The August Family Update

Well I am running a bit behind, but here is the family update for this month. It is my hope that all are doing well, with that said let's get to it. At the end of July I spent a week out in Phoenix visiting mom and dad and doing a little traveling around the state. I took the opportunity to spend a couple of days up at the Grand Canyon, I have not been there since 1979. I will put some pictures of the canyon on the site. I of course visited my friend Jeff and my sister Debbie and the kids. Julie had not ever been to the Grand Canyon so I took her and a friend of Julie's up to the canyon for a day, so that fulfilled one of Julies goals. On my flight back from Phoenix I had to lay over in Detroit, so I arranged a get together with my sister Sue and family. I was able to spend a couple of hours with them at the airport catching up with things around their place. All things considered it was a nice trip, but I was very happy to come home. I really do prefer having the family with me when I take a vacation.

Besides my trip I have been working and mowing the yard as most of August was unseasonably rainy. I really appreciate the gas powered weed eater over the electric one I have been using. Terri has been taking care of an extra child during the day for the last couple of weeks as well as Matthew and wasn't that fun? At first the two boys got along fine but that seemed to last only for a day. Then Matthew started to get territorial to the point the when the boy (his name is Bryston) came over in the morning, Matthew would stay on his side of the house and Bryston would stay on his side. It reminded me of a married couple having a really nasty fight, I think they made a movie about that, let's see was it called War of the Roses? In any case you would have never predicted that these two boys would become so stubborn and fight with one another. Fortunately both Matthew and Bryston have started their Kindergarten classes now so they should both be happy. Today the 29th of August was Terri's first day without any kids around during the day and that was a welcome relief for her.

Christopher turned 15 on July 3rd and immediately wanted to get a job so he could start living the good life. McDonalds will hire you at this age for weekend work not to exceed 6 hours a day. I think his first thought was that he would save some of his money to buy a car with, but I had to burst that bubble by informing him of my long standing rule that he is not getting his license until he is 18. The money I save on my insurance alone was worth this decision. So he has set his sights on other items such as a DVD player right now and of course all of the DVD's he can buy with his new found wealth. Unfortunately his checks are not as big as he was expecting (Welcome to the Real World) so he does not seem to have as much money to spend as he once thought. I also informed him that now that he has a job, it will be his responsibility to furnish the materials needed for work, such as shoes. Now I bring this up only because we were at the store and offered to buy him a pair of work shoes but he declined since they were apparently not his style. So now he would come home from his hard day at work complaining about how his feet hurt attempting to gain sympathy from us and of course get us to buy him his shoes now. (These are the moments I truly cherish, and I now understand how dad felt) Suffice to say Christopher has decided that the shoes he currently wears to work aren't that bad considering his choice. Lets see which do a get first the DVD player or a pair of shoes? Oh what a dilemma.

I have been told that Marilyn wanted to know about my job situation so here it is. Since we did not win the contract with Saturn for the next 3 years our work for them technically ended on June 30th. However the winner of the contract (Penske) was unprepared to handle the work laid out in the contract by this time and ultimately resulted in our services being required until June of 2002. Now technically speaking it is at that point the my job with this account would be done. It is possible however that I may be finished even sooner as there may not be a need for my expertise (and cost to this account) for the entire duration. Realistically this is very unlikely to happen and to be honest because of my skills, Ryder will most likely offer me work with other accounts. The big problem here is the word TRAVEL. This does not set well with me mostly due to Matthew's needs as in "Where's Daddy?" And in my needs such as "Why did I get married if I am not going to be home with my family anyway?" I make no bones about it, I am paid a good salary and like my job, I also like my lifestyle that we now have and prefer to keep it that way. This may require that I find work elsewhere at some point and possibly take a cut in pay if I am to stay in Tennessee. So the best I can say for now is we just have to wait and see what happens with my work at Ryder.

Well as with all things it is getting very late here again so I will leave you with some pictures of the Grand Canyon. These were taken by me but I pulled them from the developer's website so the quality is not that great. I will scan my original photo's very soon and place them on the website in more detail.