Home Alone

Yesterday was the first day I had at home by myself in a VERY long time.

The girls, all three of them, were at school.

So I had the whole house to myself. Coolness. Got a bunch of stuff done.

Today, Doreen and I had the house to ourselves and got even more things done around here.

My 'honey-do' list has grown exponentially, but that's ok. I love the feeling of getting stuff accomplished. Especially stuff that has needed to get done.

Wow - what a sense of new-found freedom!!! :) I'm gonna get used to this!

Most excellent dude!!!

1st Day of School - Part Two

Today was Doreen's first day of the Dental Hygiene program at Chatt State.

She said it was quite a day, and I can tell from her reaction that she's probably glad the start of the semester has arrived.

So - for the next two years, she'll be 'mentally' bustin her chops to get everything done that is required to graduate.

I can't wait to have a graduation party for her!!!

Good luck sweetie!!!

THE TONGUE CAN BE YOUR WORST ENEMY!

Doreen and I had been talking about this lately in reguards to an item or two. Today we got this in a forward from an Aunt & Uncle and it was perfect, so here 'tis!




Proverbs 18:21 - Death and life are in the power of the tongue, And those who love it will eat its fruit.)



Your words, your dreams, and your thoughts have power to create conditions in your life.
What you speak about, you can bring about.

If you keep saying you can't stand your job, you might lose your job.
If you keep saying you can't stand your body, your body can become sick.
If you keep saying you can't stand your car, your car could be stolen or just stop operating.
If you keep saying you're broke, guess what? You'll always be broke.
If you keep saying you can't trust a man or trust a woman, you will always
find someone in your life to hurt and betray you.
If you keep saying you can't find a job, you will remain unemployed.
If you keep saying you can't find someone to love you or believe in you, your very thought will attract more experiences to confirm your beliefs.
If you keep talking about a divorce or break up in a relationship, then you might end up with it.

Turn your thoughts and conversations around to be more positive and power packed with faith, hope, love and action.
Don't be afraid to believe that you can have what you want and deserve.

Watch your Thoughts - they become words.
Watch your words - they become actions.
Watch your actions - they become habits.
Watch your Habits - they become character.
Watch your Character - for it becomes your Destiny.

The minute you settle for less than you deserve, you get even less than you settle for. (Yes! I like that!)
Thought I would share this with you.

In the search for me, I discovered truth.
In the search for truth, I discovered love.
In the search for love, I discovered GOD.
And in God, I have found Everything.

Be Blessed

Watch how your circumstances and situations begin to change when you change the way you speak.

Teaching Geocaching!

Tomorrow night I get to do something REALLY cool. I get to teach a small group in our church's Pathfinder club the Geocaching Honor. I am thoroughly 'stoked' about this!!! I cannot wait!

I'm putting together (and I need to quit surfing around and actually get it done!) some information on a Power Point for the kids, then we'll find the 2 caches I've hidden on the church property.

Should be TONS of fun. I hope it is anyway!

The best part is, I get a 'patch' (pic at the beginning of this post) to put on my sash as a Pathfinder Honor I have earned.

Good grief, it'll be my first Pathfinder Honor I've earned in almost 2 decades. Dog-gone it, I'm getting older! :)

Oh well - happy caching! :)

Do you have what it takes to become a citizen?

Recently, on my trip to Texas, a radio show was talking about the test a person must take before becoming a citizen of the USA. They asked a few of the questions. One of the guys on the show scored a 48% on the 100 question test. That truly is sad that many Americans, like this guy doesn't know some important facts about the United States of America.

So when I got home, I Googled the Citizenship test. Didn't see one with all 100 questions, but here's a sample of the Citizenship Test that has 20 questions and generally considered to be some of the harder questions. So I took it!

Here's my results... (I missed questions, 3 18 & 20 - Doh!)

You answered 85% of questions correctly. Here's your rating:

0-20%: Maybe you're still thinking too much about the Old Country.

25-40%: Mmmm. Do you really want to be a citizen? This kind of performance isn't going to impress those nice immigration folks.

