Nolan Family

Hi, my name is Jean Luc.   13 years ago I was adopted into the Nolan family and became Laura and Dave’s first child.   Life was great for the first 3 years.   Then one day they brought home a baby.   I punished my mom for 6 months and would not sit with her.   Unfortunately, it did not work and the baby stayed, so I gave up and went back to sitting on my mom’s shoulder.    So we all settled into life. Three years later they showed up with another baby.   By this time I had learned how to ignore these little people and it really did not bother me.   They did their thing and I did my thing.   Turns out that only worked so well.   I guess boys want dogs and my being cranky was not working for them. Ryan kept begging for a dog.   My parents almost gave in last fall, but when they took me to meet the dog at the humane society, I acted scared and my mommy felt bad for me.   But then this weekend happened.   Nana ...

Ryan, Andrew, Felicity, Josh, Grace, Julie, and Leah! As many of you are aware, we are city folk.   Our food comes from the grocery store (or our country friends when they have pity on us) and we don’t have a good understanding of where thing come from.   So when the opportunity to see how maple syrup is made came up, we jumped at it.   Our friends Hannah and Royce decided to tap some maple trees this year and boil their own syrup.   Together with the Krenek family we headed out to the country.   We arrived just in time for a snowball fight.   Then everyone got back to work gathering the sap.   It was fun to try the sap directly from the trees.   It tasted like sweet water.   Then the syrup was added to the sap already collected and boiled down outside in the special wood burning oven that Royce built. Ryan tries the sap! Dave tries to get Josh to try the sap.  "No way" says Josh! Ryan calls D...

As a family, we have discovered that we enjoy watching arena football.   On Saturday, March 23 rd we went to the Green Bay Blizzard Game.   We sat at the end zone this time.   While we were at a great location to potentially catch a football. The only problem was it was a very low scoring game with very few kick offs.   So while it was disappointing that the Blizzard lost, we had a great time with the Jahnke family!

This was the day I had been looking forward to the most.   As our Christmas present John purchased all of us a boat trip to see the dolphins.     At first we were not sure if we would be able to go on a trip in December, but we found a company that went out on a 2 hour trip.   The sun was shining but the weather was much cooler at 50 degrees.   Rosi at the dock waiting for the cruise Anita and Rosi ready to go the boat Bob and John sit and wait At 1pm we all loaded onto the pontoon boat.   Because the tide was out further than normal the captain decided to load the boat at the end of the dock.   It was still about a three foot drop onto the boat but we all made it!   Bundled up in our coats and sweatshirts we headed out to sea. The captain told us that about 30 dolphins made the bays of Alabama their home.   He said we would be searching in three bays.     We slowly made our way aroun...

On December 26 th we took Rosi to Florida for the first time.   It sounds like a long trip but it is really  only a 20 minute drive.   Our destination was Pensacola and the Naval Aviation Museum.   The Naval Museum was a lot of fun for all of us.   For Dave it brought back memories of his 9 years in the Navy.    Rosi enjoyed the military history.   For the boys it was about learning more about their father and for my parents, John, and I it was about remembering NAS Whidbey Island.   I found the sound of the jet engines reminding me of home.   Dave remembered the distinctive smell of jet fuel.   It was exciting to show the boys the A-6 and to find a car that was from one of the squadron’s on Whidbey Island. Next, we headed over to a Fort at Gulf Shores National Park which was on the navy base.   We took the tour and learned about the fort and the part that it played in the Civil War.   The ...