Long Trips And Family Adventures

Well, it's been 2 weeks since my last post. I just haven't really had much to talk about. 2 weeks ago was just another week. I drove, I came home, and I went back to work again. Last week was interesting. My first load took me to Memphis, TN. After that the rest of the week was very unusual for me. Normally, the furthest east I go is to Nashville, TN. Not this time. This time I went to Knoxville, TN. Then I went to Charlotte, NC. Then to 2 stops in Atlanta, GA. And finally a long 850 mile trip back home. I actually enjoyed the change of pace for once. I took a few pictures along the way. Here's one of a tunnel in Fines Creek, NC on I-40.And here is one of downtown as I was entering Atlanta, GA on I-285 West.Anyway, I was able to get home by midnight, Sunday morning. I got a good night's sleep and woke up ready for a good day with my family. We didn't do too much all day. Susan's mom came over and we went to Double Dave's Pizza for lunch. Then we went to Daniel & Christina's to give their kids their Baptism gifts. Joshua and Adam seemed to have a blast playing with each other. They chased each other all over the place, played catch-the-ball, and pretty much just rough housed. After that we came back home and Janie trimmed Joshua's hair.(It was getting kinda shaggy) Susan made steak, potatoes, and corn for dinner. Joshua didn't really touch it much, but I think that's cause he ate a whole bunch at lunch. When dinner was over Mommy sat him down for potty time. He did pee, but most of it didn't make it in the potty. He got it all over the floor instead. After that, it was bath time, where he decided it was more fun to drink the bath water than play in it. And after the bath was over he rejected his towel and streaked from the bathroom across the hall to the office to show Daddy that he was clean. Nice! I wonder how that would look if Susan or I did it? Never mind! We put him to bed, he fussed only for a moment and went to sleep. For some reason Susan & I suddenly had the urge for ice cream. There was none in the house. So, at 9:00 at night I drove off to Braum's and got Susan a Brownie Fudge Sundae and A Banana Split for myself. It was oh so goooooood!

This morning it has begun to storm. The thunder is loud, the rain has been heavy at times, and the weatherman says it's only going to get worse. It looks like it's supposed to be like this all week. I usual love a stormy day, but not when it goes on and on and on. Susan already had to head off to work in the rain. Now it's my turn to go out in it. I need to take Joshua to daycare. Lately on Mondays I've hated taking him there. I've been missing him a lot lately while I'm out on the road and I just want to keep him home and keep him all to myself. Oh, well. He needs to spend time with his friends and he learns so much in daycare.

Okay! I guess I need to stop typing now and get things done.

A Week Of Many Surprises.

This week was not a typical week for me. Most things that went on this week were either last minute or completely unplanned. Let's start with Tuesday. The new cell phone I ordered from Verizon was delivered. I spent most of the day playing with it and trying to learn how to use all of it's features. Before I knew it the rest of the day had passed by and I hadn't gotten hardly any rest for work. After having not gotten much sleep during the day and not fully being ready to head off to work I called my work to see where I was going to be headed to. I got a really big surprise when they told me they didn't have a load for me. Ouch! I didn't want to go out, but I can't afford to be missing work either.

On the plus side, I did get to be at home with my wife on our 3rd Wedding Anniversary. We had celebrated it on Monday by going to Red Lobster for dinner because we thought I wouldn't be home on Wednesday. So, on our Anniversary we went to Pasado's Mexican Restaurant with Jeromy & Mandy. Pasado's has the best guacamole I have ever tasted. Their food isn't too bad either. After dinner was over I called my work and they had a load for me. So, I got ready for work and headed out the door.

