Hunter's First Time Out on the Course

Venice East Golf Course was the place.

 8 a.m. was the time he started at the driving range.

 That was it for training.

The 18-hole Executive course was no challenge for Hunter,

but it was for his mom.

He did a great job for the first time.

A Santa Palm for a photo op.

the newest kid on the golf course

Hunter was surprised when his parents bought him a set of golf clubs for Christmas. He's getting his first lesson on a 3-par course in South Venice tomorrow.

a tidbit...

just wanted to update a little...the Underwoods moved into the Christmas holiday beach condo a couple days ago and we haven't done a good job of recording everything. We'll get better...

poolside just out their door

a little water football

gateway to the gulf

Landon's 2011 Visit with Santa...ho, ho. ho, hum...

Remember Landon's first visit in 2010?

Click on the link!

Snow on the Landscape

Amy and Dave's backyard view.

 Seen from their balcony

more hat chat

This hat went to Blake, the Champion of

 the North-Hoover Wrestling Tournament.
And, would you believe he had the energy to pull it off on Sunday morning
after hosting a pizza and game party for 11 kids the night before?

Note the trophy that he'll add to his growing collection.

Congrats to Blake! This is the coolest hat a champ could wear.

Lookin' good!

hat chat

So what do you call a hat like this? Is there a name for it?
This is a gift to Landon from Grandma Janet.
Cute, eh?
Should be warm with those earflaps!

According to wikipedia, it's a tuque...a stocking cap...
a Canadian-English head cover against the cold.
 If it has a pom-pom on the top, it might be called a bobble hat.

Underwood Thanksgiving 2011

We have not had a Christmas Tree for what we think is 7 years. This year the night before Thanksgiving we got a tree that was pre lit, came in three parts and took 15 mintues and no mess to put up. All we had to do is the fun part of putting on the deocrations. Great invention!

On Thanksgiving morning we all crawled out of bed and did the Turkey Trot (3rd year). This year we all participated. Hunter was the big winner in 4th place for his age group for the 2 mile with 16:30. Dave and Blake tied both getting 5th place in their age group. Dave did the 2 mile in 14:56 and Blake did the 5 mile is 46:00. Amy didn't place but did finish the 2 mile in 26 min. Good place to start. Next year will surely be better.

After the run we came home and had a big feast with the Underwoods. We ordered a turkey, greenbean casserole and green salad from the club. The best part was the home made cranberry sauce that came with the turkey. The green beans were also fresh and the chef made a perfect turkey. Good tradition to start there. The other Underwoods brought mashed potatoes, corn (also fresh), dressing, noodles, fresh fruit, deviled eggs, homemade oatmeal rolls and for dessert homemade pumpkin and peach pie with Missouri peaches. It was quite a feast!!

There were many after dinner activities ranging from napping in the fireplace room and skimming Black Friday advertisements in front of the tree, watching football and finishing the keg in the theater room in the basement, sitting in the hot tub, playing Madden 12 on the Wii, air hockey, nerf gun battle outside (it was 65 degrees) and playing Risk on the new game table in the game room. Something for everyone.

Everyone went home happy and we drifted off into bed watching TV, until Hunter crept into our room with his silver box of money at 4 am begging to go to the mall. Somehow mom, Blake and Hunter drug our sore and over fed bodies out of bed and went to the mall.

Hunter and Blake have spent the last three months working odd jobs, getting good grades for dollars and saving everything they could scrape up to buy an ipad2. They even sold Halloween candy on the bus and tickets they earned at school for good behavior. Finally, they had reached their goal with their early Christmas presents from their grandma and aunts. So we made our way to the Apple store.

The line was at least 100 people long when we got there. We were told we could take a number and "hang out" while we waited our turn. Screw that. Walmart matches any price. We quickly made our way to the mall door. Walmart had been cleared out long before as the shoppers had all moved on to Kohl's and Scheels. We were able to pick up new ipad2 from Phil who did not try to sell us a bunch of stuff with it or ask us to hang out. We were home in about 20 minutes with our new ipad2.

It was a good Thanksgiving!

Landon made a friend at the mall

just like my dad

photo by Adam 'n Kim

Landon skypes now, too.

He showed us a lot of his toys the other day.



Cousins hanging out...

Sarasota Chalk Festival

Hi everyone,
This is a little postcard from Sarasota.

