College Football has begun! Go Gators, Raiders, and Wolverines!

No cable? No problem. Thanks to ESPN360 and Yahoo! Sports, we should be able to catch plenty of games online this season. Ryan and Cole are currently watching the Gators play against Hawaii. It is Cole's first Gator game. Here are the necessary pictures:

Cole won't even turn away from the game for a photo op.

Proud Papa and his Little Gator
Cole watching the Gators.
Cole loves his Gator gear!

Florida and Houston Recap

While Ryan was on the man trip, I enlisted my mom to come to Clearwater one last time. I don't think that I could have made it without her. In three years, we sure accumulated a ton of stuff. My mom helped packed, took care of Cole, packed some more, took care of Cole some more....on and on. The process seemed to be never ending. A one bedroom apartment stacked with boxes quickly becomes clausterphobic but we had fun and were able to bond with each other and Cole. We also had delicious meals. Finally, Mom, Cole and I made it Houston!! Our first plane ride and we couldn't have survived that without my mom either. It served as great practice before the trip to Denver. Cole loved his first trip to Texas!! Some of my dearest and best friends had a shower to Celebrate Cole. We celebrated my dad's birthday and we celebrated my cousins being pregnant with twins. (by cousins, I mean Nathan and Karen, Ryan and I have now learned when one of you is pregnant, you both experience life a little differently) Here are lots of pics.... Amazing Decorations thanks to Cori
Aunt Alycia entertained Cole most of the shower, although I am sure she didn't mind

Right before the shower

Picture I sent to Ryan, Cole missed his daddy
Grandma and Cole
Grandpa's favorite way to hold Cole. By the way big Al was very helpful and changed Cole's diapers and helped with bath time....very impressive
Grandpa's birthday. Cole's outfit was a gift from Aunt Alycia and in honor of Grandpa's birthday!
My Best Friends Cori and Kelli with their girls Campbell and Parker. Cori's husband is a state champion Texas football coach (had to add that in, we are all so proud of him) so naturally, Campbell with the help of Parker had everyone at the shower saying, "Touchdown" and then giving the signal!! So cute

Karen, Nathan, Callie, the twins (who I am calling Tyler and Travis) Cole and me.

What a great week!

From Cole's Video Vault

I know that I am supposed to be updating you on the past, but thought I'd take a break from that today to show you a couple of Cole videos in honor of his 11th Birth Week.

Here is Cole watching the Olympics. He seems to enjoy the rhythmic gymnastics. No, I won't let him do that some day.

Cole is starting to get good at grabbing things.

In this video, he is holding and chewing on, or making out with, his froggie.

From the Past: August 3 - August 9

While I was on the Man Trip, Emily and her mom spent the week taking care of Cole and packing up our apartment. They did a great job getting things ready for the move. It's amazing how much stuff we were able to squeeze into our 1-bedroom apartment.

Here is Grandma Bentley taking care of Cole.

Cole is getting much more animated these days. He's pretty darn cute.Jeff finally got a chance to meet Cole after being gone most of the summer.
Emily admist the massive wall of boxes.
Mom and Dad Roberts came to town to help us finish packing and load up the moving van. Oh, and to see their grandson as well ;)
Cole still recognized me with my Man Trip man beard. I only got to see Emily and Cole for a day before they flew to Houston to spend a week in limbo while mom and I drove the moving van 2,000 miles to Denver. Cole did a great job on his first airplane flight. Here he is at the Houston airport with Grandpa and Grandma Bentley.

From the Past: The "Man Trip" (August 2 - 8)

Before heading to Denver, I was blessed to be able to take the youth guys on one last trip. We went up to the North Carolina mountains for a week to do anything and everything that is manly. After a long drive and a good night of sleep, we headed out the next morning for a full day of whitewater rafting on the Ocoee River in eastern Tennessee. We got to take on some level 3 and 4 rapids, which was pretty manly. Some of the guys wore some very, uh, interesting (and not so manly) shorts for the rafting day.During our "Day of Rest", we just chilled around the cabin all day. Here, some brave souls worked on a puzzle, which ended up getting finished at 1:30 AM.

Throughout the week we had some "Man Lessons" in which we taught the guys some basic things that real men need to know, like how to shave, grill, and skin a deer. Here, the guys are learning some basic car maintenance.

An afternoon in downtown Murphy led us to some Cheerwine, which you can only get in certain parts of the country. It's basically Cherry Coke, but some people think it tastes better.

After our "Day of Rest", we set out early again for a day-long hike in the Great Smokey Mountain National Park. We did 15 miles up and down, and up and down, a very large mountain. At the end of the day, we were all pretty tired, but we felt pretty manly as well.The next day was a little more relaxing and consisted of a surprise day on Like Hiwassee. We did some tubing, eating, and cliff jumping. Again, very manly.Finally, we had a couple of poker tournaments. The high school guys still have a lot to learn about poker as I won the first tournament, and my youth director replacement, Chris, won the second tournament.

Overall, it was a great final trip with the youth guys and one that I will always remember.

From the Past: July 28 - August 3

After Alycia flew home, we began our last week together in Florida, full of packing and getting ready for Ryan's big trip with the high school guys. But we also found some time to go to Jose's with the kids for Taco Tuesday, and to go bowling with them as well.

Our good friends Som and Jessica stopped by to meet Cole and to chat for a couple hours. With Som's busy Young Life schedule, and Jessica's busy med school schedule, we were so glad we got to hang out with them before we left.

The hardest thing about moving was saying goodbye to the youth kids. We miss them a ton. Here is a picture of Matt finally holding a baby for the first time, albeit in a car seat.

Right after Ryan left on the Man Trip with the high school guys, Emily headed up to Lutz for Paige's 3rd birthday party.She had a great time, and especially loved getting her own UCF jersey. She probably loves going to the football games more than Rex does.Tomorrow, find out what happened on the infamous "Man Trip", and learn what Emily, Cole, and Grandma Bentley did to pass the time while Ryan was gone.

We're Baaaaaaack!!!!!

The past four weeks have been jam-packed with finishing up things at the church, packing up everything at home, going on a week-long "Man Trip" with the high school guys, loading the moving van, driving 2,000 miles across the country, and moving into our new apartment in Denver. Hopefully our blogging will be more frequent now that we are here in Denver and are getting settled. We will retroactively make posts from the last four weeks, but in the meantime enjoy this wonderful video of Baby Cole....