Well, here's how things went as far as my work schedule goes. Dallas, TX to Lubbock, TX to Dallas, TX to Shreveport, LA to Jackson, MS to Memphis, TN and back to Dallas, TX. If that seems short well, that's because it was. I actually arrived in Dallas at 6:45am Saturday morning. A whole day earlier than usual. So, my work week was really, really short. However, the early return home gave me the fantastic opportunity of making a surprise trip to Arkansas to see my family. They had all headed to the cabin for the weekend to celebrate Easter and I originally wasn't going to be able to be there with them. I didn't even tell them I was coming. After the 4 1/2 hour drive there I stopped just before entering the gate and called my wife. I asked her how things were going and told her how much I really missed her and Joshua. She said her and Joshua missed me too. I said to her, "Than look over the hill.", and drove onto the property. They all seemed surprised to see me there. They also ended up having a surprise for me. The night before Janie's air mattress had gotten a hole in it and her and David were using ours. Susan had an extra twin air mattress, but that was it. I had no bed to sleep on. That was easily fixed though. Susan and her mom took a trip to Mena, AR to buy another twin for me to sleep on.

The rest of the time in Arkansas was spent having fun. I rode around the property a bunch of times on the ATV's, shot some clay pigeons, flew kites, did an Easter egg hunt, played kickball with Joshua, and had some really good BBQ hamburgers and hot dogs for dinner. After the day winded down and we had all settled into bed a strong thunderstorm blew through the area and soaked everything. It was still raining when we got up Sunday morning. We ended up having to load up all our things into the vehicles in the rain. And wouldn't you know it, the minute everything was done being loaded, the rain stopped! Figures! Anyway, we got home around 5:30pm and relaxed most of the rest of the night.

This morning Joshua slept in until a little after 10am. When I went in and woke him up he was in a really good mood. He has been a little sick the last few days and has had a yellowish goo coming out of his ears. So, I decided to have him stay home with me today and we've been playing and having fun all day so far. I put him down for an afternoon nap around 2:45pm and he's still asleep now. He has a doctor's appointment at 4:30pm tonight, but he seems to be getting better on his own just fine. We'll still go to be sure though.

Anyway, now your all caught up and you'll have to wait until I have more to type.

Bye, Bye Old Fence. Hello, New Cable Line.

It's blog time again. Wed. - Sat. was spent driving as usual. There was supposed to be a shift bid at my work last week, but for some unknown reason it didn't happen. I really don't mind though, because they do the shift bid by seniority and I'm still way at the bottom of the list. Every time shift bid comes around I worry that I'll end up being on the standby list and have my miles cut dramatically. So far that hasn't happened thank God. Anyway, here's last week's lineup. Dallas, TX to Birmingham, AL to Atlanta, GA to Mobile, AL to Birmingham, AL to Jackson, MS to Baton Rouge, LA to Memphis, TN and back to Dallas, TX. I got home around 2am Sunday morning and was able to get a good nights rest.

It's a good thing that I got that rest too. On Friday I received a call from my wife and she informed me that some really strong winds had come through on Thursday and the fence on the west side of our house had blown over. Here's a picture of the aftermath.

So Sunday afternoon we had the Howard's and Spencer's over to our house for fence raising party. The neighbor also joined in since it was his fence too. The fun began by tearing down the rest of the old fence and digging out the old posts. Next it was time to dig new holes. The first hole dug was the beginning of a whole new adventure. You see, we started at the back of our property and about half way into digging we noticed we had hit some cables in the ground. At the time we thought they were just old cables that had just been left in the ground. More on this a little later. It took all day and a trip to Lowes for some extra supplies but by the end of the day we had a new fence. Here's what it looks like now.

While the guys were out working in the yard, the ladies worked inside watching the kids and cooking enchiladas. They did a wonderful job at both. Dinner was delicious. The kids seemed to have had fun most of the time. Once dinner was over though, for some reason Joshua became a holy terror. He was screaming, crying, and throwing a fit. Nothing was stopping it either. What he really needed was a nap. He usually gets one some time in the afternoon, but with all that was going on he hadn't had one. He was a little better after he did get one, but not great.

So, while I was at Lowes, Susan calls me to tell me that our internet and cable tv is out and asked if I could call Charter and see why. I called them and they told me they would look into it and to call back in an hour or so if it was still not working. After a couple of hours had passed and the fence was done and everyone had left I checked the internet and cable tv to see if it was working, but it still was not. I called charter again and they told me they would have to send someone out on Monday to look at it. Luckily, I also have a Verizon connection card that I use while I'm out on the road, so we at least had access to the internet, even if it was slower than molasses.

