This weekend was filled with activities. Friday, Lisa and I dropped the kids and Dauber off at her parents and went to Zoo 2 Do. This was the third year in a row that Lisa and I attended the event and it was pretty much the same as in the past. Same restaurants, seems like the same bands and pretty much the same people that attend. The food was good and as always I seem to fill up on the appetizer side of the event with shrimp, oysters and sushi. The event is great for people watching; we should have brought our camera but we'll do that next year if we decide to go. The food is always really good and the people watching gets better as the night goes on and the alcohol flows. The best is watching the older people get drunk and the younger crowd start to dance in their short skirts. We didn't get flashed but we came close a couple of times.

Saturday morning Shawn, Lisa and I headed out to Soak City which is Cedar Point's water park. We picked up some friends of ours and their kids and stopped for breakfast then headed to the park. We arrived about noon and the place was packed! We ended up staying until 7pm and had a blast. The wave pool was a big hit with the kids. Unfortunately, the lines were rather long so we didn't really spend too much time on the water slides.

Sunday was pretty relaxed. Bev and Ted came over with Katelyn who they were watching for the previous two nights and we all headed out to Sideline's for father's day lunch and then it was off to race go-karts. Shawn loves go-karts so it was an activity that we did together for father's day this year. Then it was off to Anderson's and Monette's market to pick up a few items for dinner. Of course we all stuffed ourselves at lunch so dinner actually ended up to be on the lighter side than what we would have been the norm for a cook out. I cut the grass and then BBQ a slab of ribs and a couple of chicken breasts for dinner. We ended up taking a walk around the neighborhood and then it was time to relax a bit before bed.

This week doesn't look too horribly busy. I just found out that I am going to the Indian's game on Tuesday will a friend of mine who got a couple of tickets to watch in the Parker-Hannifin suite and Friday Lisa and I are going to the annual disco party that takes place at a quarry/entertainment facility about a mile from our house with some friends of ours (Jill and Todd). I'm not much of a disco fan but I've heard that the event is a lot of fun.

Other than that, not much else happening. Here are a few more pictures of our adventures (if I'm posting too many pictures, tell me):

Zoo 2 Do

Shawn and Dad
A bit different but very fun Father's Day GiftSweet Potatoes!!

I haven't been the most active blogger lately but life tends to get in the way which is a good thing. I'm going to just spew random thoughts about what's been going on the last few weeks so I apologize if this post is rambling.

A couple of weeks ago Katelyn was baptised. My family and Lisa's family all arrived on Saturday and we all met at Shawn's tee ball game. Now everyone understands what I mean about Shawn having Lisa's athletic ability; I still hold out hope for him to break out and show his true athleticism. Of course I don't remember playing sports of any type at 6 years old so there's still time for him to improve and show interest. It's to the point that every time someone throws the ball in his direction, I close my eyes and hope that he doesn't get hit in the head! Somehow I got talked into helping out with coaching the kids too but I'm finding that I actually somewhat enjoy helping. On Sunday we went to mass and then the baptism service followed. After the service it was back to our house to have lunch and visit with family and friends.

Last Thursday we attended Shawn's kindergarten graduation. Graduation from Kindergarten is also a new experience for me. I don't remember graduation ceremonies of any type except for High School and College commencements and I don't remember too much about the one from College due to the excessive amounts of adult beverages I consumed the previous night. Anyway, the Kindergarten ceremony was very cute. The 4 classes sang about 4 songs and went up to accept their certificate of achievement followed by a coffee and cookie reception. I can't believe that I have a first grader now!

Lisa's birthday was last Saturday so she and I decided to travel to Plymouth Michigan to stay at a rather nice hotel and to relax. The hotel, The inn at St. Johns, used to be a monastery and is still used for many Catholic weddings and various other functions. The hotel was really nice and the grounds were beautiful. The restaurant was also very nice although we didn't eat dinner there we did have a few drinks and an appetizer which was very good. Lisa and I then spent Sunday morning having brunch in Ann Arbor at Weber's Inn and then shopping for awhile before heading home to attend a Mudhen's game.

This weekend we are thinking about spending the day at Soak City at Cedar Point with some friends of ours and their family but really are still undecided. On Friday Lisa and I are going to a local fundraiser at the zoo called Zoo to Do. Its basically a black-tie with shorts affair at the zoo where a number of the local restaurants and caterers make food samples available and there is live entertainments as well as plenty of beverages. This year's theme is Morphed to coincide with the new butterfly exhibit at the zoo. It's absolutely impossible to find a piece of men's clothing that has butterflies on it!

