Winds and Rain do some damage

Last night was one of those nights that you just want to forget about. It started off as a normal and good night. Got my run in. Mowed the yard and got it all prepared for the Wednesday night backyard hoops. It was only like 95 degrees and windy so I knew hoops was a stretch – but none the less I got things ready. So my bro and I were out shooting around close to 7:00 PM in the 30 MPH winds. It was quite humorous and fun to see if we could even hit the rim as the ball was just swirlin. Then, it started gusting and pooring so we ran in. We didnt think much of it cause we both thought it was supposed to be a short lived “storm”. We head down to the basement to hang with his fiance, my wife and the kids.

A few minutes later we checked the back part of my basement (no carpet or anything finished). Just concrete floors basically. The back window well was 100% full of water. It seriously looked like a full aquarium. Needless to say water was leaking in. Wasn’t bad just some water coming in and I wasn’t sure how to get rid of it. The drain in the bottom of the window well was either covered, clogged or just backed up… ugh. So I started wet vaccuuming some of the water just to keep it controlled… not a biggie. But I still wanted to figure out why it wasn’t draining so I was running in and outside thinking about jumping in the well and trying to unclog the drain. But the window well was metal, with water, and terrible lightning outside. Probably not smart so i didn’t attempt it.

So then Sarah comes up from basement and shouts, “Where is the trampoline?” Sure enough, despite being staked down by 6 U-Stakes, the trampoline had been completed blown away by the strong winds. It apparantly went through our fence (busted 2 panels completely) and into our neighbors house. Luckily the house only had a dented gutter and a window screen hurt. That’s it! On the downside, the trampoline is 100% mangled and totalled… Our fence is hurtin. Wonderful! Just what I wanted to deal with.

Once the storm calmed down we were able to go outside and drag the trampoline back into our yard. Funny story, Bryce (our 2 year old) started crying saying, “oh no… no jump. jump broken…” That added a little humor to our sucky night at least. Called everything into insurance this morning and now waiting for the adjuster to come out and look at the damage and pictures. We are hoping they replace the trampoline but not sure if they will.

I’ve posted some of the pictures of what this wind did to the poor trampoline below.

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Jam Packed Father’s Day Weekend

Father’s Day weekend proved to be a jam packed weekend for our family.  It was quite the awesome weekend but let’s take a look at some of the highlites.

Friday Tball EGroup

Friday night started off with a late night tball makeup game.  Yeah, we’ve had like 5-6 rainouts this year for Drew’s Thunder tball games (MYBA) but they make them all up.  Because Tuesday’s game was rained out they decided to schedule this game for 6:30 PM on Friday.  Not the most convenient but whatever.  So, we had that game and it was a beautiful night for tball.  Very few kids showed up so we ended up finishing the game in 40 minutes or so.  Bonus!

After Tball we had eGroup at the Norris’s house.  Fun times.  We just chatted and of course ate with our eGroup friends.  The kids watched a couple movies downstairs and Bryce annoyed mommy and daddy as always :)  He ended up being “extra cuddly” with Jamie so that gave us all a good laugh as well.

Saturday Tball and Winery

On Saturday morning we had another Thunder tball game.  It rained, I mean poured, all night so I thought there was no chance of a game.  But it happened.  We played the rival MuckDawgs that had the Stock boys, Broc and some other kids from Drew’s class.  The game went well but took a little longer.  Oh well.

Saturday night we hit up the Mackinaw Valley Winery for the first time of the 2010 summer.  We really enjoy this place.  The band “Loose Shoes” was playing and we went out there with some friends from Morton.  Good times as always and it was the most awesome weather for this event.  No wind. No heat. No rain.  We chatted, drank a little wine and ate some Butch’s Pizza (thanks Tim)!!!

Sunday Father’s Day

Father’s Day on Sunday was very very tiring but a good one.  Let’s recap this day.

  • 8:30 AM – drove out to Manito to pick up the kiddos.  They spent the night at grandma and grandpa’s house but I wanted them to go to Church with us on Fathers day.
  • 10:00 AM – Went to Elevate Church.  Funny story.  They played a game for fathers where they had 8 fathers on stage.  Of course, I was one that got picked.  Now, each person faced off heads up with another guy on some male trivia.  The first question was a hockey question that I struggled with, but won.  Now I’m in the final four.  The 2nd question was what is the most expensive car in the world.  They had 3 choices.  I chose A.  He chose C.  Of course, the answer was B.  So how do we break the tie.  Matthew Bennett was one of the guys asking questions and running it.  The Bennett’s know me very well and he decided to put me to the “test”.  He goes, “Who is the BEST team in Major League Baseball.”  Without hesitation I answered, “The St. Louis Cardinals“.  DUH.  EASY.  He quickly says, “NO, You lose.”  See, they are huge Cubs fans and he wanted to see how faithful to my Redbirds I was.  I past that test but lost the contest.  It was a HUGE blessing in disguise though.  The championship round the guys had to see who could chug a “Happy Shake” the fastest.  What’s a happy shake?  A Happy Shake is a full McDonalds Happy Meal blended up into a drink.  EWWWWW.  Thank goodness I didn’t even have to attempt that.  They also provided Red Bull and Texas Roadhouse bread as a snack during service.  Elevate Church in Morton ROCKS!
  • 12:00 PM – Went to my brother, Rodney Knuppel, house in Pekin.  We had some KFC for lunch and just hung out.  The kids got tired very quickly so we went home for some rest.
  • 2:00 PM – rest time!  Nap for the father!
  • 4:00 PM – Headed out to Green Valley to Sarah’s parents house.  Fun grilling out night.  Had some steaks and great food.  The kids played in the kiddie pool and gave us all some entertainment.
  • 9:00 PM – BED

