Dalton Bombing

October 20, 2008 by Leave a Comment
Many of you probably already heard about the bombing in Dalton, GA (where my parents and siblings live). If not, here’s a news snippet:

What you probably don’t know is my brother was among the first firefighters allowed in the place. I won’t go in to all the details as he told it, but I will share a pic – Matt is the one to the far right – that’s his buddy AJ in the flourescent vest and gym shorts. AJ obviously manned the truck gadgets on the safe end of the hose rather than going into the flames in that attire. We’re proud of these guys for the job they do.

Here’s a link to more pics of the scene:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cmcconkey/sets/72157608123581467/

Many prayers for the people and families affected by this tragedy.
Filed Under: Family, Misc

Funny Moment

August 28, 2008 by Leave a Comment

Shawna and I were talking about some kids down the street who used to home school but now they’re doing private school. Skyler overheard us and said “Private School! That’s gross”. If you don’t get it just think about it a minute. Needless to say we had to explain to Skyler what ‘private school’ really means. 
Filed Under: Family, Stories

Vacation!!!

August 15, 2008 by Leave a Comment

Last week was vacation (8/2 – 8/10). Yeah baby! A week of mostly no phone calls, mostly no emails, and mostly no stress (we did still have the kids with us so there was still just a little bit of stress). It was very fun and relaxing. Here’s the highlights from the week:

Sunday – drove to Montgomery, AL (which is halfway to our destination) to stay the night before proceeding to Gulf Shores, AL. While there we went to Circuit City because we had noticed the Wii was on sale for $249 (which is the best I’ve seen it). We’ve been talking about getting one for our family for Christmas, and I had already put the money aside for it, so we did it (yes – we’re already shopping for Christmas, but the Wii probably won’t wait til Christmas befor we use it).

Monday – drove the rest of the way to Gulf Shores (more precisely Orange Beach, AL – just down the road from Gulf Shores). You might be asking why did we go there. The answer is we know some people who own a condo there and Shawna’s mom had been given a free week to stay there, so she let us take advantage of the free week with her – thanks GG (Grandma Grace). After we got there I took the kids straight to the ocean and after about 10 minutes they wanted to go straight to the pool, so we did.

Tuesday – slept in. Went to the pool and ocean again (ocean a bit longer this time and more than once, but still spent more time at the pool). Lost my sunglasses in the ocean. Bought some new ones for an outrageous $10 at ‘Surf Style’ (that was $5 too high for my taste because I can get sunglasses any weekend at the Jockey Lot for $5). Relaxation deluxe – all day long. Ate good. Had TCBY ice cream.

Wednesday – got up at 6am and walked the beach. I knew the tide would be low and wanted to find some sea shells for the kids because they hadbeen looking for them since we got there. I happened to find 3 pairs of sunglasses washing up with the seashells. One pair is Oakley and the other two aren’t bad either. They’re a little scratched but not too bad. Took the kids to the pool and ocean again. This time we stayed at the ocean for quite a while because I bought them some sand toys to play with. I built a sand castle and Devin immediately tore it down with the shovel I got him. Went to Lambart’s (http://www.throwedrolls.com/). What an experience. They literally throw the rolls to you. Excellent food.

Thursday – took Devin to the National Naval Aviation Museum. Another wonderful experience. There are so many planes on display. Devin loved getting in the cockpits of several different types of planes. We also saw a pretty cool Imax movie. Hopefully we’ll have the opportunity to go do that again when Devin is older so he can learn more about the planes and their history.

Friday – The girls went shopping which left Devin and I without transportation and with little interest in going to the pool or the beach by ourselves. So we made an adventure out of it and walked down the beach about a mile to the nearest souvenir shop where I bought Devin a snorkel and goggles. Then we walked back. That was as close as I got to a workout all week so I’ll have to pick up the slack now that we’re home.

Saturday – Pretty much all day was spent at the beach. Someone in our building pulled the fire alarm so the fire trucks came. That was interesting. But we spent most of the day playing in the sand and enjoying the ocean that we rarely get to see. It was nice and relaxing but at the same time I was already starting to dread the packing up and driving home.

Sunday – We drove all the way back home in one day. We stopped probably 5 times in the first 5 hours (3 hours of it was actual driving time) to get souvenirs, get snacks, pee, etc etc, then stopped to eat at Cracker Barrel. Then after we ate we drove 5 hours straight without stopping. Home sweet home.

What a wonderful vacation. We really enjoyed the gulf coast of Alabama. It’s really quite nice for family vacationing and we’ll most likely do it again. I’m sure there are so many details I’m not thinking of at the moment but I don’t want to delay posting something about our vacation any longer. When I think of more stuff I’ll write about it.

