The Most Inexpensive Halloween Costumes Yet!

The boys have a Friday the 13th vibe with a Mexican twist going on with these home made costumes! They love to eat tortillas straight from the package. They munch on them straight out of the fridge. Occasionally Grif will ask for "ketchup on a plate" to go with them.

Yesterday they got creative and folded the tortilla over before biting them. Makes for pretty good savings on Halloween costumes. ;)

I Saw the Sign

This is an assortment of signs we saw on our road trip that I found interesting or humorous for one reason or another. My sense of humor can be a little, well, different at times. If you don't find any of these signs funny the blame lies entirely with me! lol

You have to enlarge the cow to see the enhancement someone added to the sign. Keep in mind that this was near Area 51. ;)


The "New Menagement" does not appear to have done so well. Even with the Lo Low rates.



Anyone else see a problem with this sign?


You have to guess what is at this exit. It's the road trip version of a grab bag. ;) Actually I figured out later that the question sign simply means that you can get information there. Everyone else probably already knew that!





I never realized they were so close!

Corvettes for St. Jude - A Feel Good Post

One of the administrators on my Corvette site has spearheaded a fund raiser several years in a row for a research hospital that treats sick children. St. Jude Children's Research Hospital is internationally recognized for its pioneering work in finding cures and saving children with cancer and other catastrophic diseases.

Jesse convinced me to make this our official charity and then proceeded to do an amazing job getting the site members and vendors behind the effort. Individuals make cash contributions while vendors donate products for auction. This year Jesse lead the effort to give the biggest check yet to St. Jude. He also organized a large group of Corvette owners to road trip to Memphis to deliver the check. The children like getting to sit in the cars more than getting the check!

You can make your own donation to this great research hospital here.

Click the pic to see a local newscast about it.

Mandatory Driver I.Q. Testing

I have come to believe that an I.Q. test of some sort should be part of all driver testing. The guy in these pictures is quite simply too stupid to be on the road.

As we were nearing home on I-75 in Florida we noticed that traffic was slowed down due to a state trooper driving in the right hand lane at the speed limit. I was surprised to see a Lexus sport utility drive right by him at about 10mph over the speed limit. I was not surprised to see the trooper pull in behind him. I assumed that he was running the plate before pulling him over.

In this case the Lexus driver got lucky. A caravan of three cars whose drivers were either more stupid or more unaware than the driver of the Lexus pulled up behind the trooper with the lead car about one foot off of the trooper's rear bumper! He would back off a few feet and then approach again. He started to change lanes to go around the officer but couldn't quite fit in front of the car in the middle lane.

The trooper flashed his lights but the driver still didn't seem to get a clue and continued to tail-gate him! At this point I guess the officer decided to get the guy behind him instead and let the Lexus go. The officer pulled into the middle lane and the tailgating car went right past him! Over the speed limit!

The trooper pulled in about one inch off of his bumper and pulled him over. The two braniacs who were following the guy guy getting the ticket pulled over right behind the trooper! I wish that I could have pulled over as well to see the exchange between them.

I Am Getting a Woody!

I decided to buy myself a present for my birthday this year! I have had my eye on a few different Chris Craft speedboats and finally decided to get one. I chose the Speedster model because it is basically a little sportscar for the water. It is very well built, fast and fun to drive yet it doesn't burn a lot of gasoline. It is the kind of boat you just jump in and go when you feel like it.

The particular one I am getting is the Speedster Woody limited edition. Only 99 of this type are going to be built. It is a beautiful little boat that has plenty of teak trim and flooring. It will do close to 60mph.

It should be delivered on Wednesday or Thursday of this week! Woo Hoo!

Seven Sons

I've always been the kind of person who doesn't have a lot of friends but rather just a few really good ones. Unfortunately none of my good friends live anywhere near me! On this road trip I was able to visit with all of them.

When we left Jellystone we headed to Denver to see Tori (Vittorio) and Gail. Tori and I met in Denver when we were both valet parkers for The Brown Palace hotel. The job entailed long periods of sitting and waiting for a rush of people needing their cars when a party let out or some event or other ended. Tori and I would sit for hours on end discussing life, philosophy, politics and the pretty girls walking by (just kidding Lisa). ;) We also used to hang around with a guy named Roland Riley. Whenever we went to one of Roland's favorite bars after work you were usually searched for weapons. I have no idea what Roland is up to now but I hope he was able to start his own nightclub as he planned.

