A Year of Change

Well, it’s finally here, the big day of the big dance. Everyone in the family will be dressed like some sort of character out of Pirates Of the Caribbean tonight except me. The misses starts the day off by judging the teachers costumes as she’s one of the three people on the dance committee. The dance is from 6 to 8 pm but the preparation will begin at 10 this morning.

It’s about 4:30 which is normal for me. I can’t seem to sleep past 5am anymore which is ok because I get a lot done before everyone is up. We ended up taking the little one to the doctor yesterday and he once again stumped them with his injury. His scratch looks sort of like poison ivy being a raised scratch with blisters around the edge. Just to play safe they sent us home with a pretty strong antibiotic in case he had a secondary infection. Our doctor did call in another doctor to take a look for a second opinion. The joke at our doctors office is our guys are always coming up with something interesting that tests their knowledge. Anyhow it didn’t seem to phase the little guy who was back out on his bike as soon as we got home.

We had a good rain yesterday which the grass and garden needed. We’re swimming in zucchini and tomato’s these days and also trying to eat a bunch of fresh local produce like acorn squash. The misses made homemade pizza for the boys last night and used the Vitamix to grind up some zucchini in the sauce. This fooled even the best of the vegetable haters in our house as they woofed it down and asked for more. Thankfully they (the boys) don’t read this or they’d discover the big secret. Today I have a few errands to run and then will join Mom helping her in whatever way I can with the dance. I think I’m on pizza delivery duty.

Both boys are doing very well in school and doing their homework each day without much of a fuss.

I just took an hour beak and went to the gym. It’s now 6am and the little guy and the misses are up. I hadn’t been to the gym for about 4 days so it was a rough workout. I hate it when I can’t get there at least every other day.

Last night when the misses asked the little guy if he wanted a mustache drawn on his face for his pirate costume, he replied, “make me a beard like Russell Brand”. Now I don’t know if you know who Russell Brand is but this is pretty funny. He comes up with priceless sayings from time to time. Haven’t heard from Grandma Dixie lately, I’ll have to check with the wife to see if she has. I called my Mom yesterday but she was on the way out the door to the hairdresser so we didn’t get to talk much.

Uncle T commented that I’m starting to sound like the “politicians I love so much” so today I think I’ll skip it. Might as well as it’s the same old stuff everyday. All I can say is the founders of our country never anticipated this and I’m sure are rolling over in their graves.

Alright, time to read the paper and get a protein shake. We have a big weekend coming up, hope you do too. Life is short, don’t waste a day, you’ll be sorry. Take care, God Bless,

Wow was Texas brown and dry. You couldn’t see the fires but you sure could smell the smoke. On the other hand, Colorado sure was wet. It was starting to drizzle when I was driving to the airport in the am but was a full fledged downpour by the time I landed back in Denver at 5pm. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, we sure are lucky to live in Colorado. The only thing better than living where we live would be to live a little further out from the city with some more land.

It was a quick trip and successful. The misses spent the whole day cleaning the house and when I arrived home, it was sparkling. Both boys were in full excitement mode and it was time to start winding them down. Today the misses has to be at work at 6:30am for a store wide meeting, luckily she’s off at 3pm. The little guy has some big scratch on his lower left leg that’s raised and appears to be infected. We thought he got into some bushes or poison ivy but it looks like something else. I think I’ll get him in to the doctor as soon as possible this morning as we don’t want to take any chances. A good dose of antibiotics are probably in store.

The big dance is tomorrow night. The boys are getting their pirate costumes all lined up and so is the misses. She looks so cute in her pirate wench outfit. I hope she doesn’t make all the other mothers mad because she looks so good. I’ll be the only one dressed as is because I just don’t have any pirate garb or the time to get it together. We’ll make sure to take pictures.

I’m still waiting on some money to be transferred before I can buy our Italy tickets but it looks like the trip is a go. We have an appointment at the passport agency on Monday to get our expired passports reissued within a week. It should be a fun family trip. We deserve it. I and the misses certainly need a break and the kids will learn a lot and have loads of fun. Their teachers are 100% behind them going as they too think it’ll be super educational for them both. They will send along some homework to be completed along with the weekly spelling test.

