Ramblings of a Bored Mind

Now that all the girls are out of the house, we have the house to ourselves. Except for a two week period, we have never had it to ourselves since we had children. We have boomerang kids, they were always coming back for one reason or another and were always welcome to do so, and still are.

Now that I have my garage back, I have decided that I need to take up more hobbies, hobbies that I of course can procrastinate over, because I don't like the pressure of having to do stuff.

These hobbies will be things that are of course fun first and probably a little dangerous knowing my history with power tools.

I want to restore a 66 Mustang, just like the one in my dreams and this photo. I had one, a hard top, but traded it in on a "family" car a few months after Nichole was born. Getting Nichole into her car seat of this two door was difficult. I'm not blaming Nichole for me having to lose the Stang, it was the right and safe thing to do at the time. The "family" car we bought? A Renault Alliance.

Sporty ain't it? I want to ride more, put my feet up and pull the throttle way back. After 21 years in the Army, and being retired from it for 13 years this month, seems like an eternity ago. I don't miss the deployments or being shot at, I do miss the soldiers I had the honor of serving with. So, I want to volunteer to serve those soldiers through the veterans administration.

With the girls gone, it means Stacy and I can have more time to do the things we want to do, when we want to do them. We can travel more, and we look forward to this time in our lives. It also means in the morning I don't have to worry about getting dressed before I head to the coffee pot.
I'm also looking forward to more grill time.

Jerry's Visit

My nephew Jerry came out to visit us for the weekend, he had a airline voucher he had to use before it expired next month. Wow, we feel special that he used it to visit us, actually honored that he wanted to visit with us. Jerry is a search and rescue swimmer with the US Navy and has two tours to the gulf and 15 years active duty.

Since he had never visited us before we wanted to make sure he had a good time.

So on Saturday night we were off to Oktoberfest for some oomph oomph music, food and for everyone else some beer.

Aunt Stacy, I'm telling you the funnel cakes are over there.
Mandy getting her chicken hat on, as the moon rises over Jerry's head.

Stacy, Jerry and Mandy getting the funnel cake dance on.

Mandy, Jerry, David and Stacy discussing the finer things about life.

Sunday it was Grace Community Church first, then we all had dinner at home, and relaxed.

Jerry's comment about Chad's message and GCC, "It Rocks!" Stacy and I took Monday off to show Jerry Nashville, so we all loaded into the car and headed out. But we had to stop at Moss' for breakfast first!

We hit Opry Mills first, I wanted to check on a couple of handguns at the Bass Pro Shop and check out any new kayaking stuff before my fall river trip next week.

Our first Elvis sighting outside Black Lion, "thankya, thankya ver much."

Second Elvis sighting on Broadway, Jerry is not sure about the skinny or fat Elvis, but has the hots for the Dead Elvis

Third Elvis sighting, someone stole his mic. Best he has ever sounded.

All this Elvis stuff was making me hungry, so off to Jack's BBQ on Broadway. That's some good BBQ. You have got to try the sweet/hot BBQ sauce.

Fourth and final Elvis sighting, Jerry and Elvis were standing on each other blue suede shoes and crying out in pain.

After a ride down to Gigi's to get some cupcakes (19th and Broadway), it was time to head home.

Once we got home, we decided that it was time to eat, but could not decide what to eat.

So I fired up the grill and did some steaks.

These were soooo good.

After dinner while sitting on the deck, a little blonde girl showed up.

Her name is Carly, and is the ugliest dog ever.

After dinner, we all sat on the deck around the fire ring, Jerry and I burning Cubans and visiting with the rest of the family.

I hope Jerry enjoyed his visit as much as we enjoyed him visiting.