Here’s me and Angel at her mom’s house.

This is Angel’s mom Connie giving Riley a reverse facelift.

This is Uncle Matt teaching Riley to hunt.

This is Lilly trying to sleep standing up in the car.

This is Molly trying to sleep while high-fiving in the car.

Here is Lilly guarding her while she sleeps.

In our home we have always sought to create a safe haven for video game addiction. To show our commitment to such lofty ideals we encouraged Riley to be Mario for Halloween. A boy after his dad’s own heart.

Smudge is a farm cat/rat/Wookiee that had basically been abandoned by its mother. Apparently she was also unable to determine its species. So we (Angel) decided that we would take it in and do our part to save its life. Then possibly someday return it to its planet of origin.

Presenting Smudge.

We had a great time. My cousin Marc was the organizer for the whole thing and he really did a great job. I usually only get to see Marc once or twice a year so it was nice to hang out for a bit and catch up.

My performance was serviceable at best. I hadn’t played a live show in a few years so I was a bit on the rusty side but Angel said I sounded great so I’ll take her word for it, even though she says that every time I play whether I actually sound great or not.

Angel took a bunch of really nice pictures throughout the day. The best ones were taken out the car window at 65 mph. Some were taken out the passenger window and some were taken out the driver’s side window while leaning over me and blocking my view of the road.

Here are the pictures that were taken from the moving car.

Obviously the next two were not taken from a moving car.

Here’s one from the performance.

This last one was taken that night after we got home. Now that Riley has a loft bed Lilly doesn’t get to sleep with him any more, at least until she learns to climb a ladder. So we let her and Riley fall asleep in our room until Angel and I were ready for bed. Angel came upstairs to check on them and here’s what she found.

My mom took us all to The Muny to see Godspell last night. It was really good. It had a rather messed up view of the biblical stories it was portraying but other than that it was rather entertaining.

Here’s a picture my mom took of Riley right outside The Muny.

Angel in her brand new glasses.

The totals.

I am particularly interested in this last picture because I never knew that I had lips on the back of my head.

Notice anything strange about our tree? Like, how it’s half gone?

I got up this morning and let Lilly out to do her business while I was getting ready for work. Well, apparently Lilly’s business is now the tree trimming business. When I went to let her inside I noticed that she had been kind enough to do a little pruning of the new tree.

So we went to Wal Mart tonight and bought this little decorative fence to keep her out. How is a tiny little fence going to deter a giant dog? you ask. Here’s how. Before we installed the fence Angel suggested we use a technique she learned when she was an interrogator for the CIA. We all chased Lilly around the yard with pieces of the fence banging them together and scaring Lilly within an inch of her tree-trimming life. After she was convinced that the fence was thoroughly set on her demise we put the fence in. Dog traumatized. Problem solved.

You may consider asking if your local grocer offers any financing or same-as-cash deals before you pick up too many of these suckers because they are pricey to say the least. Thus the apple tree.

In only five to seven more years we’ll be able to remove the Honey Crip apple line from our monthly budget because we’ll be churning out these puppies for free. Jealous?

If you squint really hard you can find the tree in this next picture. It’s about two pixels wide.

See it? Well look again. Now do you see it?

You might notice that Lilly is eyeballing the thing trying to figure out a way to grab it and make her escape without Angel raking her to death.

When I was dumping the camera tonight it was obvious that Riley had gotten his hands on it because there were about 74 pictures of completely random objects around our house. Here is one that I liked.

This is such a great picture of Lilly’s eye boogers and runny nose that I just had to share.

I was having some trouble with this one particularly simple guitar part and Jacob said “Just imagine you’re in your basement at home. The only difference is that I’m pushing the record button.” I said “Yeah, but at home I do everything 200 times.”

Over the span of three songs I used five different guitars. Because I can, that’s why!

1) My G&L Strat

2) My Tacoma acoustic

3) My uncle Keith’s Country Gentleman

4) Jacob’s Gretsch Tennessean

5) Jacob’s Epiphone Les Paul

Caution! Name-droppings ahead.

I used Scott Bryan‘s old Fender Concert Amp for most of the electric guitars. It was pretty cool to take it out of the road case that says “Sheryl Crow Band” on the front of it. Scott played in Sheryl’s band for years and he’ll be playing various instruments and singing on my record as soon as we’re to the point that we’re ready for him. I’m definitely looking forward to that.

If anyone would like to donate the money needed for finishing the rest of the album I’ll name it after you. I’m serious – except for the naming it after you part.

Yesterday afternoon Riley and I went to the ballgame to test our bodies’ resilience against the cold and the rain. We didn’t hold up so well. When we walked out of the house the weather was nice and tolerable so we dressed accordingly. By the third inning Riley was saying “Maybe we should go home. I want to be warm with mommy.”

This picture was taken just before the hypothermia set in.

Here is what our furniture looked like a few years ago before the urine and drool.

It doesn’t look like that any more.

We had to resort to buying some slip covers for three of the four pieces and they look pretty nice in a relaxed-fit sort of way. 

Here are some pictures of the process.

The stripes were Angel’s idea and she did all of the hard work. I think they turned out great.

Here’s the awesome Country Gentleman I was talking about.

I’m glad we’re done. Now we can get back to letting the dog tear up all the new stuff.