Entries Tagged 'Journal' ↓

Here’s a short podcast on the latest from ’round here.

The church bells rang out at 10 this morning at St. Ann’s Catholic School.  Julia, John and I are at our new park (Jose Marti Park) on the Intracoastal, which is adjacent to St. Ann’s. We’re moved from Welly World, we’re far from unpacked but today feels like it could be a regular day and that feels like a good thing.

Today, we’ll watch The Open on TNT, we’ll unpack a skosh and we’ll whip up a killah web site for Rob’s hurricane window business. At least, I’ll move it along to the next level. The winds are up today at the Beach and the prevailing wind is uncharacteristically cool. Sitting outside without benefit of a shade tree at this time of year is akin to suicide but today it’s NOT. It’s lovely.

Mum and Neil have shuffled off to Copenhagen and left behind them a wake of Muesli and Tea. The house is different without them of course and we will miss them both. It was a nice visit and I’m so glad that all my kids and Shannon got a chance to be around them and vice versa. I’ll upload some pics from the visit shortly but for now time is too short for photo editing and the like. What are some of the highlights? Watching the Space Shuttle launch from Cape Canaveral on July 4th as we cooked hot dogs on the bar-b-q. That one we’re sure to remember.

Mum and Neil are visiting right now from Australia and we had a great time over the last week watching The Long Way Round. It was one of those communal experiences where we’d all gather around the TV and sit watch, and talk with each other about the fascinating events as they unfolded. Who said TV couldn’t be interactive!  I guess it depends on how good the content is and what you put into it.  It was the second time watching the series for Shannon and I but it was no less interesting. It was great to watch and see the reactions of Max and Charlie and Mum and Neil.  Max was very keen on it and he said that it was hard to wait for each evening when we would gather around the tube. He wanted to skip ahead when we were all asleep and watch the whole thing, being the nocturnal teenager (15) that he is, but he knew it would be better if he waited and watched it with everyone else. It’s just one of those nice memories that I know I’ll look back on fondly from this visit.  Our time together is growing shorter now and I can feel that unfortunately the visit will come to an end soon. There is never enough time with these long distance visits to pack in enough ‘visiting’ and this one is particularly short since we’re so busy getting ready to move.

my birthday…I had a fantastic time with Shannon and the kids. I got stuck into writing a fun article on our blog that Shannon edited for me later on while I was at work. After some trepidation on the topic I took off and pecked out a good post in short order.  From there we managed to get out of the house and go down to Okeeheelee Park for a little adventure.

We rented a canoe, threw John and Julia in the middle and paddled all over the place for an hour. Julia was a little uncertain about the boat but she didn’t complain. John was right into it after just a couple of minutes. He called the buoy’s what sounded like bootie, which gave us quite the chuckle.  After that we were inspired to make an impromptu run down to the Publix to get some supplies for a quick Bar-b-q. We got back to the park and grilled up some chicken and burgers and downed a couple of Peroni’s – much to our delight. The kids had a blast feeding the seagulls and we all felt so glad to have spent such a nice time together.  Today was the kind of day you fantasize about all the time when the mood is high, the company is great, the sun is warm and your belly full. Cheers!

Five years ago I met Shannon Marie Seery. Life since that time has been adventure, risk, reward, failure and never ending love. Despite how hard it has been to have step families and move across the country (for both of us) I do believe we’ve all done our very best and have been so very fortunate despite the setbacks.

We celebrated on Tuesday the 17th of January by going to Gaucho Rodizio in Lighthouse Point that Jenna got us a gift certificate too. We didn’t notice the infinity like shape in their logo until we arrived. It was a Brazilian steakhouse – the kind where they bring around spits of meat and they slice a piece off at your table. You have a disc on your table that you turn to green for more service and flip over to red when you need to take a break. We had such a nice time sharing our meal together and talking about the last five years. We spoke of our gains and losses but it was all fondness and love that we felt. We have come through the other side – we have worked for it but we knew it was worth it. We have two beautiful children, a business that I believe is set to take off this year and most importantly our health and happiness and love.

I would love to see us spend some time like we did towards the beginning of our relationship where we spent more time in hotels, bars, hanging out and otherwise ignoring the world. That was good – very good and I believe, repeatable.I love you Shannon. I know this little comment isn’t reflective of the depth of feelings I have for you, but it is a testament none the less.

We were so happy to see our check come up 8′s and 13′s when we finished our wonderful meal. The time on the ticker read 8:08PM and the total was $113.58!.

You are a beautiful, intelligent and kind hearted women with an amazing ability to make me feel more happiness than I have ever felt before. You are a great drunk, you’re great sober, you’re great mad and happy and excited, you taught me to love roller coasters and to let the house be dirty in favor of experiencing people and places. You are grounded but don’t lack the ability to dream and despite that you are no where near as crazy as I am you never judge me harshly for it. Thanks for an amazing five years and I do pray that there will be so many more adventures of Shannon and Julian, side by side, riding off in to the sunset with kids in tow, roadies in the console, our sticks in the back of the truck and the warm sun whipping the hair around our panoramic grins.