A Very Short Story

Easter

2010-04-04T16:46:00.000-04:00

Easter Sunday from Jim Roche on Vimeo.

The Queen!!!

2010-02-14T11:56:00.000-05:00

Can we get Geno on line 1...

The Queen!!! from Jim Roche on Vimeo.

The Doggy Bed

2010-02-14T11:52:00.001-05:00

Shea for some reason enjoys trying to run and throw herself into Chloe’s bed. She knows we can’t stand it when she does which makes her press on even harder. She seriously did this about 20 times in a row. Each time she would act like she was walking or crawling to something else and then V-line right towards the bed. Here is a short clip of the very end of this:

Doggy Bed from Jim Roche on Vimeo.

Let's Play Two

2010-02-14T11:24:00.007-05:00

Well…It’s official…We are pregnant again. When we went to see the doctor he walked into the room and said,”You guys?...What are you going for Irish Twins??” I just hope Shea is ready to share….

Here is the ultra sound pic of the “Teddy Graham”

12 weeks in….

16 weeks in…..

“Umm…Say again?”

Christmas

2010-02-14T11:11:00.004-05:00

For Christmas we made the trip to Ohio. We spent a couple days in Dayton and a couple in Berlin. Unfortunately we only took 3 pictures and I have not gotten any digital pics from the G-parents (Note to G-parents – When you download pics, save in Jpeg’s and email them to us) It was a great time and Shea was a huge hit at Christmas Eve mass.

Family pic in front of the fire place becoming a staple

Shea was actually pretty interested in the presents and started mauling them on Christmas morning

Even though Shea got a toy TV remote control…nothing beats the real thing

Quick Trip to Kiawah

2010-02-14T11:01:00.004-05:00

In early November Liz and I spent our first weekend away from Shea. Granma & Grandpa Mast came down and watched Shea in Charlotte and Liz and I drove down to Kiawah Island for the weekend. It was nice to have an “adult” mini vacation but I have to admit we left really early on Sunday to get back to Shea.

We stayed at the Sanctuary and it was beautiful. Here was the view from our room

Sat night dinner at the Ocean Room

Thanksgiving

2010-02-14T10:47:00.005-05:00

Little family pic action in front of the fireplace

Shea eager to see what’s going on in the kitchen rather than focusing on my fantasy football team

Everyone busy working hard in the kitchen

Shea ready to dig in

Matthew sneaking in bites

Thank You.....Thank You Very Much

2009-11-03T21:39:00.000-05:00

Thank You....Thank You Very Much from Jim Roche on Vimeo.

Shea's Baptism

2009-10-31T09:36:00.011-04:00

On October 25^th Shea Emerson was baptized into the Catholic Church. Some might think that 9 and a half months is a long time to wait to have your baby baptized…..but we really didn’t want to rush Shea into any quick decisions. We wanted her to check out some other religions, weigh the pros and cons and after some time to reflect, make a well researched decision. I’m guessing she chose the Catholic Church out of convenience since Mom and Dad are already driving there on Sunday. Anyway, the baptism went off without a hitch and I think everyone had a great time. I know for a fact that my uncle enjoyed the $165 pizza. Of course Liz and I did not take any pictures, (We are soooo bad) but we have a couple from some other cameras:

Shea woke up ready to get it going on Sunday

Liz had the back yard looking very fall like for the occasion

Inside it was a little more chaotic as last minute preparations were being completed

Finally everyone was dressed and we were ready to go

The spread was fantastic thanks to everyone who pitched in

The notorious baptism cake….drama

At the church almost ready to get things started. Shea took Kyle’s blackberry and refused to give it back

We tried to get a nice photo afterwards but Shea was unwilling to let her guard down in fear of additional h2o on her melon

Little Angel

Group pic with the Godparents. Being Godparents is a huge responsibility because you become an instant role model to the child. Which is why I used my super human speed to reach into Kyle’s suit and pull out his Marlboro Red’s for termination. Sorry Kyle….No smoking for the Godfather.

Loves the Hoodie

2009-10-31T09:24:00.004-04:00

PEEEK-

-AAAAA-

-BOOOOO!!!

