Hey (hey). If you happen to see the most beautiful girl in the world. . . tell her I love her, and. . .

. . . that I'm very glad she's coming home from her sisters wedding tomorrow but she shouldn't expect the WHOLE house to have been cleaned while she was gone because I was, after all, trying to keep the twins mostly alive & fed but also a little bit entertained & educated.

Yep, AK's been gone for the past week, helping her little sister get hitched in California. I've been tending to the twins while she and Max are away, and while we have had the usual glut of video entertainment and frozen foods, it has not been a memorable Dude-a-Palooza. A little heavy on the dudes and light on the Palooza this time, since I really did have to get painting done and whip the house into shape so we could start some of our Active Summer routines.

Highlights include Saturday, when I not only took my 4-year-olds to the RC racetrack for a day of racing but also helped my younger-kids-having Team Lux driver friend tend to his kids so he could race too. That took one full day of preparation (which was smartly planned out) and one full day of recovery (complete surprise, put us a full day behind on the to-do list). The twins loved the social atmosphere at the track and quickly latched on to any and every pretty lady who would indulge them at the track. Attendance was light for a race, but almost everyone who was there was there with their wives/kids. One gal in particular was a real lifesaver, since she primarily occupied the twins (who I know I could take to the races again now, not as high-maintenance as I'd thought) while I tried to occupy my friend's younger kids (too young, never again). Mrs. Lifesaver loved those boys up good, and as I was packing to go buttered me up as well about how wonderful they are. I tried REEEEEALLY hard not to let her see me puff my chest out, then she explained she'd been a preschool teacher for years and believes that happy kids are because of happy parents. Had to REEEEEEAAAAALLLLLY try not to hug her and cry and thank her because after a day like that, with a lot of trials & errors, I SO needed someone with a perspective like that. OK it was easy to not hug her since I'd never met her before and she had pretty clothes on and I was all sweaty and dirty and I think I had my friend's 3-year-old's drool all over my shoulder from when he fell asleep on me.

I did manage to get the kitchen, bedroom, bathrooms, hallway & workshop cleaned up before tomorrow's big homecoming. I've kept up on the laundry, and while I didn't get/build the gazebo we'd shopped for & decided on (apparently there was a gazebo run on the Targets around here the last two days), I did get the deck cleared of crap & cleaned with the pressure washer. I hope to get the workout room cleaned tomorrow morning, then we can all get back to working our tails off and ignoring the state of the house as usual :). Kidding, we don't ignore it. But it does often limp along in survival mode.

Netflix Report It has been too long since last I blogged, and I've many critiques to pass on. I'll have to get to that later, since I already did it a few days ago on the old blog. Then the old blog ate the post.

I can't say I'll miss the old blog, though the design was nice with it's rotating banners & images. It was in WordPress which I guess is much more susceptible to SPAM. I spent a lot of time killing SPAM on that blog, and whatever server it lived on was livin' on the edge so I re-typed many an entry as well. The BARKING redesign you see before you is a Fathers Day gift from my wife. I hope to keep the sidebar updated with the latest and greatest in the lives of my wife and the puppies, and I'll figure out how to do the links as soon as AK gets home to show me. She gets props for the classic songs sidebar titles idea, that was her idea on her blog first.

Speaking of AK. . . HOLY SHNIZZLE did you see that hot photo from the wedding? Wowzers I'm a lucky shmo. Here is one of her and mi pequeno Fernando. . . .


I was told by all that he was very much the little gentleman at the wedding and I am SOOOO proud of him. AK assures me he was bored out of his mind on several occasions but mostly managed to keep his manners about him. Again, I'm a lucky mikky fikkin shmo.

I wish I could start off this new blog with a bang, but it's been a long week and I feel like soggy toast right now. I was really only motivated to post because I had to share that stunning photo of my stunning-yet-sadly-unphotogenic soulmate. I promise I'll be more charming, or snarky, or downright incendiary and off-putting next time. . .