Big Storm

WEll, St. Louis got hit with a big ICE storm today, and we are still taking on more. They are expecting 5 to 9 inches of snow tonight after midnight also. Wow. Should be fun, eh?

Nothing much happened today. I came home for lunch and spent an hour with Lynn and then Nate woke up from nap. I left just in time to beat some of the freezing rain/sleet.

My car seems to be running okay. Just okay, not spectacular or anything. It feels like it is shaking a bit, and the "Check Engine" light is staying on. I guess that is to be expected. It started blinking today when I was backing it into the garage. Don't know why it would do that. Oh well.

Below is picture of the storm:

Later,

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Auto Cardiac....

Well, seems my car is having a CAR-diac.... heheheh. Well, not really. Took it to roys like previous post stated. each time they fixed something, they found another problem. turns out that my head gasket is busted. So they put some kind of substance in there to try to fix it. we'll see. hopefully it will fix it for awhile. I got a hoopty now. Whoo hoo. All I need it for is to get from work and back. so we'll see....

PSA
Wash your hands after decorating the christmas tree. Apparently christmas lights strands contain lead.... You'll find a warning that says this product contains chemicals including lead, known to the state of California to cause cancer, birth defects or other reproductive harm. or such on your box. Turns out that all types of electrical cord has the same covering, containing lead.... MAybe the state of California (Granola Country, land of the fruits, nuts and flakes) has something out for Christmas.. Whom I kidding, there are people out there gunning for Christmas.......


None eventful day. Weather men are predicting the weather storm of all weather storms to hit StL.

GREENE IL-MACOUPIN IL-CALHOUN IL-JERSEY IL-ST. CHARLES-FRANKLIN-
ST. LOUIS-ST. LOUIS CITY-JEFFERSON-CRAWFORD-WASHINGTON-
INCLUDING THE CITIES OF...ST CHARLES...UNION...ST LOUIS
354 PM CST WED NOV 29 2006

...WINTER STORM WARNING IN EFFECT FROM 6 AM THURSDAY TO 9 AM CST
FRIDAY...

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN ST LOUIS HAS ISSUED A WINTER
STORM WARNING...WHICH IS IN EFFECT FROM 6 AM THURSDAY TO 9 AM CST
FRIDAY. THE WINTER STORM WATCH IS NO LONGER IN EFFECT.

IT HAS BECOME MORE CERTAIN THAT A POWERFUL EARLY SEASON WINTER
STORM WILL AFFECT A LARGE PART OF MISSOURI AND ILLINOIS OVER THE
NEXT 48 HOURS. RAIN IS EXPECTED TO DEVELOP OVER THE AREA TONIGHT
AND CHANGE OVER TO FREEZING RAIN ON THURSDAY MORNING. FREEZING
RAIN WILL MIX WITH SLEET THURSDAY EVENING BEFORE CHANGING OVER TO
ALL SNOW AFTER MIDNIGHT. THE SNOW WILL BE HEAVY AT TIMES WITH
GUSTY NORTH WINDS. THE SNOW WILL DIMINISH ON FRIDAY MORNING AS
THE STORM SYSTEM MOVES AWAY FROM THE AREA. ICE ACCUMULATIONS ARE
EXPECTED TO REACH A QUARTER INCH BY MIDNIGHT ON THURSDAY
NIGHT...WITH EXPECTED TOTAL SNOWFALL AMOUNTS OF 4 TO 8 INCHES BY
MIDDAY ON FRIDAY.

A WINTER STORM WARNING MEANS THAT A SIGNIFICANT AMOUNT OF SNOW...
SLEET AND/OR ICE IS EXPECTED OR OCCURRING. STRONG WINDS ARE ALSO
POSSIBLE. THIS WILL MAKE TRAVEL VERY HAZARDOUS OR IMPOSSIBLE.  MAKE
PREPARATIONS AT HOME BY STOCKING EMERGENCY SUPPLIES...SUCH AS
FOOD...MEDICINE...AND EXTRA HEATING FUEL...JUST IN CASE THE STORM
MAKES TRAVEL IMPOSSIBLE. THIS IS ESPECIALLY IMPORTANT FOR THOSE
LIVING IN RURAL AREAS.

OH well, they've been wrong before....

Later,

Christmas Tree hunting.

we went out to Pea Ridge Forest today and got our Christmas Tree. Below is picture of Nate and me with the Pre-Cut Tree.
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We also drove through Hermann and at a nice little restaruant down there.

My car is still at Roy's Seems to be Missing a stroke with the pistons or something. Hopefully I will get to get it back tomorrow.

Here's the After Picture of our Christmas Tree:
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Later,

Thanksgiving, part 2.

WE got back from my parent's tonight. Nate had a blast. Strangely though, he slept till like 10:30 this morning. he woke up at about 3:30 or so, and cooed and yapped for about an hour. he finally went back to sleep.

