Kaden Benjamin Harrelson

Jessica and Jody had their beautiful baby boy Tuesday morning. His name is Kaden Benjamin Harrelson. He weighed 7lbs 15oz, is 20" long, has a full head of hair, and is in great health! We were unable to be there at the delivery, which really made us upset because we wanted to be there so bad.


We made it there that afternoon after we got off work and stayed until visiting hours were almost over. Yesterday, we were up there after work again and stayed as long as we could. It's easy to tell that Jessica and Jody are very happy and proud parents. Their daughter McKenzie has been really cute holding Kaden and watching them intently as they care for him. She was also playing doctor on Kaden's stuffed animal. Christi and I were the parents and Jessica's mom was the nurse who had to tell us the 'news' that our baby was OK. You can really tell they are a great family. They are truly blessed. One last note before I show you the pictures: they decided to make Christi and I Kaden's God-parents. We were very excited and honored to be included like that. We plan on being there whenever we can to help with anything they need.


Enough of me talking; here are some pictures of Kaden. He's going to be a heart-breaker when he gets older.

Jessica holding Kaden



Kaden smiling for his close-up



Christi holding Kaden



Me holding Kaden



Kaden all covered up



Kaden taking a nap

Recap

We've been all over the place lately. I posted Tuesday that I was going to Christi's parents' house to work on the crown molding. We worked Tuesday, Wednesday, and Saturday. We got the process down a lot better as we went along and finally finished Saturday afternoon. The corners that weren't 90 degrees caused some headaches and slowed us down, but overall it went really well. I'm a lot more confident in my abilities now and I really enjoyed getting the chance to improve my skills and put up the crown molding. I was pretty sure I could do it, but having never done it before you never know until you try. I'll have to take some pictures of it and post them later. All that is left now is to cover-up the nails and it will be done. I think Christi's parents are very happy with the end result; I think it looks great. I would like to do some crown molding in our house, but not right now; I need a little break from it.


Thursday we went out to eat at El Sombrero for Jody's birthday. It was a lot of fun and he had no idea that people were going to be there for his party. Actually, he thought we were all too busy to do anything on his birthday. He was wrong! Most of his family and close friends were there. In case you were wondering, his twin Jesse was also there and was also surprised.


After we finished the crown molding on Saturday, Christi and I went down to the Cherry Blossom Festival to meet up with Jody, Jessica and friends. Parking was an adventure. We tried to park in the actual park where the festival, only to find out that it was $5 to park there and we didn't have any cash. We couldn't turn around because the road was a single car wide road and there was a ton of people behind us. The people taking the money let us through so we could go out the exit. Honestly, we could have just parked without paying and they would have never known it because they were so busy taking cash and directing traffic. We didn't do that, though. We ended up parking close to Jessica and Jody because they saved a spot for us in the free section.


Jesse's fiancee Jamie is the lead singer in a band that was playing that night. Jamie's younger sister is also the lead singer for another band and they were playing as we got there. I thought they both could sing really well. Jamie's band is the more established of the two and were actually the opening act for the main attraction that night, which was the Allman Brothers cover band. They played for about 1.5 hours and were really good, I thought. They played a lot of classic rock and a little bit of country, specifically Sugarland. Overall it was a good show and there was a HUGE crowd. I definitely wouldn't mind going to see them again.


That's basically what we've been up to. We've been going all over the place but it has been a lot of fun. We do have something important coming up very soon! Tomorrow at 7:30am, Jessica will be delivering her and Jody's baby! Please pray for a safe, speedy delivery and keep all of them in your prayers. Unfortunately, Christi nor I will be able to make it there that morning. I have a mandatory training class at 6:30 tomorrow morning and Christi could not get off work. She also has a mandatory meeting from 3-5 and PTA tomorrow night. Not fun. We are desperately trying to find a way to get down there before visiting hours close. Hopefully we can figure something out - pray for that as well.


It's time for dinner. We decided Chen's Wok is on the menu for tonight. That's all for now.

Crown Molding

I've been helping Christi's dad put up crown molding in their house. We started Saturday evening and worked most of Sunday afternoon. Things started off a little rough because we couldn't get the corner pieces cut correctly. However, we soon realized our mistake and we were on our way. The only thing that has been a problem since is that 2 of the corners in their bedroom were not quite square, so we had to improvise. Some minor modification to the pieces created a nice fitting corner.