I haven’t talked to any of you lately so I’m not sure what you’re all up to but hope everyone is doing well. The next three days are pretty busy. First up as I said, is the big pirate dance tomorrow, Saturday we have soccer and Sunday we’re taking the boys to the football game. I think cousin Tasha from Hawaii and Aviak (my great niece I think, I’ll have to ask my Mom or the misses as I get confused as to who I am in the relative world) are in town. I’m not sure when she arrives but know she’s here on Sunday. You might remember her from doing the hula dance at our wedding.

I almost forgot, the Self Reliance Expo is here in town on Friday and Saturday. This will be a “must go to” event. Now before you think it’s some survival thing, let me stop you right there. It’s more about living in a way that’s less dependent on everything we’ve been conditioned to. An example would be composting to eliminate your trash by more than 50%. No matter what anyone says, that’s a good thing! There will be seminars on back yard chickens, canning your own food and all the other things, that if you really think about it, my grandparents and especially yours (if you’re older than me) were part of their daily life. We’re about the only country in the World that ships food over 3000 miles to stores. Think about it, in Europe or Asia or anywhere else, people eat food from their local area grown by local farmers. We need to get back to this here in America and thankfully we are. The small farm, despite huge road blocks from company’s like Monsanto, are starting to make a comeback. When you buy local, you’re getting healthier better food, saving energy and supporting local farmers. Don’t get me going on GMO’s or genetically modified foods, just trust me that they are not good for you at all! Do a search on Google and you’ll find tons of blogs and info regarding this. It’s a tough battle as the big companies won’t give up their hold on us without a fight. They’ll knowingly produce and sell us food they know is not good for us just to make a profit, kind of like the big drug companies. You can see where this is headed so I’ll stop now but it’s a big concern. One of the downsides to our advancement as a society or people are issues like this. I’m sure when my Mom was a kid, the food was much healthier and much more local, enough said.

Ok ok, I’ll stop now. It’s almost 5:30 and the misses needs to get going. I’ll be making breakfast and getting the boys off to school this morning. The other day her supervisor at work said to her “rumor has it you’re quitting around the holidays”. She said no but she does need more money and then Tanya (her boss) asked when her next employee review was and she wasn’t sure. Anyhow they don’t want to lose her so hopefully she’ll be getting a raise soon. By the way the rumor came from me walking up to her and her boss a couple of weeks ago and saying “did you tell her you’re quitting yet?”. Looks like that got things moving!

Well time to go, hope you’re all well, God Bless everyone and the U.S. of A.

Anyone ever been to Austin? it’s probably the prettiest city in Texas. (of all the ones I’ve been to) As you know I land there at 1 this afternoon and will be back in the air by 4pm. Today the misses is off and vows to tackle the mess known as our house. It’s amazing how fast this place can look like a cyclone hit it. I’d rather be going to Texas than having her job!

Yesterday I dropped the boys at school and as soon as I got home the oldest one was calling on the phone. Turns out it was picture day and he needed me to bring him a shirt with a collar. Both boys had worn t-shirts so I grabbed a collared shirt for each and headed back to school. After school, the little guy went home with his classmate Scott to play at his house until 4:30 when I would be picking him up. The oldest one and I headed home where he jumped right on his homework while I finished up some work. About 4pm the misses arrived home, seems she got off work an hour early. She made some brown rice noodle vegetable mixture for dinner that was really good. It’s hard to get the boys to eat veggies but she’s always trying.

After a few days of no politics, it’s hard to stay away. Our President is still on his campaign tour, (get used to it as he will be for the next 14 months)running around the country trying to set up a narrative he thinks will save his job in 2012. I wonder who’s running the country, Joe Biden? God help us. Looks like the public is not buying his re-hashed “American Jobs Act”. Nice name huh, he thinks by naming it something new as good sounding as that, everyone will forget that this is the same thing (stimulus) he’s already tried that has already failed. He says he’s trying to create jobs, how about just working on keeping the jobs we have? Bank of America says they’re laying of 30,000 people and this is just one example of big companies out there letting people go. Let’s see, yesterday a republican won the special election in the overwhelming democratic district in New York which had been held by a democrat for over 90 years! What else, oh yea, the number of people living in poverty is now above 15% or over 46 million people. By the way, living in poverty means a family of four lives on $22,000 a year or less. How could anyone live on that? Less than $2000 a month for four people! If that number was let’s say, $40,000 or $3250 a month, (which I don’t know how any family of four could live on), over half the country would be included in that group! We’re in real trouble here and all Obama wants to do is borrow more money now and pay it back over the next 10 years. This guy needs to be stopped. I wouldn’t be surprised if another democrat challenges him for the 2012 nomination. Hillary could probably win but the democrats will never admit Obama failed. Thankfully they’re this stubborn as she might be tough to beat. Also on a side note, a republican also won the special election in Nevada yesterday. I think most of us independents no longer believe or trust the President. This spells real trouble for him because he cannot win without us. His base (those who still blame George Bush for everything) won’t be enough to get him re-elected. Looks like this “hope and change” thing might just come back to bite him in the you know what! I now agree, the country needs “hope and change” more than ever, problem is it’s Obama we need to change to give us hope.

