After work on Friday we quickly packed up the car and were on our way to “the lake.” Doni and Phil were already there when we arrived and before too long we were firing up the grills and making a fire in the pit. The first night we had grilled chicken and fish along with potatoes and asparagus. Afterward we drank a few beers around the fire and even roasted some marshmallows.

Saturday we all woke up pretty early to get a head start on the day. Doni’s mom and dad stopped by for a bit to check out our setup. Todd came down just as they were leaving. Soon after it was time to pick up our pontoon boat. I wasn’t feeling all that well so I stayed behind with Phil and Gabe (the doggie). I think I was suffering from a combination of the returned humidity, my allergies and maybe a slight cold. I wasn’t going to let that stop me from having fun though. And besides we had to sneak the dog onto the pontoon after the girls picked it up. The Martins met up with us in their boat and we headed off to a couple of different coves in the lake. It’s almost like Lake Cumberland on a smaller scale. My family used to go to Lake Cumberland yearly, but we haven’t been back for a couple of years now. We floated around in the water for a few hours, relaxing with a few beers. It was really nice! For dinner we headed back to camp and while I took a little nap some fajitas were cooked up on the fire pit. The Martins and The Schmidts (co-owners of the boat) also joined in for the fireside activity.

Sunday was another early morning. It started off with some crappy weather, but that eventually gave way to another great day. Besides Todd, the same group as before all piled onto the SS Schmartin (Phil’s name for the boat). We headed back to “party cove” which was not as crowded as the day before. We soon realized it was because we were just a little too early, and before we knew it there were boats all around. We pretty much followed the same itinerary as the day before, float in the lake with a beer in hand. That was until I was attacked by one of the local fish. At first I thought it was someone in the water messing with me, but the second time the fish bit me I saw it. Guess where I was bitten? No, not my toes. Right on the nipple! The little sucker got me good enough to draw a couple drops of blood. From that point on, the water was avoided or at least we would wear protection when using the facilities if you know what I mean. As another storm began rolling in, we decided it best to call it a day. We spent the rest of the night inside the RV as the storms got worse and worse.

The weather never really got any better, so Kim and I left the lake area fairly early on Monday. It did seem like the weather cleared up later in the afternoon, but by that point we were clean and mostly unpacked. We spent the rest of the day at the driving range then at the grocery store. Finally we ended up on the roof over at Mike’s place with Amanda and Christie (one of the new trainees at Kim’s office) to watch any fireworks in the area. If only we were a few stories higher we could have seen it all but still not a bad place to watch from, especially without driving anywhere. Speaking of trainees, Christie and Ashley both started work today. It was just brought to my attention that Ashley knows some of the hockey guys a few grades below me, including my brother. It’s a small world. I’m just happy that we will have even more people to play cornhole and euchre with!

As I mentioned earlier, my boss is on vacation for the rest of this week and Raji is gone. They are already throwing some stuff my way to get done asap, so I better get busy on that…

The holiday weekend is finally upon us. We had lots of options for celebrating this 4th of July, but with a summer full of trips just about every weekend we decided to hang around the KC area. So what do people in KC do? They go to “the lake.” Which lake you ask? Any of them within a few hours drive. I’ve noticed that people here pick one of the lakes as their lake of choice, and that lake then becomes known as “the lake” to those individuals. Which lake do our friends call home? Smithville Lake (this is the best site I can find). We will be spending most of the weekend in, on and around this lake. Doni’s parents have graciously allowed us use of their motor home. I guess it is already parked in one of the campgrounds, waiting for our arrival. We also have a tent to use, since it looks like the weather will be really nice for camping. The Martins also have a boat up on the lake and there is talk of us renting a pontoon boat for half of tomorrow. It sounds like it should be one heck of an extended weekend!

We aren’t heading to Austin City Limits after all. We were close though. What they did was called out a couple of names and then those people picked a key and attempted to open the lock on a piece of luggage. They called one name and then called out Kim’s name. She was second in line and somehow the first person in line won. Everyone thought it was rigged, but even if it was the first person was picked out of a hat and won fair enough. Oh well, we got a couple of really big schooners of beer and half price appetizers out of the deal! From there a group of us all gathered over at Doni & Phil’s for a few rounds of late night cornhole. That’s right, I finally got to play! In fact, playing cornhole was about the only thing we did all weekend.

