Happy Birthday Ryan (13)

Ryan had two parties this year, a big party with the family and a small party with just mom, dad and his brother. Here are some pics:
























































- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Newly painted baby's room

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Old picture of Ryan

Ryan when he was little visiting Thomas. :)

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

The Boys Today

Nate at Connor's Birthday Party

Ryan with Jack and Jill

Deer from our backyard

More Pictures

Installed new kitchen light

Had some time this weekend and installed the new kitchen light. I still have to adjust the chains in this picture but it matches the chandelier I put up a few weeks ago. We again went with LED bulbs so now the entire kitchen is LED. :)

You also may have noticed I deleted my facebook account. The deletion is mostly for privacy issues but also because it is a great time sink. You can still stay in touch with me via email, this blog and twitter.

• Email: shawn.schulze@gmail.com
• Blog: http://shawnx.blogspot.com
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/ShawnMSchulze

I hope all is well!

Spaghetti Bread for lunch

I was browsing Reddit last week and saw a post for Spaghetti Bread. It looked fantastic and I made it the next day. I didn't take any pictures though and the kids wanted it again so I made some more today. I only had 2 small cans of biscuit dough and I needed to make some more dough but I didn't want to wait for yeast etc... I used to work with Bob Frankland who would bring in Irish Soda bread every year and it was fantastic. I remember him saying you didn't have to use yeast so I made a small amount of Irish soda bread dough sans raisins and seeds to mix with biscuit dough. The marbled dough came out awesome and the kids loved it. Here are some pics:

Rolling out the dough. Usually you make soda bread with all purpose flour but I only head Rye or Wheat so I picked wheat. Tasted awesome!

Adding the Spaghetti, Sauce, Mozzarella cheese, Parmesan Cheese and Sweet Sausage

Ready to Bake!

Ready to eat!

Chop off a slice and Eat up!

Almost gone. :D

This is the original post with Recipe:
http://rhodesbread.com/blog/blog/braided-spaghetti-bread

2012 Bacon Academy Resolution Run

Robyn, Ryan, Erin Smith, Dan Guinan and I all ran in the 2012 Bacon Academy Resolution Run. We ended up with fantastic weather and it was a great time! You can see my route and stats on Nike here. Here are some pictures and at the bottom you will find a link to the official race site and results. 

There's Ryan! Read the whole article here: http://www.remindernews.com/article/2012/01/01/runners-start-the-new-year-on-the-right-foot 

Racing Tag

Paper with the story in it.

Reminder News has a picture of Ryan online. (If it is still there)
http://www.remindernews.com/files/imagecache/graduation_photos/dayonmain/121%20WEB_1.jpg

Results:
http://thelastmileracing.com/results/results2012/12baconacademyage.html

Dan spotted an owl

We had our final Christmas gathering of the year over at Dan and Jude's. I am hoping he adds some pictures up in his gallery so I can post and share them. (Or link to them) We had a great time and a chance to see Cassie before she headed back to the air force. (She was home for the holidays) While we were there Dan spotted an owl and zoomed in with his camera to snap a picture.

This is a bit blurry because it is a picture of the screen on his camera. Great shot of the owl.

Thundercats

Thunder, thunder, thunder cats!!!

Just playing with some jQuery. Nathaniel loves his sword!

Click to Animate Photo

Nate building a Birdhouse

Video of him building

He worked on this birdhouse for a little over two hours.

Concentrating

Another angle of the construction

Painting the Birdhouse

He didn't quite finish painting it. We put it away to dry and he finished painting it the next day.

Robyn's New Chandlier and 3 Way Dimmer

New Kitchen Chandelier, it takes six bulbs and they are all 'dimmable' LED bulbs. Each bulb uses only 7.5 watts but is as bright as a 40 watt incandescent bulb.

The light is a crisp white light although that is difficult to capture in a picture.

We also added a 3 way dimmer for the chandelier. First time I wired a 3 way dimmer.

Dimmer has a cool LED night light when it is switched off.

Visiting my Mom, Sister and Nieces in Maine

We had a great time up in Maine this year and visited with Nana, Auntie Chelle, Tessa and Kaleigh. We made a brief stop at the outlets in Kittery and got lucky picking some great hotels.

Tessa, Kaleigh, Ryan and Nate

Say CHEESE!

Nana

One of the gifts Nate received was the Legendary Sword of Omens. He can use it for Sight beyond Sight or to defend or he can transform it from dagger form to sword form.

The mighty sword fully extended and ready for battle.

(The original Thundercats from when I was a kid and the new 2011 Reboot are on Amazon. You can also rent the original Thundercats on DVD from Netflix but they don't have the reboot yet)