45-60%: Not too bad, but you really need to break out the civics books again -- word is, the INS is looking for an 80 percent score.

65-80%: Hey, you may make a good citizen yet! Look at your wrong answers and a little revision should do the trick.

85-100%: Welcome to the United States! (And, truth be told, you know more about this great land than most Americans.)

Go ahead and give the "test" a shot and see how you do!

I dare ya! :)

Don't forget to post your results in the comments area.

(OK for you younger people {or any pansies} out there, here's another Citizenship Test site with some of the easier questions and it only has 10 questions. See how you fare on this test.) [I scored a 100%]

In & Out

Got home this morning at 1 am, back from a trip to Dallas, TX. Things worked out perfectly for me to spend a couple of hours with my grandma though. Very cool.

On the way home last night, I was asleep in the bunk when my co-driver calls out to me and hands me the company phone through the curtain.

Turns out its one of the coordinators and they are in a bind again and need someone to run an extra trip. Would I run it. I don't have to leave until 10a.

Sure, nothing serious happening this week. We've kinda mapped out the weeks we've got stuff going on and which ones are available to run extra trips. Well - this is one of those not very busy weeks.

So from KY to TX now to NC!

Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to work I go! :)

Have a good week y'all!

School Girls!

Today was Joelle & Natalie's 1st day of school! I'll tell ya, that last night I was still having 2nd thoughts. Doreen and I were up late as we talked through 'my' issues! :) Finally we dozed off to sleep and got up early to get the school morning routine going. J & N popped right outta bed and were ready.





We took them in, got the supplies stowed in their rooms and got them set up.











When it was time to say 'bye' they were so cool about it and as we watched outside the room for a moment, they both were in their element.

When they got home - they both expressed their 'LOVE' for school. Wheew what a relief that was. Sounds like they did fantastically! (Is that a word? Maybe I ought to go back to school! - NAH!)





One of the activities for the newley 'freed' parents, was to visit Doreen's school and buy her books for her Dental Hygene program. Six books and $341 later we walked out of the bookstore and over to the next building and upstairs to drop things off in her locker.

Then we ran a couple more errands then went to lunch at the Olive Garden. YUMMY!

It was a good, GOOD day!

1st Haircut OR Extra Trip

Just a quick couple of posts, then I've got to hit the sack. I'm bushed. Ran my 2 runs this week and figured I was finished. Didn't ask for a 3rd trip this week. Thursday morning after breakfast, the phone rang - it was the bakery. One of the coordinators was in a pinch. They'd accidentally scheduled a driver to take a trip who was on vacation. Oops. So they were scrambling to find a driver to fill the seat and get the cakes to North Carolina. Not much was going on - so I said yes. I packed my bags and a lunch, and headed to work and we gated out at 10a. We ran the run and I drove back and got back this morning at 6am. So I'm kinda tired. The extra on the paycheck will help though! :)

In preparing for the girls first day of school on Monday, Joelle needed a haircut, then we got to looking at Natalie's and realized that it would be SO much easier to handle on school days if we got it cut. The cool part was she was all for it too.







So yesterday, Doreen took them both in to get a cut. Doreen said it was "Super cute" how Natalie told the beautician how much to cut off, which is exactly what we were thinking needed to come off! PRECIOUS!

The lady that did Joelle's hair I guess took a long time, but this is about the best we've ever seen it!

Ok Monday, bring on the 1st day of school. We're ready for ya now! :)

Have a great weekend!

New Traditions

We started a new family tradition today. One that will hopefully the girls will look forward to every year.











We spent a good portion of today going through the girls room, weeding out all the broken toys, the 'too young' toys, the toys they don't play with anymore and just ALL the extra accumulated junk that tends to build up. Then after that 'clean up' we went to an ice-cream shoppe to say 'bye-bye' to the summer and 'welcome' to the new school year ahead.






It was great and went pretty good. The cleaning was very thorough! :) Of course they LOVED the ice-cream as well. In fact, Joelle liked hers so much, she decided to dive in face first! Waa ha, ha, ha!

Inspirational Posters, with a Twist!

