Someone got three As and two A-s on her second quarter at the Art Institute of Colorado. Congratulations, baby!

(Special editorial post by Wade)

No, this isn’t a post about how long we have left before our kids leave the house. That’s a post for another day! Today marks 18 years since Heather and I started ‘going out’. She mentioned it to me while I was getting ready for work this morning, and it just struck me what an accomplishment that is in these times of disposable marriage.

Along those lines, I wanted to pass on this petition request on behalf of the more than 18,000 same-sex couples that were married in California last year before the passage of Prop 8.

http://vimeo.com/3089746

“Fidelity”: Don’t Divorce… from Courage Campaign on Vimeo.

Ken Starr, who led the campaign to impeach President Bill Clinton, filed a legal brief last month — on behalf of the “Yes on 8″ campaign — that would forcibly divorce 18,000 same-sex couples that were married in California last year before the passage of Prop 8.

Watch “Fidelity” and sign our letter to the state Supreme Court before they hear oral arguments in the case on March 5. Tell the Supreme Court to invalidate Prop 8, reject Ken Starr’s case, and let loving, committed couples marry. DEADLINE EXTENDED: March 2.

223,028 people have signed this letter (as of Friday, February 13). Our new Courage Campaign community goal is 250,000 signers. Will you add your name now?

couragecampaign.org/Divorce

On the same day as the sandwich/mask party we also went to the pumpkin patch to grab our jack-o-lantern crop for the season. We weren’t able to make it to Rock Creek Farm last year, so we made a special effort to get back this year. The boys have a blast riding over the bumps and ruts in the fields. Here are some pictures of them in action!

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Last Saturday we went over to a friends house for a pre-Halloween sandwich party and the only requirement was to bring a mask for a group photo. The boys were three clones of Ben Affleck, and Heather and I went as the (now defunct couple) Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling. We’re so funny.

It’s been awhile since this place has seen an update, and I thought I’d steal the opportunity to post up some mew pictures of the boys that Heather took on Monday, October 15. I was walking home from getting off the bus after work and came upon Heather and the boys out on the driveway with the backdrop set up and the photo shoot wrapping up. I think the results are pretty impressive, but I’m a bit biased toward the subjects and the photographer.

On Wednesday of this week I took off of work to spend the day with Heather and the boys for the last trip of the summer to the local water park. We got there when it opened and stayed until it was within twenty minutes of closing. At the beginning of our day I remarked to Heather that I’d forgotten to bring my cell phone, and she said she had left hers at home as well.

We had the best of days — letting each of the boys choose in turn which ride they wanted to go to next. Their vitality and courage is amazing to me. At their age I was never as brave as they are. We left the park exhausted and ready for a good dinner.

We drove home to change into dry clothes before dinner to find that both of our cell phones had voice messages waiting and there were over 20 missed called on the home phone callerID — all from Heather’s father. We knew that whatever the news was it was not good news.

Heather’s cousin Corry had died early that morning in Iraq. At once tears flowed and a deep anger welled up inside both of us.

Corry Paul Tyler, 29, an Army captain and 1999 West Point graduate from Woodbine, Georgia, was one of the 14 soldiers killed in the crash of a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter near Kirkuk in northern Iraq on Wednesday, August 22, 2007.

In the dark hours before dawn, Corry and three other soldiers from the 4th Squadron, 6th Air Cavalry, Fort Lewis, Washington, picked up ten troops from the 25th Infantry Division, Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, after a night mission.

All fourteen aboard perished when the Black Hawk suffered catastrophic mechanical failure and crashed.

Corry was a husband to his loving wife and a father to his three young children. He was the sole remaining male in his family which allowed him to avoid deployment; yet this was his third tour in Iraq.

Corry hoped to go to medical school and become an Army physician. He was to have heard soon if he had been accepted.

Today there are 3723 U.S. deaths in Iraq confirmed by the Department of Defense. Before Wednesday, that ever increasing number was more of an abstraction to me than reality. With the death of Corry, the addition of one integer to that total number, it is no longer an abstraction. It’s an open wound of pain and loss of infinite proportions for every family of every fallen soldier and citizen.

Capt. Corry P. Tyler served his family and country honorably to the end, and he shall be remembered by all those who knew him as one who lived deliberately and deeply.

Links to related news stories and web pages:
www.west-point.org
www.news4jax.com
projects.washingtonpost.com
seattlepi.nwsource.com
www.honoluluadvertiser.com
www.forbes.com
www.nytimes.com
www.timesonline.co.uk

Well, Heather made it off with her friends to road trip up to Fort Collins this morning to a scrapbooking mecca known as The Treasure Box … after a pit stop at Starbucks, of course.

The boys and I are planning on getting out of the house so we don’t catch cabin fever in the rain and chill today.

We just got an email from Grandma & Grandpa Harrell about a wild turkey that visited in the back yard yesterday. He was really big and he walked very fast.

There was also a hawk that spent about three weeks in their back yard in January.

They said he grazed in the grass in the early mornings and late afternoons. The rest of the day he sat up in trees or flew back and forth from the front yard to the back yard.

I wonder what kind of fowl will show up next?

We updated the blog software about a week ago, but that apparently broke the email notification plugin. I’ve updated that now, and this is a test of the CBPS (Chindimples Blog Posting System).

Three hundred and ninety-nine pictures form May have been added to the picture gallery. Click here to explore!

The pictures from April have been uploaded to the gallery.