Lucky...

Yeah, I'm sure everyone who reads my blog saw this on FB, but whatever... :) Here's Lucky! Chance and Tanner each have a bearded dragon, they laid 18 eggs, I was going to get an incubator for them, didn't realize they cost as much as they did, so I made my own, following instructions of course... :) Anyway, only one made it to the end! So Chance and Tanner named it Lucky... I did buy them a real incubator for Christmas though...

He is loving life, checking out his new world. We were at Big Canoe when he hatched, so he was stuck in the home made incubator until we got back. He seems to like his new environment...

I don't normally like lizards, but he's kind of cute! :) The kids are ecstactic that one made it, I am too!!

Merry Christmas!!

Hope everyone is having a nice relaxing day! The kids didn't even get up this AM until about 9:00?!? Once they did though, we had a great day with gifts, food and fun! Merry Christmas!

Scene before anyone got up...

Chance and Tanner... I do realize my camera takes shitty pictures... I did get a new one for Christmas, but obviously took these before I opened it up... :) So out of the hundred or so pictures I took today, these are about the only decent ones of the bunch...

Carolyn, I did take this one with my new camera, seems to be a little better than the other two I was using...

Taylor, one excited little girl!

Cory finally got here around 1:30, and we all had a wonderful dinner prepared by Carolyn! Now we are all just relaxing and Jessica will be over in a bit... Yes, I DO have new blinds for those doors, just need to install them... I only bought them about a year ago I guess... :)

Merry Christmas Eve...

Hope everyone has a great day today with food, family and fellowship! The kids are quite excited about tomorrow, of course I am as well... :) They are trying to talk me into letting them open a present tonight, sometimes I let them, sometimes I don't... Perhaps I'll have some pictures for you later... :)

Blue Christmas...

One of my favorite Christmas songs...

Visit...

Uncle Tom and Aunt Esther were down visiting with their son Terry and they stopped by today... It was a nice visit.

Yeah, this is the only picture we took. I was trying to remember the last time I saw Terry, and couldn't. I suppose I was in my teens...

Class Parties...

The kids love them, but I am GLAD they are over! I suppose they wouldn't be so bad if more parents would chip in, but having done this sort of thing for the past 8 years, I doubt that will ever happen...

This is basically what Carolyn and I did yesterday, go get all the stuff and then put it all together...

I actually had my camera in my pocket the whole time, but only took about three pictures for some reason... I really, really need to get a decent camera, which is the reason I hardly ever take pictures anymore, my camera takes shitty pictures... Yeah, Tanner at the party if you still haven't figured that out... :)

Now that the parties are over and the kids are on break until after the New Year, I suppose I need to do some things around here before everyone descends on the place... :) Oh yeah, and try and finish my neighbor's basement... Sigh.

Exciting Stuff!!

What a GREAT time of year! I'm sure everyone else is as excited as we are about the holidays!! In lieu of a more extensive post, I'll leave you with a picture of our Christmas tree... :) Perhaps a better post will be coming later this evening... :)

Sigh...

I am spreading myself WAY too thin for this time of year... Why I keep adding more things to do, I have NO idea! Yet I keep doing it. I have work of course, then there is the neighbor's basement which I'm not sure if it will ever get done. Christmas cards?? Haha! I suppose I'll try and get some out later this week... :) Now I've agreed to go service some servers at a Meineke, and not sure why... Not to mention the whole Room Dad thing that is taking place Friday, yeah, I'm not ready. Oh well, I thrive on it all, so I suppose it will all get done, who knows, not a whole lot of time for blogging though... :) I will try to put up some pics in the next few days... :) Hope everyone is enjoying the holidays, I'm trying to...

Yeah, Whatever... :)

I've got nothing to blog about... Well, I suppose I do, but I am too busy finishing my neighbor's basement and will be lucky to be done by Christmas... :( I literally spend every waking moment over there, and yeah, I STILL have stuff that needs to be done in my own home! Oh well...

In other news, there are only three bearded dragon eggs left, and still a few weeks until they 'should' hatch, so there may be none... Twenty days until Christmas and each day I have new "wishlists" on my desk... :) I do love this time of year, it's so fun, particularly when you have kids. Who knows, I may start having more entertaining things to blog about soon, until then...

I Suck At This Lately...

Blogging that is... Yeah, I'm sure I'll have some pictures soon, but I have been busy lately. I mistakenly agreed to finish my neighbors basement in exchange for some auto repairs that would have cost me 6 - 7K, I would have been better off shelling out the cash... Sigh. Oh well, my vehicles are fixed, so I really have no choice but to toil on. I may be toiling over there for the next few weeks, but I do hope to get some pictures on here soon, stay with me... :)

I'm Actually Busy For A Change...

