Let's Catch Up

It's been over a year since my last post and so far Mia hasn't complained yet so before she does here we go. For some reason the blogspot changed the way my pictures load so I can't write captions for each picture like I normally do but I guess I can make due with some stories and all of you readers can decide which picture goes with each story then put your votes in the comment box. The winner gets a sit down interview with me and my boy Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. Yes, D-Wayne and I have been homies for a while and he is obssessed with me! I think the picture we took was at the premiere of his movie San Andreas which I thought was terrible but didn't have the heart to tell him that. When I am not hanging with The Rock daddy is golfing with Nino, Lupe and Travis. We have been trying to golf together once a month and we have been having a blast. Travis kicks all of our asses but me, Lupe and Nino have some pretty good competition even if Nino cheats. The girls and I have recently taken up magnet fishing but so far we have only caught a couple of fish hooks. Magnet fishing is exactly what it sounds like where you throw a giant magnet in the water and see what sticks to it. We have seen a lot of youtube videos of people catching all kinds off stuff under water but so far we just have 2 tiny little fish hooks. One of the pictures is of Mia and I at the Balboa peir and the other is me and all the girls at Fairmonut park in Riverside. Even when we don't find anything we still have a great time. Now to explain the pictures of the daddy posters with all of the diamond stickers on it. So daddy is in charge of our comapnies environmental sustainability program at work and daddies auction was the first location in the nation to hit the companies Zero Waste to Landfill goal and we won the Diamond award. When we first started on the Zero Waste journey a few years ago our GM challenged me to be the first to hit Diamond so I guaranteed him that we would and that I would get a diamond tattoo when we hit the goal and he loved the idea and offered to pay for it. That's a picture of me and my GM and the other pictures are of a life size posters of me for employees to play "Stick the Tattoo on Daryn" game at the Diamond celebration we had. It was a great time but it did get a little awkward when an old guy put the sticker on my tramp stamp. My favorite picture has to be the one with daddy and the girls playing scrabble at the table and getting wasted on Dr. Pepper. I also got to babysit Aggies beast of a dog Magnus for a week while they were in Hawaii. We had fun together playing tug of war and wrestling and even though he gave me a run for my money I still won. Lastly many of you may have noticed a full head of hair on my head. I had my first haircut in a very, very long time and it was amazing! I got a hot towel, straight razor shave after my haircut and felt like a million bucks when I walked out of the shop so I think my hair might be here to stay.

Welcome to the Family Frankie!

Welcome my first grandson Frankie to the family. Andrew and Karina did not create little Frankie but he definitely looks like a Graham. He gets his final shots this week and we get to meet him this Sunday. I wonder what auntie Lola is going to think of him?

Suite Hearts

Well girls, daddy out did himself once again for Valentine's day. Steak and lobster dinner was excellent and goodie bags were well recieved by my suite hearts. We even invited grandma to share in the love. On Saturday daddy took mommy on a date and I was going to make it a surprise but since mommy hates surprises I gave her a heads up. So where did we go you ask? Hawaii?, Paris?, Venice?, the beach?, a really fancy restaurant?....NO, we went to beautiful Redlands CA. to go fishing. YES fishing. Ever since Andrew and I went fishing I am literally hooked and want to take the whole family fishing. We didn't catch anything and mommy froze her butt off but it was a nice drive and we had fun anyway. So the lesson here is that you don't have to spend alot of money or make extravagent plans to make your loved ones happy on Valentine's day. Of course this goes for the other 364 days of the year as well. Thanks to all of my SUITE HEARTS for another fantastic Valentine's day. I Love you

