Oww! It's hot in the hot tub

Guess summer is here

Kickin' it at the 'Noog

Julie and I went to Chattanooga over Memorial Day weekend. (Prior to the trip I learned from Jim that Chattanooga can be called "the Noog") It was the first time either of us visited the downtown area. We were happy to find it wasn't too rednecky, it had a hippy, pot smoking type of vibe. The downtown area is not too big that you can't walk all the way around it.

Here we stopped at Qdoba for lunch. Julie enjoyed two servings of chicken nachos. Hardy har har.




The Tennessee river runs right thru downtown, we walked the pedestrian bridge.













Here is the bridge for cars, the aquarium is the pointy building in the background.




























We visited the aquarium, it was ok, not great. Its more geared for kids.




















One of the reasons the downtown area had a cool vibe was the sidewalk seating for bars/restaurants. For dinner we ate at the Big River Grille. Great food and a microbrew.

Free root beer float at Sonic!

On Wednesday June 3rd, Sonic is giving away free 10oz. Root Beer Floats from 8:00pm-midnight!!!

Click here for the scoop!
http://www.sonicdrivein.com/prmtns/2009/frbf/index.html

Go get some nice FREEEEEE floats!

Biking around Jones Valley...

Brad and I went for a bike ride around the Jones Valley area after dinner this evening. These pics are of the (shortest) new trail behind the target area. It is more of a walking trail, but we wanted to check it out.

We stopped at Bruesters for some ice cream. Brad ordered the Banana's Foster and I got a simple orange sorbet dish. We used our two .75cents off any item coupons!

We also saw the Moore's pulling out of the Target area(can't help but see their yellow SUV I think there is only one more like it in town :) They honked, but by the time I was able to see where I was on the tiny sidewalk, it was too late for me to wave. Ugh...short sidewalks...they need more bike trails in town!

Huntsville Stars game...

Crestwood Hospital so kindly gave me a few tickets to the HSV Stars game...it started raining a little bit, but that did not stop us from going for cover by the beer stand! This year on Thirsty Thursday, they cut out yuengling beer as part of their special...must be the slow economy or something, so I had to resort to drinking Budweiser! (bad word bad word) I told them that they should have Miller products since the sister team is the Milwaukee Brewers! Maybe they will get smart soon... Eric bought a sweet horn...he was very intrigued the whole game by the horns and got himself one...poor Julie :)

More Cajun & wings comin' to Huntsville...

If you click on the picture, you should be able to read the entire article. Thought you would like a nice update to your spicy wings cravings Josh!

Smashed Window

On Friday Night around 5:30 April and I returned to our Civic after a hike to find out that the blond hair girl in her twenties that was standing by the map when we pulled into the parking lot had used a rock to break our window and steal April's purse and keys out of the locked trunk (she broke the window and pulled the trunk release). Within about 1.5 hours she had charged over a $1,000 at Kmart, Red Lobster, Walmart and Kroger.

When I get through a situation like this I do my best to share some of what I have learned. Perhaps some of the following I wrote up will help you if you ever end up in the same place.

Couple Lessons Learned

1. Do not leave anything in your car....even if it is out of sight. Doesn't matter if your car is in a busy area.

2. Even criminals have poor aim as shown by the dents in my door from where she missed while breaking the window.

3. Glass is very sharp.... flip your floor mats over and sit on them for the ride home.

4. Criminals do not care if you can provide a description of them.

5. Do go to the places they used your credit card if it is a place like Red Lobster. We went to Red Lobster and had them reset the balance on the $100 gift certificate she bought to zero. Our visit confirmed that it was the little blond hair girl that came in and bought the gift certificate. She did wear sunglasses the whole time to conceal her identity. It would be priceless to be at Red Lobster when she goes to pay with the $100 gift certificate and the balance is 0.

6. Friends like ours in Huntsville (Rainoldi's) will drop everything to drive to your house while you spend two hours with the police to make sure they did not use April's license and apartment keys to help themselves (yes Josh TV is ok).

7. Always keep photo copies of every card in your wallet/purse at home in a safe place or a list of every card number. This list I had helped us know what was missing and I also had written down numbers you use to cancel the cards. We needed April's drivers license number at one point and it was on the list.

8. Do not ever carry your social security number with you or anything that has it on it. Also do not carry anything with you that has pin numbers on it. They got a lot from us but not any of this type of information.

9. Pass code your phone if you have sensitive information on it. Mine is now set to an hour timer. This way they can not get at anything on my phone or use it.

10. Do call the three credit bureaus and put a fraud alert on your credit report. This means that if they try to open a credit card or do any similar transaction a fraud alert will appear and the person running check is told to call a number you provide when putting the fraud alert on the account. This is free and stays in place for 90 days.

Consumer Fraud Division
Phone: 800-525-6285 or: 404-885-8000
Fax: 770-375-2821

P.O. Box 740241
Atlanta, GA 30374-0241
Experian's National Consumer Assistance
Phone: 888-397-3742

P.O. Box 2104
Allen, TX 75013
Fraud Victim Assistance Department
Phone: 800-680-7289
Fax: 714-447-6034

P.O. Box 6790
Fullerton, CA 92634-6790

11. Do request a free credit report once a year http://www.annualcreditreport.com/

12. No matter how mad you are...start calling your credit card companies right away. You will not have to pay for the charges but who wants the criminal to get anything for free.

13. Yes there are still lots of great people in the world....the maintenance manager at our apartment building came over at 9 PM on Friday night and changed all of our locks including our mailbox at no charge.


Hope the list helps!

Free the Hops

Riley has made a very wise decision and I think we all agree that Alabama will be a far better place for it....see headline from picture.

Two key points
1. Riley called the Chassee household to inform us that it was the e-mail I sent that was tipping point that pushed him to sign the bill.
2. Tony Rainoldi is being recognized as the Patron Saint of Hops in Alabama for the e-mail he sent out that encouraged us to e-mail Riley. Tony's e-mail was forwarded all over the state and Riley received millions of notes.

I understand the font is small but all of the above can be found in the body for the article.

Julie's baby shower...

Rebecca joined us via Skype... :)

We all OD'd on this stuff...ooh was it good!

Kate stopped by for a feeding and hung out with the gals.

For Josh...

Josh, here is the update as of today with the South Parkway construction. Per Rebecca, she said you had been curious about how they have been doing with the parkway extension. This picture I am heading North looking at the Weatherly intersection coming up. I had my hand hanging out of the car window while driving...I am sure the steak out car behind me thought this was hilarious! (I think if you click on the picture, it should give you a blown up version in which you can totally see what I was actually seeing while taking these)

This picture is right after "mythewood" road and I am heading North.

I took this from the Lowe's parking lot just past Weatherly Road. You can see they have paved this side. Now, on the other side once you pass Weatherly heading North, they have not paved that section yet.

Weatherly intersection. I am on the Staples side of the road.

I pulled out of the Lowe's parking lot and am ready to turn onto the "temporary" parkway road headed South. A close up of the paved road so far.

This intersection is where Whitesburg Drive ends and meets with the parkway. The bridge closer to where you and Rebecca live is getting done a lot faster than this one. I hope this helps! Sorry for the poor shots, once I get my Nikon D90 with telephoto lens, I will be able to get much better/clearer pics for ya!