A Year of Change

Well it looks like my wine is stuck in Munich Germany and is now scheduled to arrive on July 3rd! I hope it gets out earlier because I need it now, not a week from now. With the holiday coming up, I probably won’t see it until the 5th. Both boys have swimming lessons today and Grandma graciously offered to pay for them, hooray! It’s supposed to be in the mid 90’s today and 100 tomorrow. Looks like we’ll have a high power bill this month with the air conditioner going a lot.

The boys and I went to the dermatologist yesterday where I had a little pre cancer spot frozen off on my leg and the youngest had a wart on his big toe shaved off and frozen again. He sure was brave. We also got to see our doctor friends 5 week old little girl, the misses sure was jealous when she heard. Our dermatologist is actually a close friend and luckily we never get charged a dime. They’re (she, her husband and her daughter are all dermatologists) really good to us. We were stuck in the exam room for a good 20 minutes where I had to sit through both boys hysterical laughter as they were making fart sounds with their arm pits. Once they started there was no stopping them. It was really kind of funny, not the fart sounds but their non stop laughter.

We made it home and Mom showed up about 15 minutes later. The rest of the day was spent with playing outside and then dinner. This morning I have a meeting at 10am across town and then another at 1. Since it’s going to be so hot, I’m going to bring in a bunch of water I have stored in the garage, because it’s not good to have water in plastic bottles get too hot. We’re saving up for a Country Living Grain Mill which is about $400. We need this to grind our own wheat (we have a few hundred pounds stored) to make our own bread. We figured it out and we can make bread for about .83 a loaf instead of the $5 to $6 a loaf it now costs in the store plus it’s a lot better for you. We’ve put this ahead of a microwave although cold leftovers sure aren’t as good as warmed up ones. We have also stored some beans in bulk and have some quinoa (a grain which we love that’s high in protein) on the way. It’s nice to have this food stored but the main reason for buying in bulk is that’s we save about 60 to 70 % when we buy this way. The problem right now is finding these grains and foods available in bulk. It seems there’s a lot of people buying this way and most places have a 3 month or more wait. We watched a National Geographic show last night on what they called “Preppers”. This is a term used to describe people that are preparing for some kind of hardship in the future. Sure you have some wackos that think the world is coming to an end but most of them (us included) are just looking out for interruptions in supply or huge price increases which we see almost daily. You don’t know it but from what they say, a lot of your neighbors are actually preparing in some fashion like this, it’s just nobody talks about it for fear of being labeled as crazy or wacko. Like I said before, you really can’t get hurt buying extra food as you’ll eventually use it. Anyhow we prefer to think of ourselves like a farm or ranch family from years ago that keeps a healthy reserve of life’s necessities on hand. I remember as a kid my grandparents had lots of canned food stored in their basement, a full garden always growing and could probably have gotten by for a while with little help. I’ll have to ask my Mom more about this. Anyhow like I said yesterday, if you don’t think this way now, you probably never will. Just hope that nothing happens that’ll shut the system down. It will only take 3 days of trucks not delivering food for all grocery stores to be totally empty, think about it, just 3 days! Could be a truckers strike, another terrorist act, a natural disaster or some political event. I don’t know how anyone can really think the government will be there for them. Just look at their response to Katrina or any of the recent tornados or floods, they were not prepared to help and people had to rely on themselves. Oh well, sorry for the sermon but we just think a lot of people are living in denial. Hope we’re wrong, it’s just we personally aren’t going to chance it. Even our mainstream church has taken up the cause telling everyone in the congregation to go out and get a minimum of 3 months worth of food and water for everyone in the family. Don’t know if you know but the Church of Later Day Saints (the mormons) require that every member keep a years worth of food on hand! In fact, the LDS centers (that are all over the country including here in Denver) are great places to get food in bulk. Ok ok I’ll stop now but please don’t think I have enough for you too although I wouldn’t let anyone in my family starve, wouldn’t be the good christian thing to do now would it. You’ll just have to sit through a lot of “I told you so’s” if I’m sharing with you. That alone should make you want to go out and get some supplies for yourself.

Time to go, it’s almost 7am. I didn’t intend to go off on a tangent and frankly we never share our views with friends but you all which are family, at least need to know what we think you should all be doing. This will be it as far as trying to tell you what to do, no more, zip, nada, that’s all folks, so at least think about it before you just dismiss the whole thing, better safe than sorry, right?