No Rest for the Weary

2009-10-18T09:04:00.014-04:00

Work has been non stop for the past 8 weeks so needless to say there have been no updates. So here is a quick re-cap of the last 8 weeks:

Shea at brunch after a successful 1^st attempt at church

Shea was very eager for the Buckeyes this year…..now not so much

Unfortunately Shea came down with pneumonia and we had to have an overnight stay at the hospital

Both sets of Grandparents came down to help watch Shea while she recovered. It has a big relief for us

Through it all Mr. Giraffe was there for Shea

We took a trip to Dayton so Liz could run the Dayton Half Marathon. Shea and Mom taking a nap

At the start of October we took a trip to a local farm to get some pumpkins…Shea hated sitting in grass

But really enjoyed posing as a cow

The guy that ran this pony merry go round was seriously trying to say that it was ok for an 8 month old to ride on the pony??

We had to battle another round of illness but Shea pulled out of it this week and is looking good. Mom was instrumental to keeping sanity in the home during this time period

9 months old and feeling good.

Extreme Sunday Morning Bed Head

2009-08-13T13:02:00.005-04:00

“Whoaa dude…that Kentucky Grilled Chicken does look pretty awesome…”

“…Hey man…you like got that $5 I spotted you last night?”

Giraffe Shark

2009-07-26T09:14:00.003-04:00

"GET OUT OF THE NURSERY! GET OUT OF THE NURSERY!!"

Come Off The Hip & Sponsor Liz

2009-07-25T07:48:00.003-04:00

This September Liz is running another half marathon back in Dayton Ohio. This time she has decided to not only fulfill her personal goal but to make it a philanthropy event and try to generate some clams for charity. Here is her announcement and link so you guys can join in. Remember that with every dollar donated you will not only support a great charity….but you will also be part of sponsoring Liz kick my buddy James’s ash by at least 45 minutes in this race.

Hello Friends & Family-

On September 19, 2009 I am running the United States Air Force Half Marathon in Dayton, Ohio to raise money for Girls On The Run, Charlotte! Girls On The Run is a program for young girls, ages eight to thirteen, that combines training for a 3.1 mile event with self-esteem enhancing activities. The goal of the program is to encourage positive emotional, social, mental, and physical development while preparing girls for a lifetime of self respect and healthy living. This cause is very important to me and I'm asking you to please make a donation. Please use the link in this email to donate online quickly & securely. You will receive email confirmation of your donation and I will be notified as soon as you make your donation. I thank you in advance for your support, and really appreciate your generosity!!

http://www.active.com/donate/teamtiara2009/ERoche9

Please forward this email to as many people as you can to encourage them to donate as well!

Bath Time

2009-07-25T07:27:00.003-04:00

Found out a couple weeks ago that Shea is very ticklish

Shea Learned Something New Today

2009-07-23T19:29:00.003-04:00

If only we could get her to place her left hand under her right arm pit

We Are 100% Gamesome On Parenthood

2009-07-12T17:21:00.008-04:00

I remember growing up and listening to other classmates talk about their half birthdays. Like the half birthday was an actual event or something? They would just walk around all day and announce to anyone within 100 feet that they were X.5 years old. Some would actually bring in cupcakes for the class because they had made it to the half way point. I always thought this was pretty lame and I never bought in. Even for the kids that had summer birthdays, I would refuse to eat the cupcake…out of principle. It’s funny when you have kids that all principles and anything that you thought defined you goes right out the window. So of course on Friday, we threw a little private party for Shea because she turned ½ year old. Although I think the party was more for the fact that Liz and I had made it 6 months without any major catastrophes. No unscheduled visits to the hospital. No late night 911 calls. No leaving the baby outside in the middle of a desert highway after robbing a small convenience store. Enjoy:

Now I know what your thinking, “Wow! The grocery store carries fraction symbol candles!” Well to my surprise they don’t, but if you buy a #7 candle and shave off the top leg…Wah-Lah!

The party was a total hit as Shea was completely surprised…although not a huge accomplishment as Shea is surprised by her own sneezes.

Shea pondering if she should have used her wish for something a little more extravagant than Gerber #2 sweet potatoes.

