punching in

well, looks like i'm back on the clock. over the weekend i decided that it was time to stop wasting the summer away and actually do something. so, i went back in to strack and van til, the local grocery store, and ask them if they needed any help this summer. i worked there last summer on night shift and didn't hate it too much, so now i'm going back again. i start tonight at 11:00pm and work until 7:00am. its going to be quite a shift, but it was better than any other option- at least this way i still get to see diana when she's home! when she gets back from school is about the time that i will be waking up, so my breakfast will be her dinner. strange... and when i am done at work, i will get home just in time to wish her off to school. it seems kind of strange, but i think we can handle it for the six weeks! unfortunately this is going to put a major dampener on my movie watching for the summer, but i think i'll survive...

checkers and ice cream

recently i unearthed an old gift certificate for the local ice cream shop. last night diana and i were in the mood to go out, but didn't know where to go. well, we grabbed that gift certificate and made out way over to the oberweis ice cream shop! we each got something cold and tasty then found a seat. one neat thing about this particular shop is that they have some tables there with a built in chess board! we found one of those tables and played couple games. neither of us really care for chess, so we used the chess pieces for checkers instead! we played one regular game, and then set up the pieces randomly and tried again- it was a lot of fun! its always nice to just have a nice relaxing night with diana, we always have so much fun together (and she's really cute!).
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a small tip

at the flea market this past weekend diana found a good deal: 4 shirts for 10 bucks. the problem was that she could only find three. so, i offered to find one for myself so we could get the deal. go ahead, she said. i took about 30 seconds and grabbed one of the first ones i saw. it says 'nothing tips like a cow'. i'm not entirely sure what it means, but i figured it was pretty harmless, so i got it. today i'm wearing the shirt and i've had 6 (count em, 6) compliments on my shirt. huh?!? i dont think i even entirely get what the shirt is trying to say, but apparently people like it! strange. but i guess i'm the strange one for wearing it, huh?

sisters

monday afternoon diana came home from her mom and step-dad's place. i came home the night before so i could bring the car in to get its brakes fixed (it was the only day that diana wouldn't need the car for school, so we wanted to take it in then). her mom, david, and alanna all came to drop off diana. well, they didn't come just to drop her off, they were bringing alanna to the airport in chicago so she could fly back to boston. they stayed and chatted for a little bit, then were off! diana said that it was really cool to be able to spend some extra time with alanna- the last time she visited was the end of last summer!

over all, we had a really great 4th of july weekend, getting to see both families! it will probably be a while before we get that chance again, so we really appreciated our time together!

smore please

at the end of the night at diana's parents, we had a campfire. they have a bunch of wood from the old dock they tore out, so we made work of burning it up! diana's mom even had marshmallows and smores for us- hurray! a couple of allana's friends stopped by and hung out with us too. it was a really great day, topped with a really great treat!
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the other lake

diana and i spent most of the 4th of july weekend with my parents, but sunday afternoon we headed over to see her mom and step-dad. diana was lucky enough to have a three day weekend, so that way she was able to spend all of monday with them too! diana's step-sister illana was in town visiting, so we were really excited to go and see all of them. we arrived around 4:00pm and diana got to see her sister barbara, and illana. its not very often the three of them get together, so it was quite a pleasure for all of them! it had been a while since diana was able to see her best friend miranda, so she stopped over too. soon after we got there we went out on the boat. it was a beautiful day for it. we had poco with us, so we figured he might want to ride the boat too- he wasnt too sure of it at first, but after a while he was walking right to the edge and looking over to see the fish! after everyone wanted to go take a dip in the lake, but i stayed behind to make some copies of our wedding photos for miranda and diana's mom. some where in there there was a third boat ride too. everyone had a really fun time- its always nice to see diana's parents and have a relaxing day out by the water.

(more pics: 1, 2, 3)

sandy poco

sunday we went back out to sandy pines for lunch, this time we brought poco! we were planning on leaving straight from sandy pines to go see diana's parents, so we didn't want to stop back at mom and papa's house to get poco, so we brought him with us. the kids have a very strange view of poco: they always talk about him and really want to see him, but when he's there, they are all too scared to touch him! aves is always the bravest when it comes to animals, but she wasnt too sure about him either... he actually behaved himself pretty good and really seamed to enjoy the cart ride!

rockets red glare

as evening drew near, diana and i headed to the spot we had saved with the family to get a good view of the fireworks. we sat with the kids, bubba with me and tweets with diana. they played around with some sparklers for a bit, but then sat down and got ready for the big show! the kids were full of questions waiting for the fireworks to start. soon after dusk, they started! it was a good show and the kids loved it! bubba was asking me all about it the whole time they were shooting off. by the end of the display both of the kids were very cuddly, which always happens when they are up too late, and i wasnt complaining! we rode home with bubba, and he finally got to bed around 11pm- quite late for a six year old!
(more pics: 1, 2, and a couple videos)

july 4th fun

diana and i had thought we were going to have dinner with just the family, but were pleasantly surprised to find that the whole sandy pines crew was coming! it's always a good time when everyone gets together, we get some great food (my mom even made deviled eggs just for me!!!) and a fun time.
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after dinner i went over and talked to some of the girls. my fatal mistake: i left the camera on the table... well, squeegee and the guys got a hold of it and decided to take some random pictures (i dont know who took which pictures, but i'm giving all the credit to squeegee- well done!). since i know squeegee is a regular reader here at 'poke it with a stick', i figured i owed it to him to post those random photos as well! check them out here: 1, 2, 3, 4. he's crazy man, crazy...