Yeah, I have a lot going on, but I really should blog more, I'll try to start doing it again... :)

In the meantime however, I really have nothing for you... :) Here is Chance with his two bearded dragons, the ones that just had babies, or rather laid eggs and maybe will have babies, we are down to 16 eggs I think...

Yeah, Wow...

The blog seems to be dying away... :) I just rarely pick up my camera when it is raining and cold! We should have an okay weekend I suppose, at least no rain they say. Not much going on other than work, school for the kids and working around the house, which is usually about all that is going on around here! I do have two pictures of Chance's latest project: breeding bearded dragons...

Here are the eggs in our homemade incubator, which is an old cooler with holes drilled in the top, an aluminum tray on bricks with an underwater heater and a thermometer basically, should suffice, I wasn't going to spend the fortune they wanted for a "real" incubator... We'll see how many of the eggs make it, they supposedly should hatch in 60 to 80 days...

The parental units... Both of which they got for free off of the 'board' at the local PetCo, including the cages and other stuff...

Other than that, not much going on. I suppose the holidays are FAST approaching, so there is that to get ready for, I can't believe it's nearly time to drag out the Christmas stuff from the attic, where does the time go?? Chance is also going to try out for basketball, so hopefully he makes the team as he really wants to play, I think that is next Thursday, and of course Tanner and Taylor have their "Halloween" event at their school at the same time, so I guess Carolyn and I will have to start flipping a coin to see who gets to go to which school as I'm sure being in the same district, both schools will frequently have events on the same nights... :( I suppose that's about it, perhaps I'll take some photos this weekend, but I really hate my 'new' camera, and my old one is now broken after being dropped with the lens out, I really need to get a new one, maybe I'll get one for Christmas... :)

Hamster Derby...

Yeah, I have nothing important to blog about, so I'll leave you with pictures of the Hamster Derby... At the store my kids insist they need to go to nearly every day! :)

Taylor and Tanner waiting their turn...

Race about to begin, Tanner's hamster went to sleep and went nowhere, Taylor's just sat there, although Taylor's did well in the practice runs, guess he wore himself out in practice... :)

Chance taking his turn, his hamster came in first in the first race, but then got knocked out in the finals...

What a scam these hamsters are, the hamsters themselves are practically free, it's the supplies, cages, balls, food, etc that costs all the $$... If that's what the kids want to spend their allowance on though, so be it... Although I end up buying all the food for all the pets, and half the time the kids con me into buying the rest of it as well... :)

Anyway, the kids had fun, now I have to go see if it has stopped raining so I can finally finish getting the Bobcat running again, which I've been working on all freaking weekend! I HATE being greasy, have I mentioned that?? :)

Tanner...

Since today is Tanner's actual birthday, and I have nothing else to post, I am just posting more pictures of him... :)

Another pic of when we went to Destin a while ago...

Tanner's 4th birthday!

This was in 2000 at Marci's house, it's funny looking back at pictures of when they were so little...

At Uncle Titus and Aunt Jackie's wedding, we were all waiting on the girls to get ready for pictures... :)

March of last year...


Happy Birthday Tanner!

I Love This Boy...

Tanner Matthew Goodling, born September 29, 1998... It's his birthday, well, not quite yet, but as I stated in the previous post, he wanted to have his party today rather than on a school day... Tanner has brought me much joy and happiness through the years, and it just keeps getting better as the years go by! So I thought I'd post a few pics...

I've always loved this picture! I guess he was only about three and a half here and it was when we went to Destin...

This was the day Tanner got Bo, a little over two years ago...

Trip we made this year actually on my companies annual outing...

Trip Tanner made to Savannah last year...

Trip we made to Destin a few months ago...

I could have posted a gazillion pics here obviously, but it only lets me post five per post for some reason... :( Anyway, Tanner is a thrill to have and it's been amazing watching him grow up! I can't wait to see the rest of it! Happy Birthday Tanner!!

Happy Birthday Tanner!

Of course his actual birthday is not until Tuesday, but he wanted his party today rather than on a school day, so had it we did! :)

That wasn't his first choice of cakes, but they were out of the one he wanted... He was happy with it though. I can't believe my baby is 11!!

It's funny that all the birthday pictures are all the same, but I guess we've lived here for over eight years, so I suppose they would be... :)

Bionicle! Tanner will spend hours putting those things together, he's about the only one that is interested in them though...

Ditto with the Bionicle...

He's also an XBox 360 fan, they used to have Guitar Hero, but the guitar broke about a year ago, so he was excited to get a new one and an updated one!

Of course then there is the dirt bike that he HAD to have as an "early" birthday present, which we got for him, it is now broke and needs a new carburetor... Sigh. Of course that happened with the one we got Chance, no sooner did I get it, it needed a new carburetor... What can you do?? Anyway, Tanner had a fabulous day and I can't believe my little boy is eleven...

This Is About All I Do These Days...