“Pssshhh…six months and I’ve got this guy wrapped around my finger”

We gave Shea some cake but she was more interested in sharing it with her buddy Chloe. (I apologize in advance for the Miami Vice shirt no-button-age)

Happy Fathers Day

2009-06-21T08:29:00.000-04:00

Updates Complete

2009-06-14T17:18:00.001-04:00

Now maybe the Boss will stop riding me!

Some of the Most Recent Pictures

2009-06-14T16:57:00.009-04:00

This is why Dad should not dress Shea in the a.m.

Meeting Great Grandma Mast & friends

Meeting Great Grandma Scott

First night out in a while took place at a wedding in Cleveland

Behind bars

Play time

Family pic

23 Hours

2009-06-14T16:35:00.007-04:00

Around May 22ndish Liz had to fly to Cleveland for one of her best friends Bachelorette parties. Liz had contemplated the decision about going for quite some time. For Liz, who had never been away from Shea for more than 9 hours, this was a really big step. That or the decision was hard because she had zero confidence in my parenting abilities. Eventually Liz made the decision to go and booked a Saturday departure of 11:45AM and a Sunday arrival of 10:45AM. That’s right…Not even 24 hours….zero confidence!

But I was ready for the challenge

We hit up the grocery store for the essentials…Beer and potato chips

We stopped at the local farmers market to enjoy a mini coke on the porch

We played on the puppy pillow and shook the psychedelic rattle.

We shot Mommy picture messages that would try to cheer her up

We took our first nap of the day at 6PM

Finally we got all dressed up to pick Mommy up from the airport

VT

2009-06-14T16:09:00.005-04:00

Around May 9thish I headed back to VT with my brother in law Kyle, Cousin Chris, and Uncle John to get the house opened for the spring. I never get over just how beautiful and relaxing it is up there; which is why I find it amazing that every time I go, I don’t take any pictures of the scenery. In fact this year I came back with only 4 pictures from the entire weekend. Hopefully it’s enough to capture the ambiance of the weekend:

This is Kyle at the airport in D.C around 11PM. Kyle lives in Columbus. He left his house at 6:30AM to get to the Columbus airport. He flew out at 8AM and landed in PHI around 10AM where he waited for me at the bar. I arrived in PHI at noon. We went back to the bar. At 12:50 we somehow missed our flight to Burlington. We were re-booked for 2:30. We went back to the bar. At 2:30 our flight was completely cancelled and we were booked for a 6PM flight to D.C. We went back to the bar. At 6PM we flew to D.C. to make our new 8PM connection. Our connection was delayed till 11:45pm. We went to a new bar. The bar closed. So we set up shop on the floor. This is Kyle on the floor. He is smiling b/c he is texting his wife that he walked up to a random woman in the airport who he thought he had dated for 2 years in college. It of course was not her. We got on the plane at midnight. We ordered bud heavy’s at cruising altitude. We landed in Burlington at 2:15AM. We rented a Chevy car that reminds you why they are in such financial ruins. We almost hit a deer. We got to the house at 3:15AM

On the last day we had an extra piece of drywall and a high powered pellet riffle. So like anyone would do, we drew an old school bank robber and a hostage and took aim. We eventually filled a zip lock bag full of ketchup and placed it where the criminals’ heart would be. We shot at it for an hour. Eventually Kyle hit it…it was very anticlimactic. But I still love the bank robbers’ one liner.

Kyle’s marksmanship earned him top prize….which was me slamming this piece of dry wall across his back….because it would look really cool when it breaks but definitely would not hurt. Love the thumbs up.

It ended up hurting….Double click the pic so you can see the full facial expressions of both Kyle and my Uncle John

Mayish

2009-06-14T15:20:00.004-04:00

I know I have been totally slack on the updates but today is pretty much the first day in 5 weeks that I have jumped on my PC for anything besides work. For the past month I have not enjoyed any fantasy baseball statistics, ESPN articles on how poor the Browns will be, celebrity gossip about Spencer Pratt, Ameritrade stock losses, maxim “pick the hottie”, and of course no updates on Shea. I love how I can’t say “blogging” b/c I’m certainly too cool to blog. Fortunately my work has been out of control busy which is certainly good. But with a lot of travel and long hours the last thing you want to do when you get home is fire up the lap top and….go to a 3rd party site which hosts any and all information you willingly produce for all of the world to see and upload updated information. I wish there was a simple acronym or buzz word for that. Anyway I have some time to kill this Sunday so I will attempt to catch up with the month that was May. I will start off with one of my favorite pictures of Shea and I from sometime in early May. We were sitting around early one morning sipping on some coffee and discussing the Cavs.

