Well, I know it's been quite awhile since I've posted an update on the Garza family, so here goes.
The kiddo's are growing very fast, and staying on top of them has been quite a chore...for Tracy. ;-) Just kidding, I have a heck of a time with them...as I have no patience.
Anyway, Eli is now 4 years old and in another month the twins will be 3! How time flies!
I finally have my entire yard fenced in. And I think it looks good for a bunch of amateurs putting it up. Luckily we were able to finish on July 4th by around 5 p.m. so that the kids could be out and running about!
The sad part is that the day I went and purchased all the materials at Lowe's, Tracy calls that the kids had climbed over the old fence. That's right, the little monkeys can climb over and do on occasion! The imps.
Here are some pics of the fence/yard and some recent one's of the kids all thanks to Tracy.

February 2007!

Can you believe that it is already February 2007? How quickly did 2006 seem to fly in a blink! Sheesh.

Anyway, I have a few less bills than last year, but not much. I'm still going to IWU (Indiana Wesleyan University) and taking Business Management courses. I should graduate in December if I can squeeze in three more classes between the summer and then to get all my credits in time to graduate with the majority of my class. Luckily so far I've been able to hold down a 4.0 in this track and I'm finally over the 90 credit hour hump! Woo-hoo!

Tracy created this collage of some of the pictures of the kids and their cousins. Hopefully you can see this good enough.

Take care and I'll try and update soon.

One holiday down, another on the horizon

Getting three toddlers to pose for a picture can be H-E-L-L!!!

Thankfully Tracy has managed to get a few from the dozens of "attempts" that she's tried to capture over the last couple of weeks.









I hope everyone takes the time to think of those in need and our troops overseas this time of year.

I know I'm thankful to them.

Halloween has come and gone, how time flies!

My three little monkeys made it out for Halloween!

It was a little chilly so luckily their outfits kept 'em nice and warm.

Unfortunately, Reagan is a poster child for ADHD. He was trying to run away around people's houses. The imp would not listen, so I had to bring him in a little early.

My doodle-bug, ain't she a cutie pie?!

So now we're getting ready for a few out of town visitors that Tracy has invited to visit.

Oh, and I've managed to keep a 4.0 in school, a job, my wife and kids (though they stick around not because they're happy, but because we don't have anough money for Tracy to leave) and still keep my girlish figure...

Our fence is junk?!

What the heck?!

We talked to one of the developers in our neighborhood this past Saturday while we were out touring our up-and-coming neighborhood. He mentioned all of the difficulties he's been having trying to appease everyone's expectations relating to code. Well, during his talk he happened to mention that a few of our neighbors (4 or 5 according to him) have already called him to complain that our fence looks "trashy."

TRASHY?!

They also complained that because our fence is trashy, that they're property values were being affected.

What we've done...

Tracy called three local real estate agencies (one of which has scheduled to do a free assessment of our property sometime this week) and they've all informed us that any fence will add value to a property, never decrease value. However, that a vinyl fence would actually increase that value quite a bit more. They were flabberghasted that anyone would complain that a white picket fence would look "trashy" or that it would devalue anything?

The primary reason we chose to go with vinyl is because it withstands weathering a lot better than what most everyone here is installing, wood or aluminum (yeah, some idgits have installed aluminum, like that won't rust!).

So what do y'all think?

BTW, I've uploaded pics of the kids playing.

Louisville

Ron had to go and do this, so I figured I'd give it a shot.

We live in Southern Indiana, so most of our time is spent there. I'm the only one that comes into Louisville, and in fact we've only gone to nearest Olive Garden (in Louisville) once.

"Put the freakin' fence up, daddy!"

Eli can no longer tell me that...after weeks of promising to put up the fence, I began the "chore" of doing so over the Memorial Day weekend.

19 holes is what I had to dig...in the state known as the "Granite State." To which I can now faithfully agree that yes, the granite is there.....everywhere!

So about a week after having the utilities companies come out and paint multi-colored lines in my yard, I was set to begin putting "the freakin' fence up."

