My Green Thumb

Already have a little greenery. This makes me happy. Allison is growing a baby but I am growing some peppers, Who do YOU think is working harder haha.

Its Official, Im an Honorary Grand Haven Citizen

I met with the Mayor of Grand Haven this morning and became a Grand Haven citizen. It was a pretty lame ceremony but we did get a nice gift package including some pencils, a coffee mug and a nice little book on Grand Haven Coast Guard history. Its the nicest gesture a town I have been stationed in has ever made. It is nice to be appreciated.

Family Weekend

        Allison and I finally finished painting the nursery. We have a combination of paint that suits the both of us and hopefully baby bean will like. The one Grey wall will get White Birch trees and Yellow birds soon. We think it will look awesome. We got our crib the other day and today we decided to assemble it. As soon as we started I noticed one of the pieces of wood was cracked and unrepairable. We spent enough money that a piece of cracked wood was unacceptable so we returned it and got a refund. We will reorder soon and hopefully this time the crib will be perfect.
      We had a delicious beer can chicken tonight, I think this is quickly becoming one of our favorite meals. Allison made some Rice Crispy Treats today, I promptly crushed about half a pan. She is not helping me get my Phelps like physique.
       Only one more week till school starts. I am excited to get back in the swing of things. I hope I am saying that in another month.
       Tomorrow I meet the Mayor of Grand Haven and he makes me an honorary Grand Haven citizen. It should be kind of interesting. Michigan has been such a great place so far I am proud to be a member of both the Grand Haven and Whitehall communities. I can't wait to take part in more White Lake Chamber events this fall.

Painting The Babies Room....Again

          "We" decided that the yellow paint we bought and painted the room with the first time was just to darn bright. Today we went to Lowes to buy ourselves some White paint to do stripes around the room. Allison suggested getting a gallon of white paint but I didn't think it was going to be necessary, I was wrong. I guess tomorrow we will drive back to Lowes to get more paint. Allison keeps pointing out that if we had bought a gallon when she said to we wouldn't have to go back, I keep pointing out that we wouldn't be repainting if she picked the right color the first time. I guess we are even. Anyways yesterday started the Coast Guard Festival in Grand Haven. This week should prove to be plenty busy for me. I wish I didn't have to work so much and Allison and I could enjoy the festival together. Oh well maybe next year. Well here are some in progress pictures of the nursery. More to come....

The only Yellow now will be where the Blue is, the Yellow areas will be White. Stand by for more pictures.

Our Festivus dog that showed up on Friday. I kinda like him. These dogs are painted all different colors and are stationed all over Grand Haven. We have no idea what the meaning is.

Very Cool & Very Interesting

The Start of My Urban Farm

                I was a bit bored at work today so I built the first piece to my box garden/urban farm haha. I have wanted a vegetable garden for a long time and next spring will find me planting seeds to a plethora of vegetables. I guess this summer, albeit a lil late, I have planted some Jalapenos and Habanero peppers. My plants may not be fruitful this year but if I see a little greenery I may be fulfilled enough to make it through the winter.

Its Always Sunny In Michigan

                The last 10 days have been fairly slow. I think we are finally feeling at home. It has been hot here a lot lately so we have camped out at the beach quite often. The water temp in Lake Michigan has been very wishy washy the last few weeks. One day it will be 68 degrees and the next it will be 50 (like it was on Friday).
                 Work has been going good. I was nervous I would have nothing to do but so far I have been able to fill my days. Hopefully I will be able to keep that up so I'm not to bored. I do however hope it is slow enough that I am able to complete my school work while on the clock. Thursday afternoon I took my Officer Of The Day board. It went really well and I am now fully qualified at SFO Grand Haven.
                 Allison went to her first Baby doctor appointment since we moved on Friday. Everything still looks good. The doc recommended some prenatal aquatics for Alli to try so I think she is going to start that soon. It will be great for her to get out of the house and have a conversation with something other than the dog.
                Speaking of Stella I am pretty sure she thinks we moved to Baghdad, there have been a ton of fireworks in our area lately and she is not a fan. Last night they were so loud that at first we thought it was gun shots. I didn't know it was possible but Stella found a way to weasel her way completely under our bed to hide. She is too cute.
                Today we had a bunch of chores to do around the house. I put up a new shelf in the garage so we can hang our jackets and pile some other stuff out there. We emptied the babies room of all the old furniture we had in there that had to go to Goodwill. Allison and I both got a little sentimental when it came time to decide what goes. Allison had to give up the first piece of furniture she ever bought, her computer desk. I gave up the TV I had bought when I lived in New York, my first station. We were both sad to see these items go but I was a little relieved to see the TV go, it was so awkwardly heavy that it hurt my back every time I had to move it.  After Goodwill we went to Lowes to get sample paint for the babies room. I think we decided on our colors and will paint next weekend. Its a bit early but we are getting pretty excited. I am able to feel the baby kick pretty regularly now and Alli's baby book says to talk and play music for baby. We have been jamming to some bluegrass (which seems to put baby to sleep) and to some James Brown (which the baby seems to love).
               We celebrated Allison's 21st (cough) birthday today. We went to what we were told was a very nice restaurant ( The Lake House ). We quickly found that expensive does not equal great restaurant.We started with Pulled Pork Tacos with pickled cucumber and white onion. Allison had a Fillet, Garlic Mashed Potatoes, and Asparagus. Her Steak was great, the potatoes were very dry which lead to her not eating much of them and the Asparagus wasn't anything special. I had pan seared Scallops over a bed of Crab and Asparagus Risotto. My meal was pretty good over all. The Risotto was very well put together. The service was pretty awful, we tried to give our waiter the benefit of the doubt but he was just awful. No one should have to wait 15mins for a glass of water. I have to say the food was mediocre and the service was horrible so I don't think we will be making a return trip. We had a good time though, the place is situated right on Muskegon Lake with a good view and anytime I can spend with my wife and my baby makes me happy.



I work here. Not to shabby.

Star Spangled Heat

         I thought we left South Carolina to get aways from the heat. Instead we have had some where around 20 days in the 90's and its only July 5th. To make things worse we are without central air. Our house stays a steady temp of 85ish 24hrs a day. Come on Winter!!!

             Allison and I had a nice little 4th of July this year. We braved the heat and rode our bikes into town to watch the Independence Day parade. It was really pretty cool. We met some nice people that told us all about some things to do in the area. We saw a lot of nice floats. Alli and I will be going to Lewis Farm Market LewisFarm.com this fall for punkin chunkin. We are very excited for that.
              The evening of the 4th we rode down to the lake to watch the Whitehall Rotary fireworks. They put on a pretty good show. It doesn't get dark here till around 10pm so it ended up being a pretty late night.