Keeping up with the Cagles

Started Geocaching again...

2009-07-17T22:20:00.006-04:00

...After 2 years. We cracked open our Geocaching supplies and tried the GPS, but it was dead. Figuring the batteries needed replaced I opened the back and found some nice crusty "barnacles" growing all over the batteries and the inside of the GPS. We cleaned it out the best we could, but the damage had been done. New batteries could not bring it back to life so off to Best Buy we went in search of a new one. Now we are back up and running and have logged around 20 new finds over the past couple weekends. As long as there is no bushwhacking or poison ivy ready to jump on Chris.

For more information on Geocaching, you can go to www.geocaching.com

Here's some pictures of us with some of the recent caches we have found.

America's Toughest Tour

2009-06-30T17:09:00.004-04:00

Boy did I ever luck out! My friend Mary, that I work with, had tickets to see Toby Keith and Trace Adkins. One of her friends that was planning to go, ended up not being able to so she asked if I wanted to go... HELL YES I want to go!!!

We had a great time and finally have some pictures we can use to update our blog.

-Juli

2009-05-12T20:11:00.003-04:00

Okay, Okay, Okay..... I know We Totally Suck..... We thought we would be able to actually keep up with our Blog, but as you can Clearly See, We Can't!!!!
Spring FINALLY GOT HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Talk about a long winter!! We'll take some pictures and get them posted, I think.

Fun at the range

2009-01-24T20:30:00.000-05:00

We hadn't been to the range to shoot in a while so we decided to go to the "Riverside Range" in Cuyahoga Falls (we call it Coyote Falls) which is about 45 minutes north of us. There is a range a lot closer to us that we go to for the handguns and shotgun, but they don't allow any large caliber guns so off to Coyote Falls we went.

The range was hoppin' with business so we had to wait a while for a lane to open up (they only have 7 lanes there). After about 15 or so minutes we were able to get a lane. They told us that they were having a problem with the conveyor system that moves the targets out so the targets could only go out about 25 yards instead of the normal 50 yards.

I started with the M1 Garand, but was so excited about shooting it that we forgot to take a video of it (DOH!!!!!!!). It definitely grabbed everyone's attention REAL QUICK! After the first shot, the range became quiet as everyone started popping their heads around the corner like prairie dogs to see what I was shooting. As one of the guys 2 lanes over came over and said "I can't imagine shooting that thing with no ear protection like they did in the war!!!" Next we both shot the AR-15. It was Juli's first time shooting it and she did AWESOME! We finished up with the Walther P22 since the ammo for it is so cheap. Next time we go, we'll get some video of the Garand... I Promise!

Juli shooting the P22

Juli shooting the AR-15

Chris shooting the AR-15

My Bloody Valentine 3D

2009-01-24T19:19:00.000-05:00

This weekend we went to see the new 3D movie "My Bloody Valentine". It's a remake of an older film with the same name. This was Juli's first time watching a 3D movie at the theater. I had seen an IMAX 3D movie a long time ago. Overall the movie itself was ok, but the 3D was really cool and made the movie worth watching. There were a few cheesy 3D effects, but it made it fun!!

Catching up

2009-01-15T20:37:00.004-05:00

Sorry we have been such slackers on updating our blog. Our one and only New Years resolution is to update it more often. In the meantime, this is what has happened in the 6 or so months since our last post...

In July:

On the 7th of July, Juli's dog Xavier had to be put to sleep at 11 years old due to cancer. He was a great dog and he will be missed but now he has Sadie and Mocha to keep him company.

Mid-July my Dad flew out to visit and stayed with us for a few days. We got to show him around and he was able to see our new house. We took him to the Football Hall of Fame, the Smuckers Factory (which turned out to be more of a gift shop, than a factory), and he treated us to an Indians game (Go Tribe!!) It was really great to see him and hopefully he and my Mom will be able to come out again soon.

