...A lot like Christmas

Yeah...

I typically like to wait until after Thanksgiving to start listening to Christmas music or pulling out the lights and tree. So, when Traci got all wound up about putting up the lights, deer, and tree I went on the defensive. As I lay watching the Chiefs get worked over this past weekend, I could hear the faint thud of a staple gun. She started without me...

The only thing going through my mind was a vision of me walking outside and seeing Traci sprawled out on the driveway with a string of lights wrapped around her body, staple gun in one hand and the other hand grasping for the ladder that she just fell off of. Needless to say, I ended up going outside and helping her put up the house lights.

We purchased a new ladder over the past year that was high enough to reach the inside ceiling but low enough to not reach the gutters. After watching Traci stretch and stand on tippy-toes, the neighbor offered their extension ladder to us. Unfortunately, there is a weight limit on most aluminum ladders and of course I was just over the limit. :-)

Traci was a trooper and had the lights put up in no time at all. Later that night we took a walk around the neighborhood to look at the competition. There was only one house that came close.

So being the Pre-Thanksgiving-bah-humbug guy that I am I still insisted that we keep the lights off until after Thursday. Traci agreed and unplugged the lights. It didn't last very long as I came home tonight and thought about how much joy it brought her to see the deer heads bobbing up and down.

Bottom line: The lights are on and they are beautiful. I guess there is a first for everything including me getting into the Christmas spirit 5 days early.

I hope the Christmas Spirit finds you all soon!!

Bill and Traci

We did our duty

This is the first year that I can honestly say that I paid attention to who was running for office and voted for the person that I thought would do the best job. Kansas is one of the states that allows for early voting so Traci went in last week and took care of business and I went in this morning. The county that we live in is kind of special in that it is the only one in Kansas that was allowed to vote at 6am and the rest of Kansas had to wait until 7am.

I got up at 5:30 and got ready to head to the polls. I arrived about 5:55am and waited in line with about 50 other people. To my surprise, I was out of there in less than 20 minutes and on my way. I was surprised to see that almost everyone I ran into at work had voted or were going to take the time to go vote later in the day.

After work, I went to they gym and spent about 30 minutes on the stairclimber watching the news and listening to the reports come in regarding the results of the election. I was glued to the set listening as each state turned in their results and excited to see how close the race was.

As I am typing this, the results from the West coast came in and Obama was projected to be our next President. VERY EXCITING!

Although the election was exciting, the best part of this night is yet to come...because there will no longer be any election commericals on the TV and radio! That is really VERY EXCITING!

Take care,

Bill and Traci

Go Chiefs.. yeah, right

We received a call on Friday night from good ole Chuck and Joy asking if we wanted to join them on the 50 yard line at Sunday's Chiefs vs. Tampa Bay game. There were numerous reasons for us saying yes and going to the game... one of them was not that they were going to win.

Here are a handful of the reasons we decided to go:

*The tickets and parking are free. Can you believe "they" charge you $22 to enter to the parking lot?? And if you want to drink inside, you better bring a stack of cash as the beers at $8.75 a piece.

* We would get to hang out with Joy and Chuck and meet Kevin's new girl

* The weather for Sunday was forcasted to be breezy and 75 degrees. Can you believe that? Nov. 2nd we would get to wear t-shirts.

* We would have the opportunity to wear the chiefs shirts that we purchased last year. By the way, the Chiefs lost then.

This morning we got up bright and early so that we could meet everyone at 9am by the stadium. As predicted, the weather was incredible and we spent 2 hours chatting, eating and enjoying the perfect weather. We entered the stadium about 30 minutes before game time and watched all the pre-game activities. The Chiefs did a great job of honoring the men and women who had served, were currently serving and were going to serve in the next year or so.

Tailgate Traci

The highlight of the military tribute was when 20+ youngsters did their initial swearing in for service. They marched onto the field, stood at the position of attention and made their commitment in front of everyone during the half time show. It brought back the memories of my initial swearing in back in 1987. Good times. :-)

Honoring all service members

The Chiefs kicked butt during the first half of the game and then lost all control and were beat in overtime by a 35 yard field goal. Up until the last minute of the game, everyone thought the Chiefs were going to win this one for us. Another bummer game!!

Kick off

As I mentioned earlier, I didn't have high hopes that they would win the game and was mentally prepared to take the loss. I could not say the same for some of the other die hard fans that were sitting around us. Regardless of the outcome, we had a great time!!

Hope you all are fantastic weather wherever you may be.

Bill and Traci

Go Storm

I neglected to mention that last month Traci and I made a special trip to South Dakota to watch the championship game of the Souix Fall Storm. We tailgated in the parking lot before the game and went in all pumped up to watch them demolish the Louisiana Swashbucklers. The game ended up being a nail biter down to the very end with the Storm pulling it out at the last minute. Rich (see below for who Rich is) drove us home, as planned, as he was the only sober person within a mile of the stadium. Three of us rode in the back in the pick up truck (yee haa)... Not sure if that is legal or not in the great state of South Dakota but we took the back roads, so I guess you can pretty much do what you want as long as you don't get caught.

The loudest cheering section

The Storm is an indoor football team that has won back to back championships for the past 4 years and set the longest winning streak in professional sports history with 40 wins in a row.

The Storm is a special team for a number of reason. The number being that Traci's sisters brother in law, Rich Wirkus, is the assistant coach to the offensive and defensive line. He has been doing this for the past 6 seaons and unfortunately, this was his last. Hopefully he can keep the pipeline open for the cool Storm shirts. :-) Rich was also my flip flop partner in crime for the 4th of July melee.

The Wirkus family (Jamie, Rich, Mike and Dave)

Hope you all had a winning season as well!

P.S. The University of Arizona plays their first game on the 30th of August against Idaho. I know I can count on all of your votes!! BEAR DOWN.


Bill and Traci

Harvest time

I wanted to put a picture up of what we pulled out of our garden last week. I have been sharing the tomatoes and cucumbers with everyone at work. Traci has made 11 jars of salsa and is working on a batch of spaghetti sauce.

Hope all is well with you and yours!

Bill and Traci

... and the rockets red glare...

I have spent the 4th of July in many different places. Northern and Southern California, Arizona, Missouri, Kansas, Royals Stadium, foreign countries and now I can say I spent it in a very small Midwest town.

This past 4th of July, Traci and I spent it in South Dakota. We drove up on Thursday night to hang out with some friends in Centerville, population 910. Jeremy and Melissa invited us to come up a day early and attend the Centerville street dance. I had never experienced a street dance up to that point in my life and if you have not, I recommend you find one.

Where is all happens

We drove down the main street of Centerville to Don and Vonda's house. Don and Vonda are my BFF Jeremy's parents. Like most of the people we hang out with in the Midwest, they had a cooler full of beer waiting for us. We sat around and drank for about an hour before I began to wonder if we were going to head to the street dance. Jeremy said that most people stay at home until about 11pm and then walk down, after having grown up beverages.

Jeremy, Melissa, Traci and Me

So after a few beers, we started walking towards downtown Centerville. The event is open to everyone (even Melissa and Jeremy's 5 year old daughter Reagen) and is an area of downtown with a temporary fence built around it. There was a band playing some 50s,60s and 70s music and the volunteer fire department was transformed into a bar, complete with very affordable beer. I have never seen so many Miller Lite beers consumed in my life. We spent the next few hours, drinking, talking to everyone (Jeremy knew just about everyone) and dancing when the songs were good. By the end of the night, the ground was sea of empty Miller Lite cans.

The walk downtown

No small town would be complete without the General Lee

Traci and her BFF

Anyone want to dance

Looks like Melissa and Traci want to dance

As last call was sounded, the band wrapped up their last song, we made our way back onto the city's main street. We still had one more event to participate in to make the night complete. We headed to the only remaining place open, a cafe, and paid $8 for an all you can eat breakfast. The breakfast consisted of eggs, biscuits and gravy, orange juice, bacon and sausage. Once we finished our hearty meal, we made our way back to the house and crashed out as we had to get up early to go to a 4th of July parade in the city of Lennox.

Rock on

Morning came way too fast and my head was still foggy from the night before. We had breakfast (again) and headed to a city that was just a little bigger than Centerville where we met up with Traci's sister and her two daughters. I was really looking forward to the parade. I attended the 100th year celebration in Baltic, Traci's home town, a couple of years ago and was completely impressed with all of the huge tractors and fire trucks. I was hoping to see some of the same at this parade. Unfortunately, the only thing we saw were some older (antique) tractors, fire trucks from all of the surrounding community's volunteer fire departments and all of the people running for office in South Dakota. This parade was really made for kids as almost everyone who went by tossed candy.

At the Lennox Parade
The famous horned quad - the highlight of the 4th of July ParadeThe family

Once the parade was over, we headed North to Baltic to spend some quality time on the farm. The farm is in the middle of no where and has the Sioux River running right through the middle of their land. The weather was perfect and we were the only people around for miles. Nikki, Traci's sister, invited about 20 people to come over to eat, drink and shoot off fireworks. We had a full day playing Cornhole, drinking and hanging out. As night fell, the kids were getting restless and wanted to get down to business... FIREWORKS. The kids got their wish and lit off all the cool kiddie fireworks. Smoke bombs, tanks, firecrackers and several other bangy-boomy fireworks. Once the smaller fireworks were done, a couple of the adults went into the middle of one of the fields and shot off about 50 minutes of mortars and misc fireworks that blew up in the air. It was great, seeing everything up close and having our own little pyrotechnics display.

I enjoyed the display from the comfort of a chair with a drink in hand. Once everything was done, Dave, Nikki's husband, rode around on his quad to look for fires and ensure that we were clear to continue partying. While he was riding around, one of Nikki's friends let me know that she still had a big box of fireworks that needed to be set off. Needless to say, the fireworks crew didn't want any part of it. So, Rich, Dave's brother, and I volunteered to run the show. Did I mention that I had been drinking most of the night and had flip flops on or that the field that we were firing off of had just been plowed and was all uneven and soft? Now that you have that in mind, picture this: Two grown men in flip flops running out to the mortar tubes with punks (used to light the fireworks) and racing to see who could get theirs lit first. Once the fireworks were lit, we raced to the safety of the grass about 50 feet away. Repeat this about 20 times and you have a clear picture of the fun we experienced! I was a sweaty dirty mess by the time it was all said and done.

Once the fireworks were done, we lit a bonfire and sat around until the sun came up. I am not sure my liver can handle another 4th of July like that, but I am willing to give it a try.

You gotta love South Dakota!

Hope you had a great 4th!!

Bill and Traci

PARTY! PARTY! PARTY!

Yeah, that's right, I said Party!! The weekend of June 27th Traci experienced a birthday milestone. She turned 30 and we celebrated until the wee hours of the morning. As most of you already know, it is next to impossible to keep a secret from Traci so I didn't even try to keep the fact that I was throwing her a party from her. The party was supposed to be a dual-30's party but her partner in aging was unable to make it down from Rapid City, South Dakota. We poured a beer in B.J.'s honor.

B.J and Traci "Brain Brothers"

I managed to keep one small secret from her. Her Dad and Debbie were coming down with her sister and she had NO CLUE. I almost blew the secret when I told Traci that Nikki was about an hour away from the house. Once I said that detective Traci went to work: Where did she call from, how did she call, she doesn't have a cell phone, Dave wouldn't let her use his phone, was there someone with her her, what was the number she called from... She went on and on. I finally mumbled something about she might have borrowed a phone and walked out of the room. I am not a very good liar and she would have seen it in my face. :-)

Nikki and Traci

I invited a whole slew of people from all walks of life... School mates, family, friends, people she likes to hang out, ect. Jamie, her K.C. B.F.F, came over early on Saturday to help me decorate the house and ensure that there were some girly touches. I kept busy setting up the Bocce Ball court in the backyard, picking up the keg, food and birthday cake. It all came together nicely as the birthday guests started arriving around 2pm.