Tori married a girl that we met who worked in a club we would visit on occasion. She didn't like us at first because she thought we were talking about her. Well, we were! But only because Tori wanted to ask her out. He finally did and now they are married with three fine young boys.

Tori and I were roomates for a year or so. There are two things that stand out in my memory from that time. First, there were many times when I would end up chatting with someone on the phone who had asked to speak to Tori but said it rather quickly so that I thought they said Troy. :D The other thing I remember is Tori offering me some of his pasta dinner on many occasions where I didn't have the money to eat anything other than peanut butter sandwiches (sometimes I couldn't even afford the peanut butter!).

We stayed in Denver for two nights. The boys all had a fun time hanging out and playing sports in the street with Tori and Gail's boys. We all went out for ice cream one evening. We did all of our laundry and cleaned the Jellystone dirt off of Wyatt and Griffin.

I still find it hard to believe that we have seven sons in total.

Jellystone!

I still cannot help but prefer to call Yellowstone by the Yogi Bear version, Jellystone. I must have been at least 16 by the time I realized that the national park was not actually called Jellystone! Whatever you call it the boys and I had a great time camping out. This was the first time that they spent the night in a tent. We did the traditional campout with a campfire, toasted marshmallows, s'mores, scary stories (love the pic of Griffin telling his!), and slept in sleeping bags.

Actually, I should say we slept in A sleeping bag! The scary stories had the boys too freaked out to sleep in their own bags. Wyatt kept seeing the shadows of the trees on the tent and thinking of the story I told about the Living Trees. EEK! Guess I did too good of a job on telling that one. I ended up zipping all three bags together to create one strangely shaped and somewhat uncomfortable cone shaped thingy that we all climbed into. The boys, being completely hyped up on toasted marshmallows, s'mores and a new experience, rolled and kicked all night long! LOL Still, it was a lot of fun.

We took a walk through many geysers and also had lunch at the absolutely amazing Old Faithful Lodge. We will definietly do the camping again on the next road trip.

The Wedding

Finally we get to the reason for our trip to Seattle, my long time close friend's wedding. Tom and I have been the best of friends since our sophomore year of high school.  I won't go over my entire best man's speech again here in the blog. Suffice it to say that when we met Tom was an enormous help in getting me settled in to a new school that had as many kids in it as my entire former town. He helped me out of trouble when I got into it and got me into trouble when it was worth it! Even though we have both lived in different parts of the country for most of our lives we still keep in touch regularly and stay the best of friends.

Tom never settled for good enough and waited for the right woman to come along before getting married. This was a fun wedding to attend. Interesting people, delicious food and a good time for all. Congrats to Tom and Connie!

Now This is a Rockwall!

Those of you that have followed Kid Tipping from the start know that I put a rockwall in the boy's bedroom/playroom. It is 16 feet wide but only eight feet tall. The boys love it. They fancy themselves to be quite the adept little climbers.

While in Seattle we stopped by one of the largest and coolest recreational and sports equipment stores to be found anywhere, REI. One of the features is a large rock climbing structure. Wyatt was just tall enough to qualify for a climb and approached it with surprisingly little fear. He got a little scared at the top of his climb but made himself go the few final feet to ring the bell.

While there we also picked up a tent and some sleeping bags to campout on the way home.

Seattle & The Wooden Boat Festival

The first night in the Seattle area we stayed in a cute little beach cottage on Bainbridge Island. We had a good solid night's sleep in the comfortable bed before heading up to Port Townsend for The Wooden Boat Festival.

The boys did a good job of not complaining too much as their dad admired all of the wooden boats and plotted ways to convince Lisa to move to Port Townsend. They did enjoy the pirate play put on by a local theatre troup (especially the part about the Chinese water rat - but that's another story). They also enjoyed building their own minature wooden boats at a tent set up for junior boat builders. We were joined by my good freinds Ryan and Yuko on the second day.

On day two I ordered the supplies to build a wooden kayak that I've had my eye on for some time. They say it takes about 80 hours to build it. I figure 160. ;)

We stayed a few nights in a home that had a large yard and several fruit trees. I really enjoyed watching the boys run around and eat fresh fruit off of trees.

We also spent one night in a luxurious hotel with a view you would think was lifted straight from a painting. The boys enjoyed running around the little park by a large totem pole and playing with action figures by the water. They each posed for a picture in front of the pole while trying to imitate the eagle carved into it! lol