So today, after I got home from doing some running around town, the guy from Charter shows up and tells me that everyone on our block that has Charter has lost their service. Turns out the underground cable we hit on the digging of the 1st post hole belonged to Charter. Yep! We hit a live one and killed the cable on our entire block. He had to dig up all the dirt and gravel around the post, splice new cable wires to the old, and bury them again. At least now we have our services back.

In other news for today. I got Joshua up and took him to his daycare. Susan has gotten an earier shift at her work and asked if I could take Joshua to daycare on my days off so that he could sleep in a little later on Mon. & Tues. I have no problem getting to spend a little more time with my boy in the mornings. After I dropped him off at daycare I went and finally got my new glasses back again. They were made right this time and I can see through them perfectly. I also took the check our neighbor gave us for his half of the cost of the fence to the bank. Then I went and paid off a loan we had. That was a nice feeling. And finally I went to Walmart to get a few items we needed at the house. I also kept myself productive at the house by doing some laundry, doing the dishes, and taking out the trash and recycle items.

Now I'm tired and I'm heading off to bed. Night y'all!

Lizards Leapin' Through Donuts & Fog.

Well, well, well. If it isn't Tuesday already. I guess a blog update is in order, huh? Ok.

Last week was a long work week. I drove over 3000 miles and didn't get home until 8:30am Sunday morning. I went from Dallas, TX to Houston, TX to Jackson, MS to Grenada, MS to Nashville, TN to Dallas, TX to Houston, TX to Harlingen, TX and finally back to Dallas, TX again. At least the paycheck's gonna look really good next week. To bad all the bills are going to eat it up.

After I was done working on Sunday I came home and decided to treat my wife & son to a day of fun. I brought donuts home for breakfast. It was Joshua's 1st donut. He's only eaten donut holes before Sunday. He loved it...Duh! For lunch, we met the Spencer's at Chili's. Joshua ate a corn dog and corn-on-the-cob. He loves both of those things. We even had to hide the corn-on-the-cob from him so he'd eat his corn dog. When he was done with the corn dog and we broke out the corn-on-the-cob he almost jumped out of his seat with excitement. It was hilarious to watch him go nuts eating it. When we finished with lunch, we headed to Leapin' Lizards. It's an indoor playground. It has blow-up bounce houses and a 4 story playscape. It also has a toddler area with quite a number of fun toys to play with. We all had a blast. Joshua was so tuckered out that he almost fell asleep in my arms on the way to the car. It didn't last long though. He woke up about 10 minutes after we got home and wasn't too happy that we were at home and not still at Leapin' Lizards. For dinner we ordered pizza. After dinner Joshua got a bath and when his tub was draining he began farting. Susan had me hurry and get the potty seat and she sat him down on it. She began reading a couple of books to him and all of a sudden we hear the potty playing music. He had pee-peed in the potty for the 2nd time since we've had the thing. He never pooped though, so it must have just been gas. After all that excitement, we put Joshua to bed and listened to him scream and cry about it until he gave up and fell asleep. He rarely does that. He usually goes to bed really easily. As for me, well, after having been up for more than 28 hours. I went to bed and crashed. I don't even remember my wife coming to bed or anything. She told me that at one point in the night I reached over, grabbed her hand, mumbled something she couldn't understand, and then turned back over. Oh well. At least I got a good night's rest.

Yesterday was spent mowing the grass, trimming bushes, raking leaves, putting down weed & feed, and watering the lawn. For dinner we ate fish sticks and mac-&-cheese and then aften a failed attempt at potty time with Joshua, he went to bed. When Susan went in to check on him before she headed off to bed she called me into his room to look at something. When I got there, his room was full of fog. I had added to much salt to the vaporizor and it fogged up his entire room. Even my glasses fogged up the moment I entered. Oops! We unplugged it and left it off for the night.

Anyway, now I'm all caught up and done with typing for now. Until next time.

