4th of July weekend

Aahhhh, the 4th of July weekend is upon us. I'm on vacation and my wife has a 4 day weekend. On Thursday, I had to run to Tacoma to pick up my wife's nephews, Ben and Micheal. Their mother is out of town with some guy she met online and grandma didn't have the time to take them anywhere for the 4th. So we took them in, we have plenty of room. Friday we pack up and all go to Wild Waves, What a mistake that was!!!! The place was packed solid. There were some water rides that had lines an hour long just to get a tube to wait in another line to get in the water. We mostly stuck to the wave pool, still packed!! Things didn't start out very well on Saturday, I go outside to tend to the farm animals and noticed that my mail box is open....AGAIN!!! This has been going on for about a week, so we had to get a P.O. box, but still I was sick of this/these jerks!!!! I got my air tank, went to the paintball field and got it charged. Seeing that I still had 1000 paint balls, I would have some fun after the fireworks!!!!! We then headed out to Fort Lewis for their Freedom Fest, I go mainly to see my good friend Kevin Wolfe. Ive been going for the last 10 years or so and it's the same show every year,but I never tire of it. Kevin has even taught me how to make my own cardiographic effect. Why pay 175.00 for a magic effect when you can made one for less than 10.00. Mine doesn't look as good as Kevin's or Martin Lewis', but it looks O.K.

After the magic show I hung around and chatted with Kevin a bit while Darlene to the kids around and played. We then went home, I fired up the grill while Darlene took care of the animals for the evening. The plan was to grill up some ribs and have a picnic in Orting before the fireworks. Real pleasant evening and a good fireworks show, the kids had a blast!!! The show was put on by the Orting Lions, so it's not a very big show, but hey, it's close to home. We get home and get the kids to bed and everything settled down for the night. I put on my cammies, tactical vest, load my paintball rifle, grab my radio to keep in contact with my wife, grab my taser(should anything go wrong) and hide in the bushes across the street from my mailbox. Once my eyes adjusted to the night, I could see everything just fine. I didn't have to wait long before I heard movement in the bushes then saw a flashlight. I tell Darlene to call the police as I see someone come out of the bushes, cross the ditch and open my mailbox. I took my paintball rifle off "safe" and lit his ass up!!! I know I hit him because I heard the "splats"....... and the screams. The police were at my house within 5 minutes, I gave them a description....white male, white T-shirt.....covered with green paint. It took a bit to get this on paper as the deputy was laughing so hard. They didn't find him, but, we haven't found our mailbox open anymore!!!

My daughter finally got the bug outta her ass and is talking to me and coming over for visits again. She wants to earn some cash, So I pay her to help out around the farm. Her brother comes over to help out and visit me. It's good that she is some what back to normal.

"Vacation... Is All I Ever Wanted"

Well, right now, I'm in the middle of a weeks vacation. I have been at my job long enough to have earned 3 weeks paid time off, the hard part is getting the vacation request approved. You see, there is only one other person trained to work graveyard, so if one of us needs time off, the other will have to work a couple weeks straight without time off. At this point the most I can get off at one time is a week. I work Monday thru Friday, 11pm to 7am, so if I want do want something on a Saturday, I need Friday night off. It does get a little frustrating as one of my vacation requests was denied because there was no one to cover the shift, this was the night of my daughters graduation, I still went, I just couldn't hang out afterwards. I count my blessings though, I did get Fourth of July week off.
The week started great, a very dear lady friend from high school found me on Facebook. We were very close in school, we hung out at lunch, I walked her home from school, we just never crossed that boyfriend-girlfriend line. I left to serve in the Army and we exchanged letters for a while. I did tell her I had a crush on her and I lost touch with her when I deployed to Egypt for 6 months. Over the last few years,when I got access to computers, I have been trying to find her and she has been searching for me. Lifetime network had this long lost friend show that she sent a request to, no luck. We are now exchanging emails keeping each other updated and we talked for a couple hours on Sunday. She was rather surprised that I stayed in Washington, she in living in Elgin, TX. and is engaged to be remarried. It was great to reconnect with her.
We started off balls to the walls on Saturday, I got off work, saw it was a nice day and took the family to Wild Waves. I bought season passes in February for 49.99, this is half price and will pay for itself in two visits!!! I was up all night and day for this, it was worth it. I tell you, we couldn't get Andrew in the water, but once he was in, we couldn't get him out. The only water rides he could do were the wave pool, Hook's Lagoon and the Python water slide. He didn't care too much for the water slide, but he's not quite 3 yet, we'll take it slow as we don't want him to be scared of these rides.
Sunday was nice too, The Tacoma Magic Club had its monthly meeting, I really enjoy going to these meetings, even if I don't perform. This month, we had a guy out of Portland selling some stuff, wasn't too impress with what he was offering. He was selling a levitating card, I have the material for that, enough to last a lifetime. He was also selling a effect kinda similar to Rocco's Delight. Then my good friend and magic mentor, Rick Anderson gave some insight on performing Sponge Balls from Mouth. A fun and gross routine!!!
The weather was nice on Monday so we decided that just Darlene and I would go to Wild Waves and Andrew would go to daycare. The bad part of Monday was it was 9.00 admission to Wild Waves.... Son of a Bitch!!!!!!! That place was packed, we spent 20 min in line in the turn lane just to get into the parking lot!!! There is a long line of cars waiting to get in and some BITCH! drives past us all and almost hits a car in line to cut in!!!! Really!!!! Are people that F&^%% Shallow,that they can't wait a few minutes to get in!!!!! The line to get in was LOOOONNNGGGG. We had season passes so we at least got to bypass the line.The lines weren't too bad at first,but we had too leave around 3ish when the place really got crowded. Lines were too long and the wave pool was packed. There don't seem to be any special events planed for Friday, so we will try again.
Andrew is home with me all week, I have time off, I'm not gonna ship him off to daycare. I hardly see him when I'm working. I will really be working on his potty training. We have a little incentive for him. If he goes #1 in his potty chair, he gets 1 jelly bean. If he goes #2 he gets 2 jelly beans, if he does both, he gets 3. If he tells us he has to go and goes he gets a bonus jelly bean. Now, he's getting too smart, he tells me he has to pee, goes to the potty, uses it, gets a jelly bean and a bonus one. Then after we are done and get back in the living room, he will tell me he has to poop. we go to the potty chair, he uses it, gets his 2 jelly beans, then he says" I want bonus jelly bean" LOL!!!
Later today, I am taking Andrew to a park in Orting and get him worn out. This weekend is the Fourth of July, we will go to Fort Lewis for a couple hours, watch my good friend Kevin Wolfe's magic show. We will come home take care of the farm animals, cook up some ribs and picnic fixin's then head to Orting for their fireworks display. It's small compared to others, but it's not very crowded and doesn't take too long to get out and it's close to home