Hanging out on the deck

Jamie and I running the Bocce Ball court (I think)

As the night progressed, people milled about, drank beer, ate food and played games. Traci received one of the most unique gifts that night from Tommy and Craig. It was a chicken that hopped around and did the chicken dance. The only way to stop if from hopping around was to grab it by its neck and once you did this it did the most incredible thing. It gagged and choked until you let it go. I knew it was time to shut down the party after we were sitting around choking the chicken at 2am on the back porch. If you are wondering, yes, the chicken was just as funny the next day.

Evidence that she aged

Evidence that she still needs to grow up

She huffed and puffed

YEAH!! Cough Medicine

The chicken before we knew about the neck thinggy. 5 p.m

2 a.m. shutting down the dancing chicken


In honor of the brain brother who could not make it (B.J.)

For those of you who were able to make it out for the birthday celebration, we are thankful for you coming out. For those of you who could not, there will be many more.

Thanks and may your birthday celebrations be as memorable... without all the chicken choking.

To view all photos from the party, you can go here: Traci's Birthday

Bill and Traci

A reception made in Paradise

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Traci and I went back to California to celebrate our marriage with my family. My sister Cindy, Brenda, and my mother spent the past year planning to ensure that our visit would be memorable. The original plan was to have the reception at one of the local Indian Casinos; however, after some consideration, everyone agreed that it would be more intimate if we kept the guest list to about 50 and held it in Cindy and Jack's backyard. Several people contributed in many ways to make our special day unforgettable. Before I write anymore, I want to give a special thanks to the following people: Cindy, Jack, Brenda, My Mother, Liz, Christine and Aunt Belen.

The Vega Family

The Oberg's

Grandma Rose made it out for the event

Cindy did a heck of a job of keeping the guest list at around 50 people and had spent the last year getting in touch with friends that I hadn't seen in years (some as many as 15), close friends of the family and most importantly our relatives. It was great re-uniting with everyone and introducing them to my new bride... Even though the wedding was almost a year ago, I still consider us in the honeymoon phase. :-)

High school buddy Mike

As most of you know, I grew up not knowing my father. As a matter of fact, before the reception, I had only met him twice. Once when I was about 13 (I remember very little) and the other time was when I returned from Desert Storm where Cindy, Jack and I went bowling with him and had dinner. Since our visit, I have spoken with him about a 1/2 dozen on the phone. Cindy made contact with him and encouraged him to come up and see us. He came up a day early and we were able to spend a little quality time getting to know each other. I learned that I have 4 brothers and 1 sister somewhere in the Bay Area and that he is a very hardworking man who spent time as a police officer, beautician (he said he did this to meet chicks.. he met my mom) and has spent the better part of his life running his own janitorial business, Mr. Clean.

Me and my dad John

Mom, Me, Traci and John

In case any of you were wondering where I learned how to be a smart ass... well, I can now tell you that the apple doesn't fall very far from the tree. He gave my mom the business his first night in town. :-)

On the day of the reception, Traci and I helped set up and readied ourselves for the exciting evening ahead. Everyone started arriving about 4pm and I had an incredible time getting re-acquainted and introducing Traci to all these special people. The night was perfect!! We had a catered BBQ dinner, Tiki lamps for ambiance, a keg of Dos XX and two beautiful cakes. Cindy had two cakes made, a carrot cake for me and a strawberry one for Traci.

Brenda testing the keg

Our cakes

Being very nice

The day following the reception, family members who had kids were invited back to and hang out with Traci and I and help eat the leftovers. We played some cards, opened gifts and lounged around trying to recover from the night before.

Jack cleaning up the last of the mess

We left Paradise a couple of days later with enough memories to last a life time!! Thanks to all who came and celebrated with us.

If you would like to see all of the photos, you can click on the link below:

http://picasaweb.google.com/traciandbill/ParadiseReception

Bill and Traci

Garden Update

I just wanted to throw up a few pictures of what the garden looks like now. The tomato plants are out of control. There are bunches of little green tomatoes on all of the plants and it is just a matter of time before they ripen and we can start to enjoy them.

The carrots

There is a cucumber in there if you look hard enough.

Our pride and joy :-)

It would appear that the rabbit got the better of the Peas and we will not have any this year. It might be worth it to plant them again next year to keep them from eating anything else.

Since we have already harvested all of the radish, we decided to plant a jalapeno plant and habenero.

