From Our Family to Yours...

Real DOUBLE Trouble

Hey Now!

What a week it has been - and boy am I thankful for the Christmas holiday and the time I have off this and next week!!!

So here's my story.

Sunday morning, I take a 36 hour run to Chicago, IL. I get back 9ish Monday night.
Tuesday morning they have me scheduled out at 8am for Baton Rouge, LA. Cool.

Get to the bakery and the guy I'm running with wants to drive all the way down, we unload, and I drive all the way back. Fine, it's only 500, or so, miles. No big deal.

So we get to Baton Rouge about 4p and I'm hearing every time he hits his brakes, a serious air leak. Turns out, on the interstate, he was following a doublewide being transported. Well that doublewide blew two tires and rubber was flying everywhere. It just so happened that one chunk flew under out trailer and broke an air hose to one of the brakes. So everytime he stepped on the brake, pffhhhhhssssssssssttttttttt!

Once we got to the warehouse, the first thing we did was call the shop back at the bakery to get us someone to come out and fix it while we were working. They did, and called back to let us know they'd be out soon. So the towing company calls and my co-driver tells them we'll be working here for 4 hours just to make it in that time. Mistake!!! They didn't end up showing up until 10:40p. Of course it only took 10 minutes to replace the broken airline, but meanwhile we sat for 2 1/2 hours waiting. I of course saw no need to just sit and wait, so I climbed in the bunk and slept.

We finally got to the 2nd drop, emptied out and I started driving us home a midnight. At 3am I crossed the state line from LA into MS and had to pull into the weight station. I got the green light and as I worked my way up through the gears heading down the on ramp, I hear this extremely loud 'Pop' under the hood. Well, that got my adrenline a pumpin. The by product of this pop was that I had no power. The truck wouldn't go more than 45 miles per hour.

I pulled over at the next off ramp and looked under the hood for problems. None to be seen. So again I called the shop at the bakery to let them know of the problems. I found a truck stop at exit 15 and pulled in and shut it down. This truck stop was also 'shut down.' Nothing open. So the bakery calls back telling me they're trying get in touch with the Supervisor at our Pervis, MS outstation to get them to bring us a tractor. I figured it was going to be a while, so I climb into the bunk to snooze. They call back at 7:20a to say a replacement tractor is on the way and after it's delivered, we need to hang out with the broken down tractor until the tow truck picks it up.

All right. At 9a, the replacement tractor shows up. We talk with the guys for a few minutes, then they take off. We swap tractors, and the gear inside, then settled down to wait for the tow truck. It was supposed to be there by 10:30a. That time came and went, 11:30 came and still no tow truck. I call the bakery, "Where's the tow truck?" They call the towing company, um He had and emergency run for the police and is leaving to get our tractor right now. Should be 40 min. An hour goes by, I call again - still no tow truck. They call - Oh he's getting close - should be there soon. We wait 40 minutes, still no tow truck. Another call, and then another call. The tow truck didn't get there until 1:30p. We sat there for 14 1/2 hours. Over all we got close to 17 hours of delay time on this trip for the 2 breakdowns.

Aarrrgh. What an annoying trip!

I am thankful to be home for the holidays!!!

Merry Christmas you all!!!

Family Photos

Every 6 months we go to the Wal-mart portrait studio and have a picture taken of our Birhday Daughter. Of course they LOVE to take extra photos to try and sell you a BUNCH more pics and poses etc. So a while back we decided to get an updated family photo every year and this year we decided to change it to the fall.

So when we went in to get Natalie's 4 year old pic, we had some other poses taken and here they are!

Happy Holidays and Enjoy!



This pose was actually 100% Joelle's idea! CUTE!!!

GeoCaching Milestone - Belated

We recently hit a big milestone in our hobby of Geocaching and I'm extremely suprised that I neglected to mention it at all on my site here. Shame on me. Wonder what else I am failing to post about?? Probably quite a bit because I don't have the time or the access as I once had to update on a regular basis.

On the trip in Oct to Myrtle Beach, Doreen and I found ThePesters4 100th Geocache. We got into geocaching in Nov of 2004 and it took us almost 2 years to rack up 100 finds. Well, as of today (this week we found 4) we now have 110.)

So that tells me, we've got to step it up a bit and get out more to go GEOCACHING! Yeee haw! :)

Today, we just found our 1st "First to Find." Basically that means that someone hid a geocache, published it on the the geocaching.com website and we were the first to go find it! Sweeeeet!