So that is that.  The weekend was crazy busy but lots of fun.  The kids and Sarah treated me great on Fathers Day and made me realize why I love being a daddy sooooo much!

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Lakers win the 2010 championship

Two days in a row of me blogging. What is going on? Don’t call it a streak :)

Time for a new mower

First of all I want to talk about my darn mower. It is now working correctly. This was a hand me down mower given to us when we moved from Pekin to Morton. We used to own a Craftsman riding lawn mower, but when we moved to Morton, our new yard didn’t warrant the rider anymore. So we sold this mower and Sarah’s dad gave us this extra mower that belonged to her mom (Sarah’s Grandma). Anyways, thats the mower we’ve used for a couple years since moving in. Fairly decent but used mower. So lately, I’ll mow until it runs out of gas. Then fill it with gas, fire it back up, and it’s good to go. BUT, if I dare wait 5 minutes in between filling it up and starting it back up – the mower doesn’t start. Doesn’t even want to attempt to start. Almost like it’s overheated or something. The last couple times I’ve waited 2-3 hours, tried it again, and it worked. But flaky! What’s going on mower people?

So this got me thinking it might be time for a new mower. Wednesday, I borrowed my neighbor Craig’s mower (thanks Craig) and it was AWESOME. A great mowing experience. So I’m thinking for Father’s Day, I need a new mower. What kind? Where from? Any features I have to have? Time to start shopping.

Lakers World Champs

The Los Angeles Lakers successfully went back two back last night and won the 2010 NBA Championship. I scheduled a “guy meetup” at Buffalo Wild Wings to watch the games. Unfortunately, BWW was jam packed with no seats in the house about a half hour til gametime. So, myself, Rodney (my bro), Greg, Seth and Aaron all went to Old Chicago down by the river to watch the game. Great game. I was soooo cheering for the Celtics but the Lakers pulled it out.

Kobe Bryant won his 5th NBA Championship ring in 2010.

Kobe Bryant won his 5th NBA Championship ring in 2010.

Why was I cheering for the Celtics? I’m not a Boston fan and I’m not really a bandwagon jumper. The reason was simple. I logged into one of my online sportsbooks I bet at the other day. Randomly, I noticed I had one pending bet. Took a look and apparantly I had made a $10 future bet like 5 months ago for the Boston Celtics to win the World Championship. The bet was at 20/1 so my $10 returned $210. WOW! This was way enough reason for me to cheer for the Celtics. They couldn’t do it for me though. I’m cool with it cause I woulda lost the money on the USA Soccer or on Baseball betting anyways.

As for the game. Kobe didn’t play well. Artest saved them in this game. He came up huge and hit some big shots. Ray Allen looked horrible for the Celtics. The Celtics controlled the whole game but I still had that sense that the Lakers would pull it out in the end.

That’s enough for tonight. Hope you all have a great weekend! It’s FRIDAY!!!!!!!!

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I’m back to blogging

My personal blog “knup.net” is back! It’s been way to long since I’ve blogged on here and as all of you know – I love to do this. I’ve been super busy with life and trying to keep up with too many things. One of my current goals is to scale back the number of websites I manage and really only focus on the ones I care about or am passionate about. Obviously, knup.net doesn’t make me a lot of money. But blogging about my family, friends and personal life is something I feel is important. Years down the road my family will have a nice blog of their life with pictures, events, stories and more. So I hope to start making periodic entries if not nightly entries about what is going on. I know, I know, I have said this before. But I’ll give it a try again.

Happy Birthday Bryce

My youngest boy Bryce turned 2 yesterday! I can’t believe he is that big/old already. Bryce is the silliest and funniest kid we have. He’s always egging it up and just loves his brother and sister. You can really tell he looks up to them and loves playing, hugging, wresting, laughing and fighting with them. For his birthday we had a little lunch in the park. Then at night people/kids came over for our “backyard hoops” which I’ll get into later. So Bryce loved the company at night and just played it up! On Saturday we are having a little birthday party for Brycey at the Pekin Park. Should be a good time (unless it rains which it will cause it always does). I thought it was cool that when I posted this entry on Facebook there were TONS of comments and likes wishing Bryce a happy birthday! Love you Bryce and Happy 2nd Birthday.