Hope all is well with you.

Bill and Traci

I left my heart... in San Francisco

Traci and I have been planning a trip to California for about a year now. Since my family is huge and most members were unable to make the wedding in South Dakota, they did the next best thing and invited everyone to Paradise for a reception. Unfortunately, the only time that worked for everyone was about a year later. (I will write more about the reception later)

We left Kansas City on June 3rd headed for the West Coast. Our first day in San Francisco was supposed to start around 11am; however, due to fog, we did not get on the ground until about 2 that afternoon. A close friend of the family, Liz, offered to let us crash at her place and use her extra car. We are very appreciative for her helping us out.

Immediately after our plane landing, we started on our journey around the town that is known for its cable cars, buses, trolley's, boats rides, and heavy traffic. We quickly learned how to use BART and made our way to Liz's place in San Bruno.

Getting ready to board BART

So many places to go

We spent the first afternoon and night driving and walking around Fisherman's Wharf. For those of you who have never been there, it consists of restaurants, shops were you can buy trinkets, lots of boats and LOTS of interesting people to watch.

Fisherman's Wharf

The Golden Gate Bridge was screaming at us to come and check it out so we had no choice but to head that way. The fog had not yet burned off and the wind was howling as we made our way across this beautiful man-made creation. There were tons of people out that doing the same thing we were doing. We spent about an hour enjoying the views and then made our way back to Fisherman's Wharf to have dinner at Joe's Crab Shack.

Walking across the Golden Gate

The Golden Gate in the fog

Traci is a pretty good planner and had purchased tickets months ago for a tour of Alcatraz. So the next morning we woke up and made our way to Pier 33. Liz offered to drive us as she has years of city driving experience and would be able to get us downtown in the quickest manner. Mario Andriette has nothing on Liz in the city. She knew every shortcut imaginable and was bobbing and weaving through the stopped cars. We arrived at the pier in time to make our boat and in one piece.

We spent the next 4 hours or so walking around the tiny island of Alcatraz. It used to be a prison back in the day, a one time Native American Cultural Center and now it is a tourist attraction. I am sure many of you have seen the prison in film: "The Rock" or "Escape from Alcatraz". If you have not been there, I highly recommend setting some time aside and making the trip.

Alcatraz "The Rock"

The Main Entrance

Once we were back on the mainland, we made our way to some of the local beaches and cruised through a few of the local parks. Castro is a part of town that we had on our "to-do" list. There is not much to do here but walk around, check out the people and stare into some of the local shop windows. The Castro district has a high concentrate of gay people living, working and shopping and has been considered a gay district since the late 70's. Since we weren't there to eat or shop, we snapped some pictures walked up and down the road and then moved on to the next item on our list.

San Francisco's Castro District

If you ever want to get a great picture of the city and its surrounding area, I would recommend driving up to the top of Twin Peaks and checking out the view. The view is breathtaking and the only thing you can hear is the wind blowing.

The view from Twin Peaks

After making our way around both hilltops, we made our way to an area that was made famous by the 60s, drugs and the free spirit of those who frequented the area. We spent about an hour and a half walking the streets of Haight-Ashbury. This is a cross street that houses several head shops, smoking lounges and more interesting people wandering the streets.

The corner were it all happens

On our final morning, we headed to ChinaTown to see what it had to offer. If you are into LOTS of people milling about, fresh fruit, fresh poultry and digging through jade jewelry, then this is a place that you must visit. Everywhere on our trip, we had to pay something for parking. In most place we could park and pay 25 cents for 15 minutes or 2 hours of free parking. I think I emptied out all the change in my pocket to park for 45 minutes. The going rate of the meter that we parked at was 25 cents for 6 minutes. If you want to make some money, I would recommend going into the business of ripping of parking meters. You could probably retire after grabbing one or two of them.

China Town

Our San Francisco trip was incredible and we did so much. I could go on writing about some of the other things we experiences, but will save it. :-) You can view all of our pictures here: http://picasaweb.google.com/traciandbill

I will do my best to write about our experiences at our California reception in Paradise. It was perfect!!

Take care,

Bill and Traci