Going Bonkers In The BlueBonnets With Diet Coke

It's been a crazy week. I only drove from Tuesday night until late Thursday night. I had to be home on Friday because my wife was having surgery early in the morning. It's only been two days since her surgery and she's is doing great. Actually, she's been doing great since the moment we left the hospital. Even if she is in any pain she's not acting like it. The nurse told her to take it easy for the next week and to not lift anything or do too many activities. Of course, that didn't stop her from carrying our son and running all over town for the last few days. She's such a tough cookie. I just hope she doesn't over do it.

After we left the hospital we went to pick up my new glasses. Everyone seems to like them. I like them too, but them seem to be giving me trouble with focusing. I've had them on since I got them, hoping that my eyes just neeeded to adjust to the new lenses, but they haven't. Tonight I was trying to read a story on the computer and it seemed so blury to me. I decided to put my old glasses on and discovered that I could see everything on the screen clearly. I'm going to have to take the new one's back tomorrow and get them redone. Unfortunately, that means I'll have to wear my old one's for a few more weeks.

On Saturday we meet my wife's mom and stepdad for breakfast at Golden Corral. Thanks again to them for buying our meals. After that we did some running around with the Spencers. First we went to Babies 'R' Us / Toys 'R' Us and bought a couple things, including a bubble lawn mower as a birthday gift Joshua. Yes, I know it's early, but we've been looking for this gift for a long time and finally found it. It was also the last one they had left. We also bought him a little Scooby-Doo toy to play with. We also did something very bad, by accident. We had picked up a pack of six socks for Joshua and forgot that they were behind his back. When we got out to the car and I picked him up out of the cart, there they were. I know it was wrong and we've never done it before, but since the door alarm didn't go off when we left the store and everything else was already in the car and we had other things to do we took them. We still are feeling the guilt.

Next we headed to Lewisville to a place called "Going Bonker's". It's a kids place that has a huge indoor jungle gym. Joshua and Adam had a blast! Heck, so did the adults. Daniel and I went though it with the kids and I can't speak for Daniel, but I had lots of fun and was very exhausted after. We must have played for 2 or more hours. I wish the place was closer. I'd love to take my son there more often. Later that evening we went to Pasado's for dinner and then ran to Khols to buy Joshua a shirt for him to wear for taking pictures in the Bluebonnets.

Today, us and the Spencer's went to do bluebonnet pictures out in Ennis, TX. First though we stopped in Wilmer, TX at Carl's Jr. to have lunch. I also bought 2 bottles of Diet Coke and a pack of Mentos. Yes, it was for what you're thinking. And if you don't know what I'm talking about drop a Mentos into a bottle of Diet Coke and see what happens. Anyway, we got a bunch of good pictures in the bluebonnets and my wife will post the on our Flickr in the next few days.

Okay. I'm done for now. I'll be back again soon.

All About This Week And Think Pink!

Another week has come and gone. It ended up being a short work week for me. They didn't have enough loads to send me out on Tuesday night, so I didn't get started until Wednesday night. Even then, the whole work week was slow. I spent most of my time either sitting around waiting for the loads to finish being loaded or waiting for them to find a load for me to move. They did still manage to get me far enough away from home that when I got my final load for the week I wasn't able to make it home until 4am Sunday morning. So, my route for the week went like so; Dallas, TX to Houston, TX to Jackson, TN to Memphis, TN to Grenada, MS to Memphis, TN and back to Dallas, TX.

