The Incredibealls!

For Christmas last year my brother Andrew gave me a Darth Vader mask. We all ended up having lots of fun with it.
Who is this masked man?
Darth-Chandler!
Darth-Emily!
“Does this thing get Blues Clues, or Dora the Explorer?”
The rare “Darth Vader playing a banjo” picture.

B is for Bubble.
Bubbles are magical, the kids always love them. A short lived spherical morphing blob with a swirling rainbow textured skin that slowly creeps through the air. It seems unnatural, and is captivating to watch until: pop! It’s gone.

Bubbles also help pass time until you can open presents for Christmas!
VERY nice bubble, Chandler! Angie photos.
Eventually Moma Flo came to see what all the fun was about.
As fun as bubbles are to create, Ian is determined to keep their lives as short as possible.
Awesome!
My 80+ year old grandmother, Mama Flo, tries this new-fangled ‘bubble wand’ the kids are so crazy about.
Take that, you whipper-snappers!

Of course, who can forget the biggest bubble Keighly wanded (is that the proper term?) at Uncle Andrew’s birthday last year. Wow! Ian had been diligent on popping the bubbles as soon as there was the slightest curvature to the soap film in the wand. Uncle Andrew quickly gives him “the voice”, a universally known natural stopping mechanism that all kids fear.

I accidently discovered something we have been having fun with for quite some time now. I have a large tree I need to cut down in the corner of the compound. I shot an arrow over a large fork and pulled a rope over hoping to pull it down. It didn’t come down. With the rope still up, it didn’t take long for the kids to start swinging on it (it was about 60 feet up to the fork). To make it safe (heh), I put one of our kiddie swings on the rope.
The concept is simple: someone sits in the swing; I pull as hard as I can; the person is lifted about 20 or 30 feet in the air! Fun! (More fun for the rider than the puller.. Oooo, nice ‘stache!)
Ian rides while Janet stands under him for scale. Yeeha!
Keighly rides, too, although heavier people don’t go as high. What is fun is to suspend someone as high as you can, then when they aren’t suspecting it you let them fall (controlled, of course)! It’s just like the Fair! Naturally, Janet is opposed to this and sees it as very dangerous.

Here is a movie from the rider’s view and the puller’s view (you need Flash to view it). This was literally taken a few minutes after we discovered the fun. We’ve since put the swing a little higher on the rope allowing a more dramatic ride!

Our neighbors and friends Joe and Lynn Little’s daughter Raegan has become a regular playmate for the kids. They wander the yards together, dig in the dirt together, and generally just have fun.

Yes, this is very late to post. Here is Janet’s Aunt Mary, Janet, Amber, and Amanda ready for Thanksgiving!
Emily: coffee queen!
The main event: deep fried turkey!
Ian, Donovan, and Keighly enjoying the country life.
Janet’s Aunt Mary and Uncle Charlie, and their daughter Leah.
The kids always enjoy riding the tractors when at the Sandifers!


At the Bealls, deserts are a-plenty!
My grandmother, Mama Flo, produces a beautiful turkey from the oven. Then she complains about it’s seasoning, how it will not taste good, and how this is the last time she will cook for a holiday.
After an always-delicious meal, Keighly, Emily, Ian, and Chandler pose in front of the faux fireplace.
Back home, the leaves are colorful and the temps are just right.
A great wallpaper of colorful leaves carpet the yard. They quickly turn brown, so I was glad to snap this very serene pic.

There is an old oriental fellow who rides around Hattiesburg on a home-made motorized bike. It has a lawnmower engine on it that he engages with a lever. Once he pedals up to speed, he levers the engine’s axle against the bike’s drive wheel and away he goes! I didn’t get a picture of him, but he wears a suit and a hard hat while he rides.

Local celebrities JT and Dave from Supertalk visited Hattiesburg at Daniell Motors. I went out to visit and snapped these pics. Also pictured: Scary Gary eating some gumbo from Bops.

