This Is Me

Missing the Family

Although I may be far away

Thoughts of you are close to me

Counting down the moments until I see you all again.

Your smiling faces and warm embraces

I miss you all terribly

Be good and have fun

Love Daddy

Race to the Chase

Week 2 in the race to the championship has now come to an end. The race today at Dover was probably one of the most interesting races I have watched in the last couple of years, mind you I only watched parts of it as I was busy with other things around the house. Carl Edwards won the race but I hear that his car failed post race inspection. After the race there was only a few points seperating the top 6 drivers, if this continues it will be a very tense race in Miami in only 8 short weeks. I'm still hoping that Kevin Harvick will pull off the miracle come back but after two sub standard races I am thinking he won't be wearing the championship ring this year as the other drivers are too strong. One thing I know though is in racing anything can happen.

Lunch time visits

Well with back to school now in full swing, my youngest son Blake gets Mommy all to himself during the days. Over the past few weeks they have surprised me at work almost everyday at lunch. It's a good hour and 1/2 walk from the house to my store but they make the journey day after day while the weather is good to enjoy it. On friday I got a phone call from Blake to ask me if I would come and play at the park with him at lunch. He's got his own language on the cell phone but I am starting to understand his phone speech. Anyway I went down to find him at the park and after watching the ferry boat, and playing at the wood park, Blake said he was very hungry and needed to have McDonald's for lunch, he can be cute at times so how could I refuse.

...Bring it on...Outlast...Outwit...OutPlay

Being new in my store the other night while I was working I was talking to my associate council member on what we could do for an activity that would be fun. We were talking about survivor coming up with a new season and decided why not do a contest where we would enter 16 people from the store and have them matched up with the 16 players via random draw. The entry fee was $5 so it wouldn't break anyone who wanted to play. We set up a wall in the lounge where we are going to set up 16 pictures of the players and put up our names on them and watch the fun every Thursday night. We are also working on some other fun interactive things we could do in the store, ie if your character loses a challange you have to perform some task for the other team, anyway we are still working on those details, should be fun. I drew the player named Amanada and she survived week 1 so now I have a 1 in 15 chance of wining the whoping Zellers jackpot of $80...Good luck to the other players...yeah right... I hope my girl gets things going and gets herself in with a group to have some power... she seemed a little under the radar the first night but we will see.

The awkward age

I have to say the last year or two with my oldest son have been a challange, our communication has been at best probably poor. We just couldn't get on the same page, I couldn't relate to his position and he couldn't understand my point of view. I was trying desperatly to work with him so he could understand the impacts he was having on his younger siblings with his actions. To say I was frustrated with him alot would be an understatement...there were times I really didn't like who he was...let me clearify I love all the kids unconditionally but I know there are going to be lots of trials over the growing years that will make me grey. Having just moved I was really concerned about what impact it would have on him being 11 it's getting to that awkward age when boys are trying so desperatly to rebel against their parents and be cool infront of their friends. I am glad to say that after a few weeks of school he seems to be fitting in so well and his attitude around the house is tremendously improved. It really hit me the other night when he went up to a youth group up the street, knowing it was going to be dark when he was done we planned to go up to get him afterwards. I walked up to meet him and took him a sweater as it was getting cold, he was actually glad to see me waiting for him and we got a few minutes to walk home together and talk about how things were going. It was one of those times that I have been hoping for with him for a long time now, we just talked like two friends with a little fatherly advise thrown it. I hope we will have many more moments like that in the future, it was really great.

The Cookie Monster has arrived!

When I was home for lunch today we decided we needed something sweet for desert so Blake got busy making some oooeeeyyy Goey chocolate chip cookies. He had lots of fun getting them ready for us. Boy oh Boy there isn't much better than a warm cookie right out of the oven, especially one made by my favorite almost 3 year old boy. Check out the video attached and you will see what I mean.

The Attack

It started out innocently enough we were out in the back yard picking up the hundreds of apples that had fallen out of the tree. We were working away racking them into piles and Kohl and Trinity were picking them up and throughing them in the compost bin. All of a sudden Trinity began dancing around the yard and screaming, I turned around to see what the matter was and it wasn't long before I figured it out as the wasps were stinging my knee. I looked to see that they were swarming out of a hole in the ground by an apple that Trin had tried to pick up. Needless to say that was the end of apple picking for today. After we got Trin calmed down and fixed up she turned vengeful and off to Canadian Tire we went to get some Wasp Killer. She sure was intent on extracting revenge on these flying terrors, as the sales clerk talked about the different options Trin was taking it all in and picked the best one for us to use. Home we came and when it started to get dark we fixed those little pests but good.