I’ll upload a bunch of pics for the next post. 

Filed Under: Family, Misc, Relationships

Holler Ain’t Necessarily Redneck

July 28, 2008 by Leave a Comment

If you’ve lived in the south for more than 2 minutes you’ve heard somebody say the word ‘holler’.

“Holler at-im tu git ovur hier” (modern translation – Holler at him to get over here).
“Holler at dem yungins” (Holler at those young ones – aka children)
“Quit hollerin at me”…..

See -you’ve heard it.

I personally don’t use that word unless I’m being silly and intentionally speaking more southern than I normally do (I’m 100% southern but non-southerners can at least understand my normal speech).

So I was writing an email to one of my cousins who lives in Florida. He’s on the Asbell side of the family, of which mostly resides around the Cairo and Thomasville areas of south Georgia, therefore he understands redneck. So at the end of my email I started to type ‘Holler back soon’ to throw a bit of southern lingo in to the message. I fully expected to see the red underline under ‘holler’ as though there was a spelling error. Didn’t happen. I was curious and decided to check to see if holler is considered a proper word, and it is. That sparked an interest in me to check other ‘southern’ or ‘redneck’ terms.

Southerners ain’t so stupid after all (it says ain’t isn’t a standard word, but they still defined it). You folks from over yonder just ain’t as cultured as you thought you were. If you’d listen more closely you wouldn’t get hollered at. 

Filed Under: Family, Misc

Emotional Moment at Live Free Live Loud Concert

July 25, 2008 by Leave a Comment

The third annual (I think it was the third one) Live Free Live Loud concert was a few weeks ago at the Anderson Civic Center ampitheater (or whatever it’s called).
Of course we forgot our camera so the only pictures we have are from my
phone. Here they are:

Devin and his buddies Ethan, Elliott, and Brody. They’re watching the
fireworks that were shot off when it was still daylight. 


Skyler and her friend Olivia sitting with Mr. Eric watching the daylight
fireworks.

Kylee sleeping through the fireworks.

Here’s what happened that was so emotional. On the way out of the
ampitheater (or whatever it’s called) was dark and there were so many
people. I was pulling our wagon full of stuff with one hand and holding
Devin’s hand with the other hand. Shawna was pushing Kylee in the stroller
with one hand and holding Skyler’s hand with the other hand. Devin was
holding an umbrella in the opposite hand from the one I was holding.
Obviously we all had our hands full. The last words we said to both Devin &
Skyler as we began to walk in the crowd was ‘DO NOT let go of mommy &
daddy’s hands’.

The problem was the pants Devin had on that night were a little too big
around the waist (or they were just stretchy enough that the more he played
the looser they got). As we were walking along and talking to some friends
that were walking beside us Devin’s pants began to fall. Worse than that
was I didn’t know what was happening. We got almost out of the ampitheater
and I became abruptly aware of the situation. I don’t remember exactly what
happened other than somehow I finally looked down in Devin’s direction
beside me and noticed his shorts were around his ankles. I hoped it had
just happened and we hadn’t been walking along like that very long. I
immediately stopped and let go of the wagon and helped him pull his pants
up. Devin was so embarrassed. He grabbed his shirt to pull it over his
King Kong underwear, and looked up at the people behind us who began to
laugh. (It was probably a cute moment from their point of view but they
really made him feel very embarrassed and in hindsight I wish I would have
cussed and bowed up a back hand at them – men and women alike – I was ticked
later on). I’ve never seen Devin so upset with embarrassment. We quickly
grabbed our things and made our way toward the exit – this time with one of
Devin’s hands holding my hand and the other holding his pants instead of the
umbrella.

When we got out of the ampitheater and out of everyone’s way I stopped to
hold Devin who at this point was crying he was so upset. I got down on my
knees and held him and tried to comfort him. It was at that moment he said
“Daddy I tried to tell you my pants were falling but you didn’t listen”. My
heart was immediately broken into a million pieces. I had failed my son in
a way I thought I would never fail him. All I had to do was be more
attentive to him walking beside me, but instead I was too engulfed in my own
conversation with someone else.

I couldn’t help it. I broke into tears and just held Devin as close as I
could. People were walking by and I’m sure staring, but I didn’t even care
at that moment. I was now giving my undivided attention to my son. I
apologized to him over and over and told him it would never happen again,
but the tears weren’t slowing down – his or mine. So I picked him up and
carried him the remaining 100 yards or more that we had to walk to our
vehicle. At this point I was so mad at myself and the laughing people, and
crushed with the pain of failing my son – I was physically numb. Carrying a
50lb boy and pulling a 100lb wagon full of stuff, and crying like a baby.
Devin started telling me to stop. I realized my crying wasn’t helping him
calm down so I started to regain my composure.