I'm sure you've seen these inspirational posters around, somewhere. Well, someone 'edited' them slightly to add a bit of sarcastic wit to them! Hilarious!

Hope you can read them! Enjoy!

:)

Date or Bourne Ultimatium

Today has been a GREAT day.

Doreen got up early to go get some immunization shots she needed for school. Sht got 3 of them poor girl! I got up a bit later and made breakfast for the girls and then we hung around the house for a while.

When Doreen got home we went to do our grocery shopping for the week. Done!

Then home, put the groceries away, then took the girls over to the in-laws to be kid-sat so we could have a date! (An afternoon date is awesome, Lunch prices, Matinee prices and you're in the A/C when it's super-hot outside!!!)

We headed over to our favorite restaurant, Imperial Garden. She got a honey garlic veggie chicken dish. I got beef brocolli with soup & an egg roll. YUMMY! Of course we topped it off with a fortune cookie. Hers was "A fond memory will help reconnect you with a long-lost friend." Mine was "You will do something different & unique this weekend." OK!

After we finished our fine meal, we stopped at a store to get the girls some shirts for the Friday dress code, but the line was about 6 people deep, so we passed. We looked around and split.

We headed to the theater that had The Bourne Ultimatium at 1:50p, the one we thought it was anyway. WRONG. Wasn't there. I checked online just before we left and even hit the 'map' option to make sure we had the right one, but something was mixed up - and so we headed to the theater in the mall, sure enough - that was the right one.

For the next two hours we watched enraptured by the movie. Boy was it great! I would put it on an equal level with the 2nd one. Not as good as the first, but excellent! Most excellent. The story and action were awesome. I wasn't crazy about all the 'hand held' look they floated in the cinamatography, but what do I know?

After the movie, we headed to the Marble Slab Cremery for dessert. We walk in and try to figure out what ice cream to mix with what topping and what cone to put it in. OH MY GOODNESS, that is tough. The lady was waiting, so I said, "Give me the coffee ice-cream with the heath bar." While she was making it up, I was pointing it all out to Doreen and noticed the fresh fruit in the 2nd row of goodies, and said shoot. Doreen IMMEDIATELY volunteered to take my 1st order so I could create another. So I reluctantly agreed. I then ordered strawberry ice-cream with fresh strawberries in a waffle cone dipped in white chocolate. It was good, but not as good as what Doreen had. Then she only allowed me two licks of hers. Man, should have stayed with my first instinct! :)

Then back to my in-laws where we sat with them talking and helping them roll some coins they've been saving for a while. With no quarters in the mix, they rolled $283.50. Not a bad pay-day!

So we loaded the kids in the car and headed home. After a bit, the girls did their bedtime routine, we read the next chaper in the 'Little House on the Prairie" series we're reading to them, then worship and to bed.

We came downstairs, Doreen did some work on the computer, I got some exercise by walking on the treadmill.

While walking, the Pre-season Monday Night football game came on. I had no idea it was the Broncos playing at the 49ers. I watched all the 1st quarter and most of the 2nd half. Then caught some Enterprise and most of Xmen 2. (That actually wasn't a bad flick.)

Now I'm polishing off the day with a blog update and then off to bed.

Tomorrow, we organize the new school supplies, work on getting our schedules (upcoming stuff with schools, Doreen's & the girls, Adventurers, Young Adult SS, Church and probably about 50 more things. Boy life is busy!) and maybe go through the girls toys and 'thin' out some of the stuff they don't play with a lot. Then we have registration for Adventurers. Of course I'll get my next work assignment tomorrow night as well.

All is well in our family. Hope it is yours as well!

'Pester' ya later! :)

1st PTA Meeting OR Dating, the Good and the Oh My Goodness!!!

Tonight, we attended our 1st PTA meeting for the school my girls will be attending.

Hotdogs, chips, a fruit cup and drink provided. Yummy.

It was kinda fun hanging out with people and learning 'procedures' for school.

Very nice.

New experience!

By the way, the PTA needs volunteers. Don't forget! :)

-----

I'm looking forward to tomorrow. It's a date day.

