Creating Fire

I can remember at various times in my life thinking, "I hope someday I am able to share this with my son."

It might have been while I was climbing a mountain, or playing football in High School, or fishing with my dad.

I must admit that this whole having a kid thing still doesn't feel real , but every so often I have one of those "I'm going to have a kid!" moments and I get a little misty eyed. When I tell Anne about it, she looks me in the face and says, "Your going to cry a little bit aren't you?" and my typical response is , "A little bit... yeah."

So what kinds of things should I teach Conner other than how to split wood? I'm going to have to think on this one for a while. I do know that some day I will teach him how to make fire without matches or a lighter.

And hopefully God will grant me the ability to use the powerful symbolism of this skill to teach Conner about life...

So We're Having a Boy! Better get some Wood to Split!

Before we knew whether we were having a boy or a girl, it didn't really matter to me. I would be excited either way, but now knowing that we are having a boy....wow!

Anne makes fun of me because one of the first things I said after finding out was that I needed to get some wood to split. It seemed so rational to me at the time and weird to her.

"Why chopping wood?" she asked. "What does that have to do with having a boy?" Truth is, at the time I didn't know why I had said that? Chopping wood? What does that have to do with raising a son? But then I got to thinking about it...

As a young boy, some of my fondest memories are of riding around in a wagon behind my dad's tractor in the fall while he was clearing out trees around our house. The smell of gas and chainsaw exhaust, freshly cut pine and watching my larger-then-life dad split wood. He had to be the toughest dad in the world and could certainly beat-up the fathers of every neighborhood boy I knew! To me it was the most manly thing one could do, and my dad was showing me how to do it!

He showed me how you don't try to split the big logs in the middle, how you stack the wood between two trees, or place a couple of logs perpendicular to the stack and on an angle to hold in the next row of logs. I spent hours outside playing with freshly cut pine cones and gnarly branches. Covered in sap, the pine cones would magically become hand grenades and the sticks various rifles, guns and rocket launches for the endless military campaign waged by the boys of my neighborhood.

When dad would stop to get a drink and take a break, I would attempt to pick up the splitting maul he was using. As if it were Excalibur, I was unable to remove it from the log he had placed it in. To me my dad was a wood splitting god, and if I was ever to be a man, I had to split wood. If I was ever to be a father to a son, I would have to pass along that torch!

It just so happens that we recently had an enormous loblolly pine removed from our yard. I asked that they leave me some logs to split. The logs are so big that I can't even move them so I must split them were they lay...and so it begins...

Conner Douglas White

Anne and I have survived the first trimester of her pregnancy. We as well as many of you were convinced that "Poppyseed" was a girl. We were scheduled to have the 20 week visit and sonogram on the 27 of Oct. This is when you can usually tell the sex of the baby, as well as if all of the organs are developing correctly.

It seemed as if the first few months of the pregnancy flew by, but this 20 week visit was torture. It seemed like it had been "a week" away for months. So Anne called the office and spun some bull about me not being able to come with her at her scheduled appointment and got it moved to the 21. I just so happened to have taken the 21 off after a busy weekend at the climbing wall and on the river.

To our absolute surprise "Poppyseed" was actually Conner Douglas White! As soon as the ultra sound began there were two distinct legs with a little something else in the middle. I could easily tell before the nurse had a chance to say "Its a boy!" I thought for sure that it couldn't be that easy to tell but there you have it. Anne's response was typical Anne..."But how can that be? Girls are supose to have girl babies!!"

Thoughout the sonogram, Anne was having a little trouble orienting herself to the image on the screen. It was like she was looking at one of the pictures that looks like random dots and then all of a sudden rainbows and unicorns jump out at you.

After looking at Conner from every angle and using the computer to measure all of his vital organs; we got the news we had waited for ..."Everything looks great. Congratulations!"

Without further ado, introducing the soon to be member of Team Mzungu:

Conner Douglas White

Now obviously Conner will be enjoying the confines of his one bedwomb apartment until March, so he isn't out of the woods yet. With your prayers and best wishes we are hoping he makes an appearance in person on or about St. Patrick's Day!!!

From then until now in a Flash!

Well apparently outing yourself as a lazy blogger doesn't work as a motivational technique to get you to update your blog. We shoot hundreds of photos with every intention of posting them but then they stay unsorted in "My Pictures" until some unfortunate hard drive crash erases them for all eternity

So for this entry, imagine you are in some cheesy SciFi time-machine movie where you see various flashes of time going by until you reach the present, or future or whatever. The following is the last 9 months from Dec 07-Aug 08 in a flash. There are lots of things left out and much longer entries that could be made about each series of pictures but this is to get you started. I will be retroactively blogging about past adventures in the near future.

Christmas 07

We start with Christmas of 07. It was the first Christmas that we had not traveled to be with Family.

As hard as that was, it gave us the opportunity to participate in the illuminary in our neighborhood, and our house was in a tour of homes.