Saturday we had another gathering of people over at our apartment for some more cornhole. Mike came over first and then Amanda and Joel. We started playing around 4 or 5 and only stopped once for dinner and then played until it was dark out. A few of our friends from our building also joined in on the fun. Our neighbor Nick played a few games, as did Andrea who now lives in our old apartment and her boyfriend Chris. It was a nice day full of fun!

Yesterday we relaxed at the pool for a couple of hours and then later in the night watched Coach Carter and ate some pizza. I thought I was going to play hockey, but the zamboni broke again. I really didn’t feel like playing anyway, so that worked out. Kim and I both thought that the movie was good. We struggled to pick something out at Blockbuster, especially since most movies were completely rented out from the weekend. I was pretty happy with our final choice though.

Oh yeah, our eBay auctions were a big success. They both ended last night while we were watching the movie. Once it was over I checked on both of them and realized that we did in fact just make $500 (well actually only $497 so if you want to PayPal me $3 I would complete my goal). We’ll have to remember this for future southwest reward flights.

We didn’t get a chance to play any Cincinnati related games and Christie is leaving today. I guess we’ll just have to wait until July when both of the new trainees start. Tuesday night we did absolutely nothing, I guess we were a little worn out from the previous night’s adventure. Last night we went to spinning again which seemed to be a little harder than last week. Even Jeff (the instructor) said it was a workout. From there we had dinner and watched the storm that lasted until around 10.

Speaking of the storm, what’s the deal with the weather here? It seems like every day has a storm at some point. It could be a super sunny day with highs in the upper 80s and then all of the sudden it starts pouring. Just look at the forecast. I’ll be happy as long as the weather doesn’t ruin either the festivals this weekend or next.

The Pig-Fest evite is going to go out soon! If you want to see it immediately, be sure that I have your email address. Otherwise I’m sure I’ll post a link to it when it’s up.

We have a meeting with a Big Brother Big Sister person in a couple Tuesdays. I guess we’ll find out then what situation will work the best for us. Speaking of meetings, that pretty much sums up my last few days. We had a full staff meeting on Wednesday to hear about a conference that some of the big guys went to. We also learned that that the company is going to match 50% of our 401K contributions from last year. This is down from the 100% they matched the year before, but still really good. Note to self: invest more in 401K. They are also supposed to put some sort of profit sharing in or something. We’ll see how much is added in the middle of May. We also learned that we would be switching health insurance companies. This brings me to my next meeting on Thursday with a lady from the new company. We had choices between 3 different plans that would all deduct the same amount from each paycheck. I won’t bore you with the details, but I found out today that the amount taken from each check is going to be close to double what it was before. Why the hell did we switch then? Oh well, either way it isn’t much for a single person on the policy.

We haven’t done much with our nights, watched TV mostly. Today I sat in two meetings before lunch, just had a long lunch, and now it is almost time for me to leave and head back to Cincinnati. I got a whole bunch of nothing done today!

Good news, we have an official Pig-Fest date and it is August 13th. Hopefully everyone who wants to go can make it, I know I’ll be there.

After work on Friday we headed up to the Brooksider for their little Christmas party. They had discounted drinks and free food! After a couple hours there we decided to head home and do our gift exchange. If you didn’t know I got Kim a ReplayTV box. It’s similar to TiVo but has even more advanced features. I haven’t got it completely setup yet, but I think I’ll do that tonight. I had to get a few extra wires and a router for the network. Thanks to Phil for bringing over an extra router! After we get it setup though we can have it record all of our TV shows automatically, which is great because we always forget somehow. Kim got me a brand new guitar! I tried to serenade her but I could barely remember the few things I learned a few years back. I’m excited to give it another chance though and see if I can figure out how to play this thing. :)

Saturday we had a nice run outside, it was a great day! We had lunch at D’Bronx which might be my new favorite KC pizza place. Afterward we took care of a few errands, like haircuts. Later on in the night we went over to another Christmas party at the Martins house (friend of Doni & Phil). It’s much easier going to a party than throwing one, so it was nice!