Below is a summary of some of the pictures we took this weekend. My mother insisted on putting up Christmas Lights on Thursday night, and was up on our roof until a good 9 o'clock or so. I was out there most of the night to make sure she didn't fall off the roof, or at least, to be there when she did (couldn't do much to not make her fall off the roof.).

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Nate fell in love with the Kawasaki Mule that belongs to my grandfather. we drove out on it several times, and even let him drive a couple of times. He just made us go in circles though. He also got to ride in his first combine (which my father strangely has 5 of??).

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Here's a pic I took of him out by our pine tree.... Thankfully the weather was decent enough for us to spend some time outside..
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Here, Nate is riding on a bouncy horse that my mom has. I had one as a kid, and it is actually in the attic at home, but this one is in a lot better shape. guess I didn't take that good care of it.

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Later,

Turkey Day!

It's Turkey Day!. My mom is making up a wild turkey that our friend Curt Ellis shot back last spring. He's in Iraq right now. he re-upped into the military.

Here's some pics of Nate for you all.
This is a pic of Nate and I in my grandfather's Mule. As you can tell in the picture, the vehicle is pretty beat up. My grandfather was loosing his eyesight near the end there, so he ran it into plenty of things, cars, mailboxes, garage doors. It will probably get sold in the sale. We let Nate drive it also while he was in my lap. We just kept going in Circles... Oh well.


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Later,

Flushed Away!

Well, we just got the van's brakes done, and now turns out we have to do my car. Went to Roy's and they gave me a whole list of things to do...

• Brake fluid flush
  
• Heater Coil Flushed
  
• Automatic Transmission Fluid... Flused
  
• Induction
  

Guess my car was needing it pretty bad. OH well. I'm not the most responsible when it comes to those kind of things. guess that is why God brought Lynn into my life. I'm be driving 10,000 miles on an oil change...

Hehe.

OH well. HOpe all is well with everyone. Hoping tomorrow is a short day for leading into Turkey Day.. cluck cluck..

Later,

RTTM Woes

So, like tomrrow night I was supposed to have a big implementation, but I hadn't finished my testing. today I really hit it hard, and I was submitting stuff to a vendor, but they were rejecting it. turns out that we didn't have the data set up right on our side. so now, I'm probably delayed another week with it.

Here's a newer pic of Nate, It is from Jackson's b-day...
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Bundle had to be backed out on Friday. didn't know if I told you all that yet. Wasn't my fault. They will need to talk about implementing it once again, so we will see what can be done. I'm hoping not this weeke. It would be quite a feat from them to get the problem found in that amount of time. apparently, something was bringing down the web servers. OH well.

Two more days to turkey day. I know some people are bothered by that term. It is called Thanksgiving. Giving thanks for our blessings. Guess if we were hit with a hard winter and no food, we would all be a little more thankful around here.

Oh, my project at work is called RTTM. It stands for REal Time Trade Matching or something like that. YOu can go to the DTCC website to read all about it. Fun.

Later,

Owwwwwie!

Well, Nate got one of his first big Owwies today.

we were at Pieper's today looking at stuff and I put him down so he wouldn't be so restless. He went over to an entertainment center and started to open the drawer, and found nothing interesting and closed it.

It seemed that what happened next went in slow motion. He closed the drawer pretty fast, so I had thought that he got his fingers out. but apparently not, I assume he tried pulling it out, which just resulted in him pulling his whole body forward, procedding to bang his head on the E.C. ONly when I picked him up, did we notice his finger was bleeding, seenms it go cut on the unfinished EC. He cried for a while, we got a bandaid on it, hugs and kisses, and he's okay now. He does seem to favor that hand a little less right now, so we'll keep an eye on it.

Tomorrow is church. Last week he got booted out of nursery for icky nose, but he's in good health now.

We spent tonight cleaning up the basement a bit. I've moved all my shelving units into the store room and come to the realization, we have WAY too much stuff to store. So I'm talking yard sale. Lynn says Good Will. Maybe we can try our hand at EBAY?

Oh well.

Later,

Bundle Nite pt. 2

Okay, make that 5 a.m. Then turns out that they have problems, so I am going back in again tonight at 7 to backout the changes and retest. Thankfully, I don't think the problems were caused by me. I hope not. at least.


Lynn and I went out and bought a turntable today so we can listen to the ole vinyls. LPS. Records. 45s? Don't know, they have so many names.

we ate at Cici's Pizza for lunch. They yell after you when you leave, "Cici you later". Ha!. Lynn doesn't think she could work at such a place with such a cheesy catchphrase. the manager was in the parking lot and they said it again. How funny. I think he gave the employees a good talking to about the importance of the greeting and farewell. Oh well.

Hoping this night is short.

Later,

Bundle nite!

tonight is bundle nite at work so I'll probably be out till 3 a.m. again.

Nothing New here

Well, pretty much uneventful day. I went out to Wal-mart tonight and got Lynn something for Christmas. She'll be surprised.