Shea was just in the middle of breaking down the Cavs front office incompetence when Mom snapped the pic

Tre' Magnific!

2009-05-02T07:39:00.008-04:00

Last week Liz and I were debating if Shea needed a hair cut or not. A hair cut at 14 weeks old sounds crazy but her bangs were in her eyes and she had a monster rat tail going on. It was beginning to reach mullet status so I caved. I was getting my hair cut before we left for Nashville so we just decided to bring Shea. Here are the pictures from her first salon experience:

“Let’s see Daddy…Darker tones with some volume? Cap method or foil? Maybe just a lift?”

“Did you bring the picture of Katie Holmes with the bob?”

“Thinking the exit of the rat tail will bring a little less Joe Dirt and a little more L.C.”

“Darn paparazzi…If I end up on Just Like Us I will just die…I can see the title now…They get their hair cut”

“ummm it is too much to ask for a hand massage?”

Family picture at the end of the first hair cut….we are corn balls

Nashville Melt Down

2009-05-01T12:10:00.008-04:00

First off as far as pictures go….we only got 5 on our camera. With Liz holding Shea and with me running the race we were not set up to take a lot pictures. But you can see the pictures that Grandma Wandee took on her camera here.

You can go here and type in anyone’s last name and see the pictures of them in the race. Great one of Grandpa Viper in his shades and head band. There is one of myself where I thought I was lifting the ends of my shirt as if I had just hit the game winning shot in a basketball game….but it did not come out that way…..not at all. Looks more like I’m about to pass out and I’m trying to retrieve the emergency information on the back of my racing number

You can go here and type in anyone’s last name and see them finish the race. Notice my sweet one arm running style.

As far as the race goes, it was brutally hard but we still had a great time. They had changed the course from the year to make the race a little more challenging with longer and more frequent hills. It was also an unseasonable warm day for late April in Nashville. At the start of the race the director pretty much told everyone to take it easy and not get hurt. Unfortunately that’s a tough sell to 35,000 runners who had been training since February. It was 70 degrees with no cloud cover for the 7AM start. I went out a little easy and was a little bit behind where I wanted to be at the 5K mark. I was surprised how much energy I had already expended and how much water I was having to drink. By the 10K mark I knew it was not happening today and figured not being able to run the last two weeks had got to me. By mile 9 it’s now 80 degrees and the heat coming off the pavement is unbearable. Runners are off to the side walking like drunken penguins and some of them are falling to their knees. At this point I’m walking and some college kid who is enjoying a miller lite looks at me and says, “Come on man, keep running, you can do it!” I feel like walking over and kicking him in the groin and retrieving his beverage. But that would entail 5 extra steps and I was already running on empty. By mile 10 I was trying to figure out if I was going to quit and cut off the course to find a bar. In all honestly if I had been carrying my wallet and phone this would have been the executed contingency plan. I muddled through the final 3 miles walking a ¼ mile and running ¾ of a mile. Now I’m seeing runners on the side of the roads being treated by medics and I’m just glad I’m conscious. I finished with a 1:49:56 time which was 6 minutes slower than last year and 12 minutes slower than what I had trained for. I was pretty disappointed until some of our other friends finished and everyone was anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes behind what they had been training for. It was just way too hot for anyone to perform at their best. Then we started to catch some scary news from some of the other runners: By the end of the race about 4000 of the 26000 half marathoners had quit and 40 individuals had been rushed to the hospital for heat related illnesses. Tragically one runner passed away after he completed the half marathon. When I heard that I was pretty much just thankful I was still breathing.