We spent a lot of time in the car in traffic as we left and that gave us all
a closed environment to just talk it all out and work through the emotions
and frustrations. Devin expressed himself and his anger. Kids are so
innocent and forgiving. He forgave me almost instantly and forgot that I
had failed and could have prevented the whole thing by paying attention.
Instead he turned his anger and frustration at the people who made him feel
so embarrassed. He told us how mad he was at those people for laughing at
him and how he wanted to hit them and kick them. I could understand that.
He wanted to hurt them the way he had been hurt and the only way he knew how
was to physically hurt them. We helped him talk through it and understand
that it was no big deal that his pants fell down and those people didn’t
really see his underwear and they were mean for laughing but that’s just how
people are sometimes etc etc etc. He said he never wants to wear those
shorts again so as far as I’m concerned he’ll never have to wear them again
because I don’t want to give him any reason to remember that incident.

By the time we finally got home Devin was pretty much over it. I had a hard
time going to sleep that night, but when I prayed and accepted once again
that I’m not perfect and I’m going to make mistakes I was able to get over
it too. Devin hasn’t said another word about that night. It’s like he’s
forgotten all about it, which I’m thankful for.

Filed Under: Faith, Family

Matt’s Married!!!

July 14, 2008 by Leave a Comment

If you know my brother Matt you might have thought it would never happen.  Well, believe it or not he is married.  It all went down a couple of weeks ago.  I got to be the best man, and I had the best speech at the reception. 
View pictures here.  There are really pictures from the whole week leading up to the wedding, so there are plenty of pictures of our kids, family, and fun stuff other than the wedding.  My sister took a lot of the pictures but Skyler took several of them too.  You can tell which pictures Skyler took because they’re all from a 3ft tall point of view – but they’re actually pretty good. 
Congratulations to Matthew & Kristen Asbell.  May they be blessed with many years of happiness.
Filed Under: Family, Misc

Bikes

April 28, 2008 by Leave a Comment

Everyone in our family has a bike and it’s so exciting. I’ve been wanting to get bikes for Shawna and me for a few years but it just hasn’t been a priority in the finances until recently. I got one for me, then Shawna, and I even got a little one that might make it til Kylee is big enough.

The reason I got the little one is because Devin & Skyler went straight from big-wheels to 16″ bikes. They should have gotten 12″ bikes first so their legs could reach the ground. We’ve been trying for months to get Devin to ride without training wheels but he just wouldn’t do it. Some of our friends kids learned how at younger ages on smaller bikes, so we thought maybe Devin would succeed if we back up and get a smaller bike for him to try. It worked!!

We only had the small bike out for about 2 hours and he had already gotten it pretty much down-pat. He rode that little bike a couple of more days before it got ran over in the driveway (it was left behind the van – another lesson Devin learned – not to leave the bike behind the van). I think I salvaged it for Skyler to learn on (she doesn’t want to try yet), but we’ll see – it was broken pretty bad.

It was so exciting seeing Devin take off without training wheels. After the little bike was run over it gave me a good reason to be tough dad and make him try his big bike without the training wheels. It was no problem. He took off like a champ and is getting better every day. We ride through our little neighborhood together all the time. We have one of those little caboose things that a friend gave us and I haul Skyler in it behind my bike when she doesn’t want to ride her own. It’s a new fun family activity we can do – and I love it. 

Filed Under: Family, Relationships
April 21, 2008 by Leave a Comment
It’s about time I post something – right! Baby Kylee was born 8lbs 14oz and a head full of hair. Well you can see that for yourself here: (this picture is at about 4 weeks old)

 Isn’t she just so pretty…
We’re proud parents again, and for the last time unless God puts another one on our doorstep.

Devin & Skyler are adjusting pretty well. Skyler wants to love on her all the 

https://markasbell.com/228/

Filed Under: Family

Birthday Pictures

February 1, 2008 by Leave a Comment
If you didn’t read yesterday’s post scroll down and do that first so you know that these pictures took place on my birthday and then on my party day. 

IT SNOWED on my birthday (white birthday). Actually it sneeted (snow/sleeted), but in the south that is considered snow. Any time we get the white stuff of course we have to play in it, so here is Devin…

Devin played.

