Where are the dog days of summer?

After church today we went to a pool party for the kids in Sunday School. I was tempted to wear a jacket. But that didn't deter the kids. I talked with one hardy soul, Ryan, and he was positively vibrating as we chatted. I finally asked him to please go get warmed up, I couldn't take it watching his lips turn blue. Some of the parents got into it as well, dazzling the kids with massive cannon balls. In fact 5 of them teamed up and they did a massive, all at once, 5 person cannonball. I was sure that the little kids in the shallow end were going to get ejected from the pool with the sheer force of the tidal wave that was created. But no, all that happened was that the innocent bystanders got pretty wet.
As you can see, we're starting to wear down.


Spencer and I in a self portrait

Outside of a British style phone booth, we're trying to look like Dr. Who, the BBC cult classic.

Here we all are

Have a great day!

Pat

Saturdays can be fun too!

Today we had a great day. An awesome day. Well, at least a fairly decent day in the rain anyway.

This morning we had Holly's favorite, french toast with cinnamon swirl bread. She's a peanut butter and honey kind of girl, that's cool

Back to Epcot pictures.

Ian and Domo, a Japanese phenomenon! Very cool to have located him in a teenage gamers eyes.

Here's Domo at dinner. The head band is actually Ian's napkin. It looked pretty good.

Here's a shot of Bob, Epcot was not crowded at all, but we are about to get wet. Can you tell I forced pictures of everyone? No problem, that's how we make photo albums!

Holly looks good, just like always.

Spence hangs out.

Ian's a bit more of a model. Don't you want to pinch his cheek?

Here's the belly dancer that was at dinner. She caught my attention.

These guys played the music to keep the mood right.

This is what I really liked. The dancer brought out the nearest little girls and had them dance with her. The parents were dashing around looking for a camera.

Today we worked out in the back yard a bit, attempting to gain some level of control over the back yard. Not sure we're going to gain total control, but 3 neighbors welcomed me to the wonderful world of lawn work. Looks like I've been a bit negligent. Course you could tell that by the back yard going bananas. We're trying and that's good enough. We should have lived in the country.

Have a great day!

Pat

TGIF

Wow, what a week. Glad to be home and sitting inside, out of the rain.

A friend of the boys, Austin, published this sketch on Facebook, a social networking website. If you know it, good for you, if you don't belong, you're not alone, I have opted out as well. Not a rap on Facebook, but a life style choice. Anyway, here's his view of his friends Ian and Spencer. I can see it, can you?

Meanwhile, back to Epcot during our vacation, I took a ton of pictures, can you tell?

Hanging out near the lake in the center of the "country" exhibits. We're wearing down for the day, but still doing well.

We came across this crate in Morocco and it appears to have Ian's name on it. Well, that's what we thought and so here's that shot. What do you think? If anyone can read the language and can see what it really means, only tell me if it's a good thing. I'd rather not learn that my son's name is very similar to camel dung.

I took this as we walked up the stairs to see the America Attraction. A very cool presentation that outlined our history pretty well.

These three Japanese drummers were awesome!

On the left the young guy, good rhythm, but not really confident.

In the center, the leader. He looked like he really enjoyed his job

Not only did the lady below drum well, she made some kind of noise, like a chirp or a whoop, but always on the beat, like a good drummer.

Here's our boy with Domo-Kun. Ain't he cute!(Domo, not Ian mean)

Have a great day!

Pat

I'm Back! Yes, I really was gone.

News Items:

My home town, Brownsdale, MN made the news, well, the Austin newspaper anyway. Check it out at the Austin Daily Herald. Read the comments, it must have been a slow news day.

Bret Favre is going to play for the Vikings! I agree with Fran Tarkington, "Give it up!"

Birthday Shout Out to my Nephew Matt. Happy Birthday! Matt's getting married in a few weeks and so I felt that this, with his lovely fiance, would be appropriate.

Today is an Anniversary Shout Out to Holly and me. Today is our 21st anniversary! It's really been great, not quite sure what happened to all those years, but it's been fun!

This is the Engagement Photo

At the reception, no, I don't dance, but I do hug, just not with rhythm.

Christmas 2007, a Victorian Year

May 2009, wild and western all in one.

July 2009, still having fun.

It's been great I hope everyone takes the chance and falls in love, it's fun to grow up together.