It was a fun find too. Had to scale a small 'mountain' to get up to where it was hidden. What a blast!

I love Geocaching!!!

What a Week

Hoooooowwwwwwwdeeeeeeee!

Well, we have had quite the week here. Plus the weather is getting freaky, so - quite the week, quite the week! (It got down to 12 degrees last night, that is EXTREMELY cold for TN! :)

It all started with me only asking for 2 trips this week because Joelle & Natalie were going to ride a float in the Collegedale parade and I wanted to be here for that.

So I had the pleasure of being home the entire weekend, last weekend.

Got to enjoy my little ones in the parade - I'll have to get caught up on some pics here soon - and then got home, chilled for a bit, then left for work. Took a trip up to Toledo, OH. Not a bad place - just a kind of a pain on the where we pick up our back haul - slowville! It kills us on our log books.

Got home Tuesday at 8am and left back out at 3pm for a Mississippi run. 3 Simple stops, easy run.

On the return home the bakery called asking me to take another quickie run. So I said "yeah." The plan was to arrive at the yard a 2a, hook the tractor up to the trailer and run for Dallas, GA. Well - you know about the best laid plans of mice and men, yup that's what happened here.

Got in and my co-driver wasn't back from his previous trip yet, the trailer was waiting on some cases they were short of and to boot, my name had come up for a random drug screen. I had to go pee in a cup before leaving on the trip.

I headed over to the nurses station disgusted, because I had JUST gone before leaving the house.

So I sat there for about 45 min, drank about 8 glasses of water and finally was able to 'participate' in the drug screen.

All told, we get through the gate on the way out at 4:45a. So on the way south, we do run into a bit of rush-hour traffic in N Atlanta. We get to the drop and empty the trailer and head home. Week over - work wise.

So we've been 'gearing' up for a baby shower we're throwing for some good friends of ours on Sunday. Unfortunately, I've been at work, Doreen has been studying for some tests and we've had other things taking our attention.

Well, a few lists later, we get a plan of attack and get to work. This afternoon, we got a HUGE chunk of stuff done.

Hope it comes off right or this will be a 'bad' week.

So far, it's been unusual, extremely busy but very, VERY good!

What a week! :)

Little (but growing quickly) Elves

We finally were able to get our Christmas stuff put up this week. We were gone for Thanksgiving, which is typically when we put up our holiday stuff. So - when my trips for work finally finished for the week, we had Thursday afternoon to put up our Christmast stuff. Of course the girls HAD to put on the Santa hats we have. It was so VERY cute that I had to snap a quick photo of my little elves! What precious cuties!!!

They're going to be in a Parade on Sunday. Hope to get some good pics of that to put up for your enjoyement in the future!

Happy Holidays All!!! :)

A Walk Thru Bethlehem OR Project Almost Done

It was cool. We ran some errands today and ate at our favorite Chinese restaurant after Doreen finished an A&P II test at school. (By the way, she scored a 98% on it. Awesome!!! She only missed one question. During lunch she kept 'kicking' herself for missing that "easy" question.) We got home at 3p and about 3:15 some friends called wanting to know if we wanted to go to a local church in Ringgold, GA to 'Walk thru Bethlehem?' tonight at 5:30p? Sure we replied and so we quickly did some things that NEEDED to get done, slapped a quick munchie dinner for the girls and headed out. It was awesome. This church does a GREAT job of recreating Bible times on their property with stores, and the inn and the gate going into Bethelehem - with a 'tax collector' to Roman soldiers and angels, disciples, wisemen, shepherds etc! It is very uplifting and we're super glad we went.

So, a few weeks ago, I made a passing mention on a project we were working on. Well - it is 95% finished - so let me unveil it. (Especially for those of you who can't or won't ever see it in person.)

I've always wanted a 'Denver Bronco' room - and NOW, now I have it.

We've been working on painting it and getting stuff - read "JUNK" - cleaned out of it and getting it fixed up to be the ultimate 'Pester's' Bronco room.

Today we put most of the final touches on it by hanging my Bronco memorabilia, putting up a curtain (Which is Bronco Navy Blue) over the closet and hanging a new window shade, which is also Bronco Navy Blue.

We've still got a few small things to finish and stuff, but for the most-part it is all done and just very, VERY cool!

You gotta come visit and sleep in the guest/Denver Bronco room. It is awesome, and would be awesome to have you come visit! :)