It was a slow day ...

Today, we had a first in the house. I figure we will have a lot more of those in the future (three girls and all) ...

As for today, we had a LATE fathers day plan finally happen. Big E and Little E took me for a round of golf. This was a special round of golf, as it was Little E's first round of golf. So, anyone with any knowledge of golf understands why I say it was a slow day, things didn't move to fast with Little E. However, Little E didn't play too bad.

Afterwards, the girls took me for some crab legs and wings. I REALLY ENJOYED the day.

I hope everyone else had a great weekend, but its back the grind in the morning.

Happy Independence Day

Happy fourth of July to everyone. I hope you all have great plans of BBQ, hot dogs, hamburgers and more on the grill with friends and family. Whatever you do, I hope you have fun and are safe.

The family and I have a few friends coming over today for a little cookout. We are going to grill chicken wings. For the sauces, we have multiple types of wing sauces that we will place into ziploc bags. This way everyone can choose their own sauce or have multiple sauces.

Enjoy your weekend.

Just been lazy ...

There is no other explanation than I've been lazy, and to be fully honest, disinterested in sitting in front of this keyboard typing out moments of my life. Actually, I've been completely and utterly worthless of late. In case you haven't noticed, its HOT outside and for some reason the heat and the change of seasons have been a drain on my brain. So with that said, here are a few tidbits for those that keep asking ....

We held a 50th Anniversary party for the worlds greatest mother and father in law recently. Can you imagine being married for 50 years? I can't imagine waking up each day to the same person for that long. It truly is a joyous accomplishment for them and I hope they have many more years of marital bliss.

As for Big E and I, I simply hope that we can make it that long. I would be 94 years old when we hit that milestone. I can't even fathom the concept of 94 years old in my head.

Anyway, I think everyone had a good time. We played the old Newlywed Game with three sisters and their husbands. Boy was that a site watching them try to remember the answers to the various silly questions; like

1. Feature that first attracted you to your wife.
2. Longest period of time apart
3. First Christmas present
4. Location of first date

Speaking of the in-laws, we had a wonderful trip to the lake last weekend. A few individuals didn't get to make it for health reasons, but those that did were treated to a first class time at Albert and Linda's lake house. They have such a beautiful location on the lake and the most awesome home. Each summer they open their home to everyone for a weekend of swimming, tubing, boating, relaxing, grilling and general family fun. We really appreciate the opportunity and hope they continue this for many more years.

Regretfully, I did not get to enjoy the weekend to the fullest though. In a freak accident, I managed to pull a muscle, pop something, I don't really know what happened, in my lower back on the Friday morning of our departure. I was loading diet cokes into the cooler (mom, I promise they were actually Diet Cokes) and I felt a snap in my back (like being shot with a really big rubber band) and that was immediately followed by me hitting the floor.

Being the loving and caring woman that she is, Big E immediately accused me of trying to get out of the lake weekend!!!! Can you believe that? I had to spend twenty minutes convincing her that I wasn't trying to get out of a free lake weekend before she finally decided to worry about my health. This is what I mean when I say these girls are killing me!!! Sometimes I think our vows should have been, "... in sickness, in health and as long as you are doing what I tell you to do ...".

Now its been a week since the incident and I am back to walking normally and other than being a little tight, I am fine. I will probably go get a massage next week if the tightness continues. The good thing about the incident is that Big E felt so bad about giving me a hard time that she waited on me hand and foot AND I milked it for all it was worth.

Jumping from Big E's family to mine, my sister decided to roll into town this week for a little family time. Jacob and Jackson, my nephews, are enjoying a little Mimi (my mom) time. Tonight, we are headed over to mom's house for a little family game night action. I don't know what game I will be beating them at yet, but you can bet it will involve cards.

Tomorrow, we are all going up to Anniston to spend the day with momma's sisters for a mini-reunion of sorts. I don't really know much about the details so I will share the results in the next blog.

And now for the BBBBBBBBIIIIIIIGGGGGG news of the blog .....

We finally broke (yeah, we are that too) down and bought little Elizabeth a car. We stumbled across a Ford Taurus while running by her grandmothers house earlier this week. The little old man offered us a very fair deal for the little car and it drives fairly good so we jumped on the deal. I know that a Ford Taurus isn't actually a cool kids car, but she didn't get a vote on the car. Actually she is excited about the car and hopefully, this will get her excited about getting a job too!!!!!

And for EVEN BIGGGGEEEERRRRR news ....

We got the insurance bill!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yeah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Since we both work in the insurance world, we knew adding yet another vehicle to the list of insured items was going to hurt, but we had never really paid attention to how much we pay (we figure our premiums support our paycheck). Holy cow!! Three cars + one truck + two teenagers = one heck of yearly sum. At least they are not boys!!

Oh yeah, I need to compliment my beautiful bride on her nearly twenty pounds of weight loss. She is looking yummier every day ..........

Until next time .... try to stay cool.

Back from the road ...

We've returned home from our trip to Huntsville. We stayed in a little area called the Village of Providence. I don't know if this area is its own little township or simply an upscale area within Huntsville, but either way, it was nice.

The picture below is the fountain in the "town square" of the Providence (hard to imagine I took that picture less than twelve hours ago). The town square consisted of restaurants, an old school barber shop, a gym, and our hotel. Surrounding the town square was a beautiful neighborhood with a paved walking and bicycle path, a community pool and play ground. The homes were all designed to look like old south cottage homes (with new south prices!!!) and small scale plantation style homes. We will stay in Providence whenever we are in the Huntsville area.