We hung out for a little while after the race but it was too hot for Shea so we darted back to the hotel. In past years we would grab showers and hit Broadway Street for the next 8 hours. This year, with the baby, it was just a little bit different:

12PM – Shower

1PM – Lunch

3PM – Nap

6PM – Met friends for 2 beers while the Grandparents baby sat

8PM – Back to the hotel for and ordered pizza

9PM – ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzz

2 minutes prior we were debating “baby stroller” vs “baby back pack” to take to the expo….guess who was on the losing side of that

Liz caught me fidgeting before the race…I always get so nervous before hand

“LOOK EVERYONE! COME WITNESS MY GRAND BABY! STOP LOOKING AT THE RUNNERS! SHE IS A DOLL BABY!!!”

Shea needed to pace herself a little better….just like Dad

At the Union Station bar after the race

This Is Where I Live

2009-05-01T12:03:00.001-04:00

Have had zero time for updates of Shea but I will try to catch up this weekend

Nashville

2009-04-24T07:38:00.001-04:00

We are off for Shea’s first big road trip. Heading to Nashville for the Country Music Marathon (Half marathon for me and yes I will have an ipod on). Here’s hoping my shoulder does not fall off half way through!

For anyone that is up at 8AM Saturday and not nursing a hang over: You can track us running and actually watch us cross the finish line through a live web cam. It’s available at:

http://www.cmmarathon.com/home.html

Ace Ventura

2009-04-19T20:55:00.001-04:00

I Need Help!

2009-04-18T17:10:00.000-04:00

Trying to put a mix together for the race next Saturday. Need about 4 more songs. Please list suggestions!
Thanks!

You have to be kidding me

2009-04-11T13:05:00.000-04:00

I just separated my shoulder today….you really don’t want that when you have a 13 week old and race in 2 weeks.

Back Home!

2009-04-11T07:17:00.015-04:00

“Daddy’s home???”

“Yeah!!!”

Ahhhh Back from beautiful Branson and Monett MO. If you have never been to either of these wonderful American heartland cities…..please don’t. Unless you have a strong desire to check out Dolly Parton’s Dixie Stampede or Yakov’s house of explosive laughter. Other than that these towns don’t have much to offer. But I was there to learn, not to participate in the local night life. Normally the continued education of glass and aluminum is pretty dull but this trip was not all bad. They focused a lot of the classes on missile impact (hurricane) and DOD (bombs) rated products. We actually got to sit in on some testing which was pretty cool.

Here are the rated windows that we will be testing for large missile impact hurricane performance

This is the cannon that will shoot an 8 foot 2X4 at the windows, simulating a hurricane with wind speeds of 80MPH hurling debris at a building

My phone actually caught the 2X4 in mid air on the second shot traveling 50 feet per second

Here was the effect of the first shot

Now you hook up the unit to a pressure chamber that will simulate the negative air pressure of a hurricane for 1300 cycles. It makes the unit look like a giant beating heart as the glass will deflect up to 14”. What you are looking for is the laminate to hold the broken glass into place so that the building envelope is not compromised by the severe negative pressure….this one passed.

Speaking of work, here are a couple projects that we finished last year with one of our good customers. Some pretty cool jobs:

Hubbell Lighting Inc

New Hanover Regional Hospital

USC Beta Research – We also did the panels around the curtain wall on this one. Looks like they hung a giant flat screen TV on the side of this building

Core Lab

So Busy

2009-04-05T22:06:00.001-04:00

It’s been a crazy couple weeks and it’s not slowing down. I had to fly out to MO on Sunday for work so I still have zero time for picture updates so…. I think it’s time for the haiku updates:

In Branson M-O
Meetings with cheese balls not fun
Want to go home now

Shea totally sweet
Growing to fast to keep up
Slow mo button please

Families been down
Everyone here for baby
Good excuse to hang

Chloe shedding bad
Brown coffee table now white
New vacuum A-SAP

My crazy friend James
About to add another
http://fallofjames.blogspot.com/

Rented Twighlight Sat
Negative man points for this?
Thought it was decent

Dad Should Never Dress the Baby

2009-03-22T20:22:00.001-04:00

A pink and brown dress with pink sweat pants and white gloves??? She looks like a pink oompa loompa

Backyard Project Beginning

2009-03-22T20:10:00.003-04:00

Anyone that has ever been to our house and seen our backyard should get a kick out of these pics. We had a random slate stairway to heaven in the back yard. I’ve been wanting to remove it since we moved in and decided to finally do it today.