Take care and God Bless,

Wait, the wife says you all think I’m wacko anyhow, ok no food for you! and Grandma Dixie I’m told thinks I’m a survivalist, what, where do you all get this! How can this be? So I like guns and a simpler way of life although Grandma Dixie says we have no idea as it was not a simpler way at all! I’m sure she’s right and hope we never have to find out but if we do, at least we’ll be eating well!

Hard to believe that this Friday will be July 1st! In another 2 weeks we’ll be half way through summer. Yesterday was another swim meet however we ducked out after a couple of hours. We have another meet this Wednesday along with football and just couldn’t hang out for 3 hours or more between races. Both boys were not up for the long wait and we certainly were not. Uncle T and Aunt B watched the boys for a couple of hours while the misses and I ran an errand. The rest of the day was spent lounging around the house and included the whole family watching, you guessed it, another John Wayne movie, McClintock. There sure have been a lot of his movies on lately and the boys, especially the youngest really enjoy all cowboy movies.

Both Mom and I are up at 5 as she works at 7:15. I need to clean the garage today because we have a bunch of wine being delivered tomorrow. A lot of the week will then be consumed with repackaging wine and shipping fed ex to various spots around the country. It’s a huge job that really gives the misses and I a workout. I also have a 1pm dermatologist appointment today and will need to take the boys with me. It’s a huge week at work with about $500,000 dollars worth of orders that still need to come in. I think I have most lined up but with so many markets, (about a dozen yet to order) the odds are something will fall out, hope not.

There’s no swim meets next weekend so we’re thinking of going to the Greeley Stampede which is a pretty good size rodeo that goes on for about 2 weeks each year in Colorado. It’s local and won’t cost us very much money so it’s looking good. We’re supposed to get a break from the heat today with about a 20 degree drop in temperature to the mid 70’s. That sure will be nice, if the weatherman is right. Mom’s off at 3pm so we’ll all arrive home about the same time. No time to dive into the economy or politics today. Plus if you don’t think you need to do a few things to prepare in case of the worst scenario, nothing I say is going to make you change your mind. Just have an open mind and please don’t assume the government is going to be there for you if things get bad.

Time to go hit the showers, Mom’s making breakfast and the oldest needs to get up for swim team in about 15 minutes. Have a great day and take care,

Yesterday we spent 6 1/2 hours at the swim meet which started about 6:30 and our last race was at 1pm. Man it was painful. Today we’re back at it headed up the hill at about 6am for another meet. Both boys did really well considering they have had virtually no experience swimming on a team at all. The oldest won his first ever race which was a 50 meter freestyle. The rest of the day brought him back to reality as he was usually 3rd or 4th. He still did great as he was going against kids who’ve been swimming competitively for a long time. The youngest would have won his backstroke race but he turned over on his stomach at the last minute and was disqualified. The oldest was also dq’d on his last race which was breaststroke because he only touched the wall at the end with one hand. Seems you have to touch with two hands at the same time or you’re out. Oh well, live and learn. A friend of ours kid (who used to babysit the boys and who they’ve looked up to for years) is now 13 years old and holds a number of state records. He’s such a good kid and went up to both boys often during the day to offer advice and console them when they didn’t do as well as they had hoped. The youngest was particularly broken up over being disqualified, tears and all until Jack told him that he too had dq’s about a billion times! That and a jamba juice quickly helped him get over it. Anyhow it was a fun day, lots of social interaction between races, at little drama not worth going into to, and lots of sun. I can’t believe we’re doing it all over again today, we sure are good parents!

I then ran to the grocery store while Mom showered the germs from the pool (which was really gross) off both boys. We then headed off to the Old West Show where we got to see the 2″ X 3″ tin photograph of Billy the Kid. 3 hours after we left this supposedly one and only photo of Billy the Kid sold at auction for $2.3 million dollars! It was so small and faded you had to get really close to even make it out. The rest of the show was fun with all kinds of relics from the old west. There’s something about historical items from the west that are timeless and conjure up dreams of being a cowboy, life on the range and a simpler time that bring out the kid in everyone. They really had some neat stuff, we were wishing our friend who has the $5o million dollar ranch in Saratoga was here or had hired us to buy some things for his ranch and lodge as we saw tons of stuff that would have looked really good at his place. We managed to do a pretty good deal with a guy from Steamboat for a couple of small pillows (Mom’s been looking for these for a long time) that will change the whole decor of our living room. She’s headed for the Ralph Lauren western theme, ever since we saw his ranch on Oprah, slowly but surely.

