A day of St Louis

St Louis recently had a parade for soldiers returning from Iraq. Thankfully, we had the day free and decided to make a day of it. The saddest part was the "Gold Star" families - those who had lost sons/brothers/fathers over in Iraq. They all walked in the parade holding pictures of their loved ones, very touching.

After that we went up in the arch, and the kids loved it. Heck, I loved it. I hadn't been up there since I was a kid.

I recently started a computer repair business in the St Louis area. And it would be negligent of me not to leave at least one link!
St Louis Computer Repair

Go Cardinals!

At the Gerdel house we have been cheering hard for those cards the past couple of weeks. The kids have been staying up ridiculously late each night, and even when we put them to bed they lay awake and constantly ask for updates on the game.

This morning Missy and I ran a 10K. I'm just not sure I get this whole running thing. I mean, it sucks right? It's hard to breath. Your whole body hurts. You get passed by women pushing babies in strollers. Why even bother?

And now we're off to a little league football game. Hopefully I'll have some pictures of a huge buck to share in the next few weeks - deer season is right around the corner!

Introducing Mentorific.com

Introducing my latest-and-greatest website: www.Mentorific.com - The World's Leading Mentor Marketplace. It's been several months in the making - and plenty of hard weekends and late nights. But now anybody can make money online doing online mentorships. Or you can learn new stuff online by hiring a mentor. Pretty cool stuff. I also have a new supporting blog and twitter feed, check them out: http://Mentorific.blogspot.com http://twitter.com/#!/Mentorific

Do most people blog more than once every two years?

I'm pretty sure I'm the absolute worst blogger in the world.

The cabin. The cabin is doing swell. Rentals are up, plenty of good feedback, and we're just about to finish refinancing. It took several years, but we finally paid down the mortgage enough to secure a beautiful 4.25% 15 year note. And... we're saving almost $500 a month. Let's hear it for a bad economy!

The kids. How do they grow like that? Our eldest child is almost ten years old. Ten. Years. Old. That's a decade. She's practically a grown up! Before long I'll have to shoot boys that want to date her. All four of the kids are great though. There's a bible verse somewhere that says what a blessing it is to have good kids... probably in Proverbs. We're blessed.

I'm thirty. It's funny to see yourself getting older/balder/fatter/lamer. In your mind's eye your still a strapping 18 year old stud - cocky and ready to take on the world. But then you walk past a mirror... and that whole facade comes crashing down. But, let's be honest, I was never a stud. Unless theater, choir, band and orchestra make you a stud. Pretty sure they don't.

Forex is fun. Believe it or not, I'm thinking about picking up another old blog I used to write in with all of my trading activity. I'm becoming a more profitable trader... but not quite "profitable" as of yet. Time will tell.

I love the crap out of my wife.

That's it. See you in 2013.

Elephant Rock Rocks!

I took the boys to Elephant Rock the other weekend. It's just as cool as I remember it as a kid. We spent a solid 6 hours doing nothing but climbing boulders, jumping off of precarious ledges and hunting imaginary treasures. We could've gone longer, but were stopped by the dark. We completely tore the crap out of our clothes and only bloodied ourselves a few times - which isn't bad when you consider some of the exciting spots in which we found ourselves. At first they were cautious about jumping between boulders 30 feet in the air. But, by the end of the day they were jumping and clamoring with the best of them. My wife is probably glad she wasn't around to see it all!

All I can say is that if you are a kid, or have ever been a kid, you'll love it just as much as we did. Be sure to get off of the trails!

Done with Diapers!

It's finally happened. After eight long years of having 1-4 kids in diapers at a time we've finally made it. The baby has been potty trained. Girls are so much easier than boys. Our boys still pee all over the wall half the time, but Baby Bree has it nailed - with only a handful of accidents to speak of. That's my girl.

Life has been busy in the Gerdel household. Between being parents, managing rentals, working, commuting and trading/blogging Forex we just don't have a ton of extra time. What little extra time we do have we focus on spending together as a family. Training boys to become men is a consuming task to say the least, and teaching girls to love themselves in spite of a society that says otherwise is an enormous challenge. But we're Gerdels. We'll make it.

That's all for now. I'll try to post back more often but, like I said, we're busy!

Marathons hurt!

Missy and I ran our first half marathon on Sunday, and there's only one thing I can say about it: ouch. Miles 1-6 were OK, but mile 7 was entirely uphill, and it cooked my bacon. Miles 8-13.1 were 5.1 of the most painful miles I've ever run, and that's saying something.

Lesson learned: do more hill training. We're planning on doing another half marathon this September, and my wife is crazy enough to think we can to a full marathon next January. But, crazy people say all sorts of crazy things.

The best part is that I hit my goal for time. My goal was 2 Hours. My final time: 2:00:36. I can deal with being 36 seconds over.