Ok enough, I’m sure I’m not “changing” anyone’s opinion. If you still like Obama, there’s no changing your mind now. It’s now 4:45 and I think I’ll run to the gym for a quick workout or maybe I’ll just hit the elliptical machine downstairs.

Hope everyone is doing well, the weather is changing, at least here in Colorado as you can feel the crispness in the air in the morning. Take care, God Bless and stay safe, also no matter what challenges you’re facing in life, keep a positive attitude, that’s half of it, I promise!

Last night at 8:26 the Denver Broncos / Oakland Raiders game kicked off. We were supposed to go to the game but had to cancel at the last minute. Boy are we glad we did. I stayed up until about 11pm watching a dismal performance by the home team. The only thing that would have made it worse would have been to be there in person until midnight and then fighting the crowds to get home after a horrible loss. I hope last nights game isn’t a preview of the season or it’ll be a long one.

The boys were off yesterday so lots of playing outside was in store. Today the misses works at 8am so she’s in the shower right now getting ready. I had to run to the store at 5am as we were out of milk. The little guy had kind of a rough day yesterday, especially in the morning so we thought he was getting sick. Turns out he was just having a bad morning and was fine by the afternoon. Today after school he’s going home with his friend to play until 4;30 when I’ll pick him up. The oldest and I will probably clean the garage or something.

I’m off to Austin Texas in the morning but will be home by dinner time. It’ s still 100 degrees plus down there and they’ve had all those fires for weeks. We’ve sure had crazy weather lately. This morning I need to go to the post office to renew our passports as it looks like the family is going to Italy around the first of October. Normally we wouldn’t pull the kids out of school but the trip (airfare and lodging and rental car) is all paid for by one of my estates. This is too good of a deal to pass up, plus the teachers endorse it 100% and said they’d send some homework and spelling tests along with us. We’ll keep you posted on this. I’ll need to figure out how to do the blog from Italy when were gone.

The little guy and I are watching Phineas and Ferb right now which is a great kids cartoon. Time for me to get some more coffee and then see about breakfast so today it’s a short one. Here’s a quote just for fun,

“Remember not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.” – Benjamin Franklin

Pretty profound, oh well, take care, God Bless and have a great day

At 3am I sprang out of the bed with the misses a split second behind me. We were both bounding down the stairs racing for the back door to see what was going on with Mojo who was barking as loud as he could while racing back and forth along the rear fence line. The misses thought it was a skunk but I couldn’t smell anything. We both ran out into the back yard trying to coax 120 pounds of focused canine away from the fence and into the house. After a couple of minutes, we finally succeeded. With Mojo safely locked in the crate in the kitchen, we headed back to bed.

It’s now 6:30 and we’re running late. I have a call at 8 and our suburban goes back to the shop at 8:30. The boys are off school today and are still sleeping. Yesterday was filled with scootering, some football, a dog walk and a few runs to various thrift stores for the oldest boy’s zombie costume for Halloween. We capped off the day with a marsh mellow roast over the bbq. For the football games, I made some cream cheese stuffed jalapeno’s with bacon and I apparently should have used gloves when cleaning the seeds out of the peppers. For the rest of the day and night my fingers were “hot” and you could actually feel the heat from my hands. I also made the mistake of itching my eye, (through my shirt) which made it burn. The caspian, or chemical that causes peppers to be hot, had soaked into my fingers. I can still lick my finger nail (even though I’ve washed my hands a bunch) and feel a tingling on my tongue from the heat. I’ll never do that again!