Work has been a bit busy for me lately working through a number of new projects dealing with new vendors and products and with a couple of larger potential clients. So all in all, our summer has started out pretty busy.

Well that pretty much catches you up with what's been happening the last few weeks. Here's some updated pictures:Uncle Brad and the Kids

Godmother Jill, Godfather Uncle Mike, Lisa, Tim and Katelyn

Not Katie Holmes' Sister

Shawn and Coach Dad's Big Butt
Very Proud 1st Grader

I just returned from my trip that my friend Jeff won. He basically won a trip that was sponsored by Alltel that included an all expenses paid trip to Charlotte for ten of his friends to compete in a pit-stop challenge that centered around the Coca-Cola 600 NASCAR race. The winners of the pit challenge won $200,000 and as you guessed it, we didn't even come close to winning. We had a blast. I flew out of Columbus on Thursday and arrived in Charlotte mid afternoon. Alltel booked us rooms at the Westin and we had dinner at the hotel in one of the ballrooms. After dinner my group, which consisted of several friends of mine from High School, Jeff's (the winner) girlfriend and a couple of other people he has met since moving to Columbus, we went to a giant street fair called Speed Street. The street fair was a great place to people watch and I'm sure that we were definitely watched once we had several beers. We then went to a couple of bars to end the evening.

On Friday morning, we had breakfast again in the ball room and were then taken to Pit Instruction and Training, LLC where they taught us all about NASCAR pit changes and we were able to practice. I'm not a huge race fan (not a fan at all) but the pit instruction was a blast. I ended up having the job of jack man which entailed jacking up the right side of the car, removing the rear right tire and removing it from the pit area. I then lowered the car on the right side after the tires were changed and then ran to the left side of the car with the 35 pound one pump jack and lifted the left side. Once all the tire were changed, I lowered the car and got the jack out of the way so the car could take off. Professional crews can change 4 tires and completely fuel the car in 13 seconds! You get a much better appreciation of what happens in the 13 seconds after you attend pit training. All I can say is 13 seconds is amazing. The fasted time that we could muster in practice was about 43 seconds. Once we were done with practice and lunch, we were taken on a tour of The Penske Racing Facility. The facility was impressive. The building is 400,000 square feet of nothing but racing. The facility houses office, fab shops, engine building machinery, engineering, visitor's center and basically everything you need to operate 2 NASCAR teams, two Indy teams and and an American Le Mans team. This place is really cool! We then headed back to the hotel and went out for the evening.

We headed back out to Speed Street Friday night and saw Loverboy. Loverboy is not as good as they used to be or as good as we thought they used to be! After the concert, we had a few more beers and headed back to the hotel.

On Saturday we were taken back to The Penske Facility and the contest winners participated in a Go-Kart race. The winners raced against Ryan Newman's time (he is the driver of the Alltel car) and if you beat his time you were rewarded a second off the pit stop time. Needless to say, no one beat his time. Jeff ended up at 20.8 seconds and Ryan's time was in the 18 second range.

After the go-kart race it was time for the pit-stop challenge. We first got to see a professional pit crew do a live change and it was smokin fast! We ended up doing out stop in something like 45 seconds which was no where near the 29 second time that won the contest. A family from Cedar Rapids Iowa won $200,000. We were then given about 10 minutes as a team to visit with Ryan Newman and to get autographs. NASCAR drivers are very approachable and personable to say the least. I don't think that you would get the attention that we received from a professional baseball player. Maybe it's the lack of gray matter that resides in their heads from all the wrecks that make them so approachable. Nonetheless, Ryan was very personable.

On Saturday night we went out and partied like rock stars. Had a number of Patron shots and beers and ended up at a few bars. We also saw Cheap Trick at Speed Street on Saturday night and then had more beers.....you get the idea of how Saturday night went.

Sunday we left the hotel at 11am for a 6pm race. When we got to the track, we immediately went on a garage tour. You have to be invited by a car sponsor to take a garage tour on race day so there were relatively few people in the area. In the garages, all the teams were busy making final race preparations to the cars and at times were idling the engines or stepping on the gas with the car up on blocks. The noise was incredible. You could just feel the 800 horsepower shaking your bones. We then took a walk down pit road and then returned to our seats. Speaking of our seats, they were in a private suite fully stocked with icy cold beer and food. Right before race time, Ryan Newman stopped by for a quick Q&A session. The race was interesting. There were quite a few cautions one or two pretty good wreaks and was a neat experience. The Alltel car was knocked out of the race fairly early with a blown engine and the other Penske owned car (Miller Lite Car) also was knocked out of the race about 2/3 of the way.
We ended up back at the hotel at 2am and had to catch a flight back to Columbus at 9:50am on Monday.

