Yesterday was Michelle's birthday and daddy made his famous spaghetti sauce. Of course we had nobody over to celebrate but grandma and cousin Heather surprised her by decorating our front porch, doing a "Honk" by and blasting the happy birthday song. Another fun surprise was daddy catching Edward trying to sneak in the back gate to surprise Michelle. I don't think it was too fun for him since I didn't recognize him through the fence and yelled what the F are you doing. It's been a long time now so I don't blame him for wanting to spend time with her and I appreciate him surprising her for her birthday. After a Lysol bath Edward went home (probably changed his shorts) and Michelle thanked me for not freaking out, like I said baby, I don't blame him for wanting to be with you. Maybe I should let him start calling me Sir instead of Mr. Graham??? Today is actually his birthday so I guess I better keep an eye on the cameras to catch her sneaking out to surprise him.
Hopefully my week 4 post will have some good news about getting back to normal in the suite but until then I just pray that God keeps us safe through this pandemic and that our family and all families become closer in the end.
Our Garden with the new shade sail
Our pool ducks Fred & Ethel kissing
Daddy's pug bottle opener. Thanks girls
Uncle Eric brought me Papa's bear lamp. I can't wait to light it up in my man cave if I ever get one.
Daddy's great grandpa Mike Lopez made this drill press from scratch. Grandpa Mike only went to school until the 3rd grade but the man was a genius. He forged the levers, cut tubing and wired a motor to a pulley system. This thing still works though probably not the safest with no ground plug. He was a welder/fabricator for the SoCal gas company and great grandma says that he actually invented a special valve then the gas company stole his idea after he had shown his invention to his boss.
This is a chunk of the stadium that used to sit on the Anaheim HS campus. The on campus stadium was built in the late 20's and underneath were the football teams locker room, showers and coaches offices while my papa was there until they built Glover Stadium in the 50's to accommodate the huge crowds that came to watch Anaheim legend Mickey Flynn and the national powerhouse Anaheim Colonists coached by the Hall of Famer Clare Van Hoorebeke. When I was in HS we used it for a weight room, baseball locker room and batting cage. Sadly, a few years ago the decision was made to tear down the stadium and I was able to save a chunk for a souvenir.
One of daddy's lockdown projects. Mommy found this desk on Offer up for free and I am kicking myself for not taking any before pictures because this thing was tore up. Daddy sanded, stripped and stained and even Googled a way to polish the old handles with baking soda and lemon juice straight from my lemon tree.
When we were in Bullhead helping grandma pack up for Minnesota I had to take one of papa's coyote pavers. He had them all along the side of the house and I remember helping him bring them home. Papa used to save a lot of his labor intensive projects for when the grandsons were around.
This is a razor sharpening strap for when men used to shave their face with a straight blade like a real man! Those razors were replaced with disposable razors long before I was born and I don't even shave but my papa had one hanging in his garage so I will too.
I have no clue where my papa got this cup but I always remember thinking it was so cool when I was a kid so I brought it home
Daddy's tool cabinet. I've had this cabinet since before any of you girls were born and have been collecting stickers on it ever since. Each one of the NFL teams are represented except for a couple and each of those stickers represent a pitcher of beer. When Michelle was a baby we used to live walking distance from an awesome pizza place that sold $4.50 pitchers and in the arcade had a bumper sticker machine that sold NFL bumper stickers for 50 cents. Also keep in mind that we used to get a lot of stickers that we already had so my grand total is a lot more than is represented on the cabinet. Thinking back I probably shouldn't have drank so much but like I said it was walking distance from our apartment and I had Andrew's back for the walk home. He was only 7 but almost as tall as me already and had a little mustache.
Daddy has had this beer cup since 1984 when we went to Nebraska to visit grandpas family. My uncle Ron gave this cup and let my drive his truck "Jezebel" home from the speedway.
Who is this kid and nice hairline. Of course you girls know that this is daddy when he was a freshman and this is my mean face Mia not my sad face.
No this is not John Cena, this is daddy sophomore year. Same hairline but this might be a sad face since daddy loved wrestling but hated having to wear a singlet in front of the whole school.
Daddy's wrestling team sophomore year. This was the team that started a 10 year league champ run and the best decade of Colonist wrestling. It was fun being a part of such a dominant team, every kid on it was a stud. The entire front row was from the same gang and Reuben (1 guy away from daddy) won a Super Bowl with the NY Giants. Beside walking away with the 1st place trophy the bottom row would walk away with whatever they could steal. One time they stole an entire teams uniforms because they thought it would be fun to dress up the JV team in them during practice. It was pretty funny but seriously who does that. I think that each of them has done prison time and 2 I know are still in. Sadly when I became the head coach in 2005 our reputation was still well known and I spent all of my 8 years trying to repair it.
This is uncle Ken (Center) in his team photo from 1982. If you look close enough you can see that daddy is wearing the exact same jersey in his freshman picture nearly 15 years later. I used to hate that Anaheim was a poor school and couldn't buy new uniforms every year like the rich schools but now i am happy knowing that I got to wear the same jersey that uncle Ken did.
