Back tracking...

Easter 2008 of our girls.

A little history of ON MCCLOUD 4

Let's back track a little on the McCloud 4's and move to current and we shall see how I do at maintaining this site pictures will come with time. I have LOTS of pictures

We'll start with Travis since that's where the name comes from. Travis grew up in Bismarck and Belcourt and has lots of funny stories of his childhood. He was part of the BHS Demon Football team as well as the track team. After high school he attended NDSCS in Wahpeton. Then there's myself (Kayla). I grew up on the farm by Geneseo, ND. Attending Lidgerwood Public School and was involved in Basketball, track, band and choir. GO CARDINALS! Class B is better than Class A. :-) After high school, I also went to NDSCS. Travis and I met there as we lived in the coed dorms of Walton-Shultz. However we didn't start going out until hmmm... 2001?

September 6, 2003 we were married - and it was a HOT day but a weekend we will never forget. And if you ask Travis we're celebrating our 50th not our 5th this weekend.

Travis is employed at the ND DOT. I work at United Tribes Technical College in the Admissions office.

A breakdown of some highlights I can think of off of the top of my head...

February 13, 2004: We had our trial of parenting, I got Travis a puppy for Valentine's Day. A miniature dachshund named Rosco - who still resides with us but some days barely. He's a yappy dog as you might imagine but on the flip side we do enjoy his company and he loves falling food from the table. Oops!

May of 2005: I went back to school to pursue a BS degree in Business management.

July 15, 2005: We had our first little star, Aubrey Kay arrived. "Daddy's little girl". Some days she was easier to care for than Rosco! I tell her often she is our drama queen, a little more high maintenance.

April 2007 - I GRADUATED from the University of Mary. Thanks all for the support of getting me through this task, it was stressful and many of you saw that.

August 16, 2007: Another little star made her presence to bring us to the McCloud 4! Karli Rose. Unique as it was both girls weighed 7 lbs 1 oz. I had a minor complication from the epidural after having Karli but thanks to our family and friend's we made it and here I am. Whew! Aubrey took on her new roles really well, which she got the name "motherhen". She was helpful of course there was jealousy but we expected it and actually more. Karli was walking by her 1st birthday and just about runs now and thinks she is so funny. A very happy girl and full of character, she will soon be handling her big sister just fine.

September 11, 2007: Our family lost a very special person in our family. Travis' grandma Rosie. It was hard to see her go but a cure for the cancer wasn't possible. We think of her often and Aubrey frequently talks about "dueters".

January 2008: Travis and a coworker became "heroes". Another coworker didn't show up or call so they decided to stop by her house, we call her Ma. They found Mary and her son affected from carbon monoxide poisoning - laying on the kitchen floor. It was an eye opener for many of us, we didn't have a carbon monoxide detector until that eery day. They were flown to the Cities for treatments and luckily ended up fine.

The girls go to daycare with our friends' little girls, and boy do we have stories about those four and only more to come. We're in trouble of what our future holds.

As many of you know, Travis loves toys like most men so we purchased a boat the summer of 2006, haven't been able to take it out as much as would like but with time we will. He wanted a fishing boat, I wanted a fun boat so it's a boat we can do both with fish and tube, etc. We were able to go camping a few more times this year, of course the good old ND winds put a damper on our weekends a couple times.

Currently, Travis is in a walking cam due to a minor mishap when he was getting ready for our 3rd Annual Kerzman-McCloud +VanderLinden's Labor Day Weekend camping adventure. He's had surgery on the ankle previously so time will tell if he will need surgery. There's a chipped bone and we're not sure about the tendons. AND... I'm scheduled for oral surgery next month for some gland issues. So the 30s have hit us, but we're enjoying life as it could be worse.

How I came up with our blog name? "on McCloud 4" similar to "On cloud 9".