I just got back from a quick trip to Texas. Good visit to a customer, a pretty good steak. I forgot to rent a car until the day before. Wouldn't you know, all of the cars in the Dallas Fort Worth area were already rented. I tried each company the night before, even called a corporate office, no luck. We arrived and on faith went to the car rental counters. I pleaded at each one, flashing my gold card, no luck. Until I got to Avis, they had a 12 passenger touring fan. I took it. What the heck, Matt, Bruce and I, we needed our space. It was a bear to drive in heavy traffic, but better than a cab. It worked out pretty good, we took a bunch of people out for lunch and we only used one vehicle. After hours we bombed around to downtown Fort Worth to see the stock yards (We hoped we'd get to pick out our dinner, you know, like they do with Lobsters in the tank at seafood restaurants. Nope.) On the way back to the airport I filled up and from that bit of driving, I put more gas in than I do with the Focus for a month, and it wasn't even down that much. The car rental issue is attributed to; a) fleet change over b) Twins were in town to play the Rangers c) Paul McCartney was in town for a concert.

Have a great day!

Pat

Sunday

Today was a really hot and humid day here with that steaming rain that Florida is famous for. Well, you Floridians can have it back!

We were at a party this afternoon with some friends. The boys actually had a pretty good time, once they got over the newness of the people. Ian hung out aloof at first and then joined in the adult games, pitching washers. He did pretty good too! Spencer was able to slip back to childhood one last time and played on the "Slip and Slide", pretty hilarious. Too bad Dad didn't see this coming, what a bunch of missed photo ops!

Here 's some more shots from Epcot.

Silly Holly with that Handsome guy from up north!

Spencer, Bob and Ian, standing in some line and wondering; "how many pictures of us is this guy going to take?"


These next two would be awesome for my Step Father. He loved all things Viking and while this wouldn't probably be as respectful as others, these were just plain fun!

Have a great day!

Pat

Drivers Start Your Engines!

We went to the Berlin Raceway for the company picnic this afternoon/evening. I know it's hard to believe, but Holly is a closet race fan. She loves Demolition Derby's and Stock Car Races and especially School Bus Races, and since there was School Bus racing at the end of the evening, we stayed to the end. Pretty amazing watching them race those big yellow buses. Just as amazing was the 4 cylinder feature event. 34 of those little guys started the 35 lap event, about 22 finished. The boys were sure that my little car would finally find it's home. I am unconvinced that the Focus would be anything more than a funny sideshow. The winner talked about 140 horses under the hood. I'm pretty sure the Focus has a few less than that.

These are a few of the shots that I took.

Ian in his Company T shirt with a "Hot Stuff" sticker on his cheek.

Ian, Spencer and Holly, early in the day. This is where we had dinner and signed up for the simulator experience.

Standing in line for dinner, we came upon the fan area. Don't you love the wind blown look!?

I am hard at in the Number 42 simulator (Fun fact, this was Juan Montoya's car). Pretty cool, I rolled the first time I tried and the second time I got to 16th place before I was rolled again.

Ian taking his turn in the simulator. He got to 2nd place during his try.

One of the cars we were rooting for.

Race Action!

This shot is much later in the evening. I like the shot with Ian checking the action up the track and the cars as blurs on the track.

Have a great day, we did!

Pat

Freaky Friday!

Yesterday I broke my glasses, well, the bow is all. And, it was from fatigue, yeah, yeah, fatigue. I didn't hit a wall or get punched or anything like that. Anyway, I went and saw Dr. B. over lunch and I took my old glasses, my broken glasses and a credit card. While my eyes haven't changed much, my charge account sure did today. I'll be styling pretty soon, though I'll be missing the old frame style. The cool thing was that they were able to take all the parts and make me a pretty decent set of glasses.

Tomorrow we're going to the company picnic at the Berlin Raceway, We have a simulator for the night, dinner at 6 and racing all night as well. Should be a fun night. I'll report out tomorrow.

Meanwhile, back to the Florida trip;

Ian and Holly in line at the Norway attraction. Bob's actually up ahead of Ian.

Me and the Spence Man in the same line

The Pinata Donald getting whooped

The skeleton mariachi band.

More later,

Have a great day!

Pat

Back in Florida we're now on to