Silver-man

Nathaniel favors Cathleen's family in a big way, he just makes so many different "Cilderman" expressions it cracks me up. He's Grandpa's little clone, no question. I've heard over the years Grandma calling Grandpa "Cilderman", among other things ("Moose" is another of her terms of endearment). So, I decided I'd start calling Nathaniel "Cilderman", it just fits. After doing this for a few weeks, I wondered if he might know what that meant when I called him "Cilderman" (he's only 5 mind you). He told me, "yes, I know what it means" matter of factly. When I asked him what, he said without any hesitation, "Silver-man is like the silver surfer, you call me that because I have silver teeth!". Classic Response! So in his little mind I've been referring to him all this time as the "silver-man surfer of sorts".



For those of you who have followed our blogs from April, you will remember that Nathaniel had to have 4 root canals and silver crowns in his mouth and two extractions and spacers. He was knocked out cold for the surgery and he didn't much enjoy the waking up part at all (nor did I). Here's a link to that post for a refresher.

Great Garbage Cans...

I got another great picture of our garbage cans and I couldn't wait to post it.



It's almost as if she could just sense them behind her from the back of her head (she does have such talents) and so she did just what I'd expect her to do...



Glam it up so as to "unintentionally" hide my beautiful trash cans! I know how she thinks.

Chatty Cathy

I'm pretty sure there's a perfectly logical explanation for why my wife's family nick-named her Chatty Cathy when she was young... One of these days I'm going to figure it out, I don't know how but I will figure it out.



The real burning question I have is, "how do you turn these things off?"

Justification: Investment In Family Time

For our recent trip to GA, Cathleen and I were challenged by the logistics of travel with a large family like ours. How to travel together in one vehicle? Not to mention, hotels become costly because we usually need at least 2 rooms and even at that we're usually over capacity. It just so happens that someone in our ward at church was selling their RV, a very nice one. Sister Scotto put on the hard sale, said we could justify it because it would be an investment in family time... We considered it (who doesn't need more family time?) but with gas prices as they are and the loan interest rates on recreational vehicles being so high (especially for that particular model year that we were looking at), we decided to go with the conversion van rental instead.

However, had I seen this baby... (you must go to this link to truly appreciate this RV). Click here for more water shots.



Since driving an RV around town once you get to your destination is kind of cumbersome and inefficient, it only makes sense to pick up one or two of these to tow behind on your trips around the country. They don't seem very practical, but they sure look like fun! And I'm sure they would translate into more family time, right? Click on either of the pictures to get more info.


Yabba Dabba Dooooooo!

Yep, with 450 HP and 45 mph on the water, you can pull water skiers.

Thank goodness for family time!!! I wouldn't be able to justify this much fun any other way :)

My Muxtape

My sis-inlaw Theresa made me do a muxtape here at happytheman.muxtape.com (just click on each of he songs to listen). I tried to pick the more obscure stuff that I really like rather than the more mainstream stuff (though I typically don't listen to mainstream stuff) so that y'all can try new things... If you don't like it, you don't like it! You're not going to hurt my feelings.

Early Morning Racquetball With Old Pals

Vic Hammer, me, Phil, Wayne Smith, Jim Jett

The left handed Vic Hammer who is now 73 was there early warming up, drilling away at his left side forehand kill shot. Phil, who joined this group just before I left GA (my replacement, the 6 foot 6 gigantor challenged Wayne Smith and me to a game of doubles. Apparently he felt he had improved significantly over the past 4-5 years to play at our level... I don't remember ever playing doubles on the same team with Wayne, and there's a good reason for that, we we're the stronger players and equally deadly. But Phil had it in his mind that he was going to serve us up some humble pie and so he chose Vic to be the beneficiary of his shared win. That was very kind of him, but he may have underestimated his opponents.

Wayne and I gladly handed them a big fat humbling "L". And since we were the winners, we then teamed up to play against the winners from the other court, Tom Arnette and Ken. It wasn't really a good idea that Wayne and I play on the same team together because nobody was going to beat us, and we quickly handed out yet another "L" to our opponents.



Phil was still determined to serve us up some humble pie, I mean he's much better (and younger) than the other guys out there and so he insisted on playing cut throat against us (three man racquetball), and so we did. Phil and I didn't play well together (Phil didn't care where I was on the court, he was determined to take every ball) and Wayne took advantage of that and owned us 15-8-8. I decided that Phil was more of a singles player (OK, yes he's a freaking ball hog, even more than me) so I suggested that he and Wayne play each other and that I'd play the winner. I then joined the more civilized players Jim Jett and Vic Hammer for some cut throat. Wayne beat Phil 15-9, his 2nd helping of humble pie for the morning. I won our cut throat game (I should add that Jim Jett was playing left handed because his shoulder hurt, Vic at 73 was by then starting to fade into retirement/nap mode a bit). It was still a kick to be out there with these good men!



I then took on Wayne the Winner in singles and somehow beat him 15-12, a great victory for me (I think he let me win because I was on vacation and had come all that way). Phil was still determined to get a "W" against either one of us at that point and insisted on one more game of cut throat. This time I came out victorious and we sent Phil home in 3rd place smarting a tad. Phil is a good player no question, he just wasn't as good as he thought he was, at least on this particular day. He's a quirky sort of fellow, screaming and carrying on teenager, LOL, I thought he was going to wake Tom Arnette's family and neighbors across the street...

So, it was a good outing for me, definitely worth setting the alarm clock on my vacation day. I especially enjoyed the camaraderie of old friends.