Sorry about not posting very much lately. It has been a busy couple of months. I spent 4 days in New York city with some of my friends a few weeks back and then immediately had to go to Texas to make sales calls. Trips coupled with Shawn's tee ball practice, work and the additional yard work that seems to come with the warmer temperatures have pretty much consumed all of our time.

New York was fun. I went with the intention of going to the NFL draft but I opted not to stand in line at 4:30 am the morning of the draft to get my ticket. There were 10,000 people waiting in line for an event that didn't start until noon. I decided sleeping was far more important. In new York I didn't really do any of the traditional tourist type things. Spent a lot of time in local watering holes catching up with friends that I haven't seen in awhile. Nothing really too out of the ordinary to report from the NY trip. Did sample some Indian food one night and I was pleasantly surprised. Of course we had no idea what we were ordering so we had the waiter surprise us with anything but goat. We ended up with a beef and two chicken dishes to share with some really good onion and garlic bread. Other than that, pretty calm long weekend.

Texas was hectic. I ended up flying from NY to Columbus to Dallas. We had stops in Dallas for one day, Houston for one day and San Antonio for 2 days. By far my favorite town of the bunch was San Antonio. I really enjoyed San Antonio's River Walk. There are a ton of restaurants, hotels and bars along the river as well as shops. The area was packed. We spent a little time at Coyote Ugly, ate at The Lonestar Cafe (just average) and a Mexican joint (which was really good).

The best food was in Houston. I wish I know what the name of this joint was but I wouldn't be able to spell it if I remembered anyway. We ended up in Houston pretty late after making the nearly 4 hour drive from Dallas. We decided on Seafood and started down one of the many service roads that runs parallel to the highways and ended up at a restaurant that had the word prominently displayed on its sign. As we walked up to the door, I noticed that it was filled with Mexicans (not really out of the ordinary in Texas). After we were seated, we discovered that the waitress spoke very little English. I ended up having seafood fajitas. The fajitas included scallops, grouper, octopus, squid, shrimp, chicken and beef. They were outstanding!! When we finally left the restaurant, I realized that the only word on the giant sign outside was seafood all the rest of the words were in Spanish!!

When I got home, Lisa was in Grand Rapids Michigan with the kids and her Mom for the annual pilgrimage to the Bailey's Grove Garage Sales. Seems like they had a lot of fun in our old city up north. They visited some old neighbors and spent the weekend wandering the city.

I got a call on Saturday from my friend Jeff. He had won a trip for him and up to 10 friends to Charlotte for the NASCAR race over Memorial Day weekend to compete in a pit stop challenge. The short of it is that Altell pays for all of the transportation, hotels, meals, activities and race tickets and we have the chance to complete against 10 other teams for $200,000. I guess that we have to do a live pit change on a regulation size car and the team that completes the task the fastest wins $200K!!!! Unfortunately that weekend just so happens to be Lisa and my 12th anniversary. Lisa is such a wonderful and caring woman that she decided the opportunity was once in a lifetime so she has given me the green light. Thanks Lisa!!

I guess the trip also includes racing apparel and behind the scenes tour of Penske racing. Even though I'm not a huge race fan (not a race fan at all), it should be fun and somewhat interesting. Hopefully I come home with some cash.

Not much else to report....if that wasn't enough. This weekend we are finishing up a new flowing bed and mulching the yard so it will be ready for Katelyn's baptism the beginning of June.

I will try to post more frequently if I can. Have a great week!!

Here are a few new pictures: