My brother came for a visit this past weekend. We really kept it pretty low key but had fun nonetheless. Friday, we had dinner, watched the Cavs game, had a few beers and indulged in some Jameson Irish whiskey. Once we were in party shape, we went to a bar nearby with my friend Todd called Andy and Barney's. The bar just so happens to be located in a shopping complex called Mayberry! Pretty small bar but it had a decent crowd and a couple of fun bartenders who shared a shot or two with us. We had a couple of beers and a couple of shots and called it a night.

Lisa really didn't feel well all weekend so Katelyn went to stay with her Nana while Lisa relaxed and Mike and I did our thing. So Saturday, Mike wanted to go to The Maumee Brewing Company. So we headed downtown and had a bite to eat at The Blarney. We both had a great grilled marlin sandwich which came with an order to homemade potato chips. The chips were some of the very best I have ever had and they were served with a side of blue cheese dressing for dipping. Fat city but delicious. I wish The Blarney was in my neighborhood, I would like to eat there more often. Once we were finished with our food and had a couple of pints, we headed down to Maumee Brewing. We were extremely disappointed to find out that the place didn't open until 4pm....on a Saturday! We then went on a mission to find a bar in Downtown Toledo that was open before 4pm and the only one that we could find was Easystreet cafe. We had a couple more beers there and then headed home to watch the derby and have a mint julep (I'm not a big fan I found out).

Saturday evening, Lisa still wasn't feeling too well but did manage to drag herself out to try and eat. We ended heading to Sidelines with Jill and Todd. After dinner, Lisa went to bed and Mike, Shawn and I ended up all falling asleep in the family room watch television. We were all sawing wood by 9:30.

Sunday we had lunch at Elephant Bar and then Mike headed home. I finished the day by mowing the lawn, grilling steak for dinner.

This morning I ordered 5 cubic yards of black gold (mulch) which will be delivered Thursday. Time to get the landscape back into shape.

Happy 32nd Birthday Mike!

Mike's Cake on the cool cake stand Lisa foundKatelyn's new do!

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.

Signs of spring are finally here! This winter seemed to be unusually rough on me this year. I don't know if it was all the snow or the fact that Katelyn is at that age that it's difficult to take her anywhere for more than a half hour at at time. But the days are longer and I've recently seen some extremely confused robins in the yard is reason to get excited that warmer days are in the not too distant future.

Shawn's birthday is on Sunday so he gets to celebrate it today at school. Elementary is much more advanced in their media capabilities these days; instead of morning announcements, Shawn's school has morning visual announcements on closed circuit television. So Mom and Dad got to sit in the school library and watch Shawn on television say "hi my name is Shawn and I want to say hi to all my friends, my Mom in the library and my two wonderful teachers......" Seems that he forgot that I was there and he is an enormous brown nose to call his teachers wonderful. It is a cool birthday ritual nonetheless.

We are getting ready for our spring break vacation to Florida. Shawn's school is off for Eater break and then intersession on back to back weeks so we are taking advantage of the two weeks off and going to sunny and hopefully warmer Florida. Lisa's parents wanted to do something this year with their family so they rented a 3 bedroom condo on the beach and have paid for the transportation and condo. I am thankful for the generosity because I'm not sure we would be going to Florida this year otherwise. It should be fun. May take in a spring training baseball game and do a little fishing and of course some beer drinking!

When we get back, I will be on my annual trek to Indian's fan mecca...opening day! Probably will be incoherent by noon and freezing my tail off by 3:05. Hopefully this year we don't have the horrific snow storm that we had last year. This year we have a few extra guys coming to partake in the festivities so this will be a fun year.

Tonight we will probably hit the grocery store for some last minute items for Shawn's birthday party and do what we always seem to do; clean the house. Looks like another busy weekend! She is a handful!"Come to the Dark Side"

Thank God it's Friday! This week has dragged for what seems like forever. I guess it doesn't help that I can't seem to shake the damn cold that I've had for the past week and a half either. Shawn decided that he wants a birthday party with family and doesn't want a party with his classmates and friends. It took us by surprise; I thought for sure he was going to pick a bowling party or a party at Q-zar laser tag. We were so sure that he wanted one of those highly expensive parties that all the kids seem to have that we told the family that we weren't having one for Shawn when we had Katelyn's party.....I guess we are just dumb parents....what do we know anyway!

Looks like we are going to have a simple pizza and cake party with a theme of airplanes that has now changed to Star Wars. Seems that Shawn is now a huge fan of Star Wars and more specifically Darth Vader. He's scared the fecal matter right out of me twice now with his Darth Vader mask, black cape (graduation gown) and his light saber. You never know where Vader may lurk, he stood outside in the garage and waited for me to come in from digging out the ice formed at the end of the driveway and scared the living hell out of me!

This weekend really doesn't promise to be anything special at all. I may finish up the organization process in the basement by building a couple more shelving units and getting the basement mopped up but that really sounds too much like work. I guess they are talking about another good dumping of snow coming our way today and tonight so maybe I can use the new snow blower one more time this season. Have a good weekend!