Time to go as we need to leave in about 15 or 20 minutes and I need to shower first. The little guy is up but the oldest is still fast asleep. Hope everyone has a great day and as John Wayne once said, we’re burning daylight. God Bless,

That’s right, it’s 4;15 in the morning and I’m up because with a swim meet at 6:30 this is how early I need to rise to get to the gym. I like getting up early but this is pushing it just a bit. You know the old saying, you gotta do what you gotta do.

Yesterday was mostly spent out of the office. Uncle T and Aunt B picked the boys up at the pool after swim practice and off they went to Heritage Square. They were gone from about 10 until almost 2 and from what I’m told, had a blast. The day was filled with rides on things like the Alpine Slide and capped off with lunch and gifts for the boys. We were talking later in the day that none of us (maybe Mom) had Uncles and Aunts that took us places like T & B. I offered to grill up some burgers when I picked up the boys at 2 as T & B looked wiped out and had no plans for dinner. I called Grandma who gladly accepted a burger but asked if we could deliver it because she’d been working so much she hadn’t even had the time to take a shower. So when Mom arrived home from work at 5:10, she dove right into getting all the fixings ready for hamburgers. I started the grill and off we went. Uncle T and I ran a burger up to Grandma and then headed back to the house to chow down with the boys, Aunt B and the misses. It was really thoughtful for T & B to take the boys and help us out as we had a packed day of work.

On another note, in the morning I had to run up to a buddy’s house who is a Master Gunsmith. This guy is probably one of the top 5 gun builders of 1911’s or Colt style 45 ACP’s in the World. I had helped him out and arranged for a store I know to sell his $4000 1911’s and he finally had a couple ready that I was picking up and delivering. The kid (I call him a kid as Luke’s about 30 or so) is backlogged about a year, meaning if you order a gun now, you’ll get it about July 2012! That’s how in demand he is. It’s refreshing to see a young guy that’s such a craftsman. Anyhow his parents and grandparents were visiting from Iowa and he wanted me to meet them. They were really nice people and while visiting, his dad was remodeling his kitchen. He installed new cabinets, countertops, and tore out a wall or two to open up the house. We hit it off (like I usually do with people) and I joked how lucky he was as when my in-laws visit they just drink my wine and eat my food, his remodel his house! This is really a joke because they buy the groceries, we cook the food and we all enjoy a game of Bridge.We (he mostly) finished putting together the first 3 of his new alloy model 1911’s and then we headed to his make shift range behind his house to give them a run. I won’t go too much into it as you have to be a “gun guy” to appreciate it, but Luke’s work is equal to that of a fine artist. Anyhow much to my surprise, I came home with the first 4 1/4 alloy framed 1911 he made under his new company name as a gift ( I threw in a new M1A to help offset his costs) for brokering a deal that’ll make him $40,000 or so on the 10 guns my friend ordered for his store. This thing shoots like a dream, even the misses will enjoy it. It’ll definitely be my new go to carry piece. But the thing to take away from all this is that his in-laws came to visit and built him a new kitchen!

Then I was off to the airport to go to British Air Cargo (British Airways) to pre-pay a small fee to clear customs when my wine is flown in from Italy via Germany this weekend. It’s now about 5am and I need to run to get to the gym, get home and showered and then off to the swim meet. There are 3 teams competing today so it’ll be a long long meet. I sure hope all our events are in the morning.

Mom’s a little wiped out from being on her feet all day yesterday and giving Bunkie a shot every single day, morning and night, is taking its toll. It’s now turned into at least a half an hour each morning and night as he’s getting a little finicky about eating which he must first do before getting a shot. She did get a pass last night as the neighbor was over but it’s just a hassle to do this every morning and night but as the misses says, she’s in and has to do it. What a good girl she is!

Time to run because I need to be home in an hour so it’ll be a quick workout. Have a great weekend and God Bless,

Mom heads back to work today from 8:15 until 5pm. She’s only working a couple of days a week as it costs as much to have someone stay with the boys as she makes. On top of that with me traveling a bit here and there, it’s difficult in the summertime to have her gone a bunch. She still brings in some much needed extra cash and the best thing is we still have our grocery discount which is worth about $400 a month to us. We’re frankly addicted to the “love card” as we call it and just love seeing our bill reduced by 20% every time we go shopping.

