Caught Mason playing in the grass.

Chubby baby Mason. Another example of the Roane Double Chin.

PLAY THORA of MASON

This is a cool piece of plastic fibers on the swing.

Mason was enthralled with the first Star Trek Movie or at least the opening credit.

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY

We celebrated the 4th of July with Jen's family down in Jekyll Island, Georgia. The hotel we were staying at was just about a block away from where the fireworks went off.

Jen has been watching the all seasons of "24" lately and like it or not I kind of got addicted. However it was all worth it when Jack and the crew break in the building to find the CIP and it is being kept in the hall across from "Roane Associates". Pretty cool...I think it is the whole entire Roane Family's 15 minutes fo fame.

FUNNY FRIDAY



Janica's old roommate Ashley posted this guy's video about Alexandria, VA on her Facebook. Turns out he has some other good works like this one called "Hey There, Khalilah". After 10 seconds I was cracking up.

FIVE FOR FRIDAY HDR
Fiery Furnace, Moab, Utah

Self Portrait of Nostrils, Moab, Utah

Grandma Jeannes, Washington Terrace, Utah

Ellsworth Farm, West Point, Utah

Salt Lake Temple, Salt Lake City, Utah

These were taken on the good trip lollipop to Utah. HDR stands for High Dynamic Range and combines photos taken at different exposure levels into one photo that otherwise wouldn't be possible by just taking one picture. I highly recommend it to all.

Memorial day weekend we went to Chincoteague Island. While in Assateague National something park we stopped off and saw this light house. I took 9 photos and stiched them together. I probably could have just stood farther away and got the whole thing in one shot, but why not stitch them together right?

I left this in the shower stall at my in-laws with the red baby paint for the tub.

This is Mason being very serious.

Panda - Some of the best licorice in the world...but be careful of eating the whole box in one sitting.

Mason is gettin' chubbier every day.

 

Mason wanted to wear my jeans. They fit him okay at the waist but they were too long.

Chef Mason was getting a little angry after a hard days work.

4 Year Anniversary of the "Proposal"

Jen this blog post is for you honey! 4 years ago we went to that awesome hockey game that changed our lives forever.

Hangin' with the Parentals. My mom and dad flew in on January 16th at the request of Jenny to give me some pointers on how to raise a child. While they were here they gave a few parenting classes, got sick, and witnessed history of the first president whose mother was caucasian and father was Afrikan and...I forget what else.

It was a fun week to have them here and it made me miss the whole family back home in Utahr.

PS...the guy behind me is not part of the immediate family...however as they say "Were all brothers and sisters".

Family Trip to the US Capitol. I felt like I looked in that picture...Scruffy!

TOP TEN WORST CARS IN MY GENERATION

In copying my sisters ten fer tuesday themes and being trapped at my in-laws with no pictures to post to my blog I came up with the following post.

10. Chevy Celebrity (Okay I actually like this car)
9. Mazda Miata (Cool at first, annoying later)
8. Buick Rendezvous (Are you serious Tiger?)
7. Anything made by Oldsmobile
6. Chevy Uplander Van
5. Saab
4. Anything made by Saturn before 2006
3. Pontiac Sunfire
2. Ford Aerostar van
1. Ford Tempo/Mercury Topaz

Yes, Virginia there is a Santa Claus...he is just really little.

Mason Duke Roane

Jen and I had a very special gift given to us on December 9, 2008. Mason Duke Roane came into our lives at 7:33 pm that day weighing 8 pounds 4 ounces. It was an emotional high for me as I imagine it is for most new dads to see their first child. The first few screams were amazing to hear in the operating room as stood up to see over the operating sheet and see our baby. I felt like jumping for joy and kept looking around the room wanting to tell everyone in the room that that is our boy...that we made that little baby you just pulled out of my wife. I didn't thought because I had a muzzle on me to keep the germs in my mouth and nose to myself. After seeing the boy I really wanted Jen to see him put she wasn't able to until a few minutes later after they had him cleaned up. It was a one of the greatest experiences I've ever had in my life. And I just want to thank my wife for all the pain and suffering she went through to our little masonite into the world. And thank Heavenly Father for this great opportunity he has given us to raise this child. And thanks to my parents and family for their support. And Jen's family deserve a special thanks, especially Carmen for coming all the way from Morgantown in the middle of the night to be with Jen. And to our friends, especially the ones that have let us hang around their babies and learn from them.