Doreen and I are going to our favorite oriental restaurant then we're gonna go catch the Bourne Ultimatum. That's gonna be awesome!!!

-----

On the dating front, I'm gonna abdicate my fatherhood when my girls reach dating age!

The back-story... Joelle and I were talking about Star Wars and about the 'Dark Side.' Kinda relating it to life you know, about living on the good side etc.

Well, Joelle pops this phrase, "I wish Luke Skywalker were a real person!"

"Why," I ask?

She just got this funny look on her face.

OH MY GOODNESS! It's started - NO WAAYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!

I am in big trouble - BIG TROUBLE with that one!!!

School & Cold Feet - Update

My folks called yesterday and we talked quite a while.

During the conversation, the topic of school came up and Mom asked why I had a bit of hesitance in sending the girls to school.

Well, I made mention of the things I mentioned in my previous post. Then in thinking about it more, some other things popped into my head.

The one big thing that popped in my head was cuz I didn't like elementary myself. Oh I enjoyed Kindergarten, 1st grade with Mr Evans and 2nd grade with Mrs. Anderson. 3rd grade started a few years of struggles for me.

Mrs. K was my teacher and she had some students that she'd pick on. I happened to be one of them.

An interesting sidebar is that I ran into 2 former 3rd grade classmates at church recently. We had quite the conversation and we covered this topic. Interesting, because one, a female, had NO problems with Mrs K but she noticed the way the teacher treated some classmates. The other, a male, had some of the very same problems I did. I never realized that before.

Well, school went downhill from there for me.

It wasn't until 7th and 8th grade (in Colorado) in a two room school and a little maturity on my part that began the transformation to actually enjoying school.

4th grade (Grades 1 thru 4 in Michigan) wasn't too bad. Mrs Graham was a great teacher and helped with some of the struggles I had, but a student, Sean, and I had some 'clashes' that weren't helping me along the 'straight and narrow path.'

A move occured and I went to 5th & 6th grade in Ohio. Mrs Bynum did alright, but I had other struggles with 3 other students in the class that didn't like the 'new guy.' 6th grade was a bit worse with Mrs. Payne, who wasn't much help to me in my struggles. I really felt like I was on my own.

One thing that mom mentioned that it was maybe because of the 'moves' we made.

Another point was that I was 'mercilessly' teased about being a 'Pester' and that just added to things I guess.

Yeah - I didn't like school much. I'm hoping and praying that my daughters have a much, MUCH better experience!!!

Japanese Proverb

Here's a Japanese Proverb for you to 'live by' today! :) He, he, he!!!

School & Cold Feet

Yesterday we had a big trip. Buying school supplies. Pencils, erasers, markers, crayons, rulers, glue, etc!

Usually, I pretty much enjoy anytime I can go buy things.

For some reason, I wasn't enjoying this experience. I felt a bit 'grouchy.'

After I laid down, I started thinking about it and realized that I'm getting cold feet about sending my girls off to school.

Why?

Peers, pressure, influence.

Even though I know it will probably be a great experience for them, I'm just a bit worried about all the stuff out there that could possibly mess them up.

Life is rough and they're going to experience a little taste of it without us around.

I know the school is a good one and we really like ALL the teachers there, but still some of the 'psycho' kids will be attending and who knows what will happen.

We've wholly comitted to sending them and with the money we've spent on admissions, uniforms, supplies, etc - there's no turning back.

So I've just got to pray, and be there for them to try to help guide them through the waters of school life to make it safely to the other side.

Another chapter of life is ahead - how is it going to read?

????

:)

Left Behind - A 4 year olds story

Yesterday we went out to eat at the Olive Garden with my in-laws. Though I didn't know it, my youngest, Natalie, had been waiting to tell Grandma and Papa this story.

As she told it, her little chin began to quiver as she thought about what happened. I'm afraid we've traumatized her, maybe for life!

Here's the story.

Saturday afternoon, just hanging around my Sister-in-law's house, we all decided we needed to get out for a bit. So they wanted to show us something, then we were gonna hit a couple of geocaches.

