Time to kick the dust off the family blog. Our van recently reached a significant milestone. On the way back from one of Kevin's soccer games, the odometer on the van hit 123456. It seems pretty fitting that we hit this number on the way back from soccer. It feels like half of the miles we have put on the van are due to taking kids to soccer practices and games. And since we were at a soccer game, I had my camera along and was able to record the actual odometer reading.

One thing not listed there, but just as important as any of those for our family unit, 20 years ago today, on August 2, 1986, Susan and I got married.

When thinking about what to do for our 20th anniversary, we discussed several options. One thing we really wanted to do was go back to Cancun (where we went on our honeymoon). Although it was hit by a hurricane last year, I had heard that they had recovered fairly well. But, with a 13 and 10 year in the house, we would definitely need someone to sit for us while we were out of town. Unfortunately, there just is not anyone to do that right now for us. So we scrapped that idea.

The other thing to do would be to get something that would represent our time together, something meaningful. The 20th anniversary is either the china or platinum anniversary (depending on which chart you use). We weren’t interested in either of those types of items. We were out one day and the idea hit us, or hit Susan, she wanted a new rock for our anniversary. We happen to be near a store and browsed them and realized that that might be a nice thing to do.

Well, this past Saturday, we went out shopping and picked out a new rock. In fact, we decided to splurge and picked out three smaller stones to go with it as a place setting. All in all it wasn’t as expensive as we thought it was going to be. In fact, we arranged for special deliver yesterday to make it a unique event. The rock was delivered yesterday afternoon and Susan was very happy about how it came out. I figured I better take a picture so Susan can show the world. You can see the rock and the smaller stones here.

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Do I have a weird wife? In some ways, yes. But that’s just one of the things that makes her great and has made the last 20 years fun. Well, actually 24 years since we dated four almost four years before getting married.

So here’s to Susan! Happy Anniversary dear! It’s been a great 20 years and I can’t wait for the next 20 and beyond.

And before any of you think “Oh my gosh, he actually bought her a rock for her anniversary. The cad!” and send me nasty e-mail, Susan actually likes the rock. Yes, we picked it out and yes, it is the main present to ourselves. Call us strange, but we think it’s kind of fitting. Something that has been around a very long time and we hope will be around for much longer. And just think, if it was a diamond, it would be about 5.36 million carats. Not bad if you ask me.

Happy (Hot) Easter to everyone!

Yes, Kevin is officially a teenager now although he's already been acting like one for some time. We took him out to eat at one of his favorite restaurants, Joe's Crab Shack to celebrate. While we were there, some girl kept text messaging him on his cell phone. Yikes, he's growing up too fast!

Yes, those are "crystal" bunnies on a carrot cake. Shea is still obsessed with rabbits. Look at all that gooey, rich frosting. We preceded this cake with some of his favorite foods for dinner, hotdogs and tater tots. Talk about a stomach ache.....

After two months of looking and turning away many cute, sad faces, I found this rather plain, thin dog languishing in a back kennel of the Williamson County Humane Society. She’d been there almost two months and I’d somehow missed her on several visits. After taking her out and spending some time with her, I had to have her. At about one year old, she is a bit younger than I wanted. She still has plenty of puppy mischief in her, which I was trying to avoid. Still, she is so sweet and playful that it’s hard to be too mad at her, even as she is prancing around with my garden glove in her mouth.

Luna seems to have some Australian Shepherd and possibly German Shepherd in her.

Chase, our grumpy, older Australian Shepherd, put her in her place right away. After almost a week, they now seem to be getting along pretty well, except when Luna runs alongside Chase and tries to steal his tennis ball from right out of his mouth. He growls but can’t snap at her because he knows he’ll drop the ball and she’ll steal it. Poor Luna; I don’t know what her past was like. She doesn’t really know how to play but Chase is quickly showing her the ropes. She actually retrieved a tennis ball and brought it back to me for the first time today.

Chase and Luna

I was working outside doing yard work until dark and got to watch this spectacular sunset. The colors were actually even more vivd than they are in this picture.

This is a Two-leaved Senna plant. Notice how the ground around it is all dry and cracked. All the ground around our house was scraped when it was being built. We haven't dared to try and plant any grass or anything else due to the weather. Yet, there are a few tough plants like this one coming up. Hard to believe.