The Bronco game is tonight at 8:15 which means it’ll be over around 11:30 or later. I can’t believe it’s so late. You can feel the weather getting cooler outside and fall is on the way. I’m not sure when it’ll snow but it could be anytime as the mountains are already getting dusted with the white stuff.

It was one of those sad and happy days yesterday. It was sad being the 10 year anniversary of 9/11 as a lot of innocent people lost their lives but it was a happy day as the country was united for one day rather than bickering about politics. Enough said as I don’t have the time or energy to jump into politics today. It’s now 7:15 and I need to jump in the shower and prepare for my 8am call.

Today we’ll know if we’re going to Italy or not. It depends on whether Brad and his family can go. If we do, I have to get all over getting passports for all of us because ours have expired. We’ll let you know tomorrow.

Time to run, take care, God Bless and have a good day,

9/11, ten years later, wow. The misses and I are sitting here watching news coverage “live” from 10 years ago on the History Channel. We remember it today like it was yesterday. We’re astonished by all the people that were just standing around as the misses says “like deer in the headlights”. We were saying to each other how we would have both run and kept on running even before the first tower fell. I don’t know if this is true or not because before 9/11 I’m not sure or not if we had the mentality of being prepared or always looking out for trouble. Looks like in one way the terrorists won as 9/11 changed the way most people view the World from that day forward. It’s too bad that we now live in a World where you have to worry about something like that happening.

On that day, the misses was up and I was still asleep. As soon as the first tower was hit she knew it was terrorism. This is not too surprising as when Tiger Woods came out and said he had an affair, she said “he’s a cheater and there’s a lot more women”. She’s pretty perceptive in that way, she has this 6th or 7th sense about certain things. Call it women’s intuition. I rushed down the stairs to see what she was talking about and we sat there, she 7 months pregnant and I watching in disbelief. This is one of those moments where everyone remembers where they were, kind of like JFK or Princess Di.

Here we are 10 years later living in a different World, it’ll never be the same. 2,973 people died that day and while the loss of life was horrific, the impact of the destruction in New York makes that number seem 10 times larger. No one ever imagined a bunch of guys in tents in the middle east could pull something like this off. Today I don’t know if we’ve made any progress, there still seems to be a divide between people and religions that runs so deep it’s like we’re headed for a religious war or something. I really don’t understand why people can’t just let people be. Or as was said before, live and let live. Let’s pray that nothing this tragic happens again and that people will somehow learn to understand other people. We have enough problems as it is such as the economy. Can’t we all just get along!

Now to yesterday, soccer won out. The little guy played well and it seems being another year older has done wonders for his game! Both boys wanted to use their own money to get these new scooters that were $55 each. Now this is a lot of money but it’s a lot better than a cheap toy from China or some candy. So after good behavior all day (a requirement) the oldest and I found the store where they were the least expensive (Wal Mart) and headed over and found the last two on the shelf. All the other kids in the neighborhood were envious and our boys took to them like ducks to water. The misses continued to work on her pirate ship which is now almost complete.

The boys are already outside on their scooters after eating breakfast. Lot’s of good football on today, whoo hoo. Next week I fly to Austin Texas on Wednesday at 10 am but will be back in Denver by 5pm the same day. I have a staff training (where I train 8 people on new wines they bought) for about an hour and then head right back to the airport. It’s hard to believe it’s almost the middle of September. We’ll all be in full Christmas mode about 90 days from now when it’ll be December 11th.

Well take care, have a great day and be thankful for all that you have. Too many people focus on what they don’t have which is a big waste of energy. Look around and take stock of the good things in your life, family, friends, your health coming to mind. Material things really don’t matter all that much now do they? After all, how much comfort do you really get from that big piece of jewelry? I mean I know it’s nice to have diamonds and gold but if it has no sentimental value, (of course anything any of you Grandma’s have, the misses considers extremely sentimental and will cherish for the rest of her life!) like being a gift from a loved one, what does it really mean to you? Just trying to put it all into perspective people, you need to decide for yourselves just what’s important to you. For me, it’s having a family as wonderful as the love of my life, my soulmate, best friend, my wife, and both my boys, and of course, all of you!