What's that you might ask? Work on this pool house, but it will soon be done, I hope! As long as it's done before winter, I'll be happy... :)

The puppies love to come hang out with me when I'm working, I think they like my music!! :)

As you can see, the drywall is nearly done, primer on, and ready for paint!! It's pissing down rain right now, which is why I'm blogging rather than working...

Again, drywall is ready for paint, all primed and ready to go! So as soon as it stops raining, I can get started on that!!

Shower room is nearly done, and yes, I got that sink for 1 cent at Home Depot a few years ago. Not bad! It's tight in there, but it works!

So yeah, that's what is going on here! I literally do nothing except work on that pool house and work. Tomorrow we are having Tanner's birthday party, so he is stoked about that. The sad thing is, the "early present" we bought him, his dirt bike, needs a new carburetor... So yeah, I have to order that and then fix it, I HATE working on their dirt bikes, but what are you going to do?? They LOVE them! There, two blogs in one day! :)

Yeah, Yeah, Yeah...

I suck at blogging lately, but about the only thing I have going on is trying to finish that damn pool house before winter sets in! I figure I have a few months left, and really the only reason that's all I do is I'm OVER working on it and am so close to finishing it that I can't stop! So basically all I do is work and work on that pool house... :)

Drywall is nearly done, and so is the slate now...

I've just got the kitchen area and that toilet room left to go, oh yeah, and the rest of the bottom part of the wall... :( So yeah, perhaps saying it's 'almost done' isn't quite accurate, but whatever...

Other than that, it's been raining, raining and raining some more! I suppose we are lucky, some people lost everything they own and of course no one in this area has flood insurance, so it's just gone! We got some water in the garage and a little in the back rooms where it came in from the garage, but it's all up now and hopefully it will stop raining soon. I do have some more pics, but they are on my server because I wiped my laptop out and reinstalled it and I don't really feel like firing that thing up right now, perhaps later.

The kids have been out of school all week, so they were ecstatic about that, but I guess they don't realize they will have to make it up later... :) Chance's bearded dragons have mated, sigh... I suppose they have anywhere from 12 - 30! So now I have to buy Chance an incubator... Anyone want a bearded dragon? They are GREAT pets! :)

More later... :)

Why is this taking so long??

I sometimes feel like I have been working on this for freaking EVER!! I suppose I have though, I'm making progress, but it seems like most chores take MUCH longer than I think they will. Oh well, getting there, I do see the light at the end of the tunnel... :)

Finally got that shower tiled, whew! I just have to grout it tomorrow...

Closer view, turned out pretty nice actually...

Perspective...

Hopefully tomorrow I will get the shower grouted and the slate on those floors, we'll see how that works out... For now though, there is a HUGE bowl of popcorn and 'The Lost Symbol' calling my name... :)

Progress!!!

Yeah, I've been slacking lately, but whatever, at least I keep posting! :)

That look pretty much sums up how I feel about drywalling, I HATE it!!! But it is slowly getting done!!

I've actually made a LOT of progress over the past few days, hopefully I can soon just relax!!

Shower is done, except for the tile, sigh...

This Weekend...

Wow! Where did the weekend go?? Seems like I worked all weekend on the pool house, but it doesn't look like I got much done... :(

Did start getting the tile done, but mostly just did drywall... Soon! Soon!

The Project From Hell...

Yeah, I am trying to finish this thing that I started what, two years ago?? Not that I have been working on it ALL the time, I do go for months sometime where I don't touch it and of course take breaks from it to do things like: build a deck; tile my office; remodel the kitchen; watch movies; etc; etc...

I am back to ONLY working on it now though because I am nearly done with it!! When you are doing things like this, you know you are reaching the end when the drywall is going up and the tile for the floors and exterior bottom walls is nearby just waiting to be installed!

This is basically the mess I am working in right now! Drywall is incredibly messy!! Have I also mentioned how much I absolutely DETEST drywall??

I hang it, and the neighbor kid, Zac, is taping, mudding and sanding! So there is THAT to be thankful for. While he is doing that, and I get far enough ahead of him with the hanging part, I am finishing up the last bits of plumbing, doing final hookups, etc...

This is one of the reasons I DETEST drywall, it literally gets ALL over everything!! "Why don't you just cover all that up Matthew?", you might ask. Because while he is sanding, etc I am USING all that stuff!! :)

Shower room ready for Zac!

It is basically almost all the way done though, I've just got to turn the water on (which requires the final 10 feet in the garage to tap into the main water line) and make sure there are no leaks before I can finish all the drywall on the bottom where there is plumbing, but HOPEFULLY by Sunday evening, that will have happened and the drywall should be complete!!!

We'll see how well that works out... :) I did get the new satellite receiver, flat screen TV and phone for it as well, so that makes me want to get it done as quickly as possible as well!! I would like to be sitting up there with my laptop and have the ability to watch TV SOON!! Before winter sets in... Of course now that we have the heater working, we could feasibly be using it through December...