Anyway, enough about work. During the day on Sunday Susan, Joshua, & I went out to lunch at Taco Cabana. I had ordered a plate of nachos that comes with sour cream & guacamole in a little red corn tortilla bowl. Joshua wanted nothing to do with his lunch, but everything to do with eating that little red bowl I had. Then he wanted all the red colored chips that were in Daddy's nachos. It was all about the red stuff for him. Afterward, we went to Toy 'R' Us where Joshua scored a few new Wonder Color Markers, some A-B-C & 1-2-3 flash cards and a mini Magna Doodle for traveling with. We also made our usual grocery run at Wal-mart. They're remodeling our local Wal-mart, so nothing is where it's supposed to be at right now. We ended up spending the rest of the day at home. I used my new shovel that I got for Christmas for the first time. I used it to aerate the front yard a little so that our grass might have a chance at growing better this year. I also, finally, picked up all the leaves that were left in the yard. I should mention, I hate doing yard work. However, it has to be done and my wife won't let me pay a gardener to do it. I know we don't have that kind of money, but I REALLY HATE YARD WORK!!! Joshua got to ride his tricycle outside a little bit and also played with his big blue beach ball too. He loves getting to play in the yard. For dinner we both were too lazy to cook, so we had Pizza Hut deliver a couple pizzas and called it a night.

This morning my son decided he was not going to listen to anything anyone told him to do. He didn't want to get out of bed, he didn't want his diaper changed, he didn't want his waffle, (he loves bananas, so he ate that with no trouble) he didn't want to put his jacket on so he could go to daycare. Finally, I had had enough and he got whopped on the bottom. I feel bad for having to have done it, but it did put an end to the misbehaving. And when he came home tonight he was a very good little boy. While everyone was gone to work and daycare I went to the bank, to Verizon, and went and got a haircut. I think the woman did a good job on my hair. My wife thinks it's too short. She likes my hair when it's longer. I find it just to hard to manage. Once everyone was home again, we went out to dinner with the Howard's, minus their kids. The kids were at their Aunt & Uncle's house. We tried a new Mexican restaurant called Rio Mambo. The food wasn't too bad, not great, but not too bad. For once, Susan & I decided to have something a little stronger than tea or soda. So she had a margarita on the rocks and I had what they called a "Miami Vice". It was a mix of pina colada and strawberry daiquiri. It was really good.

After dinner, Joshua & I came home. Susan went over to her sister's so they could go for their walk. Oh, by the way, Susan and her sister are preparing themselves for the 3 day breast cancer walk that's taking place in November. For more information about it and to make a donation to help them out, go to Susan's 3 Day website and offer your support.

Okay. I'm done for now. Be back again soon.

Happy Birthday Daddy From A Totally Awesome Dude!

Happy Birthday to me! I am now old enough to know everything! Oh wait! I'm way passed being a teenager! Now I'm old enough to forget everything I knew. Damn! Anyway, today has been a busy day so far. Susan's B-day gift to me was an appointment with the optometrist to get new glasses. Thank you sweetheart. I haven't had new glasses in over 5 years. I took the exam and the doctor told me that my eyes have hardly changed at all. I picked out my new glasses and I'll have them in 2 weeks. I also went to the bank, paid on a loan we have, FedExed some house papers to our mortgage company, put insecticide on our dying bushes, fixed a drawer in the spare bathroom and anchored our son's changing table to the wall. I guess when things need to be done, it doesn't matter if it's your b-day or not. Tonight, for my B-day dinner, my wife is taking me to one of my favorite restaurants, Italianni's. I even have a coupon for a free dessert. (Their desserts are to die for!)

Oh, another thing I got for my birthday came from both my wife and my son. It is probably the most awesome present I have ever got. Check it out....


Susan said she had to record him for about 5 or more minutes before she could get him to say it. I totally love it! He is growing up so fast. I had to work an extra day this week and I missed him so much.

Anyway, like I said, I had to work an extra day this week and I didn't get home until 11:30pm Sunday night. So here was the route I had this week. I went from Dallas, TX to Shreveport, LA to Jackson, MS to Tupelo, MS to Jackson, TN to Houston, TX to Jackson, MS to Houston, TX to Harlingen, TX to Houston, TX and finally back to Dallas, TX. Unfortunately, I only get today off and then it's back to work tomorrow. I guess with so many people out of work I really shouldn't be complaining. My wife and I are both in fairly stable careers and consider ourselves to be really lucky people right now. I know so many people who are either looking for work, barely working, or just praying their job doesn't go away. I know things get better in the future, I just hope it happens before people really begin to suffer.

Alright, I've rambled enough. Everyone enjoy yourselves.