The experience was more than I expected. Everything was first class and best of all completely free!! Here are a bunch of pictures that I took. Some of the pictures are stupid and meaningless unless you were there but here they are anyway. Here are a few of the fine establishements that we visited at night in Charlotte if you are interested: Ri Ra (Irish Pub), Bar Charlotte, Fuel Pizza.


This week is a short but busy on for me. I have picked up a few additional responsibilities at work and have meetings relating to those new tasks. Katelyn's baptism is on Sunday and Lisa and I both have family for out of town in this weekend; we will be busy cleaning and preparing for the weekend.

This weekend had us running! Friday I left work a little early and got all my yard chores out of the way because I knew that the rest of the weekend was going to be a blur. Friday evening, Lisa and I took the kids to our church's annual festival and spent some time watching Shawn ride some of the most ridiculous yet so very overpriced carnival rides and then spent a little time in the beer tent consuming adult beverages and listening to loud unmemorable music.

Saturday Shawn had Tee ball practice at 10:30am and then it was off to Nana's house for the night. Katelyn had her 3 month pictures scheduled for later that morning and then she also spent the rest of the day and night at Nana's. Lisa had to work the festival for a couple of hours on Saturday afternoon so after I dropped her off there, I went shopping for baseball cleats and pants for Shawn. After stopping at two Dick's Sporting Goods Stores, I finally found Shoes in Shawn's size. Then it was off to the festival to pick up Lisa so we could go to dinner.

We ended up going to Carson's Steakhouse for dinner to celebrate our wedding anniversary which is next weekend. We used a gift certificate that we got as a gift from Lance and Traci...thanks! The food was great! I had the Horseradish encrusted Lake Superior Whitefish with Broccoli and a lettuce wedge, Lisa had the Delmonico. The popovers they serve with dinner were outstanding! I pretty much blew my diet on Saturday but considering that I didn't eat much the rest of the day I really didn't do too bad. We ended the evening with a walk with Dauber through the neighborhood.

Sunday we went to Cleveland to visit my Mom. We really didn't have anything planned other than to spend the day with Mom. We ended up getting lunch at El Rodeo which as just average and took a trip to Marcs. Lisa's trips to Cleveland are never complete without spending an hour or so and about $50 at Marcs. The place is always a mess but the prices are pretty good. We spent a little more time at Mom's place visiting with my brother and sister and headed home.

This week is a short one for me. I will be in Charlotte at the pit change challenge later in the week. Hopefully I come home with some prize money.

Have a great week!

We have been looking for garden ornaments or statues but haven't really found any worth the money you have to shell out for them. Today at lunch we went over to Sam's Club and picked up this little beauty. It was a pain to hang in a way that it won't fall off but it looks pretty damn cool.

This weekend was pretty much spent working on the yard. Friday, I finished planting the flowers and other plants that we bought on Thursday only to realize that we needed twice as many plants than what we bought. We also had 6 yards of mulch delivered and dumped in the driveway.

Saturday, I cut the grass finished spreading the last of the mulch and bought more flowers to plant. Lisa and I went to dinner at Mancy's with some friends. I have no idea what they do to the beef at Mancy's but I've never had a bad meal there. I had the Tornadoes Oscar and Lisa had the Ribeye.

On Sunday, Mother's Day, Lisa's parents came over and I cooked breakfast for them. We had eggs benedict, a fruit salad, potatoes, mimosas and bloody marys. The breakfast turned out very nice. We then ran some errands. Went to the Anderson's, Lowes, Joseph's Beverage Center and the pet store to pick up a gold fish that Shawn so desperately needed. When I went to Joseph's Beverage, I picked up a bottle of Delirium Tremens. I had this very strong (9%) beer in New York earlier this month and I can't get enough of it. The beer is from Belgium and has the best aftertaste of any beer I've ever had (and for those of you who know me, I've had quite a few)! If you ever stumble upon this beer, try it....you won't be disappointed.

Sunday evening was spent on the patio and finishing up the landscaping before dinner. Below are a few pictures of the finished landscape project. I can't wait until the flowers and grasses grow and fill in.

Mother's Day Breakfast (doesn't look too bad does it?)

Shawn & Lisa with the cake Shawn decorated at Anderson's

A Boy and his Fish

Oh, I forgot to update on my weight loss effort. I have lost 42 pounds over the past 10 weeks! Eating like a rabbit pays off I guess. Only 50 pounds to my easy goal and 60 pounds to my ultimate goal.

Thanks to all for the encouragement!!