The first one was in a park. Once we arrived, Tracy, Cheryl, Calvin, Carlie & Joelle started heading for the cache. I helped Shelly & Randy put the coordinates in their GPS for the cache location. Once we finished, we started heading that way.

Before we'd taken about 10 steps, Calvin calls, "We found it."

Cool.

Shelly, was kinda dissappointed, in a fun way of course, that the cache was so easy to find. She was kind of hoping for more of a search.

So we let the kids play a while, then headed to another cache.

As we pulled up to the location, I believed I knew where the cache might be and said so. When we parked, Tracy, Cheryl & Joelle hop out of the van to begin the search. Shelly starts to saunter that way, so Doreen hollers to Shelly to get a move on it before Tracy finds it. So it becomes a race. I jump out of the van to take pictures. Low and behold it's not in the big 3 foot stump you could see from the road. So I start to follow my GPS and it's leading me away from it. About that time Tracy & Shelly realize the same thing.

So I stop a the edge of the woods and look back, again seeing a spot where the cache might be located. Doreen and I kind of hang back watching the others search. Finally they find it. Shelly actually got to it first.

So, as is tradition, before opening the cache, we gather around to get a group picture - it's at that moment we notice that Natalie is missing.

Doreen get's that little panic in her voice as she calls for Natalie, then it dawns on us that she's still in the van.

See, she had a car seat that she couldn't undo both buckles. So in our haste to find and document the chase for the cache, we inadvertently left her behind, in the van.

It was only 4 or 5 minutes, but she told Doreen she was shouting for us, and of course we didn't hear. She was crying crocodile tears, but happy that Doreen pulled her out.

It's one of those scary, sad, precious moments. Ya know!

She's doing better now, and right with us! :)

The Bridge Crossing

While we were in Minnesota, as you all know, the I-35W Mississippi River Bridge collapsed. Well, even though we didn't hear about the tragety until Friday, (left for camping on Tue and didn't come back till Friday, No radio, no tv, no internet, nothing but nature.) we had what I would consider a couple of close calls.


My Nephew, Calvin, best friend, Tracy, and I went down to Minneapolis on Monday (2 days before the collapse) to pick my brother-in-law, Randy, up from the airport. If we would have gone straight to the airport from their house, we would have used the bypass. But we did some geocaching and went right through the heart of the city and actually crossed the I-35W bridge that collapsed on Wednesday. Too close for comfort.


Then come to find out, that my inlaws actually drove into Minneapolis on Wednesday a couple of hours after the actual collapse. That is scary!

Don't like those close calls like that!

MN Trip Notes

So on our Minnesota trip...

We drove 3065 miles
Found 16 Geocaches in 5 states
Rode a boat 7.2 miles to our campsite
Went up 103 floors in the Sears Tower
Toured the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago,
Spent a day in MN at an indoor waterpark.
Payed WAY too much for parking, twice, in Chicago
Both Joelle & Natalie got into a State they'd not been in before - Ohio.

Catchin Up - Blog Milestone

While we were on vacation to Minnesota, I noticed a milestone number on my blog, but just never took the time to post about it.

On Sat, July 28, 2007 I logged my 800th post. Wow!

I started this blog on Aug 26, 2004 and LOTS has happened since then.

Amazing. LOVE going back and reading stuff I've forgotten.

Hope y'all continue to enjoy it as well!

Adults

Here's some photos of the older ones on this vacation.

Making an pizza eating instructional video.













Moving into camp.






















Dropped part of his drawers

























Captain Marcella





















Cute outfit???






















Captain Randy
























Chillin at the back of the boat.













Ewwww hairy!













Camera ambush!























Really getting those windows clean.














Cool pictures.
















The flat tire and replacement.

Cool Cousins

It was sure fun watching the Cousins interact

Colby and Natalie on the way to church.















Prayer for a meal.













Giving 'Uncle' Tracy a nose job.
















Funny Faces
















Climbing at Serpent Lake.






















Lunch!















There bears in them woods.















Cousin 'caching'














Smore Cousins














Rockin Cousins













Rockin Cousins pt 2














Campfire cousins