Road Trip!

We are heading to Wisconsin and we are taking planes, trains and automobiles to get there. The Luckster and I will be hitting the road slightly before dawn tomorrow riding in our chariot, Black Beauty. We got the ol' girl all washed up, modified slightly to provide more room for the pooch, gassed up and ready to unleash all 200 horses of power on the open road. Lucky has never left the state and starting tomorrow he's going to have his tongue hanging out the window drooling across several state lines. We hope to traverse Florida (really hope to make it that far!), Georgia, slightly crossing into Alabama, Tennessee and stopping in Kentucky to do some camping at Mammoth Cave State Park. We made a stop at the vet this morning to get some tranquilizers for Lucky. (We don't want any more hanging incidents) and the bottle is big enough that's if he's willing to share I should get a great night sleep under the Kentucky stars. Day two should have us arriving in Lake Geneva around dinner time after passing through (6-7 hours) of straight Indiana driving and Illinois. In all we should knock off 7 states. I'm sure this 20 something hour drive will be a blissful man's best friend bonding experience. "You're such a good boy. Who's a good boy? Stop chewing on the seat. No, no don't pee in there! Oh, man!?!?!" I am hoping to provide updates or at least provide a good one after arriving.

Carrie and Quentin are taking the 21st century approach and getting on a big metal apparatus that apparently flies through the air and only takes hours to get there. In fairness she's giving me a full 24 hour head start. We should rendezvous around the same time in the great cheese state of Wisconsin. Quentin will get to see his great grandparents along with his grandparents and cousins for a few days before loading up the car again and heading to western Wisconsin to do some boating on the mighty Mississippi. This will be our first 4th of July in Wisconsin so we are looking forward to the less muggy weather and hopefully a good fireworks display.

This past weekend I solidified a new career option. If things don't work out in the fundraising industry I am clearly on my way to being a plumber. Our toilet broke this weekend and fortunately for us this was the third and final toilet to have a problem so I had some experience working on the other two. Our three year anniversary of living in this house will happen over the 4th of July. Within that time we have fixed all three toilets, the upstairs shower, which was leaking through the ceiling into our kitchen, and the kitchen sink. This only leaves the downstairs tub and the two faucets in the bathroom, which I'm confident will spring a leak while off on vacation. Outside of that and Q consistently thinking 3am is a good time to start the day we had a fairly quiet weekend. We got the supplies for our trip, did some shopping, snuck in a golf lesson (still shanking it right), bought some toys, went stroller shopping for a travel stroller for I think what amounts to the 16th time (Is it really necessary to price a travel stroller north of $140)?, and started packing for the trip including getting in a sleeping bag and harassing the dog to make sure he could handle me sleeping next to him on the floor. I leave you with a picture of Q cheesing it up for the camera. Look at those teeth!

Push Up Contest

I went out and bought the new iphone 3GS turbo excalibur light sabre version, which is pretty sweet. It's more like a toy than a phone. The video above was shot on the phone, which I thought was pretty good. Believe it or not you can actually edit (cut, paste, etc.) video on the phone and then upload it to the net, email, text all using the phone. It really is a toy.

He is working on his army crawl I think. He gets up on his belly and moves his arms and legs in a swimming motion. I assume at some point he'll learn how to get traction and actually move but right now it looks like he is doing exhausting push ups. He pushes himself up and then hangs his head down like he's dying so I was on the floor last night with him and thought I would catch some of it on video and post it out here. It's pretty funny to watch him. He could be the next Jane Fonda in work out videos if the NFL thing doesn't work out.

He's also getting a mouth full of teeth. He has four in a row coming in on the top so he won't look like a bunny. They are coming in at equal speed so in the next couple of weeks he should have six full teeth. With the new teeth I thought we should introduce to him some decent food. I gave him a pretzel rod the other day and he seemed to enjoy it. The wife didn't think that was such a good idea but would you want to eat mushed up peas every day? I had to spice it up for him. He would just suck the salt off and then ditch the pretzel but it was hilarious watching him man handle this twelve inch pretzel trying to jam it into his mouth. He wasn't sure if it was a new teething ring or some sort of non-mushy food item. In the end I think he enjoyed the salty treat. I don't think babies really get enough salt in their diet or junk food so I am trying revolutionize the way we see the food pyramid for babies. Pretzels really should be somewhere near the top. It is a grain after all. Enjoy the video!

Father's Day

This is the longest streak of not having a post since we started this blog. We had a crazy couple of weeks with me being up north with my dad and having my mom, sister and kids at our house. I wanted to wish everyone a belated Father's day! I spent the morning having breakfast in Lake Geneva with my dad and then flying to Tampa to see GQ for our first father's day. I don't think I'll be lucky enough to do both very often so it was nice to be able to fit it in. Q learned a new trick while I was off catching fish....drum roll please...he can now clap his hands along with sitting up unassisted. They grow up so fast (tear being shed). So he sits up and knows how to play patty cake, which is pretty funny. He is getting stronger and has a good vice grip when he grabs on to you pinching your skin. Maybe that's a sign I need to tone up. The ladies at daycare complain he's grabbing them when they are changing him and bruising their arms. That's my lil' Q bruiser. Football player all the way. With Favre going to the Vikings (excuse me while I upchuck my lunch) the Pack needs a bruiser to put him down when they play this fall.

Up north my dad, brother and I caught a ton of fish mostly walleye with a sprinkling of catfish, sheepshead and an assortment of strange fish such as the elusive sucker fish. We caught about 200 fish in the first two days and then went hunting for some muskie the third day with no luck so it was a bit of bust but we took home a good 30+ pounds of walleye filets so if anyone wants some fish stop by my parent's house as they have an abundance for two people. In the mean time my mom, sister and kids in tow visited Disney World in record temperatures (100 degrees). Orlando is inland and gets a good 10 degrees hotter than Tampa, but way too hot for June just the same. They came to our house on Sunday and stayed for a couple of days playing the wii (we got wiifit!) and going to the beach. It was nice to see everyone but as we were all on a 10 day travel trip everyone was pretty exhausted by the time they took off yesterday.

I'll get back to posting daily. I leave you with a video of the Qster playing peek-a-boo.