The boys have swimming again this morning and then Uncle T is taking them to Heritage Square. This is kind of an old west amusement park the boys love. I need to run out to the airport to pay a handling fee to British Air Cargo for 120 cases of wine I have flying in from Italy tomorrow. This will get delivered on Monday and then next week will be spent separating and shipping wine all over the Country. I had one of my employees call yesterday from San Francisco and tell me he had a great job offer from a french importer that he couldn’t refuse. I gave him his first supplier (wine importer) job and he’s a really good kid. I’m sorry to see him go but I’d never want to hold anyone back and this other company is really overpaying him so I gave him my blessing. This means I’ll be in California a couple of times (at least) in July. He is extremely loyal to me and is going to handle some pre-arranged events in July so I’m not left hanging. The one good thing is there’s a lot of qualified wine people in California so I’m sure I’ll find someone good pretty quick.

Tomorrow we have a swim meet that starts at 6am, again. It’s getting kind of old having something going EVERY morning at 6am. Now I like to get up early but it’s because I have some time to catch up on my things and go to the gym. Now it’s off to swimming practice or meets. Oh well, as long as the boys love it, I’m in. We also have a meet this Sunday so it’ll be no sleeping in until at least a week from Sunday. This weekend is also a famous Old West Show and Auction here in Denver. The highlight is a 2″ x 3″ print from the 1800’s that was shot on metal of Billy the Kid, that’s estimated to go for $400,000! We love going to this show and it’s only once a year so we’ll be headed there after the swim meet. They have everything from saddles to art to old pottery and just about anything else you can imagine that’s associated with the old west. Maybe I’ll see if Grandma wants to go as she’d enjoy it a lot.

Mom finally got in touch with her dad, Grandpa Bob yesterday. She’s been trying since fathers day but when she switched cell phones, her sim card dumped all her numbers. She has been trying to find his number by calling everyone she knew but couldn’t track it down. Grandma Dixie even tried but couldn’t come up with it, and she knows everyone! You see he’s been fishing up in Oregon and no one knew how to get in touch with him. Finally she reached him last night in Sacramento. It seems he had some kind of heart palpitations and went to the hospital. When she called, his “significant other/wife” said, “How come you didn’t call? “Your daddy needed you”. Now of course this didn’t make the misses feel any better and she’s been bummed out ever since fathers day when she wasn’t able to call him. I think the bigger question here is , why didn’t SHE or they call when they didn’t hear from HER? She has always called and they should have thought, maybe something’s wrong here, but no one surmised that possibility. Oh well, at least she reached him last night.

It’s now 6:15 and Mom’s getting the oldest one up for practice. I should shower while the little guys still asleep. I actually have a call in 15 minutes so time to get moving. We hope everyone has a good weekend and if there’s every any holiday and we don’t call you, CALL US!

Take care and God Bless,

Lacey the lab woke me at 2am to go to the bathroom and I never quite got back into a deep sleep. We then got up at 6 to get ready to get the oldest ready for swim team. Yesterday was a big day of sports for the boys. First swim team from 6:30 to 9:30, then they swam and played at the pool from 12:30 until 3 and then headed to football from 6 until 8pm. Both boys did great at football. The oldest played quite a bit of quarterback and it’s clear he has the strongest arm on the team. Meanwhile the little one was the tallest on his team and turned out to be super fast and not only scored a touchdown on a long run (due to his new long legs) but was also a star on defense. Mom showed up for most of it but had to leave early because of allergies.

Yesterday her mother called concerned as the day before when I was in San Francisco, the misses had a bad allergy attack. She was talking with her mother and trying to determine the cause, when the misses said she had a nut bar (as in candy bar) earlier in the day and thought perhaps the nuts gave her a reaction. Well it turns out my good mother in law, always looking out for me and our marriage, thought she said she “went to the Nut Bar” as in a actual bar. So mom-in-law called the misses up and wanted to know if she’s unhappy and why she’d be going out to a bar drinking while her sweet, fantastic, one of a kind, hard working husband is on a business trip to San Francisco! Personally I thought this was a perfectly logical question given the circumstances and am happy to know my mother in law is watching out for me. Too funny, huh.

