Birthday Wishes

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SWANNY!!!!
On this the 32nd observation of Greg-mas, I present:

32 Reasons I love Swanny:

1. Emily Renee
2. Adam Jeffrey
3. Midnight releases of the can't wait movies--Star Wars, Harry Potter, Indiana Jones....
4. Ben & Jerry's while we watch TV
5. All of those visits to Whitey's when I worked there
6. Reading books together
7. Trips to Disney world
8. Your obscene love of chocolate milk
9. The way you smell new shoes
10. Only buying new shoes that have NEVER been tried on, even if it's by you
11. The alarm clock is never set to an on the nose time such as 6:00 or 7:00--try 6:04
12. Your (sad) love of the bears
13. Your (surprising) respect of the Packers
14. Your sense of humor--A bear and a rabbit are taking a sh** in the woods....(Swanny can tell you the rest)
15. You know EVERY song
16. Playing Mario Kart with you
17. The book habit--seriously we have our own library
18. All of those visits you made to Mizzou
19. Dr Horrible's Sing Along Blog
20. Kicking your butt at Rummy
21. The Love we share of Football
22. Sharks
23. Your love of Michael Jordan--good thing there's room in the marriage for both of us
24. You grill the best steak I have ever eaten in my life
25. Guitar Hero
26. The way you talk to the doggies--our big sweeties
27. You have a movie quote for EVERYTHING
28. When you eat pie, it's on the side of all of the cool whip
29. We laugh, A LOT
30. You are an AMAZING father
31 Your love of Leinies
32. You are such a wonderful friend to me--I wouldn't want to be on this adventure of "life" without you!!

Happy Birthday honey. I love you!

Happy Birthday Jen!!!

I finished the laundry this morning, took out the trash, swept and mopped the kitchen floor, did the dishes, and picked up the random crap laying around the basement. Just trying to make your special day a little bit easier.

Hopefully, those things help make up for this; some higlights from the last 29 years.









Sure, there are more pictures around here somewhere. Great pictures of Jen as a little kid, a cheerleader in high school, with her soccer team, with her sister, and so on. But hey, I've to save something for her 30th.

Happy 60th!!!

Okay, she's only in her really, really late forties (read 50 + 1). Happy Birthday Grammy Maru!! Everyone here is hoping you have a great day!!

Happy Birthday Baby Bubba

It's been a busy weekend in the Swanny house. We started off with a fun Friday night including, book club and a baby sitter for Peanut. :) Peanut was soooooo excited to have Andrew here and chose a movie quickly. Swanny and I were excited about good Chineese food. I was also looking forward to discussing what I found to be a great book:

Check it out in all of that free time you have!

Saturday was the big party day. Peanut woke up talking about it and told everyone she met, "Today is Connor's birthday." It's true. Baby Bubba, who also goes by Connor Fulkerson, had his first birthday party. It was a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse theme complete with festive hats


playing on the super-fun swingset


and of course, CAKE.



Baby Bubba was an excellent host. He was typically found surrounded by all of his cousins, with whom he did not chose to share his little cake. And, let's be honest, who can blame him.









Ah, to be one again. I was so wishing that I could've enjoyed my slice of his cake in a similar way, but was reminded how socially inappropriate that would have been for a 28 year old.

Football madness continued today. Let's just say that at this point, I'm happy (Go Pack GO!) and Swanny is lamenting the offense that can't pull their you-know-what together (Da Bears). We both, however, are becoming more embarrased by our dismall performance in the One Carbon Hill Fantasy Football Tournament. Let's just say, we have bigger hopes for the top performers on our team....I keep reminding myself, it's only week 3, it's only week 3.....

Fun times though! Hope your weekend was just as fun!

We're baaaack...

I woke up Friday morning, went downstairs to let the dogs outside, where I saw our our 15 year old neighbor in his backyard. This is not that unusual (he lives there, after all), but he didn't look like he was ready for school. I asked him what was up and he told me that due to rising flood waters (check local listings), school had been cancelled. He then informed me that he was helping his parents get rid of the water that had seeped into their basement from the 3 1/2 inches of rain we had gotten the night before. After making sure there was nothing we could do to help, I went back inside and relayed the story to Jen. She promptly asked me if I had checked out basement. My reaction? "We have a sump pump. I'm sure we don't have water."

Famous last words...

When I went to the basement, sure enough, all the carpeting was soaked. Thankfully, there was no standing water, and nothing of dire importance was ruined, but it really put a crimp in my plans to spend a relaxing day finishing our book for book club that night. I spent the next seven hours cutting up the remnant carpeting in the basement, moving furniture out to the garage, using the shopvac, and moving fans around to help the drying process.

