It all seems to happening at once.

I really don't have time for a post right now. Marley and her cousin Cade turned 1 on the same day that cousin Evan turned 5. Layla turned four 5 days later. We are in the final stages of getting our house sold and the new house bought. just waiting on the appraisal of ours and a final okay for the counters on the new. Closings should be June 27. Moving should be mostly on the 29th (yes i know that's a Sunday) Work had been crazy busy. Kendra and the boys were up this last weekend for all the kids parties so Layla was in heaven to finally have "her Nicky" around. It was good to see every one and i look forward to getting to go south for the July 4th weekend. We need a vacation because this house stuff is ridiculous and drawn out. Well i think that's all i have on short notice. this weekend is the Sunburst race. i am again doing the 5k. last year i strolled in at a lengthy 34 minutes. i think that i can beat that but who knows. i don't feel that i am running as long but i am running faster. i think that makes sense. we'll see. Elizabeth is doing the 5k walk with her sister. Go team. Okay, back to work.

Happy Anniversary to us!!!

Hello all. Today is my lovely bride, Elizabeth's and my 7 year anniversary. 7 years. 7 years with no itch. i like her pretty well. i think that i will take the 7 year contract extension. Our little family seems to be growing up to fast. Marley turns 1 on Thursday and then our baby Layla turns a whopping 4 next Tuesday. how is this all possible. that means that i will have been in my job purchasing for 4 years now. unbelievable how fast time comes and goes after you have kids.

Friday night we awoke to Layla screaming because she had just gotten sick in bed. it is scary for a kid but she did well with it. it must have been a fluke bug because she had no signs the next day. she took it easy on Saturday but nothing ever came of it again. Marley held strong.

Sunday i went up to St. Charles, Illinois with my friend Doug to the Chicago Drum Show. met a lot of people, saw a ton of amazing kits and snares and cymbals. Played some really nice stuff. it is disturbing the prices some of the stuff goes for. My favorite thing that i saw up there was a company by the name of Joyful Noise Drum Company. Classy people, and amazing product. something like this 4x14 brass snare goes in the neighborhood of $1,300. Gulp. But it is amazing. Doug made some purchases. He bought hardware to sell Robbie competition snare drum. Robbie stripped it down to sell off the shell and Doug had offers if it was complete so Doug finished that up and he also stole a Drum Foundry snare. 5.5x14, 8 ply, die cast, puresounds. it had a tag on it for $299 and Doug offered it for $210. they took the deal so he will take that home, pull off the good hoops and sell it for $350 or so. All in all, it was a good day.

Today our house on Maple Row gets its home inspection and then on Thursday, the new house on 15 gets its home inspection. after that the sold signs should go up. We close on both houses on or before June 27.

I think that is all i have for now. see ya later.

The girls

SOLD!!!!!

On Saturday we found out that we sold our house. These are the people that looked at the house for the first time on Tuesday and bid on Thursday night. we got the bid Friday and by Saturday we finalized the counter offers. we ended up getting it for $1,600 MORE than we were asking for it due to them wanting help in down payments. Tonight we go for our second showing at the house that E and i both like the best. wish us luck. Congrats to Lisa and Jesse Jones on their new son, Miles and good luck to Craig and Stacy McDowell who are at the hospital and Stacy (i don't think Craig) is in labor. More to come. Bye.

Maestro............

Well I'm sure that their are garage saler's out there that live for "the hunt" it's a pretty rare day when i go garage sailing yet i suppose if it was the right time, and the girls were going to tolerate it and blah blah blah i would go more. Elizabeth always comes home with great deals. i bet you could raise a kid and never buy 1 piece of clothing or one toy from a department store, but strictly from garage sales. the prices are normally a mere percent of what you pay and if you know the right people you can get things that you aren't sure if they have even been used yet for next to nothing. However still, i just typically don't go to them. this last weekend we HAD a garage sale at E.'s dad's. very profitable for every one. i had borrowed saw horses and some monster doors from work and drove them over. so then on Tuesday, Trevor comes and asks me if i know where they are at. Hmmm, oops. yep. at E's dad's. well of course his family is having a garage sale and needs the tables. so i told him that i would take him over to pick it all up after our Order Reading Meeting. so at 3 i tell Curt that i am going with Trevor to get all the stuff and i get a "WELL DON'T LET IT TAKE ALL DAY!!!!" which in "Curt" means... "oh that would be just fine, do you need gas money or a hug before you go. have a great day!" so we go get everything and Trevor hops out of the truck. well he forgot to grab the key out of the truck so i snag it and wait for him to say "oops, i forgot the key!" well he does as i am walking into the breeze way. I laugh and enter the room of crap. Wowza!!! they got stuff to sell. Coasters, books, clothes, guitar amp.....................................GUITAR AMP!?!?!?! i am intrigued! so i go over to it and on the front it says "Maestro". no idea. never heard of it. i take a look at its back and see it is a Vintage Jensen original speaker 4 x 8" combo. no idea. tube amp, cool. then on the top of it i see "Gibson Products" well when we get done i talk to Sheri to see if she knows if that is for sale. it is! sweet. So Dorothy comes in Wednesday and says she has no idea if it works but thinks that it did when Bob stopped using it. she says "Would you pay $25?" i told her yeah, probably. later in the day, Trevor brings it into my office. and says he was instructed to drop it off. GREAT. on the top i find the small text saying the model number. GA-45 RV. so i Google it. what i find is that in 2006, the low end price on this is $950 and the high end price is $1,200. i payed $25. I am the coolest kid i know. i took it home last night and plugged it in. it works. the pots are dirty so when you dial a knob it sounds real crusty. still, it is cool as can be. not a bad sound but it really could use some money to be put into it if you were going to actually use it on a regular basis. i have know idea what i will be doing with it.

i got my pricing from this site here