Jokester

Well it's that time of year...not tax time, but April Fools!  I love this time of year, especially now that I have kids to prank.  I know I have Sarah to do that to, but I love getting the kids for some reason.  I've always been a self proclaimed amazingly funny dude, but something inside of me comes out on 4/1.  And that something happens to get all giddy for weeks leading up to it.

I have already done a few little pranks tonight to the girls.  Hopefully what I have in store for tomorrow works out well.  You never know how it will play out.  There's only so much I can do with my oldest being 7.  I guess all I have to do is pretend to fall or stub my toe and they get a kick out of it.  But having something (soft) fly at their heads when they open a door or scaring them when they walk into a room is just so much better.

Look for videos soon of what takes place.

Joking Daddy

Closer

We had a few goals that we set when we moved out East.  The first was to cut down our debt to help increase our chances of getting a loan for the house that we want.  The other was to find the house that we want.  Well Sarah has been hard at work finding that house.  We are actually going to look at some more on Saturday.

I on the other hand have been tasked with cutting down the debt.  With Sarah's help from working and my side businesses we have managed to get to where we need to be to get the house.  We are so much closer than I thought we would be.  It's still a long-short road ahead, but there seems to be a light at the end of the tunnel.  Soon enough we will be in a "home" again.

Now I just have to finish the taxes...ugh.

Getting Closer,

Wade

Recovering

I learned on Friday that my oldest daughter loves to dance and is MUCH better than her "Elaine from Seinfeld" days of dancing. I had a BLAST! And so did she. We had appetizers between dancing, we had dinner between dancing and skipped dessert because we were dancing. I think she stopped dancing only for 15 minutes total the whole 3 hours we were there.

Here's a short video of her rocking out.

I recovered by hanging out at home on Saturday and played the Wii with the girls while Sarah worked at the Salem Boys and Girls Club Charity Auction dinner. Sunday was spent playing football in the AM and visiting Sarah's Aunt and Uncle's new puppy (for the girls of course) in the afternoon. Then we went for a drive up North to look at a few houses. I found one I loved, but need to check out the inside to see if it would work for us. Had a surprise visit with some friends who lived near the house and the girls loved playing with them.

Very fun weekend. I don't want weekends to end. EVER.

Dancing

I love to just let loose and dance. I love my daughters. The only thing better than that is when they are combined. Tonight I get to experience that.

Tonight is my first ever Daddy\Daughter Dance with my oldest daughter. (Pics to be up afterwards) My daughter already told me that she is ready to be embarrassed. I won't purposly embarrass her, but I love being goofy and I know she loves it too. Her dancing can sometimes be similar to Elaine's on Seinfeld, but that will NOT keep me from encouraging her to do it.

I can't wait to see her all dressed up, for me to get dressed up and to dance the night away. I wish I could have gone all out and gotten a limo, but I'll save that for something even bigger.

Now to go finish up some work so I can get out of hear and get ready!

Happy Dancing Daddy

Time

I think it's time I mixed things up again and start blogging on a personal level again. I have too much I want to say about life and encouraging people.

Be on the lookout for more soon!

Camping

We just got back from camping for the weekend up at Show Low Lake campground. It was a lot of fun. The last time all of us went camping it was up near Jerome, AZ and that was just like camping in the desert with tons of dust and not much shade. It was great, but we had to keep an eye on the kids every step they took, so they didn't fall into a cactus (we popped one of the kids balls playing with it when it hit a cactus).

This time we had a lot of large trees around us which gave us the shade we wanted and provided a lot of kindling for the fire. The kids (and us) still got dirty, but it wasn't bad like the dust before. Our new puppy had a blast being outside all weekend. That's hard to do at home in 110 degree weather.

We had a chance to go down to the lake for some fishing, letting the pup get wet going into the water and the kids had a blast throwing rocks into the lake. Unfortunately our middle girl, Jolie, got sick on the ride up there and had a fever Saturday night. But she's a trooper and went along with it as best as she could.

We had the traditional smores dessert after a nice chicken-ka-bob and corn dinner. Sedona and Verity had fun eating those yummy treats while Jolie went to bed early. As expected, the kids all slept terrific, even the dog, in the tent. It was beautiful at night and only got to around 80 somthing during the day.

Great times had by all to finish off the summer.