The next funny moment of the day was when Mom suggested to the boys that she could call Uncle T and see if they could come down for a visit. Now the boys are already scheduled for a day of fun with him tomorrow so our oldest said to her, “Mom, we don’t want to max Uncle T out like we do credit cards, maybe we should stay home”. This also is pretty priceless. It turns out my Dallas trip is postponed but it’s great Uncle T is still taking the boys as I have a lot of work to do, thanks Uncle T.

It’ll be almost 90 today and will continue through the next week. Looks like Obama is playing to his base for political points by bringing home more troops from Afghanistan than his Generals recommend. Personally I think we should bring them all home, we cannot be the World’s policemen any longer as we have far too many problems of our own. Plus, we just can’t afford it! A noted Harvard (and Nobel Prize) economist put it into perspective the other day when he said “Europe is the trigger and the U.S. is the bomb”. If you pay any attention to what’s happening overseas, (which you should as the whole World is connected and what happens over there impacts us over here), we’re all still in real trouble. I’ll leave it at but as I’ve said before, do me a favor and when you go grocery shopping, buy a few extra cans of your favorite canned goods and some extra pasta and sauce or whatever you like to eat that is not perishable. Trust me, you’ll be glad you did! If I’m wrong, you’ll just have some extra food which you’ll use anyhow so it’s really a win win strategy. As Nike says, Just Do It!

I have lots of calls (again) today so I need to get moving. Mom’s making the beds and the littlest one is ready to go the pool where the older boy has been for the past hour swimming away. Hope everyone is doing well, is healthy and happy, and we’ll talk soon.

God Bless,

As you could probably tell, it wasn’t me but rather the misses who wrote the blog yesterday. If you remember, I was in San Francisco. It’s easy to tell, as the misses sees life through much more colorful glasses than I do, I just love her descriptive observations of the morning sky.

San Francisco was great, about 80 degrees and sunny. It was actually 95 when I left Napa headed back to the airport for my 3pm flight. It was a good meeting. Not many of you probably really understand what I do so here’s a brief look into my work life. I’m the one who is 100% responsible for getting somewhere between $500,000 and $1 million dollars of revenue for the Company each month. I have about 40 distributors around the country and need to oversee each of them to make sure they stay on track and continue to sell and buy wine. If just one market doesn’t order in a given month, it can ruin that particular month and even throw the company off for the entire year. Needless to say I’m under a lot of pressure to perform every month. It has its stressful moments but I’m pretty much immune to it as it’s a daily thing for me. I actually got my no fear, take risk attitude from my mother. You see growing up she was about the bravest person I knew. I won’t go into details but some of the choices she made with no idea of how to get through them, just for the well being of her kids, makes my job look like a day at the beach. So if you think about it, the reason I’m self employed, and take all the risks I do, and have no fear, is all because of her! The difference is she didn’t have a choice whether or not to be brave and take risks, I do. Deep down, I wouldn’t have it any other way. It keeps me sharp and on my toes and is challenging every single day. I couldn’t imagine a mundane 9 to 5 job where you do the same thing everyday. Oh well, we’re all wired differently.

Anyhow it’s 6:15am, I just got back from the gym and Moms waking the oldest for swim team. I guess he had a great first day and did really well. We also have football tonight for both boys from 6 until 8. Busy busy! Mom had really bad allergies yesterday, the cotton (from the cottonwood trees) is just killing her. I guess it was so bad she had to take 2 allergy pills. She did manage to get 1 1/2 hours of yoga in which really helps how she feels. In fact, exercise and the endorphins it releases will make anyone feel better. Trust me, if you’re not working out, you’re missing out on a great high.

Well it’s time to take Mark Spitz junior to swim practice so time to sign off. It’s going to be 85 or 90 today and everything’s still really green.

Take care and have a great day,

Good morning to all. The rain has passed and the sunrise is beautiful. It’s 5:21 a.m. and the sun has just crested over the horizon. The colors are lovely…bright yellow and gold in the center of the sun with muted rings of salmon, orange and pink resonating outward to fill the eastern sky. To the west the clouds are purple and silver against a grey blue background waiting to be kissed by the sun.  I love watching the sunrise…..however…5:21a.m. comes just a bit early for this girl.

My man is already gone for his business trip. The alarm went off at 3:30 and he was out of here at 4:30…..Yea….he made the morning coffee. Most mornings he does make the coffee which is such a nice treat to come downstairs and pour my coffee to start the day. He is a very sweet man.