In my mind there was a lot less of these slate stones when I decided to tackle this project

To make matters worse I had run 11 miles on Saturday and these stones were 3X heavier than I anticipated

Voodoo?

2009-03-22T18:36:00.003-04:00

I think we have a bit of a problem. I believe that Liz and I have been blessed with a wonderful baby. Shea is so well tempered, eats well, and sleeps great at night. Everyone that comes to visit always leaves saying, “That is the best baby I have ever been around”. All of this is wonderful and makes for a calm marriage during what is normally a challenging time for new parents. So what’s the problem? I think that some other parents that might have had a more difficult time with their newborns deem this as unfair. And I believe that those individuals have sought out the karma police, stated their case, and we are now on the bad side of karma justice. I thought that the freezer was just an anomaly, but I’m starting to see a pattern. Last Thursday I was driving home from Columbia and decided that the gym was going to get the big doubt it. It was 7:30, I was tired, and I wanted to come home and see Liz and Shea. Not to mention it was the first day of March Madness and I had not witnessed one minute of this celebration. I got home, hung with Liz, and we discussed our non parallel days. At 9:30 I sat on the couch to give Shea her bottle and was finally going to catch some hoops. As soon as I changed the channel to CBS…BOOOoooop. The power goes out…are you serious? Sure enough the power had gone out on the block. Right before I’m about to earmuff Shea and drop a “God Damn It” one of our fire alarms start to chirp. I pass Shea off to Liz and go to investigate the annoying sound in the dark. I realize it has something to do with the alarm system because the keypad is blinking “Fire Alarm Power”. This had happened once before and to rectify the situation I just did what all men are programmed to do….mash buttons. So with my phone assuming the responsibilities of a flashlight I open the key pad cover and begin to mash keys like Stevie Wonder. I should probably inform everyone at this point that the house is wired for an alarm, but we’ve never activated it with the alarm company. In the last 4 years we had never even looked at these alarm pads because we thought they were deactivated. So right in the middle of my alarm key pad rendition of “Funky Town” the unthinkable (to me) happens…..The fricken alarm goes off…and let me tell you this was not your 5^th grade fire drill alarm. You would have thought we were housing bricks of gold with this brain cracking frequency. Liz immediately covered Shea’s ears and ran outside to her car. I’m now stuck inside trying to figure out how to make this siren stop. After about 10 minutes of failed mashing attempts it shut off by itself. Liz came back inside and before I could tell her to get out in case it went off again…Boom. Once again Liz runs out the front door with Shea and I’m just standing in the middle of the hallway getting pelted by this tornado siren. I think I stood frozen for about 30 seconds and thought to myself, “My Lord, I’m about to call 911 because my alarm is going off…But I can’t call 911…that would be like the lady calling 911 for her missing McNuggets, right?....But what else can I do?...Every neighbor is standing at their respective front doors gaggling at our latest disaster…..I’m calling 911…NO!” Right then I just lost it. I jumped up and ripped the alarm right off of the wall. Silence…except the key pad next to the garage was beeping…So I yanked that off of the wall. Silence? No…there was another key pad in the bedroom beeping….So I ripped that off of the wall. I stood there holding my electronic head pieces like trophies. Ears ringing with pain from the alarm but grinning from the success of my….freak out. I went outside and told Liz it was safe to come back inside. So anyway I just wanted to inform everyone that Shea has been a total monster. I mean, crazy. We are thinking about giving her away because she cries and….does bad baby stuff. So please reverse the curse and let us live in peace. I have to get on a plane in 2 weeks so I would appreciate it if the hex was lifted before then. Thank you.

I ended up just putting the key pads back up so it looks normal now

I’m telling you, this little siren packs a punch

Dude....