We're planning on putting up crown molding in 5 of their rooms; we're almost done with 2. I'm about to go over to their house now so we can continue working on the room. Hopefully we will be able to finish the dining room / living room, which is the largest we are doing, today. After that things should move along nicely, except we will have 2 rooms with not "normal" angles that we will have to do. Those caused some headaches when doing the chair rail, but we're optimistic we can get it done without too many problems.


That's about all that has been going on lately. We went out to eat last night with Jody and Jessica to a Genji, a local Japanese place. The food was good and they gave us a lot of food, but by the time we got home Jody, Jessica, and Christi were sick. I didn't get sick but I had everything they did, so I'm not sure what happened. They are all feeling better this morning, though. I guess it was just some bad good.


It's time for me to go. Check back later for more updates

Horrible Service

We went to Logan's Roadhouse Tuesday night with Jody, Jessica, and McKenzie. They have a really good deal of 2 entrees for like $14 (plus kids meal is only $2.99, for those of you with kids.) I highly recommend not going to Logan's in Macon, though, because the service is the worst in town by far. Let me tell you why.


This post isn't because we had one bad experience. No, it's been the last several times. Tuesday was the final straw, we are not going back. The previous 4 times the service had been horrible - wrong food, waiter/waitress is really bad, etc. The food is actually very good, but the poor service has finally overshadowed it.


After work, Christi and I go over to Jessica and Jody's place to meet up with them. We all pile in the car and ride together over to Logan's. It's crowded, but it's not too bad (it is Tuesday night, after all.) There are a few people waiting to be seated when we arrive. After we put our name on the list, we go outside to enjoy the nice weather. Shortly thereafter, our buzzer is buzzing and we are seated. The strange thing is that they were seating people in the back room that is normally reserved for very large parties and generally closed. This was surprising since there were many tables open in the main part of the restaurant. We were seated in the back section; it should have been a sign.


Things we going pretty well so far, despite being seated in the strange section. Our waitress came fairly quickly and took our drink orders. She returned fairly soon with our drinks and our rolls, which are always delicious. She took our order soon after and things were moving along really well. We were very surprised, actually. We almost didn't come to Logan's because the last few times we had all came in for this deal the service was crappy. So we wait on our food to come. And we wait. 15 minutes pass and the table adjacent to ours is seated and the same waitress takes their orders. 20 minutes have passed, no food. This isn't really that bad since restaurants like this generally take 20-30 minutes for food. Around this time we ask for and receive our 2nd basket of rolls, although it takes a long time to get them. About 25 minutes have passed and the other table next to ours is seated and their orders are taken. Another 10 minutes go by and we are getting very hungry. Christi's side salad finally came and we get our 3rd basket of rolls. McKenzie is getting very hungry at this point, too. All she ordered was a kid's chicken finger dinner - it's not that hard to fix that but her food had not come yet, either.


So, 45 minutes have passed and the table that got there 15 minutes after we did gets their food. Naturally, we are not happy. As we look at their food, we realize they basically got the same thing we did! Jody and I got a type of grilled chicken (BBQ for Jody, Teriyaki for me) and the girls all got chicken fingers. The table next to us had 3 orders of grilled chicken and 1 chicken finger plate. Seriously. After this, Jody decides he's going to talk to the manager. He's a lot like me in that we don't like to complain, even if the food is wrong or cold, so you know it's gotten to the point where enough is enough if he wants to speak to the manager.


A few minutes later our food comes, which is about 55 minutes after our order is taken. Jody was talking with the manager when our food came. When he came back, he told us all the manager said about the bad service was "he would look into it." Not surprisingly, our food wasn't even that warm. The other table's food, who were sat 25 minutes after us, came out at the same time. By this time, we're all full. We had each downed 3-4 rolls plus a bunch of peanuts. McKenzie is tired since it is late. All in all we're hungry but full, tired, and generally unhappy with the service. Refills were slow, food was even slower, it was not good.


After we eat what food we can, Jody, McKenzie, and myself go outside to play and Jessica and Christi wait at the table for the checks. Jody and I looked for the manager as we were going out, but he was nowhere to be found. A short while later we see him come back to the main part of the restaurant, so we come back inside to talk to him. He sees us and begins to avoid us, striking up a conversation with someone leaving the bar. The manager walks the other guy out of the bar while Jody and I stand in front of the hostess station waiting for the manager to come back in. We stare him down but he starts to walk away; as we approach him he finally acknowledges us. Jody asks him what was the deal with our food since he was "looking into it." The manager says the waitress forgot to put in the ticket, which seems perfectly reasonable, but still unacceptable at this point. The manager then says he is sorry for our wait. He says this in the most insincere tone possible, and while looking away. I was about to say something to him but he finally looked back and said, "ok, I'll comp your checks."


