Ian = Jonathan + Jillian

I didn't mention this about his name but here's a thought:

Ian = Scottish form of John
Ian = part of the name Jillian

So as you see, he is part of both of us. Also if you are wondering how to say Ian just say Jillian. "Eee-Ahn"

JSP

Ian's Photoshoot

Photoshoot by Photos by Joe:
http://www.flickr.com/joeykenow

Here is a link directly to the slideshow but no guarantees (depending on your web browser) that it will work.
http://www.flickr.com/joeykenow/show

Otherwise click slideshow on the right and enjoy!
JSP

Arrival of Ian Walter Proft

Well, this might be one of the few/first posts where I have very little in the way of wry commentary and sarcastic reparte, and instead am just a little bit stunned. This is probably exactly why God decided to make ME a father - to shut me up.

Jill's first view of her firstborn son. Her immediate words/response was: "He so perfect!" It really was a beautiful moment in my life I won't ever forget.

I think the look on her face says it all. Dad is looking a little bit scruffy...

Ian is just a little guy - 5 lb 12 oz is a bit smaller than even both his parents. (we were both small babies) Technically he is about 20 days early but is completely healthy.

Other stats/facts about Ian Walter Proft:

- His favorite activity is fussing

- He can get out of a swaddle in under a minute

- He sleeps when mommy sleeps and cries when daddy tries to sleep

- Total visitors: 2 so far. Grandma and Grandpa Proft!

- His name means "God is gracious" and is the Scottish form of John - in homage to his dad's paternal Grandmother's lineage to the Scottish Clan Stewart

- His middle name means "Commander of the Army" and is in homage to his dad's paternal Grandfather Maj. Walter Proft (ret.)

Usually the mantra on the Internet is "Post pics or it didn't happen!" so there you go... it happened!

JSP

Fort Lancer: Winter 09-10

Wintertime at Fort Lancer. Everyone keeps asking about the snow. My friends in California say "What is it?" Snow is crystalized water vapor. In the summer, it would be rain, which is something most of us have seen. But the cold temperatures here cause it to form this white stuff that collects on the roads and allows the most excellent of high-speed manuevers, the J-turn.

Above you see our first snowfall. It took me 1 hour to shovel the driveway, and 20 minutes after to clear the hump that the plow created. Wow isn't winter fun?
Here is after our second snow, taken from a bit of an angle. You notice now that the snow is waist high, is drifting over our major walkways, and has the unique capacity for backpain unknown in lower climes.
Okay. Seriously. Third snow. This is getting a little ridiculous. You now can see that the snow has drifted to car-height at least in the lowest spots. In the highest spots, it is about a head taller than I am. After a snow like this, I usually complain about how bad the roads are and what my tax dollars are doing, as our street usually has a 1-2' hump on the end that I have to ramp off of, dukes-of-hazard style. I think they have heard my complains, for now the plow comes promptly and deposits the entire snowfall of the NE district of Owatonna onto my particular curve of the road. My neighbors have piles half as tall on the ends of their driveways. They also all have snow removal devices that are tantamount to grecian behemoths of legend. I have a shovel and my muscles.

Ouch.
JSP

Jake Bachelor Party: Best ever.

What is cheaper and less painful than paintball, but actually a lot more fun? An 8-hour nerf war!

Participants:
Jonathan "Spray & Pray" Proft- dual weilding the 24-shot and 6-shot gatlers.
Brent "Two-shots Two Kills" Peterson - dual long-shot modified pistols.

Jake "That is a huge ammo drum" Rasp - man of honor.

Caleb "Which End Does the Bullet Come Out of Again?" - Jake's (now) brother in law. Quote of the night: "No one has said anything inappropriate about my sister yet. Is this really a bachelor party?"

Phil "Grillz Muh Bling" Hammitt with the modified Rapid-Fire... classic.

Colin "Yes this is a 45-shot ammo belt for my Vulcan Gatler" Proft.

Game modes included: Assassination (Presidental Escort), 2v2v2, deathmatch, good ol' CTF, Zone-Control, and Wild Chicken.

Very sore the day after. But how can you top that?

JSP

Summer Romance 2009

Like any summer - it was full of romance and weddings. First big one was John & Heidi Douglas, old friends of Jill's. Well, I mean they'd been friends a long time - they aren't old.
During the dollar-dance-singalong Jim Remiger came back from Africa to collect money from Jill and Jen.

I ate my weight in mints and nuts.

Next wedding was another of Jill's longtime good friends Kelli VanRavenhorst to her beau Ryan Conlan. Jill was uber-cute in her scarf (gift from bride) and bump.

Ryan also got to experience the handcuffed garter removal challenge. I can testify... its fun but not really that difficult.

Dollar dance! Alicia Thayer hogged Kelli for about 20 minutes teaching her to tango. Saucy!

The Thayers are good friends from bible study. Shown here in a rare serious smiling moment.

Cutting the cake! This is one of my only good pictures of the couple as I was very busy at the wedding. I'll post more after I get some better ones. (Kelli if you see this can you send me some?)

