Weekend Redux: California Dreaming

This past weekend we went on a vacation to Southern California. Originally this week was supposed to be spent in Florida with my mom and stepdad. But my mom's dad, my grandpa passed away last Tuesday.
My mom had to cancel to our plans to tend to some sad details in Northern California.

With time off I figured we could switch gears and go to a Pacific beach instead. We had a few friends we could visit and the forecast was sunny.

We left early Saturday morning and drove straight to Whittier to meet up with our friend Heather and her son (Hayden's BFF Julian). We spent the day hanging out with them at the park then went to our hotel in Long Beach for a while before catching dinner. Sunday we spent the day with Brian's long time friend Damon and his girlfriend Claudia in Santa Monica. We walked down the beach to the pier. Hayden rode the carousel and we enjoyed the beautiful scenery.
When we returned to our hotel later that night I was sunburned and the hotel's wonderful heated pool was calling my name.

Monday we got to attend a going away party for Heather and Steve who are moving to VEGAS! We're beyond stoked and felt a little guilty hanging with their Cali friends who are sad to see them go.
Here are some wonderful pictures from our trip!

Aurgh Damn Hackers

My email got hacked. Don't click on any weird links from my email. I have changed all my necessary stuff and will be heading on vacation soon.

Weekend Redux: Bikes and St Pat's

Over this past weekend Brian put some training wheels on a regular sized bike for Hayden. So we've been outside watching him ride most of every day since.

He loves it and I'm sure the kid will finally get a tan.

Even though we celebrated a low-key St Patrick's Day Hayden was in full Irish garb.

I also wrote a little more about the history of our band over the last 10 years. You can read it here: www.bipolarmetal.com

Rememories: I'm like a fine wine

Today Brian and I printed shirts for my high school. The school is celebrating it's 20th anniversary. NOT MY 20TH ANNIVERSARY. The schools. Just to clear that up.

So the universe decided since my high school popped up in my life that it would throw a classmate's success in my face again. My Tivo recorded the Behind The Music of Ne-Yo. Shaffer Smith and I were in choir together. He is now a successful millionaire and I am still playing smoke filled bars for nothing.
But really I'm happy he has an amazing career, it's really cool to see someone who had to practice latin aria's alongside me now living in a beautiful mansion.

I went through my year book while watching the show and cringed when I saw my photos.

I was about thirty pounds heavier back then and totally not the vocalist I am today.

Then 

Now

Yeah, what now boys who wouldn't talk to me?! I mean, at least I got better with age.

Weekend Redux: Old Friends and Funny Things

This past weekend was great. We played a show Saturday night at The Bunkhouse with some friends of ours from Nor-Cal called Dedvolt. It was great to connect with some of our old school friends from Cali.
We also had some friends Death Valley High who played down the street and crashed at our house after theshows.
It was a weekend full of laughing with friends, making new friends, and reminiscing of shows, bands, and venues past.
I feel so lucky to know such talented amazing people and to get to share experiences with them.
Every time our friends from Sacramento or the Bay Area come through I get this urge to jump on a plane and go visit the places I miss so much.
Maybe sometime soon we'll get to travel more as a band. Until then I'll live through my touring friends stories and Facebook photos.

My girls Petrina and Brandy came out to party with me.

Joel, Matt, Brian all of Dedvolt, Me, Chris of Five Finger Death Punch and Steev of Dedvolt.

These awesome shoes were finally put to use and then I had to take them off during our set as they weren't too comfortable and I'm a clutz prone to falling and hurting myself. 

Why can't my Kid be more like my Dog?

Hayden has about four things he has to do every night for homework. Those four things take over an hour.  Mostly a half hour consists of him crying over making him redo his letters cause they're sloppy or him crying or me threatening to take away his video games cause he won't take this crap seriously.

Yeah, I won the award for "mother of the century" last week when I made him stand in the corner for not writing an e the correct way.

I just don't get it. I don't get why he doesn't enjoy putting all the crazy stories he makes up down on paper. He has a great imagination and comes up with the funniest things. BUT HE WON'T WRITE IT DOWN!

But Barley on the other hand, that dog listens to me. We trained him well. He sits, shakes, lays down, rolls over, leaves the room after he farts and we call him out on it, eats whatever we put in front of him, walks alongside us without a leash and I'm sure he would write an entire book in Latin if someone asked him to. At least I know I raised one right.

Hopefully the kid will learn from the dog. Someday they can write a book together about how much of a stickler I was; in Latin.

Weekend Redux: First Blooms and BBQ

This last weekend was full of house work, video games and hanging out as a family.

Friday evening Hayden counted out some change he's been saving up. He had saved $30 in just quarters and dimes. He choose to spend it on either a toy or a video game. He browsed the two stores we went to and just couldn't decide what to spend his dough on.

He found a game he wanted but it was $40 so I pulled out my phone and found it used on Amazon for much less.  So he only has to wait 3 days and he saved $20 For LEGO Lord of the Rings.

Saturday I stepped onto our back patio to see some bulbs I had planted a few weeks ago had quickly sprouted some beautiful daffodils. I also have new sweet mint and strawberry plants. Most of our outdoor garden died this past winter when it was really cold. I lost some aloe plants and my bell pepper, so now I'm trying to rebuild my little patio garden. 

The rest of our weekend was pretty BLAH. We watched movies, did house work, and kept the couch cushions warm. 

Sunday my friend put a new hose in my Beast and I had a nice sunny drive home. We ended the weekend bbqing with our friends.

Another thing I had to Google cause no one taught me how...

The last few days I've been feeling pretty crappy internally. It feels like my stomach is trying to kill me and my head decided to ache yesterday and has yet to stop.

When I got home from work I took some b12 along with my ibuprofen to try and fight the headache to no avail. 

Hayden and I read, ate some dinner, and then he sat down to watch a movie we rented. The B12 must have kicked in right as I sat down cause I got the urge to clean. 

I just bought this awesome Euro-Pro Shark S3601 Professional Steam Pocket Mop a couple weeks ago and it's the only thing that gets the damn dirt off the crappy white linoleum in our kitchen.
So I steam mopped, cleaned the downstairs bathroom, then decided that I should try and clean the blinds.
But I was unsure of how to clean these gigantic blinds. So I googled it.
The page I found most useful said to remove the blinds and soak them in the tub with dish soap.
So, to remove them I had to find a screw driver. I fumbled my way through removing them without damaging anything then walked them upstairs to my bathtub. But they were too large so I then had to figure out the best way to do it, without breaking or bending the blinds. SO I placed them gently in the tub, ran the water, then dumped buckets of water with cleaner on them. But that didn't work well enough, so I then had to clean each blind by hand with a rag and then pull them apart as they were sticking together.
This took about 45 minutes. I then ran them back downstairs, hung them up and had to dry them by hand with a towel.
THEN I had to do that exact crap TWO MORE TIMES. I wasn't done till about 9:45. Then I bathed and put Hayden to bed while cleaning out the tub.

I still have five more sets of blinds in my home that need cleaning. Good thing I have a bottle of wine waiting in my kitchen.