Backyard Hoops

Ok, I mentioned backyard hoops earlier. I have started a little tradition for the spring/summer/fall where I host backyard basketball at my house every Wednesday night. This is for neighbors or friends that don’t mind traveling. As you might know, we have a basketball court in our backyard. Whoever shows up plays some 3 on 3, 2 on 2, horse, knockout, bags, whatever… Just a time for us guys to hang out, relax, get some exercise and play some hoops. One of these days the rim is coming down to 9 foot with the miniball so we can relive the old days where miniball was a daily practice. Backyard hoops has been a HUGE hit so far. Every Wednesday, 7-9… If you are reading this you have an invite :)

Blog Redesign

I’m planning on updating knup.net a lot more going forward. The first step was getting a new look. As you can see I have a new layout and design. Might not be the prettiest but it’s simple, fast loading, and easy to use. The point of a personal blog is to make it easy to read about my life. This accomplishes the goal. I’ll be adding more things as I go but for now enjoy the simplicity of knup.net – also, I mentioned I wanted to scale back my websites I manage to just the ones I care about. I discuss this more on my internet marketing blog but a few of the sites that fit the bill are:

That’s it for now. More to come tomorrow!

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Finally, an answer for understanding women

Finally an answer for understanding women!

And thus, dear students, we have arrived at the formula for understanding women!

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Happy Cinco De Mayo

Enjoy the Mexican tune!

bahia principe – bienvenidos.mp3

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Glory Days 2010

I recently got to play in the Glory Days hoops tournament for the 2nd straight year.  This is a basketball tournament where old highschool teammates get together and play a game.  There were 16 teams in the tournament.  It is run by PORTA highschool in Petersburg, IL.  Basically, you had to have graduated from the same highschool to play on your team.  It can be any age.  Lots of fun.  We ended up getting 3rd in 2009 and now got 2nd place in 2010.  We being Midwest Central.  Our roster consisted of:

  • myself, Jared Morris, Jason Proehl, Ryan Burks, Josh “Goose” Watson, Jeff Thompson, Jason Friedrich, Blaise Rodgers, Scott Winders, JD Proehl

We beat Sacred Heart Griffin our first game by 10 or so.  Kind of an ugly game.  Then we beat New Berlein in game two.  That was a great game and we ended up winning by just a few.  The quarter finals we played defending champion AC Central.  We ended up beating them by 10 or so in a hard nosed game.  Then in the championship we lost to Pittsfield for the 2nd straight year.

All in all it was a well rand tournament and always fun to play with old highschool friends.  Check out the picture of our Glory Days team below.

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Jeans at work!

Lapel-PinMy building at work has implemented a new dress code policy. Jeans Friday has now become Jeans day every day. Well, not exactly. But they have implemented a “Dress for your day” code. This means if I have no meetings and will be at my desk all day – I can indeed way bluejeans every day! Not sure why I like wearing jeans to work but if just feels better. No shorts or tennis shoes allowed though :) Time to go out and buy a few more pairs of jeans I think!

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Our move from Riverside to Elevate Church

Back a few months ago we decided that our family needed a “church change”. We have loved Riverside. We met some of our closest friends at Riverside and have really had a great experience. But honestly, it feels like it is getting “too big”. Can a church get too big? Is that even possible? Well, thats another debate but for our families purposes, we needed something a little smaller. We felt that as our kids get older we want them to have that true “family” feel to their church class. At Riverside, the classes are so large and different teachers/kids every week that it just never seemed like they could connect with other kids.

So we tried out Elevate Church here in Morton and loved it.   Actually we visited Elevate back in 2008 once just to see what it was all about.  Elevate is a branch off church from Riverside and some of our old friends from Riverside are actually leaders so that really excited us. Our kids already knew several kids in their Sunday School class as they are some of the same kids they go to school with. This made it a little easier transition. We are really looking forward to getting more involved at Elevate as the years go on. This summer was crazy busy but as things slow down hopefully we will find more time to really get ourselves involved.

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RyanKnuppel.com – my name domain

I’ve owned the domain name “RyanKnuppel.com” for quite some time now and always had it forwarded to knup.net. But I ran across a slick little wordpress theme the other day that makes a website act almost like a business card. I thought this was a neat idea so implemented it out on RyanKnuppel.com! Basically, it’s like a starting spot for all things about me on the web. You’ll find links to my Facebook, Twitter, personal blog, business ventures, email and more. Kind of a cool idea. So anyways, not much to view out there but now my own names domain name has some relevant information.

Do you own your own name domain name? If you don’t and want some help securing it and setting up your own personal website – let me know.

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