In closing, Grandma Annette has been really good about commenting via email lately and I just have to share her latest. Make sure you read the whole thing as it’s a great example of how our political representatives spin things in their favor. Check this out,

Judy Wallman, a professional genealogy researcher in southern California , was doing some personal work on her own family tree.. She discovered that Senator Harry Reid’s great-great uncle, Remus Reid, was hanged for horse stealing and train robbery in Montana , in 1889. Both Judy and Harry Reid share this common ancestor.

Today is our youngest’s first soccer game of the season, and of course we have a conflict.  Our friend in Boulder has season tickets to the C.U. game. He invited us to come along with his wife and him for a tailgate and great college football fun.  Our boys would spend the afternoon with his kids at his house….the one with the fabulous yard complete with chickens, crawdads, and a trampoline. The little guy’s game is at 3:00p.m. and the C.U. game has a 1:30p.m. kick off.

What to do….what to do?  I personally feel that our priority as parents is to teach the boys that a prior commitment comes first. Although I think that the game and playing with their new found friends would be much more fun….I guess I’ll be the bad guy today.

Both boys did well on their assessment test….this information comes directly from the teachers. When I spoke with the youngest’s teacher, she said he only needs to work on speed.  That is of course his father and my fault since we reiterated again and again to go slow with his reading and not guess on the word.  His father also told him to announce periods and commas which he did diligently. His teacher got a laugh out of it after I told her it was our fault because of our conversations with our little guy. She was very impressed with how well he listened to our coaching…as were we.  I let her know that on the next test….the mister and I will find out the testing criteria before we offer our advice.  She got a laugh out of that as well.

I walked the boys home from school yesterday….me on foot and the boys on scooters.  It was a bit warm and of course an uphill climb most of the way home. At the halfway point the youngest said in no uncertain terms….”Mommm, why didn’t you remind me that my tennis shoes are black and black attracts the sun….my feet are burning!” I asked if he would like to take his shoes off (thinking he would ride home in socks) he immediately sat down…took off his shoes and socks…and proceeded to hand me his shoes, socks, scooter and helmet to carry home. Ugg! The oldest was “Scootering”away…mentioning every so often how much faster and more fun it is to ride downhill to school instead of uphill home.  I agreed.

After lunch the kiddos went to a friends down the street for two hours of fun that included “Ditch dogging” a game they play in the ditch water with a boogie board. Yuck!! They both know that WE (Dad and I) do not want them playing this game, but since it was suggested by their friends father they thought it would be okay.  NOT okay!!  Needless to say the minute they got out of the truck we had them stripping off their soiled clothes and heading in to hit the showers.

They both amused themselves with another friend down the street while I worked on the Pirate Ship for the school dance next friday.  It is coming together well, and with the suggestion from Grandma’s friend James (he helped unbelievably well with Grandpa) to look at Hobby Lobby for a ships wheel… I found one.  All I need now is some black muslin or cheese cloth to put the haunting finishes on the ship. Yea…I think the Mister will be happy when the dance is over since I get all consumed when their is a theme involved.

We have to discuss the day ahead….soccer vs. fun.

Have  great day…God Bless

LLF

Good morning.  The air is crisp and cool with a definite hint of fall in the air. Did you all watch the NFL season opener…Wow did Green Bay ever look good!! We are all happy about the outcome of the game, as we are sure Grandma is as well.

We had a long day yesterday…work, PTA, soccer and a play date that lasted until 7:45p.m. Whew!! Then it was upstairs to read with the youngest, the oldest went right to bed for a “Golden ticket”, more on that later. Both boys were out by 8:10. Hurray!!! We had specific instructions from both of their teachers to get them exercise, a good nights sleep and a healthy breakfast before their assessment tests today.  These tests are designed to put the kids in the correct reading groups….so….if they are too tired or hungry and haven’t gotten the restlessness out of their systems they may be placed in the wrong group. Anyway, we are trying our best to do our part in giving them a great start this morning… I have to head upstairs to help with showers….here’s Daddy…

The Mister cooked ribs (pork and beef short ribs) and twice baked potatoes for dinner last night….yum!! Have I ever mentioned how much I love it when he cooks dinner.