A long night of dancing followed. I haven't spent that much time on the dance floor since a Hammitt wedding!

Lucky for us Kelli and Ryan are now in town! We are hoping to see more of them as time goes on. Blessings on all our married friends!

JSP

Pregnant with Proft Alpha

The new mommy-to-be on a sunny early fall day. She looks positively radiant!

The whole family! Also: we love our deck. This is at around week 14.

Here's an ultrasound at 20 weeks.

Precious little digits for now. Someday, a lethal tool of destruction.

Mommy's belly bump at week 22. From behind her, you can't even tell she's pregnant really, she's putting all the effort into a nice navel-positioned basketball. V. cute.

More coming soon!

JSP

North Shore mini-vacation

Since the baby is due right about the time of our 5th anniversary (yes, we are having to delay our dance party we had planned) we took our anniversary weekend early by going up to the Duluth/North Shore area for a 3 day trip. Day 1 we hit up the amazing restaurant and relaxed.

We stayed at Larsmont Cottages - great place. V. nice shoreline to relax on. (Day 2)
Clouds moved in on our one outdoor day we had planned, but we fled North to our sightseeing locations and it was sunny there until about the time we got done. The last nice 50 degree fall day really.

The great lake just before a storm - very calm and yet still a bit foreboding.

One of the billions of pictures of the split rock lighthouse. Fun hiking all around it to get various angles, but we like this picture the best. One couple told us (out of breath) that there were "too many" stairs to get to the bottom and that they had quit halfway down. Lets just say they were shaped like potatoes. We nodded gravely and said that duty called and then proceeded to hike the rest of the stairs, trails, and shoreline for 3+ hours and 7+ miles. Man, some Americans are weak.

Close up of the lighthouse. Definitely worth a day trip if you enjoy the outdoors and a bit of hiking and aren't afraid of heights. The mirror doesn't shine for ships anymore but has been converted by Aegis' IBL system to fire lasers at incoming Canadian ICBMs and protect MN. We salute our brave soldiers.

Still a bit chilly in the shade, we walked right up to the edge of Pallisade Head... and then we jumped to our watery grave below. But I just reloaded my saved game and we were fine. Its about 200' straight down - pretty sweet.

This gives you a picture of just how high up Pallisade Head is. V. fun driving to the top as well. The road is on the back of this cliff. Its not in the picture. I didn't drive up that. Just in case you were confused.

Gooseberry falls (previously seen in our Superior Hiking pictures) from the bottom this time. This is the "middle falls" or 2nd falls. A bunch of Chippendale's dancers were at the top of the waterfall for some reason. Before I pushed them off anyways.

Day 3 we hit up Duluth, some stores and shops, and then the train museum call "The Depot"! I had been there as a kid so some fond memories there. Woo woo!

Pretty sweet trains. Definitely worth the $5 we paid to get in. Not worth $5 was the local artist exhibit included upstairs. What utter crap! Stick figures, I kid you not. That's not art.

Mommy had a craving on the way home for B-Dubs so we stopped in Lakeville. That place is so tasty I can hardly stand it! Yum!

JSP

Nightmare Cinema aka...

Dream Theater Progressive Nation 2009 tour. Labrie the fruit, Myung the most amazing bassist alive, Portnoy the random master, Rudess the best rock keyboard player, and of course, the best progressive guitarist of all time - John Petrucci. Some might say the best guitarist period, but I haven't seen the other greats live yet so I'll reserve judgement and say he's certainly in the top 10 of all time.

So yeah, other than finding out we were going to become parents - the high-octane event of the summer was going to the Dream Theater concert at the Orpheum in Minneapolis. The baby kicked for the first time during one of the solos, that's how awesome it was. And 9 weeks is pretty early to start kicking.

JSP

Summer Vacation - Wisconsin Dells

In the summer of 09 we took a week to head East to Wisconsin Dells. A very picturesque area of Wisconsin with beautiful geological formations and lots of touristy things to do. Also known as the waterpark mecca of the midwest, its a great place to spend a weekend or short week as we did.

Each day we had a theme or a single major destination. The first full day we spent at Devil's Lake State Park. It's called that because of the difficult hikes which cause many to take the Lord's name in vain during the ascent to the great overlooks and be damned during vacation. But seriously - one of the best dayhike state parks we have ever been to. There is lots to do, kayaking, canoeing, sailing, swimming, meet a bunch of kids from Alabama, beach volleyball - slamma-jamma. But we like hiking and getting exercise so we circumbobulated the lake proper on all the ridges.

On the vernal equinox, the ley lines cause fluctuations in the rocks I am perched on, causing a portal to open to the planes of Oblivion. This is where the lake actually gets its name. No really. These rocks (or ones very like these, all rocks look the same to me) are called the "devil's doorway" and there is a local legend about them meant to drum up further tourism.

