What's a Flavor Flav?

My cousin's wife, Shawnae (I know I butchered the spelling) called out of the blue last night. She is in town for an educational conference and wanted to hang out. We went to the Wine Cellar to watch her nephew play harmonica in a band. They were really good. Harmonica playing is a huge mystery to me. How do they do it???

I was showing pictures from my camera and mentioned I had a few of Elaina and Flavor Flav. Shawnae said, "What's a Flavor Flav? Is it a costume or something?" I guess Flav isn't a fixture on the 4 channels available in Grays Lake, ID.

She stayed at our house that night and camped out in the back yard. ** EDITORS NOTE ** Yes, I offered one of our spare bedrooms. She was pretty gung-ho about camping in the backyard. I offered up the hospitality, though, of turning the sprinklers off. That's how I roll!

I had fun talking with her. We haven't spent much time together besides the annual Thanksgiving catch up. Her and Bryce are a lot of fun and I hope we get to see them more often.



FLAVOR FLAV and LANEY LANE!


FLAVOR FLAV!



The backyard is coming along nicely. We (Elaina) did a lot of work on it his week. She picked out 20 new plants, positioned them perfectly, and dug all the holes. I mowed the lawn and then helped dig about 5 holes. I'll go ahead and take 3% credit. Look how nice it looks:





Then.... the other side. A few months ago we brought in a dumptruck load of dirt. After building up the backyard we went on vacation for about 10 days. We came back to weed-fest 2007:




We have a bit more to do.

We finally have the boat back after 10 days in the shop. We found a friend of a friend to fix the upholstery and make a few new seats for the back. While picking up the boat we were chatting with her and talking about the dogs. She is telling us a funny story and then lays down a total racist comment! N word and everything!

All of the sudden the laughter stops... crickets are chirping. The silence was finally broken when I said, "well, we have to go". Then we left.

As we climbed into the car Elaina and I gave each other the 'what the hell was that' look.

I always tell myself I'm going to say something when this happens. This was so out of the blue I couldn't wrap my brain around it fast enough. I was shocked! I wish I would have said something.

Shock and Awe at Red Lobster

I spent a few days last week in Nashville, TN. My first time there and LOVED it!!. As much as I don't like country music, I really like the Honkey-Tonk bars. It feels like everyone is there to have a good time and listen to music. Not to grind and Gyrate on anything that moves. The town was pretty and the people were very nice.

I have some work friends that I see about once a year. We hit the Nashville nightlife Friday night and had a good time. I got up at 9:30 for my flight, which seemed way too early until I thought of my friends who had to get up at 5am.... after going to bed at 3.

Elaina's mom came to visit while I was gone. Saturday night we went to Red Lobster and got a little carried away. Our volume was loud and continued to rise. Eventually Jase and I were in weapons battle. I had three forks between my fingers in a clenched fist and Jase had a few steak knives blaring. Somehow water was tossed and it hit the guy behind us.

Nothing really silences your good time and makes you feel like a total dumb-ass like the guy behind you getting up and asking you to take it down a notch. Then you have the realization that the entire restauraunt is looking at you in shock and awe.

The next day Elaina and I picked up about 20 plants for the back yard. We're determined to get it looking nice but will be a big project.

It was nice having Sandy here with us. Elaina was able to to get in some quality mommy time with me out of town.

No pictures as I haven't replaced the camera yet. Hopefully this week.

What is my dirty little secret?

Well, it's a little more secret ... a little less dirty. I'm starting a blog to chronicle the next year of our lives and Elaina doesn't know it. I'm hoping this will be a nice birthday present on August 13, 2008. I imagine it will be a better present in 2015 but I can't keep it a secret that long!
This will be just mundane little things, stories, and pictures.... stuff that has no meaning to anyone but Elaina and I... something like this:

We have a 4plex for sale. Someone called the other day and offered to trade a lot on Lake Coeur D' Alene straight across.
Jase, Elaina, and I took the drive down to Worley through 30 minutes of highway and 15 minutes of farmland. We finally found the lot and discovered it was pretty much unbuildable. We spoke to the grouchy neighbor who obviously didn't want anyone next to her and she told us how horrible the spot is.





We attempted to hike down to the lake and I stepped down steep gravel incline and totally lost my footing. I did at least 3 or 4 huge cartoon-like sweeping steps but finally fell hard on my ass. Luckily my hand (holding my camera) partially broke my fall. Jase and Elaina held their laughter just long enough to find out if I was ok. No one was surprised.






The camera broke... This is the same camera that miraculously lived through an entire washer/dryer cycle just a few weeks ago.


I tried fixing it:





Time for a new camera.