Ok, let’s jump right in, who watched the Presidents speech last night? Man can that guy talk. He can make anything sound good can’t he. I do agree with the payroll tax cuts but am a little leery about the rest of the program where you spend all the money this year and pay for it over the next 10! Sounds like more debt to me and how can he or anyone guarantee that future administrations will follow through and pay his bill when he’s not President.

I was also a little disappointed in the manipulation of the evening telecast by the White House. You see the GOP did not provide a response because Obama said his speech would run about 43 minutes plus 10 minutes of applause taking up most of the entire hour. With the season NFL kick off, the GOP determined there would be no time for a response so they opted not to squeeze it into 5 minutes. Turns out his speech ran 32 minutes with applause so there would have been plenty of time for a response, a whole 28 minutes. Guess the White House “mislead” (nice way of saying lied) to the GOP so they thought they had no time to respond. I mean they couldn’t have been that far off on the timing could they, did he talk twice as fast as expected, hmm. Next as if on cue, right after the speech, they announce a “credible threat” on 9/11 to New York and D.C. I find it hard to believe that this so called “threat” came to light during the speech. In fact they later said they knew about this for a month. Now whether it’s true or not, what good timing for the President! Let’s see, say the speech is 53 minutes but finish in 32, then while all the analysts are getting ready to discuss the speech, release a huge statement warning of an impending attack! It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that the 10 year anniversary of 9/11 is probably a good day to assume that if someone wanted to attack us, they just might pick that day! Hope nothing happens but it was pure politics the way the White House played or manipulated the media last night.

Now to the speech itself, I personally just cannot stand the arrogance of this man. He talks down to everyone and expects us to believe that spending another $500 billion dollars now is going to be different than the $800 billion he spent last year. Where are meaningful proposals like a flat tax. I do agree that the uber rich need to pay more but do not subscribe with the democratic agenda of spend (by borrowing now) and pay later. That’s why were in the mess we are now!

Oh well, I don’t expect much to change until after the election. The whole speech was about setting up the narrative for the coming 14 months. Get ready for a wild ride, both sides need to give a little but I don’t see it happening enough to make any real progress, sure hope I’m wrong. I keep wondering if he really wanted progress, how come the President didn’t get with the republicans BEFORE the speech and let them see it so they could mutually agree on some things and then present that to the American people? How come he has not included one single idea from the GOP (they can’t all be bad) in his plans? Boy I sure wish Hillary would have won a few years ago, can’t believe I’m saying that!

Oh well, Mom’s getting ready to walk to school with the boys this morning. I’ll need to go pick her and the scooters up. I picked up the truck yesterday morning and left the suburban at the shop for brakes and an oil change. Uncle T drove me down around 4:30 to pick that up after it was finished. It goes back in Monday to have the front wheel bearings re-sealed or something. All I know is it’s another $500. Time to run, hope everyone is well. Annette, I did get your “warning”, thanks as I wasn’t sure what you meant.

Take care and God Bless,

Tonight the Green Bay Packers, or as the little guy calls them, the Green Bean Packers, play the New Orleans Saints in the first game of the 2011 NFL football season. Now this really marks the beginning of fall. I know my Mom, and Uncle T will be watching for sure. Many of you might not know this but my Mom might just be the biggest football fan in the family, which is quite a statement. Hopefully it’ll be a great game with the Green Bean, err Bay, Packers coming out on top.

Yesterday we had to take the truck in due to the check engine light. Turns out there was a recall we were never notified of and they needed to order some parts so our truck is still in the shop. Luckily this will be covered by our warranty but our other car needs brakes and transmission service tomorrow to the tune of about $800! It never seems to stop.

We went to Back to School night last night and both boys are doing great and have the best teachers in their respective grades. We really didn’t hear much new from the previous 4 years we sat though this, but as a parent you have to go. Uncle T and Aunt B once again came to the rescue and watched the boys for an hour while we ran to school. We picked them up around 6pm and then the boys hit the streets on their bikes for a few hours before bed. When they came in it was time for some reading, the oldest hits the couch on his own and is now reading chapters and the little guy has really progressed too. It’s amazing to see them grow almost daily.

