vacationOn

Meet Colt and our new home

I was very close to deleting this blog because I have not posted anything in a year.  But, after giving it some thought, I decided that it would be a good place for friends and family to keep track of the progession of the new addition to our family - COLTIN JAMES (COLT)!  Life has not been the same since that rainy March day he was born.  At the beginning of the year, we bought a house and worked tirelessly up until his birth to get it ready for him.  We had a lot of work to do to it (and still have a lot to do), but it is lived in comfortably now.  Colt has his own room, decorated in monkeys and jungle animals (pictures will come).  It has been a wonderful feeling of finally owning our own home.  It is a place that we call home and know that it will be home for a very, very long time.  So, Colt is a day or so short of four months old.  He is a healthy (fat) and happy baby, thank the Lord.  I will continue to post on here monthly again.  If this is the first time visiting this blog, feel free to browse through past posts, there are a lot of pictures.  Thank you for visiting - Daddy Flinn's blog!  

Final goodbye to my grandma

Last week I lost my Grandmother. She was the last grandparent I had left. I got to know my Grandma Becky better than any of my other grandparents. I lived in the apartment on the second story of her home for over three years. When I was in Iraq, we wrote letters back and forth at least every month which helped me to keep my spirits up in the worst of times. She was always there for all of us grand kids when we needed someone to turn to. She was always thinking and putting others before herself. During World War II, this young Kentucky gal moved to Detroit MI because she heard that since all of the boys were going off to the war, they needed tough girls to work in the factories to build machines to fight the war. It was a time of sacrfice for US citizens unseen by any generation since and she dove striaght into the center of it. She also was a full-time working mother in a time when mothers were expected to stay-at-home. My grandmother was an American hero in my eyes, but if you asked her, she'd say she was just doing what needed to be done in order to protect freedom and the American way of life. Rest in peace in the kingdom of heaven grandma, your family loves & misses you....

Happy New Year!!

We had a white Christmas for the first time in many years! We had about four inches of snow on the ground for Christmas weekend. Holly put a Santa cap on one of her Halloween decorations and Bullet got a ham bone for Christmas - Yum! I tried seeing what it would look like if had dred-locks, not pretty Haha. Christmas this year was nice, there were mounds of ham & turkey, sweets, drinks, smiles and hugs! New Year's Eve Holly & I took out the motorcycle for a nice four hour cruise stopping for drinks & lunch along the way through Owensville, Williamsburg and Bethel back roads. We had fun at Jim's Custom Cycles that night, there were friends there that Holly & I had missed seeing since the motorcycle riding season. Then we went to the VFW for the New Year's countdown and our first kiss of the year...

I've been making progress on the shed, but not as fast as I would like to. I had to dig all of the wood out of four inches of snow and temperatures with highs in the teens and low twenties didn't help - thanks to my cover-all's I did get work done. It was a high of nearly 70 degrees on New Years Eve and melted all of the snow which made for a nice mud pit around the shed and a nice motorcycle ride with Holly. I have the front nearly finished. Today I plan to hang the two front main doors which each weigh over 100 pounds. Life has been good to us lately and I am greatful for all of those fortunate things in which God has blessed us with - Family & Home...Happy 2011 until next time.....

A Fall Project...

I didn't post anything for two months. We didn't have a Halloween costume party this year, we took a year off from it, we will have one next year. We went up to the VFW and wore a pirate mask, that was the highlight of our All Hallows Eve. Bullet has kept me company while I've been building a shed out of second hand wood. When I told everyone that I was going to build a shed with pallets as walls, I received different responses. I heard support, uncertainty, encouragement, inquiry and even confusion. It has turned out well, and I now have the roof completed. I will post pictures when it is completed, hopefully before Christmas. Things are well here at the house, the halloween decorations are down and the Christmas lights are up. If I don't post, everyone have a Merry Christmas!

Treasure Island Florida

A long over-due vacation to the sunshine state for Holly and I was just what the doctor ordered! We had a great time staying on Treasure Island just off the St. Peters burg coast. We hauled the motorcycle down in the back of the pick-up and then scootered around all over the string of islands up and down the coast. The trip down to Fort DeSoto Island (a Florida State Park) was just awesome. We dove for sand dollars and went shelling. We stopped at Billy's Stonecrab resturaunt in Terra Verde, which had a bar built on the roof with a panoramic view of the beach and boat marina.

John's pass was a good time with all of it's shops and historic restaurants which feature fresh caught grouper from that day. VFW 4256 was located right on John's Pass, near the boardwalk. We spent some time there before or after dinner a few nights. Our hotel room was located right on the beach, with a view of the beach out our window.

We also went a boat which took us out to a small coral reef in which we snorkeled. Holly snorkeled too, until a stingray swam at her splashing out of the water, she was done! The boat took us to Egmont Key, which is another protected Island by the state of Florida, where we did more shelling and saw a huge turtle-I think it was a lagger-head but not sure.

My softball team wraps up the season this week at VFW 9630. We didn't do so well, but we sure did have a lot of fun! This vacation was a great way to usher in the end of summer. As my golf and softball leagues end, I feel some relief for more, much needed free time!

Keep visiting, I'll continue to keep you posted....

Summertime 2010

It's been a while since I've been on here and to be honest, with all the Facebook buzz now, I nearly forgot! We've been enjoying the summer so far. We put in a garden and a pool, had several cookouts, campfires and been riding the bike. Most of all though, we've been able to spend some really good times with friends and family. As for the pictures, we spent an evening at the DAV, I went fishing (didn't get a bite) and we cooked out some pork chops on the open fire pit. Bullet watches as I prepare the garden for sewing seeds. Holly loves the riding mower, it makes cutting grass so much easier (she says the mower still needs a drink holder!). George & I both fish the Little Miami River as Holly snaps a picture from the bank above. Bill O'brien, Tom, Nell & Cindy hang out with us on the patio. I will be posting more blogs here in the future. I will get a picture of our pool and also update the progress of our garden too! Hope you had a happy 4th of July and you were able to spend it with family and loved ones. Until next time, stay cool!