Having bought a new camera in June, a Canon XSi, I had realized that cameras can be really expensive...and that lenses that go on the camera body can add even more to the expense...so it is semi depressing to realize that a lot of the shots you see everywhere are not just thanks to somebody being able to capture the moment just right, but that their camera equipment lets them take a decent picture in unperfect circumstances. Anyways, Cameras are like most material things we set our hearts on...you can spend a lot of money on them to get the very best...and that is why the video clip above is so funny to me.

Thanksgiving Dinner

Jen eating Thanksgiving dinner. It was a glorious dinner thanks in large part to the Johnsons who made a great turkey and some killer gravy. Dinner also included some great rolls, stuffing, potatoes, green bean casserole and black olives! I made some cranberry sauce from my cranberry pie and I liked it better than the can stuffed. In ode to my uncle Cary who made a cranberry-orange sauce for Thanksgiving one year I made half of the cranberry sauce with orange rinds and little bit of grandpa's orange cough medicine (really just some orange flavoring).

For the finale there were five different pies all of which were great.

Simple Cranberry Pie

I made this simple cranberry pie for Thanksgiving. It is really much simpler than it looks here in the photo. All you really have to be worried about is having a clean pie dish and washing the cranberries. After that it is all downhill.

The Baby Crib

I was finally able to set the crib up last Saturday and it came with a lot of cool parts. The photos explain why it took me 5 hours to set it up, but it was a good experience. I really felt the bonding between me and the baby.

I love Jenny so much that the other night I set my camera on a longer exposure and proceeded to take a series of 5 photos with each representing a letter of her name. Then with a photo stitching program I created this little gem.

Recently we went to Arlington Cemetary and watched the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. It is quite the event. It is a time to be reverant and unfortunately the guard had to step off his guard twice to remind the crowd that was gathered to be quiet and respect the area they were in.

Jen is holding her birthday gift that came about two weeks late. This isn't a normal iTunes card that I just bought from the internet or store. It is a card I have been trying to earn ever since last November through http://www.epolls.com/. To get the card I had to earn 9,750 points. Which means I had to take approximately 9750 points / 500 points per survey = 19 surveys. At about 15 minutes a survey that is about 4.75 hours which means for this $15 iTunes card I was earning $3.16 per hour. That reminds of the wage I earned at Roane Manufacturing Company (RMC) making plastic bags or loading grommets when I was in the 4th grade. You should try it out...maybe you are faster at taking surveys than I was. The only problem is that they only e-mail you one or two surveys a week and most of them were about the TV programs you watch.

Jen and I went for a drive tonight to look at the leaves and it got to dark before we saw them but I did get this nice 35-week silhouette of her in the sunset.

Lychee The Magical Fruit. I first tried lychee in an asian/mexican grocer in Clearfield shortly after my mission. I bought a can of the juice and drank it and decided it wasn't bad. Fast forward to now where we live very close to a large asian/lation grocery store (more asian...which you tell by the shoppers and fish smell). It carries a wide variety of fruits and vegatables and animal parts compared to a normal caucasoid grocery store of which I bought these lychees pictured in my hand. They are like a big juicy, slightly slimy grapes.

GURNEY TOURNEY
Jen has to put up with me a lot especially when we go somewhere fun and I whip out the camera and take a few gigabytes of pictures...like the one above which I made her pose for against this brick wall. We went to the Anthem Blue Cross/Blue Shield Gurney Tourney in Richmond, Virginia where people race through an obstacle course in their suped up hospital gurney beds. Jen's Grandma helped start this event some 10 years ago to help raise money for the Hospitality House which provides accomodations to family members of hospitalized people.

Here is a collage of all the gurneys that raced. The paraded down the route and then presented in front of judges in which they would usually entice the judges with a baskets of food, candy...and alcohol. My favorite was the batman team with all of them dressed like the joker in nurse whites.

At the finish line was the national headquarters of Philip Morris USA...which I thought was kind of funny since the race was to help people in the hospital.

I asked these kids if I could take a picture of them jumping off the stairs on their skateboards. This was the best picture I got. The kid was pretty excited to see it.

Jen and I went to the bookstore the other week looking for this book and when we got there a lady was holding the only copy of this book trying to get her friends attention with it. Fortunately she put it back on the shelf and we snatched it up. It was the first I've bought for the lil' chitlin. I thought this was an awesome book when I was young...so in hopes of forcing my kid to like everything I do I'm preparing early.