For one heart-stopping moment, we realized the our computer's CPU had been sitting on the floor under Jen's desk, and so had been exposed to the water. Luckily, when I carried the computer upstairs and plugged it in, everything worked. The only causualty was our DSL modem. Hence, the absence of posts on the blog, and the free reign that some people (mrs.) have had while playing our trivia. As you can clearly see, the new DSL modem showed up today, and we're up and running.

In addition to the excitement of my birthday and water in the basement, I was thrilled to have author (and friend of this blog) J.A. Konrath in my store on Saturday. We had a decent turnout for his book signing, selling quite a few copies and making it a good day. J.A. and I then met Jen and Peanut for dinner and beers, and we had a great time at Grotto's. (J.A., if you're reading this, thanks again for dinner and introducing me to Banana99. I think.) I can't stress this enough: if you get a chance to meet J.A. Konrath, take it. It'd be tough to find a nicer, funnier guy. And he's nearly famous, so he's got that going for him.

We wrapped the weekend up by having dinner with my mom and Maria on Sunday evening. It was great to see them and I know they had fun getting to see Peanut in action.

Well, that's it. Relaxation, panic, hard work, laughs, drinking, great food, and great company. What a weekend.

Happy birthday to me...

I appreciate the well-wishes from the folks who stopped by here to leave birthday wishes. It's been a pretty good day. I actively did nothing, which has been pretty good for my mental state of mind.

This past week, I've been revisiting some music that I loved while I was growing up. Some Crowded House, Van Halen (with Sammy Hagar, of course), early nineties LL Cool J, to name just a few. I realized that, while some of the music from my childhood is crap, there's a lot that I can still listen to over and over now. I can remember how this music affected me then, and how much appreciation I still have for it.

This week, I also downloaded my Steve Martin cd's to my iPod. There four released but I could only find three, "Wild and Crazy Guy", "Let's Get Small", and "Comedy is Not Pretty". I can remember going to ABC Collectables as a kid and picking upi these albums. That's right, albums. Vinyl. I listened to them a million times and could recite them almost in their entirety. I still have them somewhere, but since I no longer have a record player, I updated to cd's. These week, listening to them through my iPod, I found I was still able to say all the bits right along with Steve. Great stuff.

All in all, getting older is no big deal. Age is just a number and you really are only as old as you feel. Despite being sick, I've been feeling better lately than I have in years. Must be all the fun with family, job satisfaction, friends, and reading.

Or, it could be the booze.

Thirty Plus One

I'd like to wish you all a very happy 31st anniversary of the observance of Greg-mas!


Before I go on to honor all things "Greg" on his special day, may I first give a well deserved shout-out to his Mom, Pam and his Dad, Harold for having put up with him for the duration of his childhood and adolescence and not killing him as he reached adulthood, as I know they so often felt the urge to do. Just kidding....sort of. In all seriousness, thanks you two for raising such a remarkable guy!

Ah, but what to say about my darling, my love--the one who makes me laugh, makes me cry (usually because I'm laughing so hard), the one who helps me take life less seriously and see the humor in everything. I've known you since you were 17. Back then, you looked something like this

The drum major of the marching band complete with fancy plume and cape. You enjoyed Michael Jordan--his basketball moves and his shoes. You could be seen driving a golden hued Toyota Corolla and your hair was far longer than mine is now. You played basketball with Jeff and Kevin, you drank beer at the condo, and listened to all kinds of rock and rap.

Ah, time changes many things....I'm so glad you came to your senses with the hair. It's too bad you don't still have that whistle, cape and fancy hat; I think Peanut would have a blast with them! You no longer honor M.J. buy purchasing every shoe merchandised with this logo, but keep it real as a "purist" only showing interest in styles he actually wore.....or at least those are the ones you admire in the Eastbay catalog since now we have a kid and you can't afford to buy 'em any more. Nowadays you can be seen in a Blue Toyota Rav4 (complete with carseat, wife and 2 dogs) and rather than blasting Highway to Hell, it's more likely to be playing back a Bob and Tom show Podcast. Playing basketball happens infrequently, but I know you would love to play more than you get to now. Watch that shoulder though mister! Your favorite beer buddy (aside from me) is probably Bubba, who shares your love of Leinies rather than that MGD crap you used to drink.


You've evolved in so many ways honey. Despite the fact that you are now "in your thirties" I think things are getting better with age.







HAPPY BIRTHDAY SWANNY!!