This blog covers all things to do with the Bolt Family. We are a large family of 7, soon to be eight with the birth of the new one coming this January!
Strike that! Now we are officially a family of eight!
Strike that! A family of eight and no more!
Every year now for a few years we always take the kids to Eden Park for an annual picture. Since we are former Cincinnatians, we feel obligated. I absolutely love Eden Park and the Mt. Adams area. I hope to retire there one day, if I ever get to retire!
This is the picture from 2011. We found this spot where they have these rocks laid out in this awesome arrangement that fits the group well. I put everyone in there places and started snapping away. This is one of those moments that just make me chuckle. (click the picture to get the full view)
You can see that they are all smiling nicely and looking good. Sammy decide to go into a Buddha moment and put his hand up. I guess it matched him having his hood up. And let's not mention the trash in the photo on the bottom step to the left. This is why I am not a professional photographer!
Despite all of that, this is probably one of my favorite pictures of the kids. It is one of my favorite places on Earth with all of my kids there. No professional photographer in the world could have captured the fun personalities of them all like I did here... so there!
If you are a regular reader you know that we are all diehard Indianapolis Colts fans. It was very devastating this year when they released Peyton Manning. He was great to watch and we will miss him.
All of this got me thinking back. I remembered a funny story about our oldest son who is the biggest Peyton Manning fan in the entire universe. That is not an exaggeration either. He even knows his birthday, shoe size, and kids names. He has always been kind of a shy and quiet kid. Nicolas was trying for several years to get Manning's autograph and was never successful. We were at training camp right after it moved back to Anderson University. Practice was over and everyone was leaving. He was standing there telling me about how he wished he could just get Peyton's autograph. There was a guy standing next to us that spoke up and said "Hey kid, he is over there signing on the other side of the field, you better run over and get it NOW!". Up to that point, I have never seen him run that fast!
I was walking around to the other side to wait for him. The crowd was huge and I thought we would be there for a while. I wondered over to the bleachers and climbed up far enough to see if I could spot him in the crowd. I could not see him but I could hear the big security guy by Manning yelling at someone, "KID!!!! Calm down!!! Take a step back! KID!!!! KID!!!" He kept saying it more forcefully "KID!!! TAKE A STEP BACK! YOU NEED TO CALM DOWN!" I wondered what all the trouble was down there, but I didn't think much of it. And then the guy continued on ""KID!!! TAKE A STEP BACK! CALM DOWN!!!" I am starting to think to myself...what kind of knucklehead kid is causing trouble down there? I snapped a quick shot of the commotion with my camera. I could not see the kid causing trouble. The guy in the large floppy Colt's hat to the right of Peyton is the guy that was yelling at the kid.
Then just after a couple of minutes I see Nicolas walking back towards me staring at his autograph Superbowl ball with a huge smile on his face. After a moment Nicolas asked me "Did you hear that security guy yelling at me? There is no way I was walking away without an autograph this time." I have to admit, I laughed.... Then we promptly left! Here is the autograph:
This I believe was at the 2010 Training Camp. He never did get Peyton Manning's autograph again. It sits encased in a plastic container (heavily guarded with lasers and motion detectors) and is forever cherished by my goofy kid, This is a memory I don't think I will ever forget.
How we did hate to see Manning go. Now Nicolas keeps asking me to take him to Denver.....
Noblesville 2012 football is getting off to a slow start this year, but I have still enjoyed watching Nicolas play. He has come a long way since the days of sixth grade when he broke his arm playing in the elementary league. He has grown up a lot and worked very hard. The amount of effort he has put in is phenomenal. Most of all, he is finally gaining confidence and can see what he is capable of doing. I am very proud of him.
Now he is a sophomore and a big bad defensive end. He is listed on the program as only 156 lbs and regularly takes on guys that are 250 lbs plus. Although they have played two games and not won one yet (today was close 13-7), I still look forward to every game, if nothing else, I enjoy watching him develop as a player.
I have added him as an author to this blog. He is officially now the resident expert in this family for all things football. He knows more about the Indianapolis Colts than anyone I know. Since he just visited training camp with his camera and autograph book, I am pretty sure his first post will be about the Colts and the new QB Andrew Luck. By the way, he did get Luck's autograph....
This is a guest post by my lovely little girl Ellie. She is an eighth grader and a wonderful babysitter. We will be seeing more posts from her in the future.
Well... hello there! I'm Ellie! The second child of this interesting family!