Today we perused the chalk paintings on the street between Orange and Pineapple Streets.
 The Chalk Festival has been going on for a week and will finish tomorrow.
Artists from all over the globe participate in this strange and funky venue
 that resembles mural art, cartooning, and mastering the Masters.

They've been working on their paintings in the hot sun for six days.

We're so happy that it hasn't rained on their parade of paintings!

We stopped to photograph this artist at work on something that might please Adam and Hunter...who is this character? Allen says "Anima"? Japanese cartooning...

You can tell the huge scale of these images by the chalk tray nearby.

These artists do get DOWN & DIRTY...

note the grubby pants and knee pads.

And check this out, Blake!!!

A 3-dimensional Lego scene...huge

 (those guys in the grubby clothes

are the ones who chalked this panorama.)

Look at the crowd to see how big the picture is...

I couldn't get it all in my camera viewer.

 It was a full lane plus a parking lane wide (right up to the curb)

 and twice that measurement in height.

Awesome dimensionality!

And here are some sorta-like lions for Landon.

Their tongues aren't hanging out...:)

Looks like they might grow up to be cheetahs.

One section of the Festival showed artists

who chalked up the work of the Masters...Vermeers, Michelangelos, Van Dykes, etc.

Here's a sampling:

Lady With an Ermine...

...copied from the original by Leonardo da Vinci.

Bacchus by Carravagio.

A mix of Botticelli's The Birth of Venus, Munch's The Scream, and a  Self Portrait of Van Gogh...

in the middle of the scene, a manhole cover :)

I would have loved to have seen Lee Jones' street reproduction

of Vermeer's Girl With the Pearl Earring

but I enjoyed his album of street paintings he left out for us to look at.

Oops! It's raining here in Venice.

I wonder if it's raining on the chalkwork in Sarasota

only 20 miles away...

Dancin' Landon

A couple fun videos of Landon Dancing this past summer. Just getting them up on the web now. Landon really loses himself in the music and gets into it.

Pumpkin Carving

Adam, Kim and Landon Jerdee joined the Underwoods (Hunter, Blake, Amy and Dave) for some good old fashioned pumpkin carving on Sunday. Amy supplied the venue and food. One of the highlights was the excellent dried pumpkin seeds Amy prepared to eat. Everyone enjoyed them including Landon.

Dave and Hunter

Kimberly "scooping out the guts" of a pumpkin.

Hunter and his Valley Tigers (local high school) pumpkin.

A display of pumpkin works.

Dave's pumpkin.

Two pumpkins with candles later that night.

Adam carved out a "Kitty-Bat" design from a carving kit template. Otherwise the designs were carved using freehand designs.

Mathlete Blake

At the annual awards ceremony this year, Blake received a trophy for reaching 2 years above grade level for math. Go Blake!

Legoland, Florida just opened

Remember our visit to Cypress Gardens during the Jimmy Carter days?

It went by the wayside as a popular park so the lego people

took over the site.

Check out the VIDEOS...the second one, A Walk in the Park,

tells the story about the building of the park.

Blake is sure to love this place

for its use of legos...:)

Pumpkin Patch & Corn Maze-ing

And he finished!!

Adam finished the 26.2 mile marathon in 4 hours 45 minutes and 32 seconds!

Congratulations, Adam!

That is an unbelievable accomplishment,

something you've done several times before.

Waiting for pictures to come in via blackberry...

Track Adam on the Des Moines Marathon this Sunday

Be a fan!
Click here to sign up for tracking Adam's marathon run on Sunday.

track Adam

Every time he crosses a tracking point, the chip in his shoe marks it.

You can choose texting or email...

Number 11

Amy sent this photo to me so I'm posting it.

Hunter is popular with the guys.

 He works hard and they give him a lot of "atta boys."

Blake is popular on his team too.

There doesn't seem to be anything he can't do.

I don't have a picture of him to post.

Anyone?

Fall on the Greens

For all you Dolphins fans out there...

You can check out the West Des Moines 5th Grade Dolphins'

 progress on Facebook!

See the link posted at the top of our sidebar :)

Football Days

The gridiron has new characters for us to observe...

one of them came up in the stands to see us.

This is Hunter BEFORE the game.

Wish you could have seen the AFTER...

Proud and sweaty...they'd played a great game

with an outcome of 20-6!!!

Everyone was slapping him on the back

for all the great work he'd done,

whole family standing around,

taking it in.

All we had for picture-taking was a phone...

maybe we'll do better next time.

Watch for Number 11.