Oh sweet angel of mercy, come rescue me... This shot begs about a million lame pickup lines doesn't it? This is near the entrance to the "Army Ducks". If you haven't done a duck tour in Wisconsin Dells you really haven't been there. Basically they are WWII era army amphibious vehicles that go through back country trails, and in and out of the lakes, dam reserviors, and rivers that feed them.

This is what you see a lot of during boat tours of "the dells" proper - the river has marvelous geological formations to see and the boat tours (or duck tours) give you a great view. This rock is one that the native indians in the area would leap to to prove their courage. Then they would write their names into the soft stone to immortalize their bravery. Its hard to make out but you can see traditional native american names on the rock if you zoom in such as "Taylor + Ashley" and "Megan + Nick forever".

We rode the Independence. We sat in the back and got very wet during "splashdowns" where the duck goes down a hill and then crashes into the water.

Jill tied up and pouting. Cold shower needed. Pirate's cove minigolf is a Proft family Dell's tradition.

Or at least some cold surfing at a waterpark! We went to the Kalahari because it was an awful, miserable, cold day and the Kalahari is an enclosed indoor park. The highlight for me was this surfing machine where it shoots the water up at you. Most people can't do more than flop in, wipe out, and moon several hundred people when their trunks come off - but I managed to knee board for a few minutes and then attempted getting into a standing position - which lasted for about 3 seconds of wobbling before I crashed.

Definitely our surprise find and top tourist experience of the trip was Wollersheim Winery. Just pulling up to it felt like I had warped into southern France. The sun fell lightly on terraces hills of grape wines and a rustic charm pervaded the entire plantation.

Shown here is the original cave used to age the barrels of wine. There was a very nice gift shop, picnic area, and of course a full tour of the facility and wine tasting. Super educational, very delicious, and absolutely fun.

History recalls that during times of war - some legends have been traced back inside the castle walls where soldiers came to hide in barrels filled with wine - never to escape. These tombs of old, how well they died. Down the cellar stairs - we dissappeared. "Come and have a taste! A rare vintage! All the finest wines... improve with age."

The Count then led us upstairs for a wine tasting. The last bit of wine Jill would have in years, given the fact that we discovered on this trip that we were expecting a child. Holy cow! I'm gonna be a dad!

Frantic research and house projects followed.

JSP

Backyard Upgrades

We've been busy in the backyard this summer/fall. So I thought I might show you some of the back-breaking work we did back there.

The previous owners removed a tree but left a huge stump. I went to town with shovels, two axes, one hatchet and an angelo bar for the better part of 3 hours. Unbeknownst to iPod-wearing Jon, Jill and her friend Jen were on the deck watching and talking. I say watching because apparently at one point I started "Talking Ninja" to the stump.

When I finally got it out, I yelled "THIS... IS... SPARTA!" and kicked it into the hole.
So then I needed dirt to fill the hole, so I put in a fire pit. Its amazing how far down and how big you have to dig to get proper drainage in an inset pit. Its about 3' in diameter, and about 1' deep, with 2' of pea gravel below that, and about 2 dozen 4' deep drainage tunnels dug via angelo bar. (that thing is totally AWESOME). It drains like a charm and also charms... uh... like a charm. Cozy fires and many s'mores have been had.

So the wheels continue to turn... how can I harvest more resources out of my backyard without building an expansion... In our SE sunny corner we put in a berry patch! 15 strawberry plants and 7 raspberry bushes. For now, they are small but we got our first strawberries near the end of the summer. They are unlike any I have ever tasted. Seriously. Fresh organic fruit off the vine is not just 25% better than storebought, its like 200% better.

Here is the planted garden. We made it 25% bigger by cutting 3 more rows. We only planted 6 rows across, but gained space so that each row was now easier to maintain and able to produce more. From L-R, starting on the near half: Rhubarb, 5 different herbs, green pepper, jalapeno pepper, cucumbers, cayenne pepper, pablano pepper, serrano pepper, potatoes (the leaf-mounded row) carrots, snap peas. Back half, tomatoes (which went nuts this year), broccoli, onions, swiss chard, spinach, lettuce, kholrabi, green beans. We found that lining the garden with marigolds dramatically reduced the occurence of whitemoth/greenworms we found in our finished goods.

A turtle makes a beeline for the (dubious) cover offered by the plants. Boy was he ever lost. And by the way, painted turtles are quite quick for their size.

Here is the trophy shelf of all of Jill's hard work. There is a lot in the freezer or in the root cellar, but this shows some of it. I had to build her about 24 sq ft of shelving in the laundry room to hold all of it. Pickles, lots and lots of salsa, jams, apples, tomato sauces, brushetta, etc etc. Pretty amazing haul.

Total costs: $280 - mostly in reusable tools, bricks, ziplock bags, and poles. Total gain: we aren't totally sure, because its hard to put a dollar value on not dying young eating the absolute crap the food industry pushes to our supermarkets - and its also hard to put a price tag on how much better it tastes - but it comes near $1350 worth of food production if we were to sell it at the farmer's market.

Why aren't more people doing this? Oh yeah, it was a LOT of work. Its really good exercise and fresh air too - another intangible benefit.

JSP