It was so much fun, and the weather is so mild we were able to set up a table with gingerbread and cider in or English garden. Sid only bit one person, and it only left a red mark on her face...

Its times like these that make us really appreciate our old house.

Not Much Climbing this Year...

It has been a bit crazy this year so there hasn't been much climbing going on.

Anne did send me to Ouray again this year where I met up with Matt and an old friend Kelly who lives in Ouray with his wife and two kids. That trip is a post all on its own.

Diving, my new obsession

Instead of climbing, diving has been my obsession. I was able to get my advanced open water certification and gained a couple new dive partners.

While diving at Manatee Springs State Park, I found my first artifact (which I left in the spring for others to enjoy). It was a pottery shard. You could actually see the markings were made on the outside. I actually found about five nice pieces that day.

Nieces and Nephews

We have been blessed with a niece and a nephew. One we have seen and the other we will see in person this week for the first time.

They are both amazing and beautiful.

One even has his own blog...www.brandnewshaw.blogspot.com where you can watch him play the guitar with his dad.

Amani Massage Therapy

As you may know Anne opened her own massage studio, Amani Massage Therapy in Dec. 07.

She is so modest. When people ask her what she does she says that she is a massage therapist. Then they always follow with, where do you work? She responds with something like, "I rent this little room ..." Her place is awesome! So don't let here convince you that its a shack back in the woods.

She has done some great advertising in local magazines, newspapers and has been feature on the local business spot light on FOX and in a recent article in our newspaper. Business is booming!

Darton College Center for Adventure based Leadership

I'm still at Darton College teaching students about the outdoors and using adventure based activities to teach them about themselves, others.



Recently my program became a Department of its own. We are now the Center for Adventure Based Leadership. As the program has evolved in the past year, my overall job satisfaction has increased.

The Kitchen Remodel

In addition to work, we took on a huge project this year, remodeling the kitchen. Thanks to the help of my dad we were able to get all of the cabinets in in about a week. The rest of the kitchen took me about three months of blood, sweat, and tears. I am sure to update with a "Remodeling" entry in the near future.

Snorkeling with the Manatees

Although the kitchen monopolized every free moment I had, I still managed to get away for some adventures.Early spring I took a group of students snorkeling with the manatees in Crystal river Florida.





Those who were SCUBA Cert. were able to dive the rainbow river and then at King's Spring Cavern.




If you have never seen a manatee in the wild, it is quite a site. Every year the manatees come in from the salt water and congregate in the constant 70 degree waters of the springs.

Reef Tank Hobby

The fish tank hobby is still in full swing. Nano-reefing requires quite a bit of time and thought. I built this tank set-up about a year ago and continue to tweek it. The corals have grown to the point that I need to prune them and start trading.


I continue to sell algae online to supplement the reefing hobby. That's right, people pay money for me to ship them different types of algae I grow. They use it in their tanks to feed certain types of fish and to use in their filtration systems. It's not a lot of money, but its money for something I am going to throw out anyway.

Visits to and From

In between work, the kitchen, and hobbies, we had some great visits and some great visitors throughout the year.

More Diving Adventures!

I did my first deep water cavern dive this year at Blue Grotto.



One of my dive buddies David (who happens to be a dive master) took me.



As we entered the mouth of the cavern, I must admit I got a little wigged out. We descended into the darkness to 100'. This is the deepest I have been in a cavern to date.


As we ascend , the blue glowing light from the mouth of the cavern is like nothing I have ever seen. There is an erie calm too it. Dives like these make all of the preparation and training well worth it.

The Garden

This spring has been a great year for the garden. We tried our hand at some vegetables in a different more sheltered location with some success.





Last summer all of our produce dried up and died despite the sprinklers.



It is difficult to keep a garden as elaborate as ours while under water restrictions.


I have turned to using mostly low pressure sprinklers and timers and the results have been good as you can see.


One of the nicest things about our garden is that something seems to be in bloom all the time. Even in the winter the Paper Whites will bloom in January!


The front garden has very much the feel of an English cutting garden complete with Crape Myrtles, Roses, and Dwarf English Boxwoods with their colonial fragrance. The Back yard is a whole different story, it is more lush and tropical with palm trees ferns, and orchids.

Fishing on the Boat

Anne says I have too many hobbies, But this is a hobby I can share with some of my guy friends. We enjoy a good afternoon on the river or local lake. This is the first season where I finally started catching fish in our lakes! Last summer was quite disappointing.

The Poppy Seed

Recently, Anne and I went to a local Chinese Restaurant we like, to celebrate. Amazingly Anne's fortune cookie could not have been more dead on! It says "A pleasant surprise is in store for you tonight." NO kidding!



Anne had called me at work that afternoon to tell me she was pregnant! Here is our Poppy Seed at 8 weeks! Anne looked up a website that explains the babies development and size by using various vegetables as descriptions. When we first found out, it was the size of a poppy seed. The nickname just stuck.

Don't worry, we aren't really going to name our baby poppyseed....or are we?

Love to all who have been patiently waiting for our updates.