Category: Family

I’m in New Jersey tonight. Trenton, to be exact. We flew into Philadelphia and then drove the hour or so to Trenton. I’m here for a meeting with the state of NJ to talk about automating their financial reports and making them available online. We’ve done that sort of thing for PA, so it should be a good demo.

I really don’t like travelling. Security is just nonsense and the whole grind is just a bit too much. I’d rather be home trying to figure out how I’m going to get Lucy to bed instead of here trying to figure out how I’m going to be able to go to sleep.

Work is going well. Things seem to be picking up in the new project category, so that at least keeps it interesting. We’ll see how it goes.

My rails development continues. I’m learning more daily and it’s pretty fun to work in. It’s much better on my iMac than it is on this windows machine, mostly because Locomotive is good.

I spoke to Julie and the girls tonight. Sounds like all is OK on the homefront. I’ll be back Thursday afternoon.

Well it looks like we survived the trip. I got good at doing hair and getting the kids ready for school. Julie got home and realized that she really had a good time. One of our conversations yesterday went something like this:

Me: How are things?

Julie: Lucy pulled off more wallpaper! I spanked her a few times and she just laughed at me!

Me: Are you missing St. George?

Julie: Yes . . . [inaudible] . . . aarrgh! Lucy! . . . Oh . . . when are you coming home? . . . Lucy! Get over here! . . . I gotta go.

Click.

It was a good day.

Julie’s already going crazy on Abby’s new room. She finished painting it tonight. We’re all high and feeling good. She got her wunder sewing machine today. Hopefully it’s as vunderbar as she says it will be.

The family’s doing good. Catherine had her baby on Monday (1/31/2006). Isabelle Kay is her name. Zach is already talking like the WT he is about taking her out shooting. Poor girl.

Grandma Kay had surgery a few weeks ago. She fell pretty hard and needed to have her hip replaced. She looked pretty shaky there for a while, but I guess she just must have gotten sick of the rehab because she amazed the nurses with her resilience and came home. Suzi is here this week. I’m sure both of them are wondering where her #2 grandson is. Hopefully we’ll see them before Suzi leaves.

Work is OK. I “get” to go to New Jersey this week to try and drum up some more business. Mike, my “ex-boss” is going, so that will make it more bearable.

I’m still waiting for the paperwork for the new multi-million dollar company. I may have something lined up, so I’d better get my product going.

All for now.

Julie left this morning for St. George, UT, with her sister, Nancy. They’re going to see Lisa (another sister). Her son is leaving to be a missionary in New Zealand, so there’s a big to-do up there. Julie was a little bit too excited to drive away sans kids.

We’ve made the best of it here. We went to Home Depot early this morning. I got some new filters for the air intakes, seeds for the garden (Grace demanded that we plant a garden today), and some flowers. It was pretty fun.

If you haven’t heard, it hasn’t rained in Phoenix now for 102 days, a new record. That, combined with the havoc that the tractors and cement crew played on our garden by running over it countless times and mixing in the purple-colored pebble tec, makes for some hard dirt. I put a lot of water on it. It’s such clay out there that it basically held the water in like a dish. We ended up planting lots of tomatoes, carrots, and beans. We have plenty of other seeds, which we “need” to plant, but we don’t have much room left.

Later, the girls wanted to go to Macayos for dinner. Not wanting to make Mac and Cheese again, I relented. Abby and Grace got the all-time Mexican favorite, chicken strips. Lucy pounded a quesadilla, and I got what I always get, a Baja Chimi. Good stuff.

Now we’re home with Spencer and Samuel (from across the street) watching the Flinstones. Bedtime is close.

The best thing about today? I did their hair all by myself! I’m very proud. Hopefully Julie doesn’t get too used to this.

Well I finally jumped on the Flickr bandwagon and created myself an account. Here are some pictures on the girls that Julie took for me. Best Christmas present ever. Abigail, Grace, and Lucy. All taken 12/2005.