Sedona starts school next Monday, so it was nice for everyone to get out and just be rather than cooped up in the house. It's nice to be back home and have showered and bathed the girls, but it sure would be nice to travel like that whenever we want. Hopefully we'll get a camper by the next time we go to make it even easier with the kids.

Till next time,

Wade

Busy, busy, busy...

Well, as I figured would happen, I never finished my vacation blog from the last vacation. Here's how it finished...it was amazing! I definitely want a house on the beach someday.

It's been almost 2 months since then and I've been very busy working on a bunch of entrepreneurial ventures. There is a long list of things I've been working on. Sarah jokes that it's about 17 different things and she's probably right. I'm doing all this including my day job as a SQL DBA. It's tasking at times, but I know it'll benefit us a lot down the line. Here are just a few things I've been working on

1) I've been working as an affiliate for Infusionsoft getting the word out about their awesome products. This has been a ton of fun because I've had a passion for helping small businesses and entrepreneurs for a while now. :




2) I've been working as an Independent Contractor for Market America helping people learn how to save money shopping online and how to make money doing it. This has been great because of the great system they have in place

Market America

3) Working on a web application to help generate leads through social networking to help small businesses and entrepreneurs.

4) I've been helping to promote a Spiral Friends (my friends company) new application that will help companies track and report on issues and customers. Great product!

SpiralTrac

5) I've met with a new "social network" friend to possibly do some training videos on how to reall y use social netowrking and media for small businesses.

6) I've been helping about 4-5 friends in developing and starting their businesses. This has been fun.

Too many other ones to write about too, but I will hopefully update more as I get more updates on them to make public.

Have a good one,

Wade

Hang 10

Well, a lot has been ton in the last few days. We left Charlotte Friday to drive half way to Carolina Beach. Near the half way point the girls were being so goo that we canceled our reservation in some town that started with an L and drove all the way to the beach.

Along our drive it became apparent that North Carolina loved one thing...and that one thing was Bojangles. They are on every corner it seems. Sarah and I have now coined the phrase "Holy Bojangles". You are to use it when anything awesome happens or when you get frightened. We have also noticed that businesses in NC that only sell one product are doomed. The "Carpet Store" and "Wallpaper Store" were both out of business, but others like "Carpet AND Rugs" were still thriving...just goes to show how great diversification really is.

Anyways, our drive down was pretty uneventful. Verity slept most of the way and the other 2 should have. They took small naps, but not enough to get actual rest, so they resorted to fighting over the arm rest. That all stopped when I punched them in the necks of their necks. (J/K - I only threatened)

As we neared Carolina Beach the girls were getting excited and just FREAKED when they finally saw the beach. We pulled up to the Marriot to see if they had room at the Inn...they did and it was expensive, but I didn't care because our view was amazing and the girls loved it. We were only staying for a night anyways while we waited for our condo the next day.

So after a quick unloading of items, we went out for some late night ice cream to thank the girls for traveling so well. We danced a little at the country band and then headed back in for the night. Before falling asleep a storm started rolling in on the ocean. We sat out on the patio and let the drizzle hit our feet as we counted the seconds between lightning and thunder...the things that make our children happy. That storm was so beautiful and relaxing...I almost fell asleep in the slider doorway with the wind hitting my face and the sounds of the stormy ocean...oh man that was awesome.

We woke up Saturday morning and while I ran to Target Sarah got the girls ready. We checked out and went to Kate's, which was a cute (Verity calls it "tchoot") little restaurant. The 5 of us crammed into a booth and waited for our food. Sedona took pictures with our camera, Jolie crushed her styrofoam cup of milk while drinking and it all poured out onto her lap, and Verity did magic tricks. It was eventful to say the least. (I probably would have said more had I not said the least...man that saying is dumb...forget I even used it)

After breakfast we walked around window shopping at the stores and then jumped in the car. we drove further south down the coast and it was just amazing. Sarah and I have made it a life goal to own a place on the beach. We had made that promise before, but on Saturday the 6th of June, we bumped knuckles on it...making it officially official. The smells, the atmosphere, the fun...it's all just so relaxing. We drove past the sign that said "road ends 500 feet" and turned around. I wasn't in the mood to take the ferry to the mainland, this island was good enough for me. I'm sure we'll be traveling down there more as the week goes on because there is the Fort, aquarium and fun places for the kids to play. More on those when we hit them up.

