Northside High School Graduation

Josh graduates from Northside High School Columbus, GA

Nathan Walking

The earliest video we have of Nathan walking

Maddies first Haircut

Maddie and Heather went to Sweet and Sassy, a fancy little girls salon, in Warner Robins today for Maddies first haircut. Yeah she's almost two but she has very thin hair and it just hasn't grown. There is a new photogallery on the website with photos from the big day. Heather and Maddie then went out to lunch to celebrate the event.

Messageboards

What a week! Heather and I both had training classes to go to. Heather spent the week in Cincinnati and I am trying to get home from San Jose, CA. Nathan's B Day party is tomorrow. He turned 3 on May 10. To make it back to Macon in time for the party, I have to catch the red eye from LA to ATL

The kids spent the weekend with GeeGee and Poogoo (Dan and Jean). From the conversations, I've had with them by phone everyone had a great time. Heather says Maddie's speach is really improving... I can't wait to see the kids. I have been so busy with my training class this week I haven't had the free time to spend talking to them or Heather as much as I would like. The 3 hour time difference hasn't helped.

We closed on another house this week. Its in a neighborhood that is a little below our target market but it was a good deal and should rent well. I have flirted with the idea of flipping it but I also don't like the idea of giving uncle sam 40% of the profit. That reminds me, I need to get my 2005 taxes done....

I can't recall whether I mentioned it or not in the blog but my employer is in the midst of a reorganization and everyone has to reapply for jobs. The sales group was announced yesterday and I will be staying with the newly formed company (Rio Tinto Industrial Minerals). My job responsibilities won't change much though I will no longer have a technical service rep to help out. In addition, our technical staff in Denver will be much smaller.

I'll try to play catch up a little. Heather and I went to Miami a couple weeks ago. I was down there for a conference and Heather joined me for a long weekend of relaxation. Well it wasn't what we expected. Heather arrived on Thursday and Friday night she had an attack of kidney stones. Fortunately, she had a supply of Lortab with her to treat the pain from her recent car accident. I had kidney stones a couple years ago and recognized the symptoms. Heather ended up spending most of the weekend in bed.

The kids enjoyed another couple days at my parents. Nathan came home asking me if I wanted some ice cream. I wonder what he meant by that... There was an airshow in Columbus when we flew in which maddie and nathan were excited about.

My employer is going through a merger and reorganization so I had to apply for my job and anything else I would be interested in recently. I expect that there will be several people in the paper sales group that will no longer be with the company when this process is over. I hope that I'm not one of them. If I am I guess I dust of that "48 days to the work you love" course that I bought a couple years ago and find something even more rewarding.

Work for me has been crazy for the last 3-4 months I can't imagine doing it all plus that which will get dumped on me with fewer people in the group.

Our real estate investments are doing fairly well. Renting the duplexes is still going slow. I just haven't had time to spend on getting things done nor do I have the people to do it. we've only got one house vacant and it is under renovation. Heather calls it the shack cause its not pretty. We will be able to rent it well below market so I think it will not be a problem renting it.

I'm going to take a little break from the buying and rehabing unless a really good deal comes along. I'm just a little bit burnt out. I probably won't break long though :) Summer is right around the corner and I'd rather spend it on the lake than dealing with contractors, realtors, prospective tenants, etc.

Oh, the kids have really enjoyed spending time outside recently in the warm weather. I look forward to this summer playing on the lake and in the yard.

Macon4rent.com

Macon4rent.com

I still haven't rented the apartments (duplexes) on Rocky Creek but I think it is only a matter of time. I haven't put a lot of effort into it either. I have a sign out front and a listing with Macon Housing Authority. I think an Ad in the paper would draw a lot of interest. I've just been too busy for the number of calls I'm afraid I'd get.

The house on Canterbury is rented... actually it was rented before we bought it :) It required a little more renovation than I expected but we are still doing ok. They had to rip the entire roof off the utility room (down to the studs, joist sheet rock and all). The new roof should last a long time.

Renovations will begin on "the ugliest house on Rocky Creek" Wednesday. It will require extensive work: new roof (some wood replacement), paint, carpet, linoleum, and probably a number of other items. We should be able to rent this one fairly inexpensively and have good cash flow.

Return from grandparents

The kids returned from an extended stat with the grandparents Dummitt. As you might expect, Heather cried when the kids dove into her arms and of course she thought they had changed sooo much. She has said several times that Maddie is talking a lot more.

When I put their car seats back in Heather's car I put them on the wrong side. It threw Heather off a little bit and when she realized what it was she asked Nathan what he was doing over there and Nathan replied "daddy did it".

4 Life Resources - Got Goals for 2006?

4 Life Resources - Got Goals for 2006?

The Ten Commandments of Goal Setting

Kids visit the Grandparents

The kids are spending the week with the grandparents Dummitt this week. Heather is working the annual outage at work (wierd hours) and I'm on the road as usual. The kids are having a good time eating ice cream with papa and taking walks in the wagon with meme. One of the neighbors has a pot bellied pig as a pet so the kids are fascinated with it during their walks. Plumplin (one of Maddies many nicknames) has taken an interest in waking brother up from his naps. I guess she doesn't want to play alone. I hope to post some pics from their visit soon.

I dug this video up earlier today and I thought I'd share it. My he has grown.

Doesn't she look sweet and innocent here. Of course, she's asleep. Maddie deffinitely has a personality of her own. She is not as easy going as Nathan.
Nathan is doing real well on his potty training... wish he'd let go of his thumb sucking though. Nathan is starting to get the hang of riding his bike he got for Christmas. He's still riding in the house for now. He still has trouble peddling forward. Occassionally he'll pause and when he applies pressure again he peddles backward (brakeing) which frustrates him. "I can't do it, aaaah."

Maddie, has started showing an interest in potty training. Nathan is still working on it but does fairly well with TT when he has coaching. Poo Poo is much hard for him to grasp the concept.

Maddie now wants to go when Nathan does. Up to this point she just stands at the toilet like nathan and pretends. This evening she finished dinner and said "po eee" so Heather took her and Nathan to the potty. Nathan TT'd while Maddie tried to push him off the stool. When Nathan was finished Heather put Maddie on the stool as usual and she started TT'ing everywhere.

Our real estate investments are doing well. The company now owns 8 houses and 2 duplexes. We'll close on the 9th house soon and we got another one under contract today. We haven't had much luck renting the duplexes but we haven't finished the renovations yet. We had a house go vacant unexpectedly this month. The tenants had moved from Las Vegas and then decided to return. I let them out of their lease if they agreed to pay rent through the end of the month and leave the house in rent ready condition.