sandy guys

diana and i decided to go for a little cart ride, and who do we see? why, its our good chums rex, jeffry lee, aaron, and freddie! they were out at freddie's place for the day and we happened to spot them! they were actually on their way over to our place to find us. cool! originally they had planned to go to grand haven and spend the day at the beach, but since the weather was a bit overcast, with rain expected, they came to sandy pines instead.
we drove over to freddie's trailer with them and hung out for a while. a couple friends from jeffry lee's work also stopped by. it was nice to see them again (i had just seen them the night before, but diana hadn't seen them yet). we were only able to stay over there for an our or two, then it was back to mom and papa's place for dinner!
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candy bags

around 3:00pm we headed over to the main road to watch the parade at sandy pines. the kids were excited for it, and were all ready to go with their bags. i asked bubba what the bag was for and he said that it's for all the candy that's thrown at them during the parade- man, they know how to be prepared!
we found a spot next to the rest of the sandy pines gang, even saw a couple cousins finding a spot too. when the parade started the kids got excited! they pulled out their candy bags, waved at the people as they passed, and frantically snatched up all the candy that came their way! they had a great time and even tim got in on the action!
(more pics: 1, 2)

braid knot

after lunch and playing with toys we hung out for a bit. tweets must have been playing pretty hard because her hair was a mess! since diana is going to school for hair, jill asked her if she knew how to do a special type of braid. she did, so she put tweets hair into the braid! check out the results here.

toys are us

after the flea market we walked back to tim and jill's trailer. we hung out with the kids for a while, playing with the new thing they had just gotten from the flea market. tim threw a few hot dogs on the grill and we had some lunch. as we were eating, papa came back from a round of golf and joined us. diana did some coloring with tweets, while bubba and i went outside and gave his helicopter a try!
(more pics: 1, 2, and a video)

a dog and a flea

saturday morning diana and i were up on time and on our way to sandy pines to see the family. after a few parade related road blocks, we arrived and went straight over to tim and jills place. it was good to see everyone- the kids are always so excited when we come (ok, more excited for diana, but still...). we walked over to the flee market and had a good look around. the kids always love the flee market (me too) because they get a little bit of money and are able to get some fun new toys! diana was able to get some new shirts for the summer, and i got one too. at the flee market someone was selling puppies and for some reason my mom was really interested in getting one. huh?!? mom has always been quite vocal about being glad that they dont have a dog to mess up the place. hmm, me thinks our dog poco might have squirmed into her heart and now she wants one of her own... sure, she wouldnt admit it, but i think our little chihuahua warmed her to the idea.
(more pics: 1, 2)

late night fire

this past weekend diana had three days off, so we headed up to michigan to celebrate the 4th of july. we got up there on friday night and planned to see the guys. we arrived quite late and diana was exhausted from the short night of sleep last night, so she went to bed and i met up with the guys.
everyone was at freddie's for a campfire, so i joined them there. we had a great time of just hanging around, messing with the fire, and chatting. it had been a long time since all of us were together, so it was really fun to see everyone together again. we talked about everything from movies, life, tosh.o, boats, and even had some strange mexican candy! by the time i left it was quarter after two in the morning- maybe diana had a good idea with going to bed on time...
(more pics: 1, 2)

henna ache

after getting my hair cut from diana at her school, we went out for the evening with a few of her friends. diana made fast friends with her classmates and loves to hang out with them. they were looking forward to meeting me (probably just wanted to see who was lucky enough to snag diana...), so we made plans to go out with jen and nick. a few miles away from where her friend jen lived they were having a carnival that week. we went over to jen's house, i met her sister and mom (and really really cute tiny dog!), and we were off! we found a good parking spot and walked to the carnival. when we arrived we walked around a bit and found some really good pizza for diana and i to share (we made the mistake of coming unprepared- we only had 10 bucks in cash! oops). after that we walked through the merchant tents where we saw all sorts of crazy things that some people are willing to spend their money on. at one booth there was a woman doing henna tattoos, jen convinced her sister to get a matching henna tattoo with her of infinity hearts on their right forearm. well, the thing about henna tattoos is that they are supposed to last for several weeks. they didn't quite think this through, and on top of that, the woman doing the henna was really bad! the tattoos looked terrible! they hated them and ranted about how ugly they were for the rest of the night- which the rest of us found endlessly funny! finally we made our way to the games where the girls played a few games of ski-ball. as the night drew to a close, we headed back to the car and nick brought us back to our vehicle. diana and i finally got back to the house around 11pm- about two hours past diana's bedtime!
(more pics: 1, 2)

new do

today i got a haircut from my wife! diana has been attending cosmetology school for a couple months now, and a couple weeks ago she started working out on the floor. she was (and still is) terrified each time she has to cut someone's hair. today i brought diana to school so that i could get a hair cut myself from her. i went in and hung out for a little bit until she was ready for me, then i sat down and she got to work! she had the teacher come over and help a couple times, i am the first boy's haircut she has ever given, so she wasn't totally sure what she was doing... by the time she was done she had improved greatly and did a really good job! take a look at the results for yourself here.