Fall Already?

Well, Heather has one week of school down. It was a shortened week, but she has the first one in the books. I've started soccer season already at the college level, and next weekend, the high school games here in Mitchell will pick up. I'm going to be plenty busy this fall, especially in September being on the fields between 3 to 5 nights a week from now until October. It will be nice though to get the time out there, and get the income as well, but not so nice to be away from Heather and Olivia.

Last night I went to Orange City, IA to referee a game. August isn't usually my favorite time to referee as it's extremely hot most of the time. Last night, however, with temps in the 60s and a cloudy evening and a light breeze, it was about as nice a night for a soccer match as there could be. I was thrilled to be out last night. I was not so thrilled with getting home at 12:30am, but at least I had a nice new comfortable bed waiting for me.

Night one in the bed went well for me, and afternoon nap one in the bed went quite well too. We'll see how the night goes tonight, and see how the bed gets broken in for the two of us. With the new bed came a new sized bed. We went up from our queen to a king size bed. I could not believe when I crawled into bed how far in I got and still couldn't find where Heather was laying. The bed is HUGE! I liked it first night. We'll see though how it does in the longer run. It was sure a nice change from the old bed!

Friday Night Relax

Well, I sit here alone tonight, Olivia is asleep, and Heather is out tonight enjoying an evening away. So, I get some time to blog and do other useful things. I got Olivia to eat her bottle and go to sleep about 8pm tonight, and now am just relaxing here. I'm almost not sure what to do with my time. I'm going to balance the checkbook yet, and that's about it. I sorted though my soccer gear already and am ready to roll there. This coming week I'm headed to Tennessee before kicking off my soccer season on August 19 and 20. Well, I better go check on the little one.

Working with Comics!

Well, we have a change of pace at work again. Today I found myself assigned back to a new department at work. I'm familiar with the department and the work, but there is only one person in the department that was there before I left. Alot of new faces around, and my fifth supervisor since I started. That's alot!! So, now, I'm flashing back to February when Tim Conway and Steve Martin were performing at a theater in Chattanooga! Why would I flash back to that? Because, my new supervisor is Tim Conway! No joke! Not the Tim Conway from the Apple Dumpling gang, but it's still pretty funny. Also, to make things even "funnier" there is a member of the support department that is named Steve Martin. I'm not joking, but it's funny....err something. So, there really isn't that much of a comic fest, neither are as gifted comedians as the men that share their name.

My mom is here this week as our day care provider is out of town on vacation. So, mom is staying here, and helping out with Olivia all week, and tomorrow, Heather goes back to school. Mom was just telling us that she and dad were talking about our choosing a name for Olivia. She said that we were wise for choosing a name that starts with a vowel because we could instantly spell something with the first letters of our first names for myself and Heather and all of our children. I piped in immediately "All we need is a Maria and an Even, and we would be set." That would leave us with a Tyler, Heather, Olivia, Maria, and Evan. Yay me and go Jim THOME!!

What Just Happened??

So, I left for Tennessee leaving my wife and daughter behind and I return and find my wife and 3 kids. What??? My nieces are here for the week. We have them through next weekend. It will be an adventure this week, that's for sure. I told Olivia if it was too rowdy I'd come get her and we'd head back to Tennessee! I think I got vetoed, by everyone, on that one.

Rewind to last Thursday night. I was reviewing the details for my trip home, and I realized when I booked the trip, I had not booked the same flight times home. So, I'm looking at his trying to figure out what I did, and figured out I had booked everything about 2 hours later than normal, so I would just have to live with it. I still wasn't sure why I had booked it that way, but I had to live with it now. So, I went ahead and headed for home, and upon arriving to Minneapolis, found out the plane that I would have been on if I would have booked all my normal times, was cancelled. When I got to the flight that I was on, there were over 30 people on standby, and the plane was oversold. I don't think any of them made it on that plane. This is actually the second time that this has happened to me. Earlier in the spring I had done the same thing, only this time the flight from Chattanooga I was supposed to be done was cancelled, and I avoided that one as well. We'll see what the next trip in 2 weeks brings!

In flight meal?

Well, I expirienced a first on this trip to Chattanooga. I was in Detroit getting ready to board the plane for Chattanooga. I looked at my ticket and saw a good seat, row 1C. Now, I like legroom, which being in row one is a good thing for. So, Legroom, Check! I like to be near the front of the plane. Don't know why really, but I like the front. Generally, Delta keeps the front of the plane for the more frequent fliers, so that's generally a good location to sit in. So, front of the plane, Check! I also like the isle seat. When you're on these small regional planes, the window seat is not what a window seat is in a larger plane. The window is at about the right height for your knee to look out, so you spend so much time hunched over, the neck ache you get by the time you land isn't worth it at all. Plus, with the small plane, the curve of the plane is right on your shoulder in the window seat, so thus, I prefer isle. Isle seat, Check! I'm ready to roll. Zone 1 is called, I get on the plane! This also gives me a chance to do one of my favorite activies: people watching. I see alot of interesting people get on airplanes, and this day was no exception.

As I'm sitting there, a lady comes onto the plane and is immediately stopped by the flight attendant. On the small aircrafts, they are fairly particular about how big of a bag they let in the cabin. This lady had a rather tall box with handles. So, the flight attendant will not let her pass, and tells her that the box will have to go under the plane for the ride from Detroit to Chattanooga. The passenger beings to protest, "No, this cannot go under the plane it needs to ride with me in the cabin. I will just sit it in front of me and the put my feet on it." The flight attendant continues to say that it is against safety regulations (which it is, carry on luggage must fit in the overhead bin, or under the seat in front of you). The pilot hears the commotion from the open cockpit door and steps out the intervene. "Ma'am, what's the issue?" "Well, I have to keep these in the cabin. These are live lobsters." WHAT??? Did I just hear that correctly?? Live lobsters?? Now I've seen people bring their pets in the cabin. Small dogs or cats in a carrier are permitted. Often, for hunting season, dogs will be in a kennel that is checked, and they will ride in the belly of the plane. I've never before seen lobsters. The pilot worked out a deal with her, and she left a happy camper, and her lobsters stayed right at the front of the plane.