2009-03-14T10:58:00.001-04:00

So Wednesday night I was driving home from Raleigh around 6pm even though I had meetings in Raleigh at 8am the next day. Normally I would just stay in a hotel but I had to come home to take care of a crisis. A crisis that I was not looking forward to at all. Let’s rewind to last Sunday; Liz and I were just sitting around trying to figure out what we were going to have for dinner. Liz suggested hamburgers and asked if I would go out to the freezer in the garage and grab a package of hamburger meat. (When we moved into our house Liz’s parents had gotten us a small freezer to keep meat in. Every time they come down to visit they always bring tons of steaks, roasts, sausages and hamburger meat. TONS) I walked into the garage, opened the freezer and stood frozen in my tracks. In a half second I noticed the color of the meat was very odd, even though the freezer was running and everything was frozen. I felt helpless as I knew the smell was going to hit any moment. Almost like a laser red dot was on my chest from a riffle and I could not move. I tried to close the lid and run but the smell had already pierced my nostrils. I ran outside for fresh air and stood in the drive way confused. The meat was frozen yet it was spoiled…how? Let’s rewind to Saturday: Liz took the vacuum cleaner in the garage to clean out her car. She plugged the cord into the same socket that houses the freezer plug but the vacuum would not turn on. Eventually Liz realized that she needed to reset the socket because there was no power going to it. Reset button was hit, vacuum turned on and Liz never looked back wondering how long the freezer had been off. How long had it been off? Let’s rewind to December 20th: Liz and I had hung Christmas lights two days prior and on the night of the 20th we were getting a crazy rain storm. The next day we noticed that half of our lights were out. I messed around trying to find the short but I could not find it. So I figured that I had just bought some cheap-o lights at Target and you get what you pay for. So wrong to the tenth degree….Let’s fast forward back to last Wednesday while I’m driving home; I’ve been on the road for about 18 hours this week and this little up and back is going to tack on an extra 6 hours. But I have to come back because Thursday is trash day and I have to get this meat into the garbage and out of the garage. I now know that the freezer had been off for about 2 and a half months with about 40 lbs of Elmer in it. It is now refrozen, so I should be able to open it up get rid of the spoiled meat and get it cleaned out. Liz went to Target earlier in the day and bought me a dust mask, rubber gloves and a gallon of bleach. I get home at about 9pm and it’s time to start. Its dark out, I have my masks and gloves on, and a big trash bag. I don’t want the neighbors to see my Bundy outfit, but the garage door has to be open because the stank is going to be epic. I open the lid to the freezer and the smell immediately fills the 3 dust masks I’m wearing. I run outside. I decide I’m just going to have to hold my breath, grab as many meat packages as I can and run back out. This plan works pretty well until I get to the bottom. All of the cattle blood had pretty much leaked down into the bottom of the freezer when the power was off. When we turned it back on, the blood bath had frozen, trapping multiple packages. It looked like a gelatin fruit cake but rather than jell-o we used frozen beef shmegma and rather than fruit we used 1lb hamburger meat packages. I didn’t know how to get these packages out of the red ice and I was delirious from the stench. So I grabbed the gallon of bleach and poured it into the freezer….I have no idea why I did that. It pretty much created a Clorox cloud of dry ice vapors that began to burn my throat and eyes. I ran out of the garage chocking and spitting in search of clean air. At this point I can’t see, I look ridiculous , I’m pissed and I’m pretty sure half the neighborhood is watching me. I go back into the garage, grab a screw driver and began to pick at the ice to remove the packages. I can hear police sirens in the background and I can only think that one of my neighbors believes they are seeing a real life Dexter episode. I press on. Eventually every meat package is in the garbage and I fill the rest of the freezer with the bleach, throw all my clothes in the wash, and take a one hour shower. My only issue now is that I need to get the bleach cattle cocktail out of the bottom of the freezer. Any ideas?

The 8 Week Well Visit

2009-03-14T08:40:00.002-04:00

Yesterday Shea had her “8 Week Well Visit”. I’m not sure if the stats or the feedback from the pediatrician mean anything but we could have a power forward on our hands:

Height: 24.5 inches 96^th percentile

Weight 12.65 ozs 90^th percentile

Head Circumference 38 cm 50^th percentile

Shea was placed on her belly and she held herself up and almost rolled all the way over. The pediatrician said she was showing the strength of a 4 month old.

"Little morning power nap before some power lifting"

I'm Back!