In August:

On the 2nd we got up at the butt-crack of dawn and drove about 2 hours North West to the Camp Perry Military Base on Lake Erie where they were having the M1 Garand National Match. For those who don't know what an M1 Garand is, it was the type of rifle used in World War II, and the Korean War. There were people there from all over the world to compete for marksmanship medals and the Grand Prize of a fully restored Garand valued at well over $2,000.
While there, I was FINALLY able to purchase my very own piece of History through the CMP (Civilian marksmanship Program). WOW!!!!! I thought my 12 gauge had a kick! it's like shooting a cannon from your shoulder, but talk about fun!

Juli got a new job at Roholt Vision Institute assisting with all kinds of vision correction surgeries. She loves it!

A few weeks after getting her new job we were up on the roof fixing some shingles that had gotten damaged by strong winds and while trying to climb down the ladder, it slid out and Juli fell and got pretty banged up. We went to the emergency room (Juli earned a ride there in an ambulance) and she ended up with 7 stitches in her chin, but luckily no broken bones.

In November:

Teri and Juli had been planning several months for Juli to fly to California to surprise their Mom for her birthday. BOY was she surprised! She had a great time there and got to eat all the good food that we don't have here like In-n-Out, Carmen's, Weinerschnitzel, Del Taco... to name a few. Man! We don't have any good food places here, now that I think of it.

While she was there, she got to meet her Mom's dog, Willow. She's a German Shepard/Rottweiler mix just under a year old. She was a stray that was found in poor condition at Denise's school. Their Mom fostered her for a few weeks and decided to keep her. What a lucky little girl she is!!

In December:

Let it snow... let it snow... LET IT SNOW!!!!!!!!!!

We had a nice quiet Christmas. We got up and exchanged gifts and then just hung out at home for the rest of the day. It was a nice relaxing day.

We're movin' in!

2008-06-07T13:48:00.001-04:00

Finally the day to move into our new house has arrived!! Hopefully this will be the LAST time we will have to move for a long time. We had started moving some boxes out of our basement with our trucks to make the final move a bit easier and we were glad we did. It saved us a bunch of time and hassle.

We got up early and rented a U-Haul truck and started loading stuff in. it took us about 2 1/2 hours to get everything loaded in, then came we drive to the new house and started the fun unloading process. It would have been nice if wecould have just backed into the driveway really fast and hit the brakes to dump everything out, but I guess it's probably better that we didn't do it that way. ;-)

Unloading was a bit easier and faster than loading and we got done around 2:00 pm or so. Now... where do we put everything?

Unloading stuff at our new place

We didn't know we had so much stuff!

The new living room furniture

New TV and theatre system

Juli and her new Rottie

Painting the new house

2008-05-24T17:24:00.000-04:00

Overall our new house didn't need much work at all... except for the painted wallpaper in the nook off the kitchen, and the "Old lady" metallic floral wallpaper in the dining room. Obviously that had to go! We spent a few weekends at Lowes going though the painting department looking at all the different colors to choose from and finally decided on "Lafonda Geranium Red". Just fyi... the darker the color, the harder it is to paint, kids.

The wallpaper came off very easy in the dining room, but the painted wallpaper in the nook was a whole different story. It came off in pieces and chunks, rather than long strips and took about a day just to get it all removed.

After prepping the walls and fixing a hole where a phone jack was, we were finally we were ready to paint. 2 coats of primer, and 2 coats of paint and we were done.

The next hard part was removing the painter's tape. Some parts came off well, but other places the paint stuck to the tape and peeled up along with the tape. $@#&!!!!!!!!!!!!

Soooo there's a few places that need touched up here and there, but overall it looks A LOT better than it did before. We are glad that we picked the color we did. it goes great with all the cherry wood throughout the house.

The nook with the wonderful painted wallpaper

"AHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!"

Patching the hole where the phone jack was

Tinted primer... Check!

2 coats of color... Check!

Almost done!

Woo Hoo!!!!! We're FINISHED!!

She's Here! She's Here!

2008-05-04T18:03:00.001-04:00

On April 30th, Mom flew into the Akron-Canton airport on a little baby airplane. She said that she had a good flight and even found her way through the Chicago O'Hare airport. :-)

We had a great visit. Wish she could have stayed longer. Miss you!!

Here's some pictures.