As he is walking to the area where they have their computers, our waitress is going to ring up our tickets. She had just gotten our money to pay; at the time Christi and Jessica had already begun to pay for the meals. The waitress had to bring the tickets back to them to get them to resign the ticket. We only got a $5 credit per ticket. The waitress said something about it being her 2nd day on the floor or something to that effect. She also said that the front of the store was really busy and she had to stay up there and keep it moving. Right, so those who get seated in the back have less preference. I guess if you order the special because it's a low price, you get 2nd rate service, especially if you get randomly seated in the back of the restaurant.


To sum it all up - service sucked, don't go to Logan's in Macon. The only good part of the night were the people we were with. Despite the horrible service we managed to have a good time.


That's all for tonight - just wanted to share that story with everyone.

Lazy Weekend

We're about to eat supper so this will be a quick post. We haven't done too much this weekend, which has been nice. After sleeping in yesterday, Christi went over to her mom's house to help paint their hallway. Her parents are in the process of re-doing their entire house. While Christi was there, I stayed at home and did some work around the house. I washed clothes, washed and cleaned out my car (long overdue), cleaned up the garage a little bit, and just did a few more small things around the house. For dinner we met my grandparents and Christi's brother Jason at Chili's, which was insanely crowded. After a wait we ended up having to split into 2 booths that were right next to each other but it worked out ok. The food was good, as always, and we had a good time.


Today we didn't do much more. Losing an hour of sleep caused us to sleep too long to go to church (I know, we're bad.)Christi wasn't feeling very good late last night, but she felt a little better this morning. I think she would have felt like going if we would have woke up in time. After breakfast we got a phone call from Christi's parents asking for some help putting up chair rail in the hallway. That's what we did most of the afternoon and it turned out pretty good. There was one corner that was tricky because of the angle, but we figured it out after a playing around with a few ideas.


That's about it for now. Christ needs to computer so I'm wrapping up this post.

Results

I love seeing good results. It makes any hard work you've put in feel completely worth it. Today I'm going to show you some workout results and the progress I've made over the past few months. I know, probably not the most interesting thing, but humor me.


Early October-ish I started CrossFit. I was 155lbs soaking wet and somewhat in shape, but I hadn't really done anything beside the occasional soccer game. So, I wanted to get back in shape. CrossFit has been awesome. Here are some highlights / a brief timeline of what's been going on.


On Oct 31st, I did CrossFit Total for the 1st time. CFT is getting your 1 rep max in squat, shoulder press, and deadlift - in that order. There are rules regarding form and lift attempts. Basically, use proper form, don't cheat - you're only cheating yourself. My results: Bodyweight was 158lbs, squat max - 205, shoulder press - 100, deadlift - 250. Total score was 455 (add up the weights) and I was in the novice category (based on bodyweight and weight lifted). Not bad, but I had a lot of room for improvement.


I've done countless workouts since. The one I'm most proud of is "Murph", which is named in memory of Navy Lieutenant Michael Murphy, 29, of Patchogue, N.Y., who was killed in Afghanistan June 28th, 2005. This workout was one of Mike's favorites and he'd named it 'Body Armor.' The workout is run 1 mile, 100 pullups, 200 pushups, 300 squats, run 1 mile - for time. Wear a weight vest if you have it. This is a brutal workout. My goal was to finish in under 1 hour. I finished in 47min, 51sec without wearing a vest and I was very pleased with that. CrossFit has a lot of named workouts for heroes (soldiers who have fallen in combat) and they are all very tough. I think this is the worst, but they all are hard. CrossFit has a strong following in the military / police / fire departments and they try to keep close ties in those communities. Most of the heroes were people who frequented local CF gyms before getting deployed. I'm getting off topic - back to my results.


In the beginning on February, my workout partner (Lee) and I decided that the thing really keeping us from posting good workout times was our overall strength. So, we decided to do an 8-week strength training program that was recommended by CrossFit. Before starting the workout, I did CrossFit Total on 4 February to baseline myself. My results then: bodyweight - 162, squat max - 245, shoulder press max - 115, deadlift max - 315. Score: 675, intermediate category. Great progress in just 3 months, but I wanted more.