Today we had a big meeting to plan out the next couple months with our Managed Account stuff at Jones. I don't know how much I would actually be a part of that because I am already supposed to work on another BIG project for Jones. It is supposed to go live in June, which I hope it does, otherwise it will go in August, the week of the big Fair up home. Not a good time.

Well, it is getting late, and I need to get some good sleep to get up at 5 tomorrow for the "Y".

We have some proffession pictures that I scanned in, can't show them to you all cause some will go out as Christmas cards, so you will have to wait to see them. There's a couple of cute ones of Nate and me though, which I guess I can eventually post up there.

Found out Christmas Eve will be spent at Lynn's Mom's house this year. Toying with the idea of going up the weekend after to my parent's for New Years. This would be the first year in like 4 years that we haven't spent it with teh HAwkins if that is what is going to happen. Kind of sad, but would be good to see the parentals. And hey, I get the day off.

I have 3 more vacation days to schedule. DOn't know which to take yet though...

Later,
Later,

Oh, Come on now.....

Took this pic tonight, Nov. 13th. A full 42 days before Christmas, and someone is putting up Christmas lights already.....

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Part of me cannot really blame them. the weather is pretty decent.. and it is pretty cold... And there is rain coming.

But these people are pretty wild with their decorations. I will take a pic of the final product for you all later,

Later,

Fleas Navidog Pt. II.

Well, I didn't post a pick of Jackson's birthday, so I thought in all fairness, I should (since I posted the movie of Nate's First Steps).

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If you look in the background (please ignore our dirty dishes), you'll see that the bottom is off the dishwasher. I switched out the water intake valve on it, and now our dishes are coming out spotless once again. Our old one must have been bad. It used to run like someone through a bunch of oatmeal in there, and that all caked onto the plates and stuff. gross. Well, nate does eat a lot of oatmeal. Hope he never loses the taste for it.

Well, nothing much else new around here. No Christmas shopping was completed this weekend. I did order something for Lynn. She went and changed her List on me but then changed it back. Oh well. We'll be doing a BIG order on teh intenet to get most of the family wiped out soon. (Sandy, if you are reading this, I don't think we know what Chuck wants, do we?).

Well, I need to get going and pack my gym bag for tomorrow and lay out my workout clothes. It's been harder to get going the last week. I would not get up with the alarm so I was usually getting to the Y about 10 to 15 minutes later than normal. Also, it's getting coat wearing time, so it is kind of a nuicance to wear all that into the Y and such and carry it everywhere. This is St. Louis, it will probably be 80 again next week.

Later,

Fleas Navidog!

Today is Jackson's fifth Birthday. We celebrated by going to Three Dog Bakery and getting him some special treats and then went to PetSmart to get him a new bed. He's been without a bed for about two years now. the last one we took to the kennel with him when we went to Arizona, and he tore the poor think up in distress.

We were without a phone and Internet connection on Thursday night because AT&T was doing some testing with the line or some kind of stuff. So that is why I hadn't posted much this week. I had Thursday off and Nate and I got to spend some time together as we left Lynn to tend to the house.

Nothing much else new. we are getting ready for church tomorrow.

Later,

He walks

NAte took some substantial first steps today and we caught it on video....



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Prayer Request

we have a person from our church that is having a brain biopsy. Her name is Kate Snodgrass and she blogs also. Please pray for her as she goes in for her biopsy tomorrow. She'll be out of it for 5 to 6 weeks and she has 3 kids I think....

Steady.... Steady......

Well, it was a good weekend once again.

Today at Church, Amy Svolopolus (sp?) announced they are building a team to run the St. Louis Marathon. Not the whole thing, it will be a relay race. Which I thought would be cool. If it did it, then I would have 6 months to get in shape for it. Would be spending a lot of time on the Treadmill. OH well. we'll see.

Saturday we just stayed around the house. Lynn left to go get some more diaper stuff for Nate. Saturday night we just hung out. Today we went to Bandanna's BBQ. Good stuff.

Nate has been doing a lot better lately with both his eating and sleeping, which we are thankful for. He's also been steadily standing by hisself, so we should expect some walking within the next 30 days or so. I will post a video of him walking for you all.




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Later,

Not answering the phone

We aren't answering our home phone for the next couple of days. Jim Talent and Claire McCaskill keep calling wanting us to vote for them. so in the meantime, we aren't going to be answering our home phone. If you want to contact us, please call our cell phones, or leave a message.

Later,

Pet Peeve

Don't you just hate it at the end of Family Fued and the family gets the last answer wrong, badly, but then the announcer never lets us know what the number one answer was?

I just hate that...

Oh, and another thing... Since it's the election, we've been getting about 5 pieces of mail from the various canidates, but mostly the republican party. RNC, just for your information, I'm voting for all but one of your canidates, so you don't need to send me your fliers. we got 3 today that were all from them...

Sheesh.

Later,