Dear Becca & Grant,
                  Today is Memorial Day. We plan on going to Mamaw & Papaw's today for a cook-out and hopefully the first dip in the pool of the year later today. Mom won't be joining us because she is at work right now working a double shift. She should be getting off her in a few hours and she will most definitely want to go to sleep. Mom's gotta pay for her new car.
      I had a very nice day with the kids a few days ago. Mom had a bout with pneumonia this past week so one day I came home and took the kids for a nice walk along the bike path along Falling Springs Drive and then we went to Arby's and then Becca and I played in the back yard for a good long while. We had lots of fun.
      Well, I reckon this is going to be a short post because I'm just not into writing right now. Daddy loves Rebecca & Grant!

Dear Becca & Grant,
                  Becca is vacuuming her room right now with the new dirt devil extreme power multi surface stick vac we got this past week for spot vacuuming. It's lightweight and she actually does a very good job with only she wants to empty the canister five or six times for every room she does. Grant is in his pack & play having a grand time.
      Oh boy, have we ever had some kind of crazy weekend this weekend. Thursday as I sat down to pay some bills online I went to the bank site and to my utter confusion it said that we had a negative available balance of two-hundred and seventy dollars. I called Mom at work and asked her to check her debit cards, the Community Trust card and her Bank of America card and both of them were missing. I went to the Bank of America site and we were twenty-five dollars in the hole there. Some charges had already shown up there. Someone had charged sixteen dollars worth at Gold Star Chili and another eleven dollars at Chic-fil-a at the Fayette Mall also they had charged nearly twelve dollars at Joseph-Beth Booksellers. At this point I knew we had been the victims of a crime. I canceled the cards and told Mom to call the police. They came out and took a report. I determined that we had been ripped off for over a thousand dollars. Mom was very stressed; so stressed in fact that she had a cigarette. She quit smoking years ago but the stress of all of this made her weak I suppose. I have faith in your Mom that she won't let the cigarettes get a hold of her again. After her shift she was anxious to get home to the loving arms of her husband and to her sweet children. She went out to her car and she found that the small television that she had intended to take to Mamaw & Papaw's along with Grant's boom box was stolen. So she had been robbed twice in the course of only a few hours.
      Friday we all went to the bank and reported the debit card fraud. They determined that there had been two transactions at Bath & Body Works for a total of three hundred dollars, two hundred at an athletic apparel store called The Finish Line, a girly store called Cosmic all at the Fayette Mall and an attempted transaction for twenty-six dollars at White Castle. They also said we would be getting our money back after ten days or so. This smacks our budget flat in the mouth. We're glad that we won't lose any money.
      Saturday morning we decided to go on and go to breakfast at Golden Corral like we had planned originally. We were there and as I was preparing to pay I discovered that I had left my wallet at home and of course Mom's debit cards had been stolen and Golden Corral doesn't accept checks so I headed out to cash a check at Wal-Mart for some cash of course I forgot that they always check your I.D. for checks and of course I didn't have my I.D. with me so I had to go back to Golden Corral and get Kristie so she could write a check because she did have her I.D. with her. We got some money and went back to the restaurant and had a nice breakfast. The last two times we went there for breakfast it has been fantastic all except the service which has been abysmal both times.
      The Taurus was making terrible noises from the passenger side rear wheel as headed out. We took a wild hair and decided to go by Cartown Kia on the way to get groceries. Lo and behold we ended up purchasing a brand new blue 2008 Kia Spectra. Another budget buster. It's supposed to be very good on gas and I have a feeling the maintenance expenses for the Taurus was going to keep growing.
      We took the car down to Mamaw & Papaw's to show them and they were opening the pool. Sadie was once again the first one in the water. Jacob & Jon also got in the water but of course the water is just way too cold right now so they didn't stay in. Becca wanted to get in at first until she saw how the boys reacted to the cold water and then she didn't want to have anything to do with the pool just yet.
      So as you can see we have had a rather full and not to mention stressful weekend. Daddy loves Rebecca & Grant!

