Florida was greatness!

Well hello everyone who reads this blog...oh wait I'm the only one who reads this silly blog. Who would waste their time reading the rantings of a fool? Why me of course!



Ok, so we went to Florida recently. Very nice!!!!!! We got to stay in a lovely condo provided by one of Amy's cousins who co-owns it and leases it out to family for the cleaning cost of a whopping $100. See pictures. Of course, with any Holt family road trip comes the adventure of balancing our zany-ness with the rest of the world. God it's good to be crazy! It makes life so fullfilling and fun. Allow me to highlight the Holt Family Florida Adventure...or the HFFA if you will.

Day One - Road Trip:
Destination: New Braunfels (Mom and Dad's house) to drop off Dogs, then down the road to Beaumont, TX.
Highlight#1: CJ tests theory of heat transfer by touching hot burner on Mema's stove to see if it was hot...it was! We got to hear how much it hurt for over 700 miles.
Highlight#2: Hotel in Beaumont is full of Prom kids running around the hotel slamming doors and partying all night so that I don't sleep!
Highlight#3: Hotel is free because of partying prom kids and Brian's bags under his eyes.

Day two - Road Trip:
Destination: Destin, Florida
Highlight#1: Trip to Walmart in some small town in Louisiana to get beach toys. If you've ever read my blog on Walmart you know that I believe Satan lives in Walmart and Yes, he was there that day too. Funny thing: CJ found the roughest, toughest looking group of guys I've ever seen playing video games and decided to literally move a couple of them out of his way so that he could watch one of them play a fighting game. I apologized nervously and gently but firmly pulled him away from them. They smiled with what teeth they had and in their Creole accent said "Ain't no problem!". I'm REAL glad they thought so.
Highlight#2: The condo! Pure greatness!!!! I felt like a rich snob for a few days. Shame on me!!!
Highlight#3) The Beach! Pure greatness again!!!! The sand is so nice and the water was clear. I felt like a crack addict, I wanted it more and more, the longer we stayed.
Highlight#3: The dolphin show from our back deck in the condo!!! Yes, we got to see dolphins jumping out of the water and smile at us as they did. Crazy stuff! I was waiting for music to start and a guy with a wet suit to come out of the water with a whistle in his mouth.

Day Three: The Beach
Destination: The Beach
Highlight#1......Do I really have to explain any more about the greatness of the beach?
Highlight#2: My kids reaction to the beach. CJ found his little bit of heaven. Lily just looks cute in the water as she does with everything she does.


Day Four: GOLF!!!!!
Destination: Golf Course - Any Golf Course!
No explanation required. Allow me a moment of silence to reflect on this day...............................................................................Ok, I'm back! Yes, Golf! The greatness that is golf. Sigh!

Day Five: Kids Activity Park.
Destination: One of those multi-activity parks with mini-race cars, putt putt and video games that takes all of your money and makes your kids all hyper. Yeah, you know what I mean.
Highlight: Discovering that Lily is the worst Putt Putt golfer in the world! It was painful to watch but, of course she was still stinkin cute doing it.


Day Six: GOLF AGAIN!!!!!!
Destination: Golf Course - The same one since I needed revenge after my first attempt on it.
I know this is crazy but two days of golf in the same week! It was like I died and went to Heaven. Yeah Baby!!!!!! Allow me another moment to reflect on this day..................................................................................Ok, I'm back! Oh Golf....sigh again!

Day Seven: The end of paradise!
Destination: Back Home.
Highlight: NONE....Because we had to leave and that's all I'm going to say about that! @1@#$$#&&^&*^%$ <- Me cursing!!!

So we make it to Texas and my wonderful parents cut off several hours of our trip by meeting us north of Houston with our dogs. What a wonderful thing! We make it home and sulk for a week but we are ok. We get to go back someday.


Ok, so this wasn't as zany as I thought. We actually had a fairly normal vacation without a whole lot of wackyness. Don't get used to it! After all we are the crazy Holt family from loonyville!


I love Florida, my wife, my kids, and now her cousin with a condo!
Brian

Smooth talking CJ

CJ never ceases to amaze me. He is very influential and a master salesman. This morning he gets up and asks me for a bowl of Peanut Butter Bumper cereal. I pour it and then he tells me that I poured the wrong bowl of cereal. I didn't take that well and told him that he told me Peanut Butter Bumpers and that would be what he gets. Silver tongued CJ made me believe that I was mistaken and that he indeed had asked for Fruit Loops. Oh silly me! So because I am a gracious person and because in reality I wasn't sure what he said, I begrudgingly decide to trade out the bowl of Peanut Butter Bumpers for a bowl of Fruit Loops. CJ, quickly jumps into compliment mode and proceeds to tell me how great I am and how proud of me he was for getting him what he wanted.

Now take note of this persuasion method. First he asks for the lesser item (Peanut Butter Bumpers), then he proceeds to position himself for the upgrade in item (Fruit Loops) using the old Jedi-Mind trick method of making me believe I just didn't hear him correctly and that my feeble attempts to pour him the lesser item was just a miscalculation of judgement on my part. CJ then laughs off my indiscretion by allowing me the opportunity to to correct my mistake, followed by a cleaver round of compliments designed to make me feel that what I have done is for the betterment of all man-kind. I'm telling you, the boy is a genius!

Today, I walk away realizing that CJ is smarter than I am! Crap!!!!

The pictures here on the bottom are simply great influencers of their time. I think CJ should have his picture in the history books someday. The picture I show of CJ was when he was younger. He was silver tongued then too.

I love my kids!
Brian
I find myself thinking they might ask CJ to become the next James Bond. He can get himself out of all kinds of situations and do it within an inch of his life. I of course would be Dr. No!

CJ may someday be the worlds biggest life coach. He's so persuasive that even Anthony Robbins (pictured here) will ask him for advice.

CJ may be the next Billy Graham. They'll send him to convert the most dangerous and evil convicts into Christians. He's so convincing that the evil men