THE CHESTNUT GANG!

We all decided to head out for a walk today and we had a ton of fun, one of the highlights of the journey was the chestnut trees we found along the side of the road. This brought back lots of memories from my childhood because I had a huge Chestnut Tree in my front yard. I used to love this time of year and would play under that tree for hours litterly collecting chestnuts just me and my dog(Sparky). I remember in the spring the beautiful blossoms that come on the tree and also the swing that my grandfather put up in the tree for us to use, is was an old piece of wood and a couple of ropes with used up burlap feed bags under the rope so it wouldn't damage the tree branch. It was especially fun to see the kids getting so excited about finding, opening and comparing each others nuts.

The day to Change

I was recently tagged by a fellow blogger on the age I wish I could go back to, asking if there was a time in my life I would go back and change things. I have to say with all reality there isn't a single moment I would change and here is my reasoning behind that. I have a strong belief that everything happens for a reason, many times we don't understand why until much later if we ever do but this is the truth in my opinion. Every moment of our lives no matter how simple has a huge impact on our lives. Think about all the things that have happend to you that if you had done things slightly different that day, hour or even minute they wouldn't have turned out the way they did. Think about meeting that special someone, if you didn't go through that day the exact way you did you might have missed the opportunity. The same goes with every major event in your life if you think about it. It really is scary to think where we would be if 1 day of our life went different all the things we could miss out on. I could have not met my wife, not had my 4 great little kids, I can't imagine a life without all of them. So even though some of the events in my life were hard to get through when I look at things from this point of view I would not go back to any age and change anything.

The Little Things

Well today was an exciting day, we had been waiting for the monthly open garbage day at the dump to finally clean out all the junk that was left at our new house when we moved in. Luckily my in-laws were in town for a visit this weekend and my father in law gave me a hand loading up and dropping off at the dump. On our second trip down to the dump I saw a little drum kit sitting near the edge of a heaping pile of junk, it was gleaming in the sunlight and I was suddenly overtaken by the urge to go and check it out. Now normally I am really against garbage picking but my young fella's have been asking for a drum kit for a while so I thought as my wife says"it was meant to be", here is the perfect chance to see if they actually will use the drums. Well you would think I just gave them a million bucks when they saw these drums, some of the parts were missing but we worked on it for a while and they were now usable. The litterally banged on those things all day, what a find. It's funny with our kids anyway they usually have more fun with the things that cost nothing, ie drums or an old cardboard box than all their toys. It's the simple little things that seem to make them happy...happy bangin boys...oh I better get a bigger bottle of tylenol I think I'm going to need them. LOL

All about Me

ALL ABOUT ME!
I have been tagged by CareBear at Rantings of a Woman to do this ALL ABOUT ME MEME...Let's give it a go and see what we learn

All About Me -

1. What were you doing ten years ago?
10 years ago, 1997 it seems like a lifetime ago, working for Kmart, Living in Moncton.



2. What were you doing one year ago?
Living in our van, not literally but it felt like it, I drove 1/2 hour to and from work everyday and running from one end of the city to the other everynight/weekend for the kids sports and activities it was common for me to be in the van 2-3 hours a day easy.

3. What are five snacks that you enjoy?
1: Chocolate, any kind but dark...it's a darn shame that the dark is the healthy one
2: Cheese and crackers... one of my favorite evening snacks, when I was a kid I would sit down and eat literaly a whole block of cheese at one sitting
3: Cashews...these are absolutely deadly around my house, hense I only have them around Christmas for a treat I would eat 1/2 a can a sitting easily.
4: Carrots with dip, too bad they are so much better with a few mozza sticks on the side
5: Fruit trays, I love snacking on fruits, strawberries, grapes, melons etc.

4. What are five songs that you know the lyrics to?
I would never compete on one of those singing challange shows that's for sure but
1: The gambler : Kenny Rogers, he was my mom's favorite growing up and was always playing in our house... You got to know when to hold em...know when to show them...know when to walk away and know when to run, you never count your money when your sitting at the table there'll be time enough for counting when the dealings done.
2: Amazed : Lone star, our wedding song Baby when our eyes meet, something inside me, whispers in the dark baby I'm amazed by you.
3: I'm ready : Bryan adams, I'm ready to love you, I'm ready to hold you
4: Numerous kids songs that I don't even dare get into

5 things that you would do if you were a millionaire?
1:Build a house on the beach
2:Buy a motor home and do a tour of the Nascar races for the summer months when the kids were out of school
3:I would probably hesitantly resign my positition at work...yeah right if they would even hear from me again.
4:Take a honeymoon with my over deserving wife
5:Take a family trip or 3 or 4 to where ever the kids would like to go

6. Five bad habits?
1: Procrastination
2: Take out restaurants
3: Staying up too late at nights
4: Eating late at nights...see #2
5: Not taking enough time to enjoy the good things in life

7. Five things you like to do?
1: Take out
2: Renovation projects, usually I regret them about 1/2 way through but in reality I always end up having fun and usually being pleased with the results.
3: Relaxing with a good movie on a big couch with someone special(wife only)
4: Cutting stuff with the power saw....Tim the tool man stuff...more power
5: Playing with the kids on those odd moments when they aren't fighting with each other


8. Five things you would never wear?
1: Speedo, if you know me I'm sorry for that visual image I just burned into your head
2: High Heels, well that would depend on how much money we were talking
3: Skater Jeans you know the ones that hang down on your thigh and all you see is underwear
4: Fur, I can't imagine wearing anything like that brings back bad memories of child hood when dad would trap and do his skining in our basement
5: Thong underwear, I'm grasping here but I was running out of idea's, I really don't understand peoples fasination with that type of undergarment


9. Five favorite toys?
I don't really have any toys, I guess man toys would be
1: Drill, I have 3 of them
2: Power Saws, I have 3 of them, table saw, skill saw, jig saw all very well used thanks to the project manager in the house
3: Lawn Mower, I really enjoy running that around the house
4: My digital cable box, I love the remote
5: I have a few Nascar die casts the closest thing to a toy, they are going to go on display in my new workshop when it is finished.


10. Five things you hate to do?
1: Get out of bed in the morning
2: Cook meals
3: Spend money
4: Argue
5: Drive in the rain/snow at night, I get very tense

I recently had a very nice surprise posted on my blog, I recieved a Fabulous award from an awesome blogger I know. I believe her to be a fabulous person too but I might be biased because she happens to be my wife. If you want to see a great blog check her blog out at www.rantingsofawoman@blogspot.com.

It's Beginning 2 Look Alot Like Christmas!

Well working in retail I get to be on the front line when it comes to Christmas, it's October 1st and at my store we are starting to set up the Christmas decoration department. It brings home the reality that Christmas is right around the corner and it is coming fast.
It is fun to be the first to see all the new decorations and crafts for the season. I especially like the noise making animated characters and the wooden crafts. Of course the early selling stuff, like outdoor lights and garland is a must have and gets set up early. I'm thinking I might be putting up some garland this weekend outside kind of a thanksgiving/Halloween look that will switch to Christmas but we will see.
Merry Christmas

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.