As for the show, we had our best seats ever. We essentially had third row with the way the stage was setup. I wish you could have seen her eyes light up when we got to the seats. As if that wasn't exciting enough, everyone was allowed to crowd in around the stage before the show started. As you can see from this photo, Elizabeth was one of the first to move to the stage.

Elizabeth was within arms length of "her man" for the entire concert.


As for me, I remained in my comfortable seat and occasionally made my way to the watering hole to remain hydrated.

Here are a few more nice looking shots of the show. I was impressed with the huge screens that hung behind the band. Throughout the show, the screens were used to project images, live shots of the crowd, videos, etc. In addition, the screens would tilt in and out making the stage seem smaller and more intimate for some songs or larger for other songs.

In this picture the screens are tilted partially inward and are projecting a really cool outerspace vidoe full of colors.

In this picture, the screens are back and projecting live shots of each of the band members.

Of course, I cant forget that Elizabeth also had a first experience with this concert, getting to go backstage before the show for a "meet and greet" with Dierks Bentley. She and a handful of other fan club members were randomly selected for the meet and greet. Here is her photo with Dierks.......

Dierks did a really good job opening the show and warming up the crowd.

Now, I am going to lay down on the couch and take a nap. Have a great day............

Its like a broken record ...

You've probably already read this post before, but here we go again. It's another big weekend for Elizabeth as we head to Huntsville for a ..... guess ...... you know the guys name ...... its a concert event ..... Keith Urban concert.

Yep, its that time of the year again. This time will be a little extra special for her since she won a ticket to a "meet and greet" with the opening band, Dierks Bentley.

Actually, Dierks is probably my favorite country artist, so I will have a little better time than normal with this show.

Since the show is tomorrow, we have endured a one hour fashion show today to determine what she will be wearing tomorrow. I'm not really sure what outfit won, but I know there was some heated conversation between the girls about which outfit looked best, fit best and would be the most comfortable. For me, a pair of shorts, a t-shirt and a hat is all I need. I figure as long as I am covering the important bits and pieces, it will be all good.

We haven't been to Huntsville in a few years, so I am looking forward to the trip. It will also be our first trip in Big E's new car.

Skipping gears, Little Bit is headed for a mission trip this week. I think this will be the last year for her to get to go on this trip though. She is really excited about going. Be sure to ask her about it when you see her next.

One last thought, I celebrated my fifteenth year of working with the same company this past week. It's amazing to me that I have managed fifteen years with the same company (more than one third of my life) especially in my career field. I was honored with a little get together with all of my past / current managers and supervisors (a few stories were told there) and fellow employees. Some of them actually had a few nice things to say about me too!! It made me think that I am truly blessed to be able to work for such a great company (that is why I stay there).

That is about all I have for right now. I will say thanks to everyone who was so generous to Jessica for her graduation. I know that she really appreciates the gifts. I will also say thanks to those who have "raised" me at Alfa, I truly appreciate it.

A few more pictures

Here are a few pictures from our recent past ....

Jessica's Graduation - Pretty awesome day and event. There were 78 young people in her class this year. Afterwards, we had a great dinner at Red Lobster with my parents.



Jessica's Junior/Senior dance - That dress is "far out man!!!!"

Little Bit getting ready for her Junior/Senior dance - Believe it or not, her date was already at the house by this time.

Another Big Weekend ...

First let me say that I apologize to everyone for not keeping this blog up to date. I know that there are only a few individuals that actually check it out daily but I hate that I haven't been up to posting of late. To be honest, I've been a little tired lately.

Maybe it has something to do with the impending end of school year, or that Big E is working till 7:00 every night, or that I have a 3 million dollar computer hardware purchase hanging over my head, or maybe it is the girls and their everyday lives...... regardless, we are busy!

With that, let me hit the highlights of the last couple weeks.

We are approaching the end of the school year. For Jessica, high school is over. In fact, we went to the graduation ceremony today. I will try to post pictures of the big event tomorrow. The other two finish mid-week.

As you can imagine this was a big day at our house (and for the other 77 kids that graduated from ACA today). The ceremony was at 2:30 today. We had two rows of family show up for the event (almost 35 people between her Mom and Dad's family). I really appreciate everyone that made it out for the ceremony. For those that didn't make it, Jessica understands why and appreciates your thoughts and prayers.

Speaking of Jessica, she will be attending Faulkner University this fall. Faulkner is a local faith based university that is located next to the high school she is graduating from today. Jessica was awarded a "commuter scholarship", which covers half of the cost of her four year degree as long as she doesn't live on campus. This is such a benefit to both Jessica and us.

I still cant believe that our oldest will be going to college next year!!

For graduation, we purchased a new HP laptop for Jessica. Our hope is that she can make it through college with this computer.

As a true geek, I spent a little over twelve hours preparing the laptop for her. Maybe that is why I haven't been posting any blogs lately? As I was preparing her laptop, I got to thinking about what I was doing.

Rather than tearing off into a political tirade, let me say that protection is "nothing more than a tax on the innocent". I wish I could take credit for the statement or even remember who said it first. The bottom line is that regardless of what you are talking about; cars, homes, computers, or even our lives, protection is the price we pay for those that don't value those items like we do.

I will try to get a few pictures up tomorrow. Until then, have a great weekend.