Just after she arrived at the airport

Mom and Snickers

Inside the barn

Juli and Marty. Just before going back home

Silly

We bought a house!!!!

2008-03-22T20:34:00.006-04:00

When Juli and I moved here to Ohio we told ourselves that we only wanted to rent for a year and then start looking for a house to buy. Well, soon after we moved here, we started looking online at houses and drove around some areas to see what was for sale. We can't believe how fast the time has flown by since we got here!

For probably the last few months we have gone with our friends, Tony and Nicky on some Saturdays to walk through and look at some houses. I work with Tony and they both have their Real Estate licenses so that helped us a lot. I think that in total we went to look at around 25 houses. Then last weekend we had 5 houses lined up to look at. The first one we went to though, was IT! As soon as we walked in the front door we immediately knew this was the house for us. It has everything that we want and nothing we don't. Plus it is only 10 years old. It is perfect!

We still went and looked a 3 of the other houses we had scheduled, but none of them compared to the first one. We decided to put in an offer so we met up with Tony later at his office and filled out and signed the official offer letter. He said that we should hear something back within a few days. Well, the very next day, he called back to say that they had countered our offer, but it was very reasonable so we accepted it! We can't believe it! We are actually going to be home owners now after all these years of renting!

We met up this morning at 9:00 am for the home inspection. We followed "Tom" around for about 2 1/2 hours and he went over the house with a fine tooth comb and after all his checking, the ONLY thing that he could find wrong that needed to be fixed was a small leak on the water connector on one of the toilets. That's it. He said that everything was very well constructed and the builder definitely didn't cut any corners when it was built. He found nothing but the best materials and electrical throughout the whole house. We were definitely glad to hear that.

We have our closing set for May 1st and should be able to take possession about 10 days later. Needless to say, we are both VERY excited about it. We still can't believe that it's really happening. ;-)

Here's a few pictures and also a video of a walkthrough of the house. If you would like to see all the pictures, click here to view them as a slideshow.

View from the street of the front of the house

The kitchen

The living room

Part of the basement. It's like a bowling alley down there!

View of part of the back of the house and deck

Maybe Spring is coming??

2008-02-24T16:11:00.003-05:00

Ok, we are pretty much tired of all the cold and snow now. it was cool at first... but now we are ready for sunshine and temps above 30. heck, we'd even settle for mid 40's!!

We have noticed an increase in the wildlife we see out and about near our house. We sat in our living room last weekend and watched through our sliding window and saw all kinds of stuff. There were Squirrels, Deer, Cardinals, Blue Jays, Ravens, Chipmunks, and bears!!! OH MY!!! Ok, we didn't really see any bears, but we saw our neighbor's dog, Beethoven and he kinda looks like a bear. We hope that means that Spring is coming soon!!

Cute Lil' Chipmunk eating a peanut on our front porch

Blue jay??

Squirrel eating some peanuts on our back railing

This is either a Crow, or a Raven. We aren't sure. Let's say it's a raven

Here's a video we took yesterday of some deer walking through the trees behind our house. There were about 4 in total, but by the time I got the camera, there was only 1 left to film.

The ranch with the first good snow

2008-01-26T13:48:00.000-05:00

Juli and I thought that we would brave the cold and snow and see how Snickers was doing up at the ranch. It's been snowing so there's a lot of it all over everywhere. The ranch is about 7 miles from us in the town of "Navarre" on 26 acres. They have 18 horses there now, but when Snickers first arrived, there were only about 10. In the fall there are plenty of deer and a lot of wild turkey (not the drink). The cold definitely limits what we can do once we get there, but the inside of the barn is pretty large so Juli can ride in there if it's too frozen outside. Snickers is outside during the day as long as it's not cold and raining and then inside his stall where it's warmer at night.