On the way back from the end of the island, we decided to see if we could check into our condo early. Jackpot!!! WE WERE!!! Yeah, finally got into the condo and feel like we're settled now. The older girls LOVE their bunk beds and we all love opening the double slider and just hanging out on the deck (where I am now) watching the waves crash on shore and the pelicans fly overhead.

My sister and her family arrived (drove down from Chicago) at their condo a few doors down shortly after we did and met up for the first time in a very long time. We've never seen their youngest until today (he's 2) and they haven't all seen our youngest. Fun times seeing everyone and getting to know little Griffin.

We all went to "Big Daddy's" for an early dinner...that was a bit eventful because of the 5 kids being exhausted from traveling so much. At least we're settled into 1 place now and they can all get on a "schedule"..if there is such a thing during vacations. Then it was on to the BEACH!!!!!!!

The girls couldn't nap it was so late in the day that the next best thing to having quite kids was having kids that were ecstatic! The beach has a funny way of making that happen. We went the 100 ft to the beach armed with our buckets, shovels and swimsuits. We started off just digging around and Sedona trying to find shells. Then everyone fell into doing what their personalities have always told us.

- Jolie was startled by the big waves and cried a little. So then she just stuck to digging by herself and filling her bucket many times over...all with her tongue sticking out like Michael Jordan going in for a dunk. She's our little artist.

- Verity started digging and throwing some sand, which was expected and then she realized the danger and awesomeness of the waves. She wanted to be in it, so Sarah held onto her and let the undertow pull her legs out from under her about 500 times. She was turning blue from the excitement and cold. If we didn't hold her she would have run out and tried to dive in with the waves.

- Sedona, like the others, started digging and then remembered how much fun she had a few years ago running from the waves. The both of us would run out to the edge of the water and then run as the waves crashed in. That turned into me going out into the waves and attempting to body surf. I would pretend to need help getting back to shore and Sedona would run out to get me and try her hardest to save me and pull me to shore.

We had so much fun!!! We were all covered with sand...trust me, "covered" doesn't explain the places we had to shower the sand free.

We were going to go grab ice cream again after getting cleaned up, but my sister's kids were about to crash and they needed the rest. Verity passed out in her pack-n-play, so I ran out and grabbed some vanilla ice cream and chocolate syrup. Of course, Verity woke up for that and then she was awake for a bit. So, we decided to all run out for a much needed grocery store run. That made Sarah happy because now we had everything we needed for the week.

Here we are eating breakfast and gearing up for another fun day...what does it hold? Who knows, but we know it will be fun.

Till next time,

Wade and the fam

Vacation Fun

Well I haven't updated this since I set it up, but thought right now would be a good time to start.

We had a full day of traveling yesterday. Two planes and over 4 hours of flight time. We have 3 little girls that make us want to ALWAYS travel. Sedona was a great help by keeping quite and playing nice. Jolie was ecstatic to be on a plane and had the row behind her cracking up because of her excitement to take off. Verity kept quiet for the most part and slept the whole 2nd flight.

We got to the hotel about 9 PM local time (6 for us) and then headed out to Chili's for some dinner at 10 PM. The girls ate like they have been starved for days, which is understandable after all day of just snacks on the plane (yes, I said snacks, not snakes). :)

We finally cuddled up in our beds and went to bed a little after midnight. We all slept in past 10 AM and missed the free hot breakfast at the hotel. Sarah was able to use her sheer beauty and score us some cereal packets to hold everyone over for a bit.

Today was a relaxing day and we made a trip to Target to pick up some essentials for the beach in a few days. We then went to a great little old town street with tons of stores and had pizza at Brixx Wood Fire Pizza.

Then me and the girls took naps while Sarah went and worked out for a bit. Now we're getting read to head out to a BBQ with some friends.

Some pics from today: NC Pics

Till next time,

Wade and the fam

First post

This is my first official blog post. I chose to use the lame title above out of being completely uncreative. Have fun reading about my life, my family, our adventures, my research into "extra cash" alternatives, working from home, being an entrepreneur, running a business, business ideas, ways to grow your business, marketing, and much more I assume.

I will post links, videos (fun and professional), write-ups and much more. This should be a lot of fun for everyone!

If no one reads this then that is fine with me. I may just use it as a way to jot down ideas or memories for no one to ever see...either way, we'll see where it takes me.

~W~