2009-03-07T17:13:00.003-05:00

After battling hip bursitis for what seems like forever, I finally feel like I’m back. I spent 7 months trying to just rest my hip for 2-3 weeks and then start running again. Always making it about 2 weeks before the bursitis set in again. Finally I went to physical therapy and they were able to get me going in the right direction. I finished 10 weeks of PT while I started to run very short distances at very slow times. 8 weeks later takes us to today where I was able to finish a 10 mile run without any issues. So I finally feel confident enough to sign up for the Nashville half marathon. We already know about 10 others that will be running it so it should be a great time.

Check it out at: http://www.cmmarathon.com/home.html

Sorry Pre, I will be wearing Brooks…..Sorry ladies, I will be wearing much longer shorts

Not last Monday but the Monday Before that

2009-03-07T14:46:00.002-05:00

So my updates have slowed down because:

(baby*work)+(running*sleepy) = lazy

Anyway Shea had her 6 week doctor’s appointment 2 weeks ago. Everything went great and she came home with the following stats:

Weight: 10.9 lbs (65^th percentile)

Height: 23 inches (75^th percentile)

Head Circumference: 38 cm (50^th percentile) Not a pumpkin head

“I love my flower power hippie t-shirt”

Last Sunday

2009-03-07T13:52:00.005-05:00

Last Sunday night Charlotte had some unusual weather, especially for March. The news was predicting anywhere from 6 to 12 inches of snow. Usually we would ignore this claim because the news is always wrong. It’s almost like the grocery stores have a deal with the local news stations. The Grocers send the news station an envelope of money whenever they have a surplus of milk, bread and bake beans. The news in turn predicts snow, freezing rain and tsunamis for Mecklenburg County. Then all of the local yokels sprint to the grocers and fill up on the necessities. Of course it is all for nothing because it is Charlotte and we have about 300 days of sunshine every year. This time we knew it was coming because we had just gotten back from Blowing Rock NC (mountains). We had taken off early Sunday morning because the freezing rain started to fall at 8AM. We knew if we did not get off the mountain within the next hour we might be stuck for days. So we packed up the car and flew down the mountain. The freezing rain was coming down with mixed snow but we got out in the nick of time. When we got to Charlotte, we hunkered down with some warm drinks and watched the snow fall that night.

Direct TV was out so Shea and I laid on the couch and watched some shows on the lap top

The flakes were huge. “Oh man look at those flakes…oh man those are a-hu-ge!” (Google Tiny Elvis if you don’t get it)

By 7AM we actually had 7” of snow. It was pretty cool. Especially since is was 70 degrees on Friday.

Couch Envy

2009-02-22T09:51:00.005-05:00

Sometimes I get home after work and I find my two girls spending some quality time on the couch. It’s so cute that I have to grab a camera and start taking some shots. But then, I start to get a little jealous. When you think about it, I’m out all day, slaving for the man. Fake laughing at horrendous “jokes” that come out of architects pie holes. Having to keep my cool when customers are 100% wrong and they think they are right. Going to the breakfast bar of a Holliday Inn and realizing they are out of Raisin Bran. It’s enough to make a man go crazy. Then you get home and see this tranquil scene…How can you not be jealous? Last night was a good reminder of why you can’t be jealous. As the baby began to cry for her 3:30AM feeding, Liz jumps out of bed and heads for the door. Unfortunately Chloe had moved her bed about 2 feet to the right creating an invisible hurdle with the lights off. Liz hit it going about 30mph and flew into the air. (Right hand trying to brace herself for the fall and left hand trying to strangle Chloe) Liz landed face first on the floor with her body landing in Chloe's bed. Her black velour sleeping gear was now covered in white hair from head to toe. Resembling the abominable snowman from the Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer TV special, Liz did not miss a beat. She left the room, closing the door behind her and was off to feed Shea for the next hour while I slept. I would say the deck is definitely stacked in my favor.

“How can I get that red shirt off without waking her up?”

“Damn these socks on my hands…How can I lift the shirt without the use of my thumbs!”

“What did I want to do?…the shirt…shir….zzzzzz”

“CHLOE!!! That’s it! To the farm!!