The road leading up the the ranch

Juli and Snickers

Some of the horses in the back pasture

Snickers after rolling in the snow

Snickers and "Big Delores"

Christmas Day 2007

2007-12-25T13:30:00.000-05:00

This was our first Christmas in Ohio. It was strange not to get together with Family on Christmas Eve and Christmas day, but we did get to say Hi on the phone and chatted on Skype too.
We had a white Christmas although I don't think it actually snowed that day. There was still quite a bit on the ground from the days prior though. It seems that it will snow a lot, then just as the last bit is melting away and it's almost gone, it will snow and everything will be all white again.
The temperature is getting colder too. I think it got down into the teens during the day and single digits at night (Brrrrrrrrrrrr!!!).

Our Christmas Tree with our gifts

Bazzin after opening his present and ready to play.

Ice scrapers/Bladed boxing Gloves... SWEET!!!

Farewell to Oz

2007-12-10T21:29:00.001-05:00

With all the snow that we've been getting, that thought that had only been in the back of our minds about needing to get a different car became more pressing.

Last Tuesday night through Wednesday morning we got about 5 inches of the evil white stuff and when I opened the front door to leave, there was a layer of snow from our front door all the way across the street to the neighbor's front door.

No grass
No sidewalks
and more importantly... no ROADS!!!

I took a chance and started off down the road trying to follow the tire tracks in the snow from other cars that had driven down the street. I made the first turn about a block down the road and started up the slight incline of the road and then lost all traction and began sliding sideways. Luckily the brakes worked and kept me from sliding off into the ditch on the side of the road, but hitting the gas did nothing. As luck would have it, there was a street that I had passed so I slowly coasted backwards and was able to turn around and coast back home.

Seeing as though people told me later that day at work that we hadn't seen anything yet and the real snowfall would start in January we decided that the time had come to seriously start looking for something for me that would work in the snow. Yesterday we went to the Fred Martin car dealership in Barberton and after the typical battle back and forth with the salesguy over the price and terms, I had a new vehicle... a 2006 Ford Explorer 4X4.

I'm really happy to have something now that will have no problem driving in the snow, but a little sad at the same time to have to have gotten rid of the 350Z ("Oz"). I guess at least now I'll be able to get to work when it snows. :-)

Oz right before we left for Fred Martin (notice the pouring rain)

Our new 2006 Ford Explorer 4X4

It's a blizzard!

2007-12-07T10:50:00.000-05:00

Wow!! We thought we had gotten snow before. Bhahahahahahahaaaa!!! That was nothing. This week we got some REAL snowfall. So much that there was no more color... just white everywhere. It made driving really interesting too. Thank God for the snowplow guy. If it wasn't for him, we wouldn't be able to drive anywhere in all this silly snow.

Good Morning! See the road? Yeah, neither do we

Our walkway is in there somewhere

Our swing on the back deck. That layer on the top is just from overnight

Thanks for fixing the road, Mr. Snowplow guy!!

Oh! There's the walkway

Our first "Real" snow

Winter is finally here!

2007-12-03T17:10:00.000-05:00

Well, it's been teasing us off and on for the past month or so, but last night winter finally hit us... hard. The snow began to fall off and on starting around 8:00 pm or so and along with it was some serious winds. by the time Juli and I went to bed, we weren't sure if we should go hang out in the basement or not in case it was a tornado. Luckily for us it wasn't and by the time the morning arrived, we had a nice thick layer of snow on everything.

Driving to work was interesting, but luckily the roads were just wet and didn't have any snow on them so they weren't slippery. I'm not sure if it's supposed to snow any more or not, but for now, it's sure pretty outside. :-)

View from our kitchen window of the front yard

Delores in the snow

View from our living Room of the backyard and balcony

The woods in our backyard

Happy Turkey Day!

2007-11-23T08:08:00.000-05:00

This was our first Thanksgiving since moving to Ohio. Our friends Tony and Nicky (I work with Tony) invited us over to their house so that we wouldn't just be by ourselves at home.

We got there a little bit early so we drove around in their "Allotment" (which is Ohio's fancy name for Housing Developments) and looked at some of the houses that were for sale. We were a little shocked by the prices. They ranged from $499,000 up to one that was $599,000!!! In OHIO!!!! I will have to say that in California, the same house would probably be over a million, but still, I didn't know that there were actually houses here that cost that much. Wow!