1st hole - dug with a post hole digger for about 30 mins to get down to about 1 1/2 feet, and promptly hit a small water pipe that had not been marked anywhere on my property (in fact, the nearest utility marked was about 20 ft away). After saying, "uh-oh" I saw that there was water filling the hole under the pipe, to which my next phrase was a little more vulgar.

So there I am trying to explain to the utilities (800 center) that I hit a water line that was on my property and having them be a little condescending about my "responsibilities" I finally was able to get out of them that it was "the home-owners problem"...in other words, mine. So after a few more vulgar outbursts I went outside to look at the watering hole I had dug up, I noticed that the water level had only filled up to about 3-4 inches only. That was odd, because if I had hit that water pipe and broken it, surely by now the water would be much higher. AND the water was clear. After bailing out the water and smelling for any hints as to whether I had struck a water line or sewer line, I found that the water had no smell to it...I had struck a spring! Both good and bad news...ah well, at least now I didn't have to pay for anyone to come out and repair a pipe. :-)

Having learned my lesson and now having a sore shoulder to show for it, had Tracy call around and see about getting a hold of a power auger, to which she was able to get a loaner from our neighborhoods landscapers for free! So there I am all happy that I could now save my shoulders some pain and start drilling these holes in no time.

2nd hole - started up the brand new auger (had only been used once before) and promptly dug down to about two inches before hitting the first of many rocks (many granite stones, but also some large pieces of black shale). So now I have to grab the shovels, and pick axe to break it up and dig it out. So I spend the next hour or so digging down to about 8 inches before hitting soft earth...Yay! and two inches later hitting more rock....yup, another 2 inch layer of loose granite rocks. This one hole took me 2 1/2 hours to get down to 2 ft! AND now my left hand hurt because ever time the auger would hit a rock, it would stop the drill-piece to stop and the handle/engine part to spin instead...jerking my hand around visciously...sheesh!

3rd hole - spend about an hour digging (and about 4 hard jerks on my left hand as the machine rotates clockwise, but when it stops all the kinetic energy forces the handle bars and motor to spin counter-clockwise) to about 4 inches and gave it up for later...

4th hole - more of the same, but this time I'm able to hit compact dirt/clay mix at about the 5 inch mark and have smooth sailing....to about the 1 ft mark, and hit a large piece of granite! It is too deep for the pick axe to make any headway, so I have to use the shovels to dig around it and get it out...

Now my day is gone and I've only managed to dig one hole to the required 2' depth! AND the weather has gotten progressively hotter, so now I've managed to get a sun burn and have lost about 10 lbs in sweat!

The next day is too hot to do much work other than in the morning and evening, so there I am going back to hole 3 and dug it down to about the 1 ft mark after about an hour of sweating profusely, more hard jerks on my arm/hand and plenty of profanity! So I give up on ever digging 19 holes in my rock-filled yard!

Sunday before Memorial Day arrives and I have in-laws moving in for two weeks while they wait for their house to be completed. At least I gain my brother-in-law's help in digging holes, right? Wrong, this day is a wash...first, it is too hot, and second, he has other things he's "required" to work on...so I spend my evening sweating up a storm in muggy 90 degree temps at 7:30 p.m. (it doesn't get dark in my neck of the woods until after 9 p.m. and we're Easter Standard Time even).

5th hole - at least I'm able to get the fifth hole dug down to 2' with my neighbor's help...I guess he felt bad that I was sweating so much....either that, or he was tired of hearing me cuss so much! ;-)

6th hole - with my neighbor's help my hopes are that since the 5th hole is next to the 6th hole that this hole will go smoothly are dashed within the first inch! This hole (or maybe it was the 7th...by this time they're all running together) took the two of us over an hour to get down to the one foot mark...

So there I am, I've taken three days off over the holiday weekend (to make it 5 days) to work on my fence and I've now gone through three and have not even managed to get to the half-way point!

To wrap it up, all the other 11 holes (yup, only made seventeen instead of the required 19) were just as bad...but my whole holiday weekend was spent on these 17 holes! and I only managed (though barely) to get the poles inserted into the ground and concrete set...here are pics of the finished fence, which I managed to get all done this past weekend......except for the gate, I still have to dig those two holes and put that up....and now Eli is telling me everyday, "Daddy, put the freakin gate up!"

Imp.