| a porter christmas |

This past Christmas was an absolute blast. Ben was old enough to really start enjoying it and I got to spend some great time with family. We had everyone over to our house this year on Christmas Eve night to open presents. Then Christmas morning just me, Amanda and Ben opened our presents then headed up to PawPaw and MeMaw's house. It's a great blessing to be around family and friends ... there's nothing like it.

| a porter christmas |

Here are some more pictures from the Porter Christmas.

| a porter christmas |

Here are some photos from Mom and Dad Runkle's house ... Ben loves to go over there for the obvious reasons, he gets spoiled. But that's what Grandpa and Grandma's are for. :)

| christmas with the duck |

In December Aflac held it's annual Tower Lighting and Christmas Party. The Tower Lighting is where we put colored lights in certain windows of the Aflac building to create a Christmas tree. It's pretty neat; kids love it. Then that following Saturday is the Aflac Christmas Party which is held at the Columbus Civic Center. This year's theme was "Puttin' on the Ritz." Most folks dressed up like they were from the 1920s. In the Human Resources area that I work in, we coordinate all of the employee-based activities for the company. These are two of the events that we are responsible for ... a lot of work, but a lot of fun. The couple with us in the last photo is my old roommate and friend Jason with his girlfriend Alayne.

| my older woman |

Alright, so in November ... the 25th to be exact ... Amanda turned 30 years old. So like any good husband, I decided to throw her a surprise party with her closest family and friends (unfortunately not all of them were able to attend). She thought just the three of us were going out to eat that night, but she soon realized what was going on when she walked in the lobby of Johnny Carino's. Ben wasn't so excited with the whole "surprise" concept as you'll see in one of the photos. So here are some surprise birthday photos of ... my older woman. :)

| atlanta zoo 2009 |

I realized that it has been quite some time since I've updated this blog ... shame on me. Here are some pictures from our trip to the Atlanta Zoo back in late August. Ben had a great time seeing all the different animals. Me and Amanda on the other hand, well after dealing with a tired/hungry boy in the reptile section, spending $500 to get something for us to eat and drink and then battling the rain towards the end of our adventure, it wasn't the ideal trip. But after seeing his face so excited when he got see some of his favorite animals, it made it all worth it.

| destin 2009 |

Well we are here in beautiful Destin, Florida for a vacation. I don't have much to say because we're too busy relaxing. So here are some pictures from today. I hope you enjoy them.

| water good, wood not |

So Aflac Outdoor Games is this weekend (June 19-21) ... sweet! I had the opportunity to go down and hang out for Media Day yesterday and test my skills on the boom run. The object is to maintain your balance while running across logs from one end and back. When you watch the video you can tell that I fail (and fell) miserably at maintaining this objective. I have a bad bruise on my backside where I caught the corner of the log. If you can't tell, I'm the tall lanky guy on the left out there in the hot sun ... water good, wood not.

| cheetos and pool time |

So Amanda took Ben to the pool today with Eve, Elijah and Clara. I had to work today so I was unable to go ... its okay ... I only cried a little bit. Anyway, the most important thing was they had a blast. It seems Ben was overwhelmed by his ... cheetos and pool time.