THE BLOGGING STAR!

I recently recieved this prestigous award from my blogging wife whom got me started on this site. I certainly thank her for encouraging me to start up my own blog to fill everyone in on my thougths from the day. If you like my blog you really have to check out the expert at Rantings of a woman.

The Hip Hoppers are here

The excitement in my house was incredible tonight when I got home from work, after a long summer off the kids were returning to dance classes. As we moved this summer it was the first night at the new dance school and also this year Kohl and Trinity get to go to the same class for the first time. For extra fun this year we are letting them take a Hip Hop class along with their regular tap/jazz classes . They have been planning for this since last spring so I certainly hope they have a blast. Good Luck

The Excitement Begins

Well race fans it's time to get going...8 months and 43 drivers have been widdled down to just 12 and now the race is really on. If you are a nascar fan like me you know that this weekend is the start of the playoffs of Nascars top racing division the Nextel Cup Series. The final spots were secured after last weeks race at Richmond and now there are 12 hungry racers frothing over the Championship. This year is shaping up to one of the most interesting chases we have had in years with many questions yet to be answered. Can Jimmie Johnson repeat as champion, will Jeff Gordon win his long awaited 5th championship, could Tony Stewart win his third and cement his reputation as one of the best racers of all time? Don't forget about Kurt Busch or Matt Kenseth who are still looking for their second championship as well. Let's not take away from the other drivers but they have yet to proven themselves as champions at this level, could one of them break through this year and make their mark. The competition is tough with drivers like Denny Hamlin, Kyle Busch, Jeff Burton, Martin Truex, Kevin Harvick, Clint Bowyer and Carl Edwards all looking for the elusive championship. All I can say is let's get ready to go racing it should be an exciting 10 weeks.

Just call me Mr. Fix it

Well I have offically spent my weekend learning a new trade...plumbing... mind you I had the most awesome coach in the world...my wife Carebear. Yesterday I spent the day installing a new vanity in our upstairs bathroom. This bathroom is very cramped for space and my wife really didn't like the look of the old sink...me being brilliant at times suggested we put a vanity in the space...space well if you call a space 22" by 14" space. We were shopping one day and we found a vanity 22" by 12" well home it came. It was certainly a challange to get it in place because of the pipe for the heater invades my 22" by 14" space so I had to make some cuts in the new vanity. All was going very well until I got the vanity in place to find out Oops it is 2" higher than the old sink so out to Home Hardware we went to get new pipes. It's probably a good thing because as I learnt through Joe at the store I really needed a trap in the pipe anyway he showed me what I would need sold me all the supplies... accept some plumbing tape... which I found out I needed later and off home we went. At this point I'm thinking I'm getting in over my head but there really wasn't any turning back so I just soldiered on...thinking well our projects always work out in the end so it'll be o.k. I got into the pipe cutting and glueing and by the end of the night my project was done. It really is exciting to know with a little patience and a good coach us men can tackle just about any project. Today we moved onto the kitchen taps after all my experience yesterday this job was a breeze and it only took about an hour start to finish.

Before Vanity...

...After Vanity

A Helping Hand

I recently had some much needed assistance with my home renovation projects when my Father/Mother in law came for a visit. It was fun to have another male perspective to bat ideas off of when we were working on things. I also found it very relaxing when I was able to mess up enough that he took over one of my jobs and I got to sit back and watch the seasoned repair man work. I learned one very important tip... have real screwdrivers... I usually only use screw driver bits but my Father in law being a bit more traditional was asking me for a red handled screwdriver etc etc... I was lost when it came to that... I will add a set of traditional screw drivers to my Santa list and see what happens. We sure got lots of work done and I am certainly getting another to do list ready for his next visit to keep him busy.

Back to School

Well it is that time of year when the leaves start to turn you know it's time for the kids to go off to school. This year we are getting settled into our new house so the kids are especially excited to go off to school, so they can meet some new friends. It will allow us to get back into a more routined lifestyle which you really need when there are 4 little ones running around. This year our 3rd child(Kohl) is starting school so that will change the home dynamic quite a bit as it will be the first time in years that we only have 1 child out of school. This being probably harder on my wife than I as usually I am at work so I'm not around during school time much to notice that part of the change. I hope that Blake will make the most of his 1on1 time with Mommy and for sure after only a couple of days the kids are having a blast at school.