last kiddie pics

the final ones...

megamillions 170 million dollars...who won???

I did!! Kiddieland with my family..Put a price on that!!

more vacation photos

where have you gone joe dimaggio...

So I know I said I would have written a while ago. A lot has gone on since I wrote, and I mean A LOT. Holy discoveries found!! The photos attached are the vacation I took with the family to Onekama, MI. The golf course you see in the pictures is Arcadia Bluffs (the most beautiful golf course I have ever set foot on, and one that golf writers have said surpasses Pebble Beach, not having been there, I cannot make such statement.)
The lieutenants exam is over and the results will not be out till next summer at the earliest. So there is no news there, I think I got 92 out of the 100 questions on the written portion correct and would be surprised if my oral board portion of the exam is not in a similar percentile. While going through the process of studying and preparing a light bulb went off in my head. It was more the motivational speaker. He (yes the voice of the motivational speaker is a man, duh?!) said, "you know how hard you worked and all the time you put into this. Don't you think it would be even easier to stay in the books for the next exam that comes up?" I said, "absolutely, as a matter of fact, I would rather spend time at the firehouse working on my studies for the next ten years than disappearing from my family for six months at a time to prepare." Motiv speaker: "well that makes sense, and while you are at it, no reason to play the victim, you are smart enough and care enough about your job to get promoted as many times as you like!" Me: "you know something, you are right, it doesn't matter if I am first generation, it would speak volumes to make lt, capt, and then chief...geez I wonder if my wife would call me lou or capt...or wow even chief...I love it" So that is what has come of this. I will meet with my study group 3x a year to review what has come out new from the fd and also keep each other up to speed so to speak. Thus preventing an exam cram!!
The vacation was a great success. Everyone had fun!! People laughed, drank, smiled, napped, fished, swam, ate (lots of treats), and the family got closer. One thing I started to work on was turning my phone off and leaving it behind. You see, my phone is the last tie to my gambling side. I have since confessed to the boss that while I haven't bet since jan, I still owe money that I had not told her of. I have been slowly paying my debt back and only communicate with the man monthly via cell phone. I am embarrassed and ashamed that his number still comes up and I tried to keep her from that. As I would learn later on (foreshadowing) those are things I just need to accept. Anyways back to the vacation, we walked atop dunes, sat and watched sunsets, and just enjoyed being on vacation with each other for the first time in eight years. I give us a gold star for surviving each other!! It was awesome and I look forward to going back next year.
The foreshadowing. After meeting with Cris Angel and discussing my needing to come clean about the money I still owed, we made to great discoveries...One was something I just never looked up to see and the other was one I tried to avoid seeing. You see, I never told the full amount because I was afraid of being seen as a chump, or a sucker. Well you know something, that is what I am when I gambler. I play a game out of emotion (see father) and fail to realize that I will never win this game. Yet I continue to try and try and try to get some validation and the harder I try the deeper I get. That was the part I tried to avoid looking at. What I was not seeing, was right under my nose. When I was gambling, it wasn't the dollars that I was risking. It was something much more precious. It was my wife (the one who has continued to stand by this phoenix as he rises from the ashes (see lieutenant, school, children), my children, friends, and home. Those are the things that I was gambling. Those things never cared how much I had in my pocket, whether I beat the system. Those are the things that make me the wealthiest person I know. They give me soul, life, and let me feel again. Now I know that to the outsider one would say no shit sherlock. Well when you have denied your whole life that you have been doing things to prove yourself to a father that was never looking, it isn't easy to see that. I am not going to lie, I know that I cannot bet on sports, pools, fantasy....none of it and honestly it has been pretty easy this time (as compared with other attempts to stop.) I am starting to see why this is easier. I am starting to see just how much I have, and stopped to try to prove myself. I am growing more comfortable in my skin. I am excited to bring my wife to Cris Angel in a week so he can make more sense of this than I. I think of it as the Tim Taylor and Wilson relationship from the show "Tool Time." So I am plugging away doing my thing just blending in....and you know what...it is nice to be a face in the crowd...cuz this face is easy to find...it is the one with the ear to ear smile!!!