Where am I at now? Well, I'm not 100% certain where my max numbers are, but I know I have improved. Today for my workout, I did squats 265lbs x 5reps, 265lbs x 5reps, 265lbs x 5reps. I did more weight than my previous max for 3 sets of 5 reps! I was pumped. This is great progress, and I'm only in week 4 of 8. I did a shoulder press of 115 x 5 reps, 115 x 5, and 115 x 4 (failed on 5th rep.) That was my previous max, and I repped it. I'm not sure where my deadlift max is, but I did 275x5 the other day. Still working my way up. Also, today I bench pressed more than my body weight, which is something I've never been able to do. I'm currently 169lbs and I did 175lbs x 5, 175 x 4, 175 x 3. Progress.


After the 8 weeks is up I'll be back to the normal CrossFit routine. I'm already getting bored with the strength training regimen because it is only 5 total exercises, 3 days a week. CrossFit is a different exercise every day so it keeps you guessing and you don't get bored. I am pleased with my results, though. Hopefully they will continue to get better.


To sum it all up, I'm making good progress with my workout routine. That makes all that hard work in the gym worth it, especially on the days where you'd rather sleep a little longer or just go home and sit on the couch. Summary of results below:

• 31 Oct, CrossFit Total: Bodyweight-158, Squat-205, Shoulder Press-100, Deadlift-250


• 8 Jan: Murph in 47min 51sec


• 4 Feb, CrossFit Total: Bodyweight-162, Squat-245, Shoulder Press-115, Deadlift-315


• 2 Mar, Workout: Squat-255x5, 255x5, 255x5; Shoulder Press: 115x5, 115x5, 115x4; Power Clean: 140x5, 140x5, 140x5 (previous max - 150)


• 4 Mar, Workout: Bodyweight-169, Squat-265x5, 265x5, 265x5; Bench-175x5, 175x4, 175x3 (Previous max around 155lbs); Deadlift-275x5

Thanks for reading - I know it probably wasn't the most interesting post ever, but I had to brag on myself for once. I'll post next month where my numbers are. Keep working toward your goals.

More Snow!

The weather faked me out again. After I posted the pics, the snow stopped and it all went away. I took Christi to Jessica's baby shower and I went over to Jessie's apartment to hang out with Jody and some of their friends, which turned into a birthday party for them since their birthdays are soon. All I took was a heavy coat since it was raining. I regretted that later. We watched a bootleg copy of Taken, which was an awesome movie. As we watched the movie we realized it started snowing again, only harder this time. It never quit throughout the whole movie. After we watched the movie, we went outside and ended up having a massive snowball fight. That was fun. I couldn't feel my hands since I didn't bring any gloves. Figures. When I got home I took some more pictures of the house and the snow. I'd say it's a solid 2 inches now.


Here are some more pictures. Enjoy!

Compare to the same shot from this morning



Compare to same shot in first post



Again, compare to the same shot from this morning



House covered in snow! Never thought I'd see it!









An idea how deep it is. My feet go all the way down. I found a deeper spot in the back yard by accident...






Neighbors houses






Back porch



Snow in our yard!!!



Back porch steps covered



Nice even snow



All weather chairs... Let's hope they are what they were advertised to be.



Front bushes covered in snow. Looks like it should be on a Christmas card... to bad it's March






Cars in the snow. The 4Runner was moved back into the garage, in case you were wondering.






Poor Irma

SNOW

They have been saying the past few days it might snow, and of course I said it wouldn't happen. Well, I was wrong this time. I was on the way to the office to post that we had gotten snow flurries and I happened to look out the window and saw it was coming down good. It's about 36 here, so it's a little too warm for it to stick good, but the temperature is supposed to keep dropping. Christi is hoping we get snowed in so she doesn't have to go to school tomorrow! I don't thiunk it will stick overnight, but it has been raining a lot the past 2 days and the roads are covered with water / slush now. It's going to be 27 in the morning, so it's a very real possibility that the roads are iced over. I think that will be enough to keep the kids at home, especially in Macon.


Enough of me talking. Here are some pictures of the snow at our house. I took them about 10 minutes ago. It was starting to stick, but as I write this it appears to have let up. I'll post more pictures later in the day if it snows more.

Our neighbor's little girl playing in the snow