Swim team is on this morning so I need to get the kiddos up at 6:10, so the oldest may hit the water by 6:30. I know that it is early, but it was the boys decision to enter this sport for the summer and I will do my part to get them to practice. I of course have secretly been wanting them to swim since they were 5 and 7…

After swimming this morning we will check with Grandma to see if we can run the dogs in her pasture…..then we will do our school work, clean up a bit around here and perhaps hit the pool again for some fun.

I am really sad that I couldn’t get in touch with my Dad yesterday, so I will continue to look for his cell number.  I have checked on all of the important papers he has given me over the years…to my chagrin…no luck. My mom and I have called all of his friends that we think may have his cell number and still no luck. I am trying a new tactic today….to find the name of the place he stays at the Rogue River to see if I may at least get a message to him. Wish me luck on my endeavor.

The oldest is up….time to roust the youngest and get on with the day.

God Bless to all,

LLF

Does anyone remember the hit song Monday Monday from the Mama’s and the Papa’s? Remember they had Mama Cass, the really big heavy female singer who choked on a sandwich? If you don’t, they were a great band made up of two women and two men in the 60’s. Anyhow, onto the day……

Yesterday was a fun filled Fathers Day that was relatively uneventful and capped off with a bbq of chicken, ribs, coleslaw, baked beans and cornbread. To finish it off the boys and Mom made a pineapple upside down cake using coconut flour which is gluten (wheat) free. It was Mom’s first try using this flour and although a bit dry, tasted really good. (she now knows what to add to this flour next time to ensure a moist cake) I didn’t even know they made coconut flour but it made the whole cake taste like a giant macaroon, it was really good.

It’s raining hard as it has been all night and we had Mojo sleep inside last night. Sometime during the night or morning he busted out of the crate and had free roam of the house. I think he got out after Mom fed him breakfast I’m now being told. It’s 6am and Mom’s showered and downstairs getting ready to go to work as she’s on from 7:15 until 2 today.

We went grocery shopping yesterday and by the time we were checking out our bill was $300, and that’s with our discount! This only bought us about 5 bags of food, everything has gone way up in price lately. The misses tried all day to get in touch with Grandpa Bob who is somewhere fishing in Oregon, to wish him happy fathers day but couldn’t track down his cell phone anywhere. She did manage to reach Pa Don who is doing well in Sacramento. It’s going to be a hot week with evening storms, but for today, swim team is cancelled. This is good news because I’d have a hard time taking the boys with all the work calls I have that start at 8am. Tomorrow I’m up at 3:30 for a 6am flight to San Francisco so Mom will have to do the blog.

Not much else going on, trying to stay ahead of the bills, keep the kids busy and get my work done. We did manage to commandeer an old used rug from Uncle T and Aunt B that we saw in their garage. It’s worn but is nice colors and looks good in the front room. We’ll use this for a while until we can find something else. The news is saying it’s actually snowing in the mountains, what a cold season it’s been up there.

Time to hit the shower before Mom leaves and the boys get up, hope everyone is well and happy, have a great day and God Bless.

It’s 4:33am and my coffee is made, the dogs are fed but the paper is not yet here. I remember Father’s Day last year vividly. We had a bbq down at Uncle T and Aunt B’s and Grandpa (my dad) came in using a walker. He was still of sound mind but you could tell he was hurting a bit from falling a week or so earlier. It wasn’t too much longer until he passed away, in fact, it was about 2 months later to the day. It’s been a long year for all of us, especially my Mom. I don’t want to dwell too much on this to make my Mom sad but it’s important to remember what a great guy he was. My dad was the most unselfish, caring, humble, honest, hard working man anyone could ever know. The tragedy of the whole thing was that at the time of his life when he should have been able to enjoy the fruits of his life long labors, he was no longer able to. I believe God has a master plan for us all and this was all just part of his plan for my dad, so no reason to be sad. I’m sure he’s looking down on all of us right now from heaven where he’s probably God’s #2 making sure everything up there is running smooth and fair.

So today let’s all celebrate our Dads. You see to me Father’s Day is not really a holiday for me (even though I’m a father),  it’s still about my Dad. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll enjoy the day and all the extra attention from kids, it’s just deep down it’ll still be a day for my Dad. I won’t go into all the great memories I have, but for me, everyday I try to be more and more the type of man he was. Even though he’s gone, he’s still such a big influence on my life, I think about him everyday and often ask myself, what would Dad do. If I end up being half the man he was, I’ll be ok. Anyhow, like I said, he’s looking down on all of us and is happy and at peace, it’s just I (and everyone else) miss him very much.