Roll Out the Red Carpet for 2021

It's hard to believe that 2021 is here and it's already February. I didn't post anything from Christmas like I normally do because I got an update on my computer and for some reason I could not access the suite. After some hair pulling and a few cuss words I finally figured it out. Christmas was excellent even though we didn't get to spend time with as many people as we wanted to but hopefully soon we will be able to. Another important holiday is coming up this weekend.....Superbowl Sunday. When the girls were little we started a tradition that was supposed to get them interested in football and ask me all kinds of questions but it turned into them just coming to check the score every quarter. 2 weeks before the game I print out a pool with 100 squares and put it on the fridege then the girls can earn squares by doing chores, homework, rub daddy's feet, etc. In the past I would just give them a few bucks if they won but this year I am going to have to step up my game and offer some better prizes because the pool is still empty and the game is this Sunday. Maybe it's time to transition to the next generation and get Belle and Lexi to start rubbing papa's feet and earning squares. Projects have not slowed down in the suite in the new year and after thinking it would only take me a year or so to finish fixing up my fixer upper, I am in year 5 and only have about 3 projects to go. The kids are all doing great. Sarah is expanding the farm and it seems like she has a new animal every week. Andrew is doing good and just got a promotion at work that is keeping him busy. Michelle is turning 21 in a couple months so hopefully bars will open soon. Sophia is doing great in school bringing home her best grades to date and Mia is not letting covid kill her creativity painting all the walls in her room with different themes. (Pictures to come)

Still need to put the siding on but this shed helped me get alot of stuff out of my shed so I can officially call it a "Tool Shed"

Check out these artifacts I found in my planter when I was planting our apple tree. Not sure what they are but they look really old and pretty cool

My new favorite show is Cobra Kai and I love this picture. I was always "Team Johnny" growing up and thought Daniel deserved to get his ass kicked for moving in on Johnny's girl and everyone loves Mr. Miyagi

Catching Fish and COVID

Daddy is blogging from quarantine and I miss everyone so much. I'm feeling much better today so that's good because I was feeling pretty crappy. I first thought I had caught a cold when Andrew and I went fishing for the first time ever by the way but when it didn't go away I had to get tested and 6 short days later results came back positive. So far everyone else is feeling ok so hopefully it will end with me and everyone stays safe. Ok enough with catching Covid and on to catching fish. When Isella and I got married the minister added to our vows making me promise to Andrew that I would teach him to fish. That sounded great at the time but what Samuel (He looked like Samuel L. Jackson) didn't know was that I didn't know how to fish myself. So I put it off for 20+ years thinking I would learn someday then take him. Thankfully I put my pride away and thought we would just go and figure it out and even if we didn't catch anything at least we had some great father son time. After trying to cast out a couple times it looked like were going home empty handed and with a couple of broken poles. After cooling off a bit and noticing that I hadn't removed the clear celophane that came on the brand new reel things got a little easier DOH! So we were finally able to get our poles in the water and some beef jerky in our bellies and even though it was still AM and fricking freezing we cracked open a couple of Modelo tall boys. I think those did the trick because not long after Andrew saw my pole wigling (Not sure if that is legit fishing lingo) After panicking a little I started to reel it in. Well, being a boy scout we were pretty much prepared for anything we encountered, that is anything except for catching a fish! We didn't have a net, bucket or even a bag to put the fish in so we asked a guy we parked next to for a bag then cleaned out my Raider cooler because we weren't going home without him

out him.

Random Stuff

It's Friday and I just felt like blogging. Fall is here so the yard work will slow down and decorating season is coming. I don't even really like Halloween but I do like decorating my house. I'm going to step it up a little this year by adding a fog machine to the graveyard and I'm even going to let my grass die for an extra spooky effect. Actually I just don't like cleaning the yard while the decorations are out and after Halloween I am going to scalp and overseed the grass

Little Dan being silly.

Our garden before it was a garden. And daddy letting the broiler hang out LOL

Shout out to dad, rocking the stache

Yep, still hurt. Still not done but another 6 hour session of shading.

I can't even get a back rub from the girls but Lola gets the spa treatment.

Remembering Dad

Thanks Auntie Veronica for sending me these pictures of us with grandpa. I know we have these pictures but mommy and I are old school so they are in an album. Yes an album. Before Instagram or clouds we had these books with clear plastic slots to insert photos and instead of swipping your finger you would use two fingers to gently pinch the page and flip it to the next page. You can file this lesson along with daddy's post from a while back explaining newspapers. Here are some pictures from the girls soccer days. I wish Mia would let me carry her on my shoulders again and in one of the pictures it looks like grandpa is doing the old missing thumb trick, he was really good at that one LOL!