Sunday we had to wake up early to get ready for the Chiefs. We put layers and layers on and then met up with Amanda and Joel. The drive to the game was easy especially since we took the back roads. The tailgating probably wasn’t as big as normal (because of the weather) but there were still a bunch of people out cooking and drinking. We decided to head to the VIP tent for a bit before the game. They had big screen TVs, foosball tables and the best part, heat. Joel had 2 sets of tickets. They went to the close ones in the lower section and we went to the others in the second row of the upper section. What we found out later was that tickets we got were in the sun, while the ones they kept were in the shade. This forced them back to the tent even before half time. Before that though, the game was great. Dante Hall scored a touchdown within the first 15 seconds of the game! Not a bad start to my first ever Chiefs game. We met up with the others at halftime and stayed in the tent for most of the second half. Kim and I did try and sit in the lower level seats for a couple of minutes, but once we finished our nachos it was decided that it was in fact too cold. Despite the weather we all had a great time, and I would definitely do it again.
Afterward we went back to our apartment and had the normal Sunday crew over for fajitas and margaritas. It was a great end to a very busy weekend!

I guess I should have said that I put some pictures up from the past few days. Now that I have a camera again, there should be regular updates to the photos section!

The Christmas party was excellent! I got home from work and immediately Kim showed me the kitchen and said get to work. :) Most everyone showed up right at 6, and we had lots of food ready and plenty of drinks to go around. Kim and I took a few pictures of the night with the new camera, hopefully I’ll get those up soon. Doni forwarded some pictures that she took and I’ll see if I can get them online now. After an hour and a half we all headed to the play. Our seats were great, right up front and all together. The play was good as well. We saw it last year, so I remembered a bunch of the parts but I also forgot a few things as well. Good times! Thanks to Steve and everyone else at Kim’s work for coming over and having this party.

We have a few plans for the weekend, but nothing too big. We may go to the brooksider tonight for their Christmas party. At some point tonight Kim and I are going to have our Christmas, I’m really excited for that! Then tomorrow we are going with Doni & Phil up to the Martin’s for their Christmas party. We also have 3 DVD’s to watch sometime this weekend. These are all from a free trial of blockbuster online. I convinced Kim to sign up for the free ipods, so in a week or so I should have all of my referrals needed to get this thing. I’ll keep my fingers crossed…

So tonight is Kim’s work Christmas party. Not sure if I mentioned it before or not, but it is partially happening at our apartment. That means we have been cleaning the apartment all week, and it actually looks really good. If only we could keep it looking like this. We are going to have drinks and appetizers at the apartment and then go watch “A Christmas Carol” at the Kansas City Repertory Theatre. Perhaps I’ll have some pictures to post before too long!

It has come to my attention that I missed a very important event from this week. Monday we went to Doni & Phil’s to celebrate Doni’s birthday! The girls made cookie trays for work, while Phil and I watched football on their new bigscreen TV. We also had some Breckenridge Brewery beers that were quite good.

The show last night was a great time. I was really impressed by Megan Slankard. What a voice and she plays guitar as well. Oh yeah she isn’t bad looking either. :) Mission19 were great as well. Talked with one of the guys for awhile after the show. We stayed out later than we should have, but it was worth it for sure. We made it until 11PM, aren’t we crazy?!?!

We booked the Rock Boat! I’m so excited now, and it is still like a year away. The boat will be chartered, but it is a Carnival boat, the Sensation. The interior rooms on the bottom floor were already full when we went to book, so we are on the next floor up in an interior room. We didn’t feel that the window was worth the extra money. My first cruise…

Last night we went over to Doni & Phil’s to just hang out for a couple hours, played some cards, and had some wine. Well I didn’t have any wine, but the others did. I actually tried one of the wines and surprisingly enjoyed it…