This past week has been relatively quiet. On Sunday, Bev and Ted came over for dinner to celebrate Ted's 71st birthday. And on the menu was deep fried turkey so I spent about 2 hours messing around in the back yard dunking a 20 pound turkey in a stockpot full of oil and making a pretty good mess.


Monday, I made turkey tetrazzini with the leftover turkey. It turned out pretty good for the first time but I need to alter the recipe a bit the next time. It definitely needed some garlic or habanero peppers to give it a kick. I love coking new things when they turn out well. I have to get back into my Indian cooking soon.



Today, we picked up Shawn's glasses which he loves! And went to BW3 for Ted's real birthday. The B-dub trip was a total nightmare. Katelyn has decided to be an absolute terror in any restaurant lately...make that any public place for that matter. We shoveled in our food and took off as fast as we could. The poor guy that waited on us couldn't wait to see us leave. Katelyn will be our problem child. I think she is my pay back for being an ass to my parents at times. You know what they say about paybacks....and that is exactly what Katelyn has been lately. I want to lock her up until she's about 25 at times but at other times she is so damn cute. She really has become a Daddy's girl. The best is when she's tired. She walks up to me and lays her head on my chest until I pick her up and let her lay on my chest. Typically within 5 minutes, she's out. She pretty much has me wrapped. How can such a cute little person be such a pain in the butt?

Anyway, my brother is coming to town to celebrate his 32nd birthday with his big brother. Toledo isn't the most exciting place in the world to celebrate your birthday but we will find a fine drinking establishment to help in the celebration. We will however leave Katelyn at home or with her Nana.

Here's a video of Katelyn waling around the back yard last weekend:

Hey look at my new glasses!

We took Shawn in for an eye exam thinking maybe some of his issues with math comprehension could be linked to not being able to see the chalk board. Shawn needs glasses. I'm hoping that the glasses will help him stay focused at school which has all of a sudden become an issue.

This weekend pretty much was a blur. Lisa and I are passing back and forth some respiratory sickness so all we do is cough and take medicine. On top of the constant hacking, Lisa also has a nasty ear infection. Lisa and I took the day off on Friday so she could rest a bit and I could cut the grass and work in the yard a bit. I didn't get as much as I wanted to get done but it's a start. I'm glad winter is finally over but I forgot how much work the yard is in the spring time. I weeded the flower beds in the back and got about half the beds edged. This week, I will try the finish up the edging in the back and start weeding in the front as well as getting the sprinkler system turned on and programmed.

Yesterday was frustrating. When we went on vacation, our wireless router took a dump so I went out and purchased a new one. I installed the router just fine but I couldn't see the router using my adapter up in Shawn's room so I figured I would un-install the adapter and re-install it to see if it made a difference. That was a major mistake. Now I am in reboot hell with Shawn's computer. Anytime I plug the adapter into the USB port, windows basically starts and then reboots for infinity. I even went as far as reloading windows but the problems still exists. I finally reloaded windows for the second time yesterday to get the PC working again but haven't tired to reinstall the adapter software yet. Not sure what I'm gonna do at this point. I think I'm going to try and install the adapter without using the install disk to see if that works. Any suggestions Brad? Even if I get the adapter to work, I will probably need to buy a repeater in order to see our router upstairs or try to switch the channel the router is using. How freaking frustrating and a waste of an entire day!

That pretty much brings you up to date. Nothing too crazy I guess.

Here's a picture of Katelyn channeling my Dad's humor. The picture won't mean much to most of you but it will to those who understood my Dad's humor!"Giving the Eye"

Right to read T-shirt

It has been a fairly busy month since my last post. We had a birthday party for Shawn which was not originally planned but he decided against the idea of a party with his class and friends and chose a family party instead. Party was pretty much uneventful but Shawn was more than thrilled when he opened up his Nintendo DS. I had no idea that he wanted one or even knew how to play one; shows you what Dad knows! He has become a big fan of the Star Wars game he got from Nana and Papa.

We took our spring break in sunny Indian Springs, Florida. Indian Springs in located between St. Petersburg and Clearwater and is a mainly condominium community. Our condo was on the beach and was more than sufficient for the seven of us. The weather was somewhat on the cool side for the first part of the week but eventually warmed up into the low 80s toward the end of the trip. Unfortunately most of us passed around an intestinal flu throughout the week. We did plenty of site seeing, eating, drinking and hanging around the condo.

We didn't arrive until late Saturday evening and ended up at Walmart, the only grocery store open in the area, at 1am. Sunday, which was Easter, we hung out in the condo, did some swimming then Brad and I decided it was a good idea to drink nearly a half gallon of Jose. Needless to say, I slept through Easter dinner. Throughout the week, we took trips to Ybor city in Tampa, the pier in St. Petersburg (fed the pelicans), Tarpon Springs to see the shops surrounding the sponge industry as well as shopping in Clearwater and at John's Pass in Madeira. Lisa, Shawn and Bev also took a dolphin cruise while Ted, Brad, Katelyn and I threw down a couple pitchers of beer at a fine tourist trap bar.

Food was a major part of the trip as it should be. We had gigantic grouper sandwiches at Dockside Dave's, the absolutely best smoked fish at Ted Peters, a decent lunch that included conch fritters and gator bites from Conch Republic and more grouper and oysters from Frenchy's. All in all, the food was pretty good and we tried to eat at the smaller, non-chain local restaurants.

Vacation was a lot of fun but of course way too short. You can see pictures of our exploits here.

Two days after we returned home, I set out on my annual trip to opening day. The weather was actually the best it has ever been in what I think has been 12 years of going to Cleveland to experience the start of spring. This year we had a few additional faces show up and the beer was flowing as it has in years past. Pretty much the same places gone and the same things done so not too much to report on the year's festivities except we did get to order the best pie in downtown Cleveland before the Rascal House closed for the evening and squeezed in a sandwich at Panini's. The added bonus is that the Tribe won!

Work for me has been pretty busy lately for me. I am in the process of organizing three trade shows this year. One in June, one in September and now one in October. The process is a major pain in the rear end. Ordering electrical service, booking hotels, airfares, arranging for shipping, assembly, breakdown of a 20 foot by 20 foot 3000 pound trade show booth and dealing with all the other issues is a major process. I am 85% done with the footwork though and I am beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel.....Friday!

Katelyn is starting to eat more and more regular food and is starting to take a few steps at at time without falling on her face so I figure that in the next two weeks or so we will have trouble keeping up with her. Shawn is studying the Jedi arts and hopes to become a sith apprentice before too long!

This weekend we have a birthday party to attend on Saturday that will more than likely turn into a beer pong party by the end of the night.