The Nellie Spot

Our Wednesday night hangout group has been struggling to find creative things to do now that American Idol and LOST are on hiatus. I've recommended a Frogger tournament, but that hasn't gotten off the ground yet. So Josh recommended going to play Gator Golf (aka Putt Putt, for you sheltered folks out there). Great idea! So we all (Hale's, Nelson's, and Tokar's) headed to Gator Golf for a fun round of putt putt. Emma did pretty well...she didn't crank anyone in the shins with her club, so we considered the evening a success! She was pretty interested in playing...for the first 6 holes. Then she just wanted to play with Olivia and jump off the hole obstacles. The rest of us played the round, with Allison coming out the winner and Margo got lucky, getting a hole-in-one on #18 for a free game. Funny thing about Allison winning...she ALWAYS wins. Josh and I tied, 1 behind Allison. I swear...it's frustrating being the golfer of the group and NOT winning. Allison, for some weird reason (I call it LUCK), always beats me. Of course, I just say I let her win....it makes me feel better. Here are some pics from the evening.

My friend Travis recently completed his doctorate in Logistics. That's right...he just now got out of college...at the ripe age of 28. But now we'll have to call him "Dr. Tokar", which is totally bogus. Travis is moving his family to Ohio State University where they are silly enough to call him "Dr. Tokar" daily. To celebrate his successful 23 years of schooling, Todd and I took him to see Toad the Wet Sprocket in Kansas City Sunday night. The trip was in danger of being canceled, since Trav contracted a nasty flu Thursday night (the day before defending his dissertation). Sunday morning, Trav was feeling better, so we hit the road around noon after watching Tiger win the Open.

We listened to some Toad on the way up, as well as the soundtrack to Team America: World Police (F Yeah! There's no way I can recommend the movie since it's vile, but it's easily one of the funniest movies I've ever seen) to get our juices going. We pulled into Country Club Plaza around 4:00 and immediately searched for bathrooms. We found one at Barnes & Noble. The stand up was broken, and so was the A/C. Bathrooms and warm temperatures are NOT good bedfellows. Feeling much better, we went down to Cheesecake Factory and ate dinner. Travis gets freaking fish tacos...after being sick for 3 days. But he didn't hurl, so all's good. We loaded back up and went to the Uptown Theater where the show was. At 6:15, we got to our seats and people-watched until the show began.

There's so much that happened, but I'll hit the high points. On the playbill, we saw that Sister Hazel was opening for Toad. Sadly, no one could remember any of the Sister Hazel songs. The first band started playing, and Travis and I STILL couldn't remember any of their songs. After about 5 songs, the band (Luce) let us know that Sister Hazel would be up next. Travis and I start laughing really hard, as we thought THAT band was SH the whole time and felt bad that we didn't know any of their songs. In retrospect, Luce was really great. The accoustics in that theater were pretty horrible...made more for true theater shows, not concerts. Sister Hazel took the stage and played a ton of songs. The band was really great, and they're great entertainers. After they were done, we moved to the back of the theater to more comfortable seats. And to help Todd get away from Sister Hazel's #1 fan who was sitting next to Todd. I swear, this dude was LAME! First giveaway: clapping over the head. I'm pretty sure that went out in the early 90's. Then at the end of their show, he RAN up there to shake hands with the band. He was in heaven...Todd was in hell. So we moved.

Finally, Toad took the stage around 10:00 PM. The place went nuts. After the first song, the lead singer from Sister Hazel came out and sat down right in front of me. Not knowing his name, but wanting to touch a man who used to be wildly popular, I leaned over and told him thanks for a great show. He said thanks back. We're pretty tight now. He immediately left his seat. But I touched him. Mission accomplished. Back to Toad: they were really great. Lots of songs. They did utilize the theater's disco ball (as seen in the picture to the right), which totally RULED! They finished up around 11:15, and we headed to the car. After gassing up and getting enough sugar/caffeine into us to make it home, we headed back here to God's Country. Pulled in around 2:30 AM. I really should have taken Monday off...but instead, I was an utter zombie at work.

Sorry for the long post...here are some more pictures. Hope you still have some time left on your lunch break to do something more fun than read this!

Last night, two really great bands played at the Gypsy in Fayetteville: the New Tragedies and the PaperHearts. Both have guys I skated with in college (that's an entirely separate story...) and I hadn't seen them in years. Todd Gill started/leads PaperHearts and Aaron Weidner and his wife formed the New Tragedies. Seth came down from KC, so I got to see him, too. It was good just to say hi and do some quick catching up.