Mom ran some errands for most of the morning while I was on the phone. Today she works from 7 until 3pm so I’ll need to get the boys to school. I have a bunch of work to do, mostly on the phone, again. Not much else going on, it’s now 5:30 and I think I’ll try to get in some exercise before the kids wake up. Hope everyone is doing well, take care and God Bless.

p.s. thanks Grandma Annette for your advice on motorcycles. Apparently her sister’s kids had bikes from the time they were 4 years old and are still riding today. Not sure if she was endorsing the idea or giving us a big warning! We’ll have to call her.

Have a great day!

That’s right, tonight is “back to school night” which is an event for the parents to come with the kids and meet the teachers and I guess, see the school. We will be going (even though we really don’t need to) as it’s an annual event with free pizza for the kids. It’s really just a social event.

Yesterday I picked up the boys from school (the misses was working, remember?) and the oldest told me his teacher wanted to talk to me because he fell in the classroom. I asked him if he was ok and he said “yea” and didn’t understand what the big deal was. So the 3 of us (the boys and I) went to his classroom to see his teacher. She said she just wanted to make sure I knew he tripped and hit his knee. Apparently he tripped over something and banged his knee on something else. This of course was nothing compared to the daily crashes our boys get into but it was nice of her to let me know. I took the opportunity to ask how he was doing and she replied “just great, I hope he really likes 4th grade, I am really glad he’s in my class!”. She went on to say how well he’s doing in detail and what a pleasure, help and joy he is in class. Now this is the first time I’ve had a chance to talk to her so it was good to hear that she too knows what a great kid he is.

The boys and I headed home where I had to jump on the phone while they read some books and grabbed a snack. After a brief spat over some candy bar, all was fine. I tried to clean up the kitchen before the misses arrived home at 5. After a quick clean, the boys and I, just for fun, jumped in the car and drove down to the local motorcycle shop. You see ever since last weekend, it’s all we’ve heard about. I understand this, being a kid and all of a sudden getting the “itch” for something so I decided to let them go dreaming. I told them that if, and it’s a big if, they ever get a motorcycle, it could only be a dirt bike or one that could not be ridden on the roads. My only problem with motorcycles has always been the other people on the roads that could hit you. Most injuries are from riders getting hit by cars, not from motorcycles crashing on their own. Dirt bikes are designed to be ridden “off road” on dirt trails and are actually really fun. I remember as a kid riding my friends Yamaha YZ350 quite a bit off road and boy was it a blast. This sudden infatuation of course is all my buddy Brad’s fault for insisting they get to ride his kids new bike last weekend. To compound the issue, the oldest ones classmate and family friends (Vinnie) all have dirt bikes and ride as a family. The mom, dad and both boys (about the same age as ours) all go riding a bunch. This is one more piece of logic the oldest is using in his argument for us all getting bikes. He comes up with things like “it’d be good for the family and something we could all do together”, boy is he a smart one! Anyhow we arrived at the dealer only to run into Dale, the former head of the meat department at Whole Foods! We’ve known Dale for years and I knew he worked at a motorcycle shop and was a racer as well, but I forgot that this was where he know worked. He gave us the inside tour and scoop on everything and thankfully I made it clear to the boys ahead of time that we were “just looking”. With winter coming on, I’ll get a reprieve until spring so we’ll wait and see if they still have the itch then.

We hurried home to meet up with Mom and warm up some leftover enchiladas for dinner. The rest of the night was pretty uneventful with a little tv and conversation before bed. Today it’s raining lightly with snow above 10,000 feet. Look out, here it comes! This will be the first day the boys will wear long pants to school marking the official change of the seasons.

I have about 4 hours of calls this morning with 3 different producers (winemakers) in Italy and we also need to take our truck into the shop due to the “check engine” light that is stuck on. I did have the plumber come over last night around dinner to check our pipes and sewer smell in the basement. The power of prayer works in mysterious ways as it turns out the smell was from a drain or vent pipe that for the 10 years we’ve lived here, had never been capped! Bob the plumber told me it’ll cost $100 to solder on cap but that that would fix the problem and our main sewer line is just fine, whew, what a relief. We surely didn’t need to deal with that!

I think I’ll skip politics today as I don’t want to lose any of you. The family is doing well, still fighting to keep up with all the bills and cleaning but overall everyone is happy and well. We hope everyone out there is well too. I’ve been trying to get the misses to write for a day or two and hope you will all get to hear from her maybe on Friday.

Anyhow, take care, God Bless and stay safe.