I worked – on a large snowman.
Devin also took great humor in throwing snowballs at me while I worked. Actually they were iceballs – so it wasn’t all that funny – especially to him when I threw one back.

Here’s Devin and I beside the snowman. That center iceball felt like about 300 lbs, but it was probably really only about 150-200.

 Here is Skyler with her own little inside snowman. She wasn’t feeling well so she had to stay inside.

Here we are with the little gifts the kids got me.

Here is the snowman probably 5 days later after all the snow was gone. I don’t know if this was snowman-inator or if it got all its indestruct qualities from the mixture of elements that was in it, whic included snow, ice, dirt, grass, and dog crap (compliements of Rascal – and I’m not joking I saw it getting rolled up in the snowball as I rolled it).

 Ok, now to the party. Lots of peeps were there.

As a matter of fact, there were peeps from near and far.
Counting children and all there were just over 40 peeps.
Here’s me still in shock and I’m pointing at people who I should have known were up to something earlier in the week.
We had good food and fun.
More fun.
You see that guy at the very end of the table in the baby blue shirt? That’s Roberto – one of the owners of Fiesta Mexican Restaurant – one of our favorite places to eat. Roberto was in on the surprise too. I’ll have to get Roberto back somehow. If you don’t already eat at Fiesta please go experience the wonderful food and service Roberto and team have to offer.
Here’s my cake. If you can’t read that it is a picture of the grim reaper saying “Relax, I’m Just Here For The Cake”. All the jokes come out for turning 30.
And for those who got to come to the party after the party here is an exciting game of Pounce. If you don’t know what that is you don’t know what you’re missing, but it can be stressful if you get too serious. I had won 3 times in a row playing on different nights one game at a time. This was the second game of this night and my partner and I came in last. I guess I just couldn’t take that much pressure in one night or something.
It was a blast. Thanks to all who came. If you couldn’t make it I understand but you sure missed a great party. Sorry if anyone was overlooked on the invite. Shawna put this together in a week and had to do it without me knowing it. I was very impressed. Unfortunately there are no pictures of my beautiful bride in all these but that is because she was working so hard making all this happen – and she is nine months pregnant. Before we know it there will be new baby pictures on this blog…

Filed Under: Family, Misc, Relationships

I’m 30 Years Old

January 31, 2008 by Leave a Comment

That’s right. I turned 30 this month. For some this is depressing but for me I’ve had enough fun to be happy about it.

First of all LSU won the National Championship – and I know it happened just to raise my spirits close to my 30th birthday.

Then Shawna, my wonderful wife, got me good with a surprise party I had no clue was going to take place.

What is funny about this is my birthday has always been probably the least hyped up of anybody other than my brother-in-law Kyle because his and mine are so soon after Christmas. So normally a couple of gifts, a cake, and some dinner is about all I’m accustomed to doing for my birthday.

Shawna celebrates her birthday the entire month of March. We eat out several times, she gets more gifts (in fact she already got some of her birthday gifts in January), she gets to relax more, and everybody knows it is Shawna’s birthday because she talks about it all month. I might be exaggerating a little but not much. Now if I was talking about how our kids birthdays are celebrated I couldn’t exaggerate it. There are not enough words to describe it. In fact I’m begging all our family to start having quarterly combined birthday parties so we can have one big huge bash instead of a bunch of small ones every 2 to 3 weeks.

The day of my birthday (which was before the surprise party) I opened a couple of gifts. I think Shawna gave me a card, and my parents sent a card with a gift card in it, and the kids had gotten me one dollar store gift each (we are tight-wads). It took like 3 minutes to open those so the kids were disappointed. They asked Shawna why I didn’t get more gifts. (My kids are so spoiled, and don’t you feel sorry for me?) I don’t have high expectations and gifts aren’t my top love language so this is no big deal to me. I told the kids “It’s ok guys – I love what I got and I’m so thankful.” I’ve been trying to teach the kids to be more thankful instead of more wantful anyway, so this was a good opportunity to show them some humility. Then I saw Shawna grinning (she had the big surprise up her sleeve for a later day).

I don’t know what I thought when I saw that grin on her face, but I’ll probably never forget what I said. With no humility and a smirk on my face I said to the kids “It’s really ok – Daddy doesn’t get to celebrate his birthday ALL MONTH like Mommy does.” On any other day that would have provoked a response, but she had a secret to keep. I should have known something was up. I thought she was just letting me get away with it because it was my birthday…

It was the best birthday I’ve had in about 30 years (when you get old like this you can start wording everything to sound like you’re ancient).

I’ll post pictures of all the birthday month events tomorrow… 

Filed Under: Family, Relationships
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