After driving around for a bit to burn some time, we made our way over to their house. As we got out, it was starting to snow just a little bit. You could see it slightly if you looked at something dark, but it would melt as soon as it hit something. We went inside and met Nicky's Mom, Wanda. They had all the food pretty much ready and were just putting things on the plates.

A few minutes later, their friends Richard and Terry arrived. With everyone there, we sat down to eat. Everything was DELICIOUS!!!! Of course, being Thanksgiving, we all ate WAAAY too much and they practically had to roll us out to the car when we were leaving. :-)

Juli in the kitchen.

Tony and Nicky's dog, Buster. He's half German Shepard, half Doberman.

This is a shot of half of their backyard. It's kinda snowing, but you can't really see it in this shot.

The Bird. It's actually a full bird, and the breast of another one on the back.

(From left to right) Tony, Richard, Juli, Nicky, Chris, Terry, Wanda (Nicky's Mom)

First SNOW!!!!

2007-11-16T07:30:00.000-05:00

It's been getting pretty cold over the past few weeks and a couple of times as it was raining, there would be what the locals here call "freezing rain" which was a little bit like hail, but only lasted for a minute or two. For the most part it was still regular old rain.

But not today!!!

This morning when I went outside to go to work there was finally some real snow on the ground!! There wasn't a lot, just a light dusting, but it was still really cool to finally get our first snowfall since moving here.

Within a few hours of taking this picture it had all melted and you wouldn't know that it had ever been there.

I hope it snows some more soon.

View from my office window at work this morning

Delores with her first Ohio snow

Finally walked to the lake

2007-10-28T16:41:00.000-04:00

Well, after living here for more than 3 months, we finally decided to hike through the trees, weeds, and bushes behind our house to check out the lake that's behind it. With the weather getting cold (mid 30's to low 40's) most of the leaves have fallen off the trees and bushes so it made it a little easier to get through. Plus we didn't want to get poison ivy again. Well... I didn't want to get it again.

Once we came out the other side, we could finally see the lake. It wasn't really as big as we were expecting it to be, but it was still pretty neat. Way on the other side there was a house with a big backyard that backed right down to the lake. I bet that cost a little bit.

Left side of the lake

Right side of the lake

Juli by the lake

Happy Anniversary to us!

2007-10-12T10:52:00.000-04:00

On this day, 5 years ago, I married my best friend, Juli. I have been the happiest guy in the world every minute of every day since then. :-D

The Gathering of the Mustangs

2007-10-01T11:09:00.001-04:00

We went to the Gathering of the Mustangs show this weekend. It was in Columbus which only took us about 2 hours to drive to. It was pretty cool to see Dr. P again and there were a lot of planes there flying around doing all kinds of silly things that planes should not do. Some of those pilots are just crazy! Near the end of the show, they had a bunch of the planes all flying at once and some did some simulated bombing runs, but they had explosions going off all over the ground so it was really neat. The sky got filled with all kinds of black smoke and I bet that people who didn't know what was going on probably thought that a plane crashed!

"That pilot is NUTS!!!"

Aerobatics team doing a bunch of silly things

Formation of Mustang, Raptor, Tomcat, and Eagle (I think)

This man used to fly a P-38 in WWII. The book that Mark is looking at has a bunch of photos and magazine articles the man collected during the war. It was really cool.

Me, Sheryl, Juli and Dr. P

Ohio sunset

2007-09-26T13:25:00.001-04:00

Great shot of the sunset on my way home from work.

HALO 3 is FINALLY here!!

2007-09-26T12:50:00.001-04:00

Here I am all happy because I got HALO 3 on Monday night... or was it Tuesday morning? When I opened the case both the game and bonus content disks were floating around inside and so they got all scratched due to Bungie's crappy packaging. I haven't had the chance to play it yet. Hopefully later today or tomorrow.

Mom and Dad come to visit '07

2007-09-15T15:39:00.002-04:00

My folks came out to visit us after we moved here to Ohio. It was great to see them and we got to show them around the city and take them to the Football Hall of Fame. We also took them to the ranch to see Snickers, and by our works.