So I'm not really the bar-attending type. Todd England was going to go with me to the show, but he totally stood me up for some girl (the NERVE!). But in all honesty, I would rather Todd finally get hitched, so if that means standing me up then that's fine....once. :) Without anyone specific to hang out with, I enjoyed my time off to the side people-watching (and bars are amazing places to observe people). I've never been to the Gypsy on Dickson street. I sat outside on the patio for about 45 minutes listening to a really great cover band and laughing at the drunken idiots surrounding me. The New Tragedies were supposed to start at 10:00 (ish), so I got there right around 10:00. After 45 minutes, I realized that the cover band wasn't going off stage for a while. I walked around and discovered that the Gypsy has an INSIDE, too! Lucky me! The band was just setting up. I talked to Seth for a while, catching up with him. Then caught Todd for a short while, too. The New Tragedies played a great show! They have a great style...pretty mellow, mixing incredible vocals. Aaron and Bev's voices compliment each other extremely well. They played several songs, then let the PaperHearts take the stage. They started around midnight or a little after, I think. Now, the PaperHearts are freaking amazing! They have like 5 members, and lots of instuments. Their style...I can't even explain. It's just awesome. The vocals / music / energy is combustible! I stayed until about 1:30, then couldn't take it any longer...I was so tired. It was a great show, and I would recommend seeing either of these bands play if you get the chance.

I'm not positive on this, but I think this may be the best time to share the gospel with everyone. Why is that, you ask? Because Satan has stopped roaming the earth and is seeking heat relief in hell.

Yeah, I'm lame...but you still laughed a bit. Or wanted to. Or didn't.

I've decided to implement the "winter car" rule for these hot summer days. You know the rule...in the winter, you go turn your car on 20 minutes before actually leaving to go somewhere so the car is defrosted/de-iced/desnowed and is warm & toasty. I'm reversing that rule for the summer: 20 minutes before I leave the office, I will be turning my car on and blasting the AC. That way, the only sweating time will be from the door of the office to the door of the car.

I wonder if I could just keep my car running all day long? How much gas would that use up? Maybe 20 minutes before leaving will be enough...

Last week, we began potty training Emma. You can read about the details of this party thing here. So far, Emma's doing really great! Very few "accidents"...less than a handful, which is pretty darn impressive. She finally pooped on her potty today, so the next step is beginning! It's so cute to see her wearing little girly panties (though I HATE that word...makes me feel dirty). She's super proud of her "big girl panties", so she runs around in a shirt and panties all day long. I'll have to break her of that habit quickly. Here are some pictures of the "kick off" party we threw last week.

This past weekend was pretty exhausting (especially for someone as out-of-shape as myself!).

Friday Evening
Helped Josh & Margo move into their new house, which happens to be about 10 miles from the dead center of nowhere. Seriously. It's about 7 miles from Devil's Den. Surprisingly enough, they have DSL internet capabilities out there. I'm impressed. Their place is really awesome...log cabin-ish on 10 square acres. This is their dream place, so I'm really happy for them. So happy, that I lost 6 pounds from sweating in 100 degree heat to move their stuff.

Saturday
I woke up with a mission: paint the nursery. It didn't take as long as I thought it would, and the room is finally painted. Allison taped and did some touch up on the baseboards. The room is a warm green, with white furniture...it's really cute! I'm also really glad to have that project out of the way. It's rare that I ever get a hankering to paint, so it worked out nicely.

Saturday Evening
Our friends Aaron & Allyn Elleman are out town (Vegas, baby!) and Allyn's parents are watching their 2 kids. Carley, the youngest, has some virus and hasn't slept much the past two days. Neither have the grandparents. So Allison and I picked up Davis (the older one) and took Emma & Davis to the athletic club pool for a while. Afterwards, I holed up in the office to hammer out the details of my FCM talk for the next morning. I went to bed around 1:30 AM.

Sunday
I went up to work to print some things out for my talk, and practiced my talk out loud as I was driving and in the conference room of my office, practicing with the presentation portion. My head was totally swimming all day and I'm not sure why. I was having an extremely difficult time thinking straight, which isn't ideal right before a talk in front of 50 kids. Anyway, I did my talk. I thought it was horrible, but the feedback I got was that it went well. If they are lying, then it's a sin and it's between them and God. I'll take the lie proudly.

Sunday Afternoon
Allison went to a baby shower for Martha Ayres and then to the grocery store. I put Emma down for a nap and played a couple of hours of Xbox. Then I put together a new bookcase for Emma's room (baby #2 gets Emma's existing bookcase). Then we loaded up and headed back to Josh & Margo's house to hang out and eat dinner. Hot dogs, chips, Mtn. Dew and apple pie...it was perfect! We watched Josh fish a little on their stocked pond, but didn't catch anything. Then a couple rounds of Boggle finished off our visit.



All in all, it was an extremely productive weekend. Exhausting, but productive.

