's Company.

Family Reunited after Bootcamp.  Very Proud!

Top of the Sears Tower

Insignia that Cassie and Dad will soon have Tattood. 

Some Badass Master at Arms!

Occasionally the little girl shows back up.

To Ensure the Bear follows Cassie's lead,

Cassie plans' on having the insignia stiched onto the

Not so Badass... kinda wimpy.... more than likely gay....

probably not a Master at Arms build-a-bear!

Corning vs Ithica

Boy!

As much as I love watching Dave play and excel in football, I love watching and listening to Tara cheer on her son even more.  No mother out there is prouder or louder!  As you'll see in the two videos below, Tara is beside herself that she can't somehow jump out there and help Dave who, as you'll see, needs no help.  Dave is the fullback #81 and ball carrier in this video.  He ran for 150 yards today and scored the only points of the game.  A 6 point touchdown and 2 point conversion, both ran in by Dave.

This 1st video is Dave breaking free on a 40 yard run only to be taken down by a facemask tackle that was not called a penalty. 

Listen for Tara!

In fact....
Good luck missing Tara!

This video is Dave on defense (linebacker) mopping up after a series of poor tackles on defense!

Once again, keep your ears open for Mom. 

No need to turn up your speakers....

(cussing allowed)

    apparently.....

 

Daves 2011 Football Season Video

This is a highlight reel of David's biggest plays of the season including his Allstar game and Defensive Player Of The Year Award. Dave is #21 in the Green jersey, #51 in the one highlight from the allstar game and all black in the scrimmage footage.  Look for the guy killing, smashing, wrecking, breaking, squishing, outrunning and generally pulverizing his opponent.

Turn up your speakers!

The family out fishing

Well.....
Due to some unfortunate events that have recently occurred in the immediate family (which I'm sure some will agree..... are obviously my fault), I decided to thrust some additional abuse upon them by taking them fishing.  Due to our very busy schedule, we didn't have the opportunity to do any fishing on our vacation to Florida last month, so I figured what better way to get blamed for neglect but by a fish bite or some type of debilitating hook injury.

Tara with one of her many catches of the day.  Est. 20 to 30 fish.

Catch and release.

  

 

  

Happy wife.......happy.......wife.

 

We told Cassie her prince awaits true loves first kiss.

Turns out, it DOES have to be a frog...who knew?

 

Among many others, Cassie also caught a catfish.

  

Dave with a real nice Sun Fish.

  

 The kids apparently trying to make as much noise as possible to curb their mothers fish catching spree....

to no avail I might add.

  

In case you were wondering.....No, this next picture is NOT one of those

yard ornaments, it's Tara.  

Little known fact.....

 Tara was a model for the beloved lawn art, but unfortunately

she was paid a daily rate and not given any royalties.

A model none the less!

  

  

Like mother......

Like daughter.....

  

Not sure which to go with.....

My wife has the butt of an 18 year old....

or...

My 18 year old has the butt of a......ok...ok.... you get the joke.

Florida Trip - Part 1



We started our vacation at Kennedy Space Center.

On the tour bus heading out to the vehicle assembly building (VAB) and the launch pads were the Space Shuttles and Saturn 5 rocket launches took place.

The family under an actual Saturn 5 rocket. 365ft of it.

This is pad 39a where Pop Pop worked assisting the launch of the huge Saturn 5 rockets for the Apollo series including Apollo 13.  The Space Shuttle launch that Tara and I witnessed in 2009 was also launched from this pad in it's current state.

Here's the massive VAB.  This is where the Apollo rockets and shuttles were loaded onto the crawler for the slow drive out to the launch pads.

The blue field in the flag is the size of a pro basketball court and each one of the stripes the width of a 1 lane road.

Here's the back end of the Space Shuttle Discovery.

We were told we would be the second to last group of people to ever see the space shuttle in the VAB due to the following day it would be loaded onto a 747 and two days later, flown to D.C. to be put into the Smithsonian where we'll see it again in July with the Valenzuela family.

We were 50 feet away from the Discovey.  It was unbelievable.

I was so proud that my kids got to see a part of history in a place their grandfather also was a part of history.



Out looking at wildlife.

We got out to a couple of state parks and took some pics of the local willife.

Cassie decided she made a friend. and figured since she didn't have any food, the squirrel would like her cotton candy perfume.

I did.

About 4 feet away. 

Right below the boardwalk we were on.

Maybe a 5 footer.

This big guy was far away.  I was lucky to get this picture.

Approximately 10 ft.

The highlight of the trip. 

Swimming with the Manatees!

All of us....well..... most of us feeling a bit uncomfortable in our ever revealing wetsuits!

VERY forgiving picture....

Whew!

(Unfortunately they had to skin a manatee for my suit)!

A couple of manatees.

One coming up for air.

Dave swimming with a couple of manatees.

This baby manatee (400lbs) was very happy to see us.  Here he swims right under Cassie and Tara.

Tara and her little buddy.


This was the baby....

This is right before he kissed me....on the lips!

Dave and I in Crystal springs.

Tara chased this little turtle....didn't want his picture taken I guess.

Florida Trip Part 2 -Shooting Range!

Being that there's a couple of movies in this part of the trip, I've decided to put the gun range in it's own blog.  I brought some guns to Florida with us knowing Pop Pop wanted to shoot an M1A1 rifle I had given him a couple of years back.  So we found a range containing a 25 yard pistol and a 1000 yard rifle range both outdoor. 

Very nice set-up and extremely safe.  No playing around here.  We went right to the pistol range where we broke out Dad's 22 and 32 pistols.  They're so cute!  Thought I was gonna break em! 

Since Cassie has decided to become an MP, her gun of choice was the 9mm.  It just so happens we brought my Berreta 9mm and the ever popular (and extremely expensive to shoot) .50 cal Desert Eagle. 

We all took turns with all the guns handguns and then went over to the rifle side of the range.

Here we shot my A10 .308 sniper rifle and Pop Pop's M1A1. We all had a great time!

David and Pop Pop sighting in the M1a1

Tara and Cass shooting the big .308 way down range.

Cassie sighting hundreds of yards down range for me...."technically"!

Dave checking out the other weapons on the range

David manhandling the .50 cal Desert Eagle

Cassie's "I'm in training" pose.

Cassie also taming the mighty Desert Eagle

Now Tara takes her turn at throwing lead down range.