One place that my Mom really wanted to see was "Berlin" which is the largest Amish populated towns in Ohio. It's still so weird to see a horse ad buggy among the all cars.

We hope that they get to come back soon!

Mom and Juli in front of our Townhouse

Dad at the Football Hall of Fame

Mom, Snickers, and Juli at the ranch

Mom and Dad waiting for a buggy ride in Berlin

Look who's Amish

Mom and Dad with a buggy going down the street

Last picture of all of us before they left to go to Alabama

Snickers... 1 week later

2007-08-25T16:33:00.000-04:00

Wow!!! It's only been a week, but Snickers sure has packed on some weight and looks A LOT more relaxed and happy now.

Snickers moves to Ohio

2007-08-14T13:19:00.000-04:00

Today Juli's horse, Snickers got delivered to the Randazzo Stables ranch where he will be boarded. It took 4 days to get him here and boy did he look tired! He was a skinny little thing too. Vince said not to worry though because a month of his feeding and Snickers would be a fatty! ;-)

Home sweet home

2007-07-16T17:15:00.000-04:00

While we were on our trip to Ohio last month after we decided that we were definitely moving here we started the fun task of trying to find a place to live. We looked at several places, but the best place we found was the last place we l0oked at. It's amazing how different things cost here. So we put down the deposit and filled out the paperwork and so when we got here after the long drive, we were all set. We're hoping to only rent here for a year and then actually BUY A HOUSE!!! :-D

View of our backyard from the deck

View of our backyard looking east

Back our our house

Juli by the front door

Ohio bound

2007-07-13T13:58:00.000-04:00

Well, after our trip to Ohio last month to check things out, we sat down and gave it some serious thought and decided to make the move. We are moving to Ohio.

Packing up everything was as fun as can be expected, but it did give us a chance to "trim the fat" and get rid of a lot of junk that we had been keeping.

Chris: "What should we do with this?"
Juli: "DOE - NAY - SHUN!!!!"

We packed up some clothes, my motorcycle, both the cats, and ourselves and left on
the 12th. I think that in total it took us around 4 days to get here although we only had to drive 200 miles the last day. It might have only been 4 days, but it seemed like a week. We saw a lot of beautiful scenery, but there is also a lot of nothing to look at along the way (especialy in Texas and New Mexico).

Driving cross country with 2 cats might sound like a problem, but it went really smooth. Jack was his usual scared self and just packed himself neatly as far back in the travel carrier as he could get underneath all the blankets. Sabastian, on the other hand was just as comfortable sitting on the center console of the truck as he is sitting on my lap at home. he was always scratching at the door to be let out and he would just sit there and help us with directions. Both of them made the trip perfectly!

My Dad wrote a really cool song about the journey called "Ohio Bound." He plays it sometimes when he is performing at the shows he does.

Here's a link if you would like to hear it: Ohio Bound by Bill Cagle

Our hotel in Flagstaff, AZ

"Sabastian's looking a little green, Honey"

Getting gas in Albuquerque, NM

Guess what... more driving (Ohio must be on the moon)

Bazzing saying "Are we there yet?????"

Contemplating Canton

2007-06-10T10:24:00.000-04:00

Juli and I have been really talking about getting out of California, not because we don't like it here, we just can't afford to really buy a house or anything like that and we'd really like to quit throwing our money down a hole each month. My boss at work told us that they were going to start looking for someone to fill the positions in their Canton, Ohio office and also their Andover, Massachusetts office. I mentioned that I might be interested in the position in Ohio. He asked if I was sure and I told him that I was, but would obviously have to discuss it with Juli first. He said to let him know.

After talking to Juli about it we decided that we should go check it out to make sure it would even be somewhere we'd want to move to. We made some travel arrangements and arrived in Canton, Ohio on the June 10th. All we can say is that it's beautiful there!! Green as far as you can see (which is pretty far because Ohio is very flat). We stayed for about a week and a half and I worked in the office for the first week, then we had the weekend and Monday - Wednesday to drive around and check thing out. It was really a lot of fun.

View from our Hotel Room

Old Catholic Church in Massillon

Juli and I at the Pro Football Hall of Fame

Scenery while driving