Dear Becca & Grant,
                  Greetings & Salutations, dear reader. It's late Saturday night here right now; it will be Sunday morning before this blog entry is actually posted to the internet. All of us had a pretty good week this past week. I didn't get enough sleep but of course that is the way it is sometimes.
      Earlier in the week I had to go pick up Papaw Lawrence at the UK Medical Center where he had to spend a few days. Auntie Mary was having some surgery in Hazard so she couldn't come to get him. I went to get him and looked for the parking garage where it had always been but they have moved the garage on me. The hospital garage is now very far away from the actual hospital. The old garage was actually attached to the hospital. It's so far away that they have shuttle busses running back and forth from the garage to the hospital. Anyway, I got Papaw Lawrence and headed home. I had to stop and purchase a can of Grizzly Snuff and I asked him he wanted some cigarettes. He only had a few in a pack but he told me that he had enough so I didn't buy him any. Mom ended up having to buy him six packs over the next three days. He had the same problem with food. I would ask him if wanted something to eat and he always told me that he didn't so I didn't feed him. Kristie told me that he would always say that and I should have fed him anyway.
      Becca really enjoyed seeing Papaw Lawrence. She really put on a big show for him.
      One day last week I went to pick Becca & Grant. Mamaw & Papaw were fixing a whole chicken on Papaw's new drill with the rotisserie attachment. They were also fixing corn on the cob, squash and biscuits so we decided to stay for supper. The chicken was absolutely delicious as was the corn and squash. We all had a very enjoyable supper. For dessert Mamaw brought out some blackberry preserves for the biscuits. Grant had been having small bits of chicken, squash and apple sauce for supper. I decided he should have some dessert too. I gave him a tiny bite of blackberry preserves and he flat out flipped. I pulled the spoon out of his mouth and he followed it with his little open mouth. I gave him another bite and he grabbed the spoon and started chewing on it. I was going to give him a little more but when I pulled the spoon away from him he had a bloody fit. He likes blackberry preserves better even than chocolate ice cream.
      Later that evening Becca rode around on a new trailer Papaw got for his mower. While Papaw was mowing with Becca riding in the back he saw a baby rabbit, a sibling of one of the many that Sadie has been dining on of late. The rabbit was scared and froze. Papaw picked him up to save him from the jaws of death belonging to a tiny Jack Russell. Becca was about as excited as I have ever seen her. We had a very good time at Mamaw & Papaw's. You decided to stay down there for the night. I went home and sat up too late.
      Thursday Mom drove her dad, Papaw Lawrence back home to Hazard. I think he was starting to get on her nerves just a bit. Papaw Lawrence has always been best taken in very small doses. She dropped the kids off at Mamaw & Papaw's and headed on down there. She spent a little while chatting with Aunt Mary and then headed back to the house. She brought us all fish from Long John Silver's when she got home. I went to bed as soon as I had something to eat and ended up sleeping nine hours. I really wished I had felt well enough to let Mom go to bed because the drive really wiped her out. I really enjoy driving and long road trips but your Mom does not.
      Friday we got Mom a fifty dollar gift card for Starbucks for Mother's Day which is today. Becca wanted to give it to her yesterday and Mom wanted to get it yesterday so we went on and gave her her gift. I think she really liked her Mother's Day gift. Mom has seriously cut back her Starbucks visits since we started using a budget.
      Well, that's it for today. I'm closing this out now. Daddy loves Rebecca & Grant!

Dear Becca & Grant,
                  Grant and I are sitting here in the living room early on a Sunday morning watching Curry Man and Shark Boy wrestling the Motor City Machine Guns on TNA Wrestling. Oh Oh, Big Poppa Pump and the Maple Leaf Muscle just ran in on the match. Wrestling is so silly but I like it for the cartoonish aspects of it.
      Grant had a jar of Country Breakfast baby food for breakfast. It had oatmeal, ham and eggs in it. He had a hard time eating it, or rather I had a hard time feeding him because he was interested into everything except his breakfast. We eventually finished the whole jar and now he is having a bottle while sitting in his new larger car seat. Grant will not be in his bouncer as long as Becca was because he's always reaching for stuff and ending up getting stuck half in and half out of his bouncer.
      I was expecting our economic stimulus rebate direct deposit Friday. It's supposed to be close to $1,800 and I already had it budgeted. The money never showed up and I got worried. I did some research and discovered that since I use Turbo Tax and my direct deposit initially goes to their bank I would be getting a paper check instead. That means we won't get our money until the end of the month. It's all good though because as long as I know when we will be getting it I am in good shape.
      Grant's two bottom teeth are coming in real nice. He's sitting in his seat just hollering up a storm. He's a happy boy. He's as big a show stopper as Becca ever was.
      Mom wanted me to put some ringtones on her pink Razr phone this past week. Verizon disables that feature but I found a way around that by hacking the phone. I added some ringtones to my silver Razr and then I tried doing the same to Mom's phone. I ended up destroying her phone. I think I got a ringtone in there twice and it confused the phone so it just kept continually shutting down and powering back up. I had to order her a new phone off the internet. I didn't get any kind of discount because we are in the middle of our service plan. I got Mom a tiny red phone called a Juke for $212. It has an MP3 player on it. I think she likes it more than her pink Razr and while your not supposed to be able to add your own ringtones there is a way to do it and it's much easier than doing it with the Razr.
      Yesterday we all went to Golden Corral in Nicholasville for the breakfast buffet. I had been disappointed the past few times we had been to Golden Corral but this time it was really good. The service was absolutely abysmal but the food was wonderful. I love breakfast food. We then went to Kroger and went over our budget by twenty-eight dollars. We came home and then Mom left to go to the UK Medical Center to visit her father while the kids and I stayed here. Mom picked up some chicken from Kentucky Fried Chicken with her blow money on her way home. I had a piece and went straight to bed.
      I don't think I have mentioned this yet. A few weeks ago I had Auntie Lynn shave my head. I had my head shaved before but my head is so round that it looked like a basketball. I haven't shaved my goatee since Christmas so it's pretty long and it gives my face a longer look so the shaved head works for me now. I like the look.
      Well, Becca should be getting pretty soon so I had best close this out. Daddy loves Rebecca & Grant!