Stuff

I've come to realize that I haven't updated this blog in about 6 months. I started it with the intention of updating it monthly, but I guess life has gotten in the way.

I guess I will attempt to give an update on all that is going on in the family. I'll start with Mr. Jacob. He is growing like a weed and his personality continues to develop and shine through. He is a very happy child and loves going to school. He is going to be doing another year of pre-school during this school year and will start Kindergarten in 2008. He will be 5 on New Years Day. I can't believe that. In some ways it seems like he was born just a few month ago, but in other ways it seems like a lifetime ago. His 1st 75 days on this earth were spent in the NICU at Beaumont Hospital and I look back at that time and I am so thankful that he is healthy. Jacob is truly a blessing. I've come to realize that even more recently.

There is a young man in this area who has cancer, he is 19. There were a couple newspaper articles about him in the local paper recently talking about the blog that he maintains on carepages.com. Well, I've been keeping up with his fight against cancer and through some different links found a link to a boy named Jacob's page on caringbridge.org. I have looked at pages like that every once in a while when someone has sent me a link to them, or even if someone I know has created one. Well, this page about the little boy they call Amazing Jacob just hit me like a ton of bricks. Jacob's mom does pretty much all the updating to the page and it was amazing to me to watch her faith grow even as her son was suffering with a very rare and agressive form of pediatric cancer. It was also amazing to me to see Jacob and his attitude and even though he was in so much pain he always had a smile on his face. He also had blond hair and blue eyes, just like my Jacob, so I'm sure that had an effect on me also. Jacob passed away on June 12, 2006, at the age of 6, but his mom has kept the site up and running giving updates on how the family is doing and how they are dealing with the loss of Jacob. Jacob had 3 brothers. Kyle was 2 years older than him and Devin and Brandon were his triplet brothers. I encourage you to look at Jacob's page at www.caringbridge.org/fl/jacob. I think it will touch your heart.

Ok, off of that rabbit trail and back to my family. Valerie is doing well. She is still working full time, but she is also trying to bake cakes. Her dream would be to make cakes exclusively as her only job, but until she get can up a clientele and have a pretty good income stream from baking cakes, we can't afford for her to quit her full-time job.

I'm doing pretty well. I am still working at EDS, but since my last post I did manage to finish my Master's of Science in Accountancy from Walsh College here in the Detroit area. I was done in the middle of June, and I have to say that I don't miss spending way too many beautiful summer days and evenings in the library at school. Hopefully this degree will help me make enough money so that Valerie can quit working.

As far as other things, there isn't much else going on. Just enjoying another beautiful Michigan summer and spending time with family and friends.

The Bathroom is done.

Back in December we decided to renovate our main bathroom. It took about 6 weeks to complete and if it wasn't for my dad, we would have spent a lot of money on professionals. I have enclosed before and after pictures. I think it turned out great and I cannot thank my dad enough!

The above picture was a side wall with a very old medicine cabinet in it.

Here it is afterwards!

Here is my dad working on the "main" part of the bathroom.

Here is the main part afterward.

Here is the new floor. It's travertine tiles.

I must be boring. . . .

I can't really think of anything to blog about. Work is going fine. School is school, If I can keep up the pace of taking 2 classes per semester, I will be done after the Spring 2007 semester, which would be late June. I can't wait. It will be nice when someone asks me about my degree to be able to say "I have a Master's of Science in Accounting". Makes me proud of myself, after all of lifes twists and turns and my mistakes, I am going to accomplish a goal of mine that I set for myself before I even graduated high school. Did I anticipate the path would take 14 years to complete? Well, no, but, that just shows that life isn't always what you expect it to be. The 14 years have had many ups and downs. In those 14 years, I had my heart broken for the 1st time, moved 600 miles from my hometown, made mistakes, grew up a lot, met my wife, had a son, and bought my own house. Overall, I think that although it took me longer to finish my degrees than your "average" student, I have managed to become a successful adult.

Now, as far as everyday news, there really isn't a ton of it. Valerie has started making candy out of our kitchen and is selling it to friends at work. She would like to be able to quit her job and just bake and make candy for a living. She has jumped into this with both feet and I am so proud of her and hope that this will allow her quit working at her "9 to 5" job. Jacob is doing great, he turned 4 on January 1st. He is growing and learning so much. Last night he and I were eating chips and salsa and he took a chip and said "this looks like the letter O daddy". I told him he was exactly right. He then said "owl and orange start with O". I almost fell off the couch. I knew he was learning his alphabet in pre-school, but I didn't realize how much detail he had learned about it. He is so smart. We are also refinishing our main bathroom right now. We started right after Christmas. My dad has done most of the work, but Valerie and I also help him. It has been a job, but it is already looking so good.

Well, that is the update for today. Enjoy.