Now onto the day, yesterday morning the little one had two swim races, the freestyle and the back stoke. He placed 3rd (I think) in the first race and 2nd in the next. He was so cute and we were so proud of him. He was in heats 18 and 54 so we finished around 10am. After this we headed home and then decided to run over to Bed Bath and Beyond. I remember a friend of ours telling me a while ago that she took this air humidifier/purifier back a few years after she bought it and they took it back no questions asked. As it turns out we had the same one so on a lark I called the store, kindly explained I had the same unit and told them how it didn’t really work, and that I didn’t have a receipt and must have bought it 2 to 3 years ago. Much to my surprise they told me to bring it in and they’d look it up and give me store credit! For the next half hour the misses and I frantically searched the house looking for this thing hoping we didn’t throw it out. She finally found it tucked into a corner of the garage so we loaded up the kids and headed off to the store. When we got there I took it up to the counter and found the young man I talked to on the phone. He looked at the thing and said, “oh yeah, the Venta, they went out of business”. He then explained he’d look up the last price but thought it was around $50 and I’d get that much in store credit. We were thrilled and said “great, we’ll start shopping while you look it up”. Now I didn’t remember what I paid but when I came back up to the counter, he told me I had $199.95 in store credit! Wow, what a surprise. So after some more shopping we came home with about $240 worth of new, much needed items for the house for a mere $40!

After we got home my Mom called and asked if we (the misses and I) wanted to go out to a nice adult place for dinner with her and Uncle T (Aunt B is out of town) for Father’s Day. Now we didn’t have a sitter for the boys and I knew they’d want to be included, plus it’d be at least $200 or more to go to dinner, so I suggested to my Mom that we just get some good food and cook it up here for about a third of the cost. She said she’d get back to me. About a half hour later Uncle T called and asked if we wanted to come to a dinner party at his house. So at about 5pm, we all (Grandma, the boys, the misses and I) headed down to Uncle T’s for a great dinner of steak, crab, asparagus and sauteed mushrooms. It was a really good meal and even a better time at at least half the cost of going out. We hung out in the backyard and after dinner Grandma decided to go home. The misses then went to give Bunkie his evening shot while the boys and I hung out with Uncle T. When the misses returned, we were sitting in the backyard enjoying the evening and Grandma called just to talk. Uncle T tried to convince her into coming back but wasn’t having much luck so he handed the phone to the misses who I told to just say, “I’m coming up to get you in the truck” and then quickly hang up the phone. She did this and 10 minutes later, Grandma was back enjoying the evening with us. We joked that as soon as she got back, we would all say, “we’re tired now, ok time to go”! After another hour’s worth of conversation and laughs we took Grandma back home and headed home with the boys. They were pretty amped up from the Orange Cush soda with dinner but finally headed off to bed.

Today I’ll bbq up some chicken for us all around 5. Aunt B should be home from Pueblo by then so it’ll be Grandma, Uncle T, Aunt B, and us for dinner. Hope the weather holds out as were supposed to get some afternoon storms.

The house is still pretty clean and after we go to the gym and probably head up to Red Rocks to go hiking, I think I’ll tackle the garage. I need to do a little bit of work before tomorrow morning but’ll probably just get up at 4 tomorrow to do this. I have a 6am flight Tuesday so I’ll be getting up at 3:30 then so I might as well get in the groove.

I think I’ll go for a run or hit the elliptical machine downstairs for a cardio workout before everyone wakes up. I should run to the store for the misses since I just used all the half and half which I know she likes in her coffee. One more thing I just have to tell you. The misses was telling me a story yesterday about our oldest yesterday that’s too funny. It seems he was riding home from soccer or something with his good friend whose Mom was driving. Suddenly she snapped at the boys for some unknown reason and quickly caught herself and told the boys that she was sorry and out of line for losing her cool and yelling at them. Our oldest then replied, “it’s ok, my Mom gets pheromones too”. Now of course he meant hormones, we think, but how funny is that!

So to close, think of some fond memories of you and your dad, and enjoy the day as tomorrow it’s back to kids day, which is everyday right? Take care and God Bless,