Most people tell me, "Wow Ellie! How do you deal with all these brothers and little sister?!" and most of the time, I dont know what to say. But truth is, I don't handle them well. When they drive me crazy, I either sit on them, yell at them, or make them cry. Great sister, right? But when it's my older brother driving me crazy, I actually don't do anything to him because he's stronger than me... But no matter how much they drive me insane, my life would be SO boring without them. I love our family. :)
Oh...And Just to make this clear, we don't ALWAYS fight. We laugh and do a lot of stupid and fun things together too! :)
One thing I am always trying to accomplish in our house is to reduce some expenses. Hey after all, we do have six kids! One expense that I can't stand every month is cable TV. If it were up to me, this would be gone. Fortunately for the cable company, it is not all up to me. The rest of the family seems to have embraced them as a member of the family. I don't get it.
I have introduced a couple of things in our house to try to persuade the family that the cable guy is a crook. One of these is the Roku. I have to say that I love this little device! It is so easy to use a four year old could run it. Go ahead, ask me how I know? Because my little Maddie is using thing to stream her shows constantly. Now there are a few things that you will need when you get your Roku. You will still need your high speed internet connection and a subscription to Netflix. You probably already have your high speed internet connection. Netflix is only $9/month for unlimited streaming. This is worth every penny. There are so many movies and shows available. Even the most entrenched coach potato will be entertained for hours and hours...
Some recent movies I have viewed on Netflix...From the Terrace, The Girl With a Dragon Tattoo, Scary Movie, Cat on a Hot Tin, Roof, The Three Stooges, Lucy, A Hard Days Night, etc....
Some recent shows that my four year old watches on Netflix... Dora the Exploer, Kickin it, Pink Panther, Good Luck Charlie, Dora the Exploer, Kickin it, Pink Panther, Good Luck Charlie, Dora the Exploer, Kickin it, Pink Panther, Good Luck Charlie....Over and over and over and over....you get the point! But she does love it.
The Roku has several other options besides Netflix. For example, you can get Amazon Video on Demand, which is a video streaming rental. If you are an Amazon prime member, you can get quite a bit of streaming free. You can also add other channels such as Crackle, BlipTv, Classic TV, etc. Check out the Nowhereman's link to see some awesome channels you can add to your Roku.
I have not been able to persuade the family to dump cable tv yet, but I will continue to work on it....After football season. Support us and check out the Roku here:
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--Rick http://gplus.to/rickbolt https://twitter.com/rick_bolt
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
OK...It is time to relax.. I am getting my top wisdom teeth out in a few minutes. I am sure it won't be an issue. It is not like I have six kids running around the house while I am in pain and trying to heal! Time to get out some favorite CDs from my favorite local singer. Jennie DeVoe. I absolutely love her music. Awesome! I have been to several of her shows now. I had my camera with me at the Superbowl show she did when the big game was in Indy earlier this year. It was freezing out that night, but worth every minute out in the cold. This was the first show that I was able to take Nicolas and Ellie with me. It was an awesome night! Here is a picture I took that night and obviously did a little Photoshop work to. This displays proudly on my bookshelves here at the house.
I am thinking future album cover! How could it not be?
Seeing her show is a great outing with friends and some great music. I am going to see one of her shows again on September 7th. I hope to see you there. Now to relax and make this pain go away....
I can't believe it. My little neice Tana is engaged. Of course she is not the tiny little girl I still see her as...She is in her last year of college before she goes on to be a teacher. Congratulations to you and Adam, kid! Tana asked me to take her "save the date" pictures. Of course I was happy to do it. I think they turned out wonderful...Congratulations guys!
Has it really been three years since I posted here? I need to add an updated picture of the family, ASAP!
I guess when you buy an old house to renovate, especially one that is in as bad as shape as ours was, you lose track of things. Well, we are slowly coming back! I just did a quick run through some "recent" posts and I can't believe how much everyone has changed! They are growing up fast! The baby is not a baby anymore. She is four! Also, I really had no idea how hard it is to teach someone to drive! Thank you my dearest for taking that over so I don't die of an early heart attack...Let's see, what else? Changing jobs, parental stress, etc we all have them....Anyway, those are my excuses. Time to get back to it!
Plans for the future of this blog. I want to make this a complete family blog. Since they are all growing up, they will all take a part. I am going to have guest posters. These guest posters will be all of my family members. They will be able to pick a topic of choice and discuss it here. Of course, me being "Editor in Chief", I will keep watch and approve the topics (can you say teenagers?!?!?!) We will do experiments with monetizing without taking over the general character of the blog. The monetization efforts will go directly to an account that will service only the college fund of the kids. We need all of the help we can get there!
I have taken on a couple of other projects also. I am on a mission to help fund all of the kids college expenses. So, I plan to be here at times, some other things will take over. Luckily, this is fun....