I've been meaning to post this for a couple of weeks now. But I'd like some prayer coverage. I get to speak at Fellowship's College Ministry on Sunday. Any prayer would be welcome. As outgoing as I am and not afraid of a crowd, it's a scary responsibility to convey God's Word to others.

Ok, it looks like I've found a template that has all it's innards (no idea if that's a word or not). Now you should all (Mac-snob or Perfect Computers) see the graphics.

I'm not a huge fan of the sidebar, but I dig the little menu thingy at the top! It's nifty.

I noticed yesterday that my template failed to load everytime I came here. I pinged the website where my CSS template resides, and it timed out. So...I went with a new template. Now? It works fine on my computer at work (all the graphics load fine). At home, hardly any of the graphics load. I've tried IE and Fx at home, and neither are rendering the page correctly/fully.

Would you mind commenting to let me know if you see the blue curved heading at the top of the page and the beige frames around the sidebar?

It's that time! Potty Training time for Emma! Allison is taking the brunt of the training since she's at home with Emma during the day. We are going down the "Train in 1 Day" path. How is that possible, you ask? Even if you didn't, I'm getting ready to tell you:

• Throw 1 giant kick-off party:
• Decorated the house in a "beach" theme. Balloons, streamers, beach balls, etc.
• Potty achievement posterboards to track her successes: stickers's & treats
• Achievement rewards for multiple successes: Chuck E. Cheese / Movies / etc
  
• Big girl panties (that word bothers me...)
• Toys to play with while sitting on the potty waiting to go
  
• Cake!!
• Trainer / Trainee
• Emma starts by teaching her doll how to potty over and over again
• After several hours, she starts to mimmick.
• Lots of VHS movies from the library on how to potty train. They're awful

So, after 1 1/2 days of training, Emma's doing great! Yesterday, she had about 5 successful attempts, and 3 not-so-great attempts. As of today, she's had like 7 successes and 0 accidents! Pretty amazing stuff! Allison mentioned that today, Emma actually went to the potty without being coaxed, which is a big step! We're so proud of our little potty-er!

I'll post some pics of the decorations...it was a pretty fun time!

I haven't seen Pirates 2 yet, but I hear it's doing OK without my ticket purchases.

In celebration of all things pirate, MSN created a "Pirate Nickname Generator". One for guys, one for girls. I got a pretty lame nickname: Mad Bunch.


What's your nickname, matey?

Tonight, I got to spend a little creative quality time with Emma before her bath. She crawled up into the bed and wanted to pretend to sleep. I got under the covers with her and started snoring. She laughed, then I dove fully underneath the covers. She dove under after me. I held the covers up like a tent so we could see each other. Her eyes got really big...then whispered "crabs coming, daddy!". (her cousins we're staying with have pet crabs that they brought with them to the beach, so crabs are on her brain) I ran my hands all around the sheets like they were crabs, then tickled her a lot. We did this for about 10 minutes before Allison came to get her for her bath. We "hid" from her under the covers. Her eyes were SO big in anticipation for mommy finding us. And she laughed a huge laugh when Allison tore the covers back and yelled "found you!".

It was only 10 minutes under the covers...but what a wonderful memory. I started thinking how fun it was to be a kid hiding in a blanket fort, or under the sheets. And I thought how fun it was to have a puppy under the covers, desperately trying to shake the covers off and escape. And I thought how fun it is to be under the covers with the woman you love (no...I don't mean it like THAT)...laying under the covers laughing, talking, dreaming. So many great things happen under the sheets...I hope you all get a chance soon to hang out with someone you love there.

These posts are so not in sequential order. Today is the 4th of July (Happy Fourth, by the way!) and we started the day around 6:30 AM. At 8:00, Seaside had a parade. The only requirement to be in the parade? Living in a house during the 4th. So we could have walked in the parade. Thankfully we didn't. We did line up and watch the parade. Here is Emma with her beads and flag.

By the way, I'm posting a lot of our Florida pictures on the Picasa Web pages, so check them out!

We're finally at the beach! We left Friday morning, and stopped in Little Rock to play at Chuck E. Cheese for lunch. Allison's family met us there. We loaded back up and headed to Jackson, MS. Mapquest gave us some super crazy directions, but they got us to our hotel...after spending about 1 minutes on a dirt road that apparently Mapquest knows about. Crazy.

We left Jackson on Saturday and made it to Sea Grove Beach around dinnertime. We met Sam & Amy at our rented beach house. We loaded up and ate at Pickles in Seaside. Then we let Emma experience the ocean for the first time...and it was a bit of a mixed emotion. She hates the sand (I have to carry her from the boardwalk to the water's edge every time), but loves the ocean! More updates to come, but here are a lot of pictures for you to ooh & aahh over. It's OK to be jealous.