The very aptly named, Mexican Hats. There are several clumps of these in our yard, although most are almost done blooming.

Finally, we got a teeny bit of rain but it was less than half an inch. Still, it must have done some good, because several of these Wild Petunias were blooming along the edge of the driveway a few days later.

He was pretty mad at being disturbed. He's raring back to strike at me here. I would have loved to have teased him a bit from the end of a long broom handle, but with the boys present I didn't want to set a bad example. They need to learn snake safety since I'm sure we'll run across more snakes out here, possibly poisonous ones.

After a bit of Googling, I determined that this guy is a Western Coachwhip. Apparently they are very aggressive when cornered and can inflict a nasty bite. I hope my curious dog doesn't encounter him.

There are also many, many types of wildflowers growing all over the place. Perhaps I'll devote a separate entry to them.

After the walkthrough they gave us the OK to start moving some of our stuff in. So with the long Memorial Day weekend ahead of us, we are going to start moving the smaller things in. We’re going to start with the clothes and other junk from the closets, kitchen stuff, etc. I am also going to start working on hanging the window shades and blinds. We also need to finish packing the garage this weekend. The movers are coming on Wednesday, so we need to have everything we want them to move packed by then. We’re having them move the heavy stuff (must save my 40 year old back).

A few of Susan’s friends have been out to the house and we were really happy to get some nice comments back from them. Some of them, after seeing the house and the neighborhood, finally realized why we are moving “all the way out there”. We have also gotten some nice comments from some of the workers. Most of the comments are about the loft railing. I’m really glad we sprung for the extra money and did it. That and the beams really give the house the unique feel we were looking for.

I best get to bed early tonight, I think I’m going to need my rest. It’s going to be a long weekend.

To the corporate webmasters out there, .info is a valid top level domain. It has been for over three years. Open your eyes and change your e-mail validation routines and allow .info as a valid domain.

At least five times this year, three of which have been in the last month or so, I have tried to use my completely valid e-mail address on a web registration form and have had it rejected. Their brain dead verification routines are saying that the e-mail address I have been using for over three years is invalid. Boy, I sure do get a whole lot of e-mail via my “invalid” address. And what’s bad, I usually get rejected when I’m placing an order or signing up for e-mail delivery of their pseudo-spam. So they are losing business from their stupidity.

Now, each time I hit this I write the webmaster a note stating the problem. A couple times they have fixed it. Most of the time I never hear back and I try it again several days or weeks later and have the same problem. In one case I actually found the Java Script code on the page the was editing the e-mail address. I sent the webmaster the exact line that needed to be changed. Two months later and the page still has the same problem.

Now for all those webmasters out there who feel they have to have verification routines on your forms for the e-mail addresses, here is a nice site with a list of the top level domains. They even have a complete alphabetical list of top level domains. Go check it out right now and make sure you accept all of the valid domains. Either that or have your quality certification department update their testcases to include all valid domains. (You do have independent testing of your webpage now, don’t you?)

Tile star in the entry way.

Inside the house the finish work continued. The plumbers returned for their last visits, finishing out their work by installing the plumbing fixtures. They also finally hooked up the house to the water supply. We now have running water in the house. Yea!

The wood floor in the loft.

The wood floor was installed in the living room.

The flooring guys came back as well and installed the wood floor. We had wood flooring installed in the living room and the loft. That just leaves the carpet as the last major addition that needs to be installed. That is scheduled for installation on May 23.

Finally, the hardware guy came in and installed all of the hardware, door knobs, bathroom hardware, mirrors, locks, etc. He also installed the final front door.

The rest of the work is basically clean up and touch up. The cleaning crew came out last week to make a first pass at cleaning the house, cleaning the windows, counter tops, bathrooms, etc. They did a pretty good job but there is still a lot of dust on the uncarpeted floors upstairs and in the garage so it’s still very easy to track in dust.

The front door and the entry way lights.

The kitchen cooking area.

The touch up painting is last major piece of work to be done this week. The painters have a lot of work to do to get the walls into shape. They also have to stain the front door, the outside beams on the porches and the wood of the loft railing. This work needs to get done before the carpet guys come in next Monday. We have also purchased a bunch of window shades and blinds we need to install and the builder does not want me to install them until the painters come back.

As always, you can see additional pictures from this week’s visit in the house photo album.