I was still trying to make sure I had all that correctly. That's when the seat beside me became occupied. The lady sitting next to the window came on board with her family. A dad, a mom, and two boys. They appeared to be from India. They talked to one another briefly and the English was good, so I figured no problems. That's when the pilot picked up the microphone. "Good evening ladies and gentlement, welcome aboard flight 1111 tonight to Knoxville, Tennessee. The first officer immediately corrected him, and I could see the pilot from my seat look over at him and then dig for a paper to see where they were really going. Meanwhile, the lady beside me starts freaking out. "No, No, No!!!!" She then started muttering something and looking at her family and down at her seat belt and started trying to get it undone, but she was too paniced and flustered to get it undone. I turned to her and said, "Relax, the pilot is just joking around, we're not going to Knoxville." She didn't buy it. She kept trying to figure out how to get off the plane (which would have been easy, the door was still open). The pilot came back on said, "Just messing with ya folks, we're headed down to Chattanooga, tonight." Hahahahaha. That generally happens once per trip, one pilot pulls out that joke. Everyone on board chuckles and thinks, 'Haha, he used the oldest pilot trick in the book'. Well, I'm sure the pilot would have been proud to know that this one time, it actually worked on a passenger! I hope there is more excitment when I head home on Friday!!

One more summer trip

That is not the theory any longer. We are now set to pretty much stay home for the remainder of the summer. But, last weekend, we had an interesting series of events. I took the last part of the day Friday off, and we hit the road. We headed straight for Paynesville for Heather's grandparents 50th wedding anniversary. Every single child, grandchild and great grand child and all husbands and wives made the journey to town for the celebration. It was quite a feat to have everyone there. We spent all of Saturday morning taking family pictures, and the afternoon was spent at their open house. Sunday was then to be spent at the cabin with everyone playing in the water which was convenient since it was 95. Well, we didn't make it to Sunday. Instead, we spent Saturday night in the Montevideo emergency room with Olivia as she was running a fever near 103. We found out that she had some sores in her throat that were painful for her when she would eat. They feared that it was strep throat and gave her some penicillin. Well, that was slightly scary too, because I'm allergic to it. So, we had to stay and wait at the emergency room to make sure she wouldn't have any extreme reactions to it. She didn't, and by Tuesday we were able to feed her without having the drug her up first.

So, Sunday, we were at the house just keeping her comfortable and trying to get fluids in her to keep her hydrated. We were able to do so and she has bounced back just fine and full of energy again. She's rolling around on the floor keeping us busy always. I noticed tonight that she gets herself set into a perfect crawling position, but has not yet figure it out. Soon, we'll really have an adventure on our hands. Here is to 5 months!

The Home Improvement Projects

It's almost exactly like the television show, except it's not in Detroit, doesn't include Tim Allen, I don't have a cable television show, and I don't have a sidekick named Al. Ok, I don't have a sidekick at all. My sidekick Olivia still lays on the floor inside and drools and chews on things, so she isn't much help with any projects. So, I guess in review, there is really no similarity between what I'm doing and the old television show, but I am doing some projects here around the house.

About two months ago I made a list of things to accomplish through the summer. I haven't really looked at the list in a while as I'm pretty sure I'm a long ways behind. However, there are several things on the list that I've accomplished. Currently, I don't need to look at the list because I know exactly what I need to finish. I'm in the middle of some landscaping projects. I've got things taking up lots of room in my garage, and I'm tired of mowing around the 6 pine trees in the back yard. And cutting them down is not an option because of the lights of the gas station. So, we made a decision on landscaping around them. We'll see how that ends up turning out. Here is what we've done so far:

Step 1 - Rip out the ugly trees in front of the house. The first time we came and looked at the house, Heather looked at the over grown shrubs and said they had to go for sure. It was one of the first things we did in the first spring, they were pulled out easily by my dad.

Step 2 - Pull up all the rocks from the front. This was time consuming and a pain. They've found a new home on a pile in the back yard by the aforementioned trees for now.

Step 3 - Dig out the base for the new brick facades. There will be a new brick landscape border in the front of the house (which is actually now up) and in the back in front of the trees.

Now, here is what's left in this project:

Step 4 - Remove weeds/grass from the front and back yards where the new landscaping will be.

Step 5 - Finish constructing the brick border in the back yard in front of the trees.

Step 6 - Get the landscape paper down in front and back new areas.

Step 7 - Remove all rocks from the side and back of the house and back of he house and put them in the back trees as landscaping.

Step 8 - Place wood chips in the front yard, and along the driveway and by the house and plant any shrubs necessary in the front bed, and put in the landscape lighting.

So, as you can see, not much left really. Also some leveling of the walls, and a lot of bricks to move to the back yard yet. Some other notable things on the list are replace the toilet in the bathroom, work on the snow blower, clean up the garage and get it ready to store everything for winter. Still tons to do, and all I have to do is miss this weekend and then get moving before the weekend of the 24th of August. I was wondering the other day why I can never get anything done in the fall. Then I remembered that I work soccer games from the middle of August until November, so there goes fall. Looking at the schedule, already have September Saturdays booked up, so it will all begin again here in just over a month.

This weekend, off to Minnesota again. Should be another fun adventure!