Always fun for the kids at Wal-Mart.

I had the good fortune of performing with the Alabama Pipes and Drums as the opening act for Rod Stewart at his Jan 19th concert in Birmingham, Alabama!

Once we found the concert venue, we entered through the loading area. Through the curtains I saw the stage and seats and quickly took this picture.

After taking the first picture, I was approached by a member of the crew. I thought he was going to ask me to not take pictures, but he ended up taking the camera and letting us all get in a group shot! Nice guy. That is Jean, Zoe, Mavis, and me. The stage is completely covered in Stewart tartan.

While we were waiting for the rest of the band members to show up, a couple of limos pulled up. Could it be him? In fact it was! Rod Stewart popped out of the limo and walked right toward us. I thought about snapping a pic right then, but didn’t. I didn’t want to abuse my backstage access (plus I had hoped for another ‘official’ chance).

His people parted us like the Red Sea, and he walked right on through and to the stage to start checking the setup. We were escorted to our warm-up room. I took this little movie showing Rod practicing on stage while we were also warming up. (Note: all these were taken with my photo camera, so the movie quality isn’t amazing)

Awesome! What a great concert, very enjoyable to say the least. I started snapping some pictures with the little bit of memory I had left on my camera. This pic actually is a good representation of how far we were from the stage. We could clearly see Rod on stage and make out detail, plus look up and see him clearly on the screen.
More of the same. It is so hard to take a good picture in a concert setting. I turned off the flash, but there was too much movement, so it is blurry.
Zoomed in, I got a great shot of just Rod and the screen. Too bad he was moving so the screen image is blurry.
A little better..
Perfect! Except that he’s facing the wrong way.. Dang it!





After awhile, a disco ball dropped down and the place really got jumping! A great effect, with nice volumetric lighting (I don’t get out much).






Eventually my memory ran out on my camera, so I had to finish taking pictures with my phone. This is of the awesome drum solo that seemed to last forever.







Eventually I had to leave. I rode with some fellow Mississippi pipers, so when they said it was time to go, I had to go. Before we left, I got Jean to snap a picture of myself, Zoe, and Mavis with Rod performing behind us. I was there!
The drive back was long, two hours to Meridian and another hour and a half to Hattiesburg. Between Tuscaloosa and Meridian, Mavis had a flat. I have flats all the time in Strappy (my truck), so I jumped right to work earning a man badge by fixing this flat. Unfortunately, I was still in my uniform (read: KILT). I’m sure many drivers got a show as they drove by while I was under the back of the van trying to get the spare off with my feet facing oncoming traffic (although heavy, kilts fly up when a car/truck goes by at 70). Although I was doing well, eventually a very nice fellow stopped to ask if we needed help. I can only assume he thought there were FOUR women there as he saw me in my kilt removing the flat! Once our spare was on (and inflated thanks to a handy cigarette-lighter air compresser), we all got back in the van ready to get home. Unfortunately Mavis’ van’s battery was drained thanks to the ‘handy’ battery-power-sucking air compressor. I jumped out and flagged the nice fellow down and he turned around and let us jump-start the van from his truck.
Eventually we made it home (I didn’t get home until after 2am), and I had quite a story to tell!

The end of 2006 was rough for us. If you have not heard, Janet’s mom (Ms Pat) had been diagnosed with a form of lung cancer last year. Since her treatments would be in Hattiesburg, she started staying with us during the weekdays around Halloween. After a few weeks of treatments, Ms Pat became too weak to travel home on the weekends, so she stayed with us full time (in fact her family would come and stay with us on weekends since she couldn’t go home).

My work really thinned out the last part of the year. That and some other family matters made Christmas very difficult (to say the least, hence my post below).

Ms Pat has since had her operation and the cancer was successfully removed. She is in recovery and is getting stronger every day.

My work has picked up and we are steadily catching up.