Trip to Florence

New job

Wow! What a week! My last day at Gainey was last Wednesday, and I started a new job Monday. (Thanks Enrique!) I am the Reservations Coordinator at the Embassay Suites Phoenix Airport. I got through most of my computer training this week and now I am just getting familiar with the property. This is the first time I've worked 40 hours a week in over three years, so I feel exhausted!! We are just hanging in there, making it day by day. I'm just glad God is in control...

ants everywhere

Logand swollen foot.

Paintball 30th birthday.

Here are the pictures from the paintballing we did for my birthday. fun fun fun.

here i am after getting shot in the head and ear. then 3 times in the butt as i was leaving the field.

john had a good strategy he would wait in the back waiting for a bunch of the other team to get shot then he would charge.

it didnt always work though here's john with a little something on my face.

before the shooting began.

after

New Beginnings...

I've never been laid off before. It's a weird feeling to suddenly have complete freedom and yet at the same time feel so restricted. Freedom in my day to go and do as I feel. I don't have to be anywhere at any specific time. I can freely make plans knowing nothing else is on my schedule. And yet, there are definite restrictions financially as to what I can do. Another thing happens too. I am treated differently. Usually I walk in the office and am greeted with "hellos" and "how are you doing today?" Now, no one wants to know the answer to that question, so no one askes. They just bow their heads to not make eye contact. Or I get that "I'm so sorry this happened to you look." I guess it is kinda an unique situation where I find out Tuesday that I am being laid off and my last day is Thursday. I appreciate their concern for me and allowing me to have 2 more shifts. However, those shifts are really brutal. Everywhere I turn, I see or do things that I know it's going to be my last. Everywhere I turn my heart aches a little more. Most of all I am going to miss my co-workers. 7 years together and they are all like family to me. Thank you to all of them for sharing their lives and office with me. You will all be in my prayers and deeply missed.

So that leaves me with...I don't know. Do I find a new job, go to school, stay home while Moose works?

I am starting a new beginning...

Thank you everyone.

Yesterday was awesome. Our small group threw me a suprise paintball/swim party. Thank you to all who came and helped make it such a special day. Especially Stephen and kelley for all they did. You guys rock (and stephen sorry i shot you in the face, well kinda :)
And i want to say something special to my kristy. Thank you so much for being such an incredible wife and mother and making this such a special birthday. You are so beautiful and strong and loving that sometimes I feel i dont deserve you and all the wonderful ways you love me. You looked amazing last night I just got to busy and overwhelmed by all the people and food to tell you that, typical guy right. I will never forget this birthday in a way i never thought i could. San diego, sea world, ocean and dolphins, shrimp and fish tacos, body boards, shark week, baseball cards, shooting and getting shot with paint, party tonight and later with your family, our date tomorrow, rock climbing, golf, ufc, getting to swim with my beautiful boys (you have given me such a beautiful family). We've done more in the last 2 weeks than most people do all year and it's all because of how much you love me. I dont tell you nearly enough how incredible you are and how i cant even imagine how incomplete my life would be if that shy little youth group girl hadn't called one afternoon and interupted my nap to ask me out. :) You started changing my life for the better from day 1 and i cant wait to see where we are in a year. We take it for granted but a lot of couples dont make it through what weve been through in the last year. Very rough times with a "special" little boy, rough christmas, loosing my last grandparent, a preemie baby, nicu visits, loosing my job, loosing our pastor. It would be easy to play the blame game and to leave the other one down when we fell but we don't, you don't, you are always there to pick me back up and we keep fighting, together. Thank you for being so strong and most of all for loving me in a way i could have never imagined. You are my hero!

A short rant for sanitys sake as 30 nears.

In a few days i will be turning thirty and I cant help but take stock. I have 3 crazy, great, frustrating, entertaining, frustrating, loving, unique, frustrating kids. A great wife and family, a reliable car, a very nice house, some really cool animals, great roomates who God put in our lives at just the right time. It's easy to focus on the negatives, no job, kristy is not happy with her job, paytons ongoing struggles, bills bills bills. But for the last few weeks it has been some very diferent feelings going on. Allow me to rant for a while, Bull Durham style if you will.

I am so happy with how in shape i am but dadgumit sometimes i just need a whopper or pizza or bbq sausage with fries & i shouldnt feel bad about it.

I miss my grandma who's birthday is tomorrow. I miss the Alabama house and the smell of Alabama summer,rain, and burning trash. Awesome, you cant understand.

I hate seeing stickers and tags on new hats on not only kids but on retarted adults attempting to identify with their kids they spend 1 hour a week with and wonder why their relationship sucks.

I love teaching my kids, reading books, and darn it there aint nothing wrong with letting them watch a 2 hour movie. I am not a bad parent so bite me parenting magazine.

I love God, my family, a good baseball game, a cloudy muggy day, looking through my bag of collected sharks teeth, rum and dr. pepper, college football, manatees, our portable dvd player, family geneology, sex with my wife on a cloudy morning after we sleep in, fantasy baseball, and spicy peppered beef jerkey. I love the look people give me out in public when payton is laying in the clothes isle screaming and crying and I give them a look that partly says you have no idea what i go through daily in my life and partly if you want to say something come do it and then i will go all ufc on you.

I hate dora, mapquest, markers on my couch, the sounds of toys crashing as they are thrown, twitching so much that my head hurts pretty consistantly and tourettes overall, feeling lost and scared, change, pedro martinez and manny ramirez, pretty much any vegetables.

Most of all I hate the pain I feel inside from being away from the ocean. It's an ache thats always there but after the last trip to san diego seeing the water and sea world and having dolphins swim right up to us in the ocean. Feeling what I felt is a joy that i cant even describe and then coming back home where you cant do anything between 10 am and 7 pm when it cools down and even then all you can think do do around here is to go shopping in mall or pay 40 bucks a person to go to a water park. It's a sadness i cant describe. I am complete in the ocean. There it all makes sense. Above water you look out thinking about all the problems in your life and the fear seeing a flat blue line of possiblility. Its calm and peaceful and inviting. Then, especially when you snorkel you see the entire new world beneath you. Once your head gets in the water its silent there are no thoughts. There in the quiet you find God you feel his power as simple water scoops you up and tosses you wherever it wants. As dolphins race around you, as you see a school of hundreds of fish, you see a stingray uncover itself and dart off, the life of a reef. I love it I crave it. I grew up with it and I swear I will grow old with it. Here are some of my favorite water moments. Deo Vindice me and a manatee in orlando hot springs

The boys new pool.

My mom got the boys a little pool to play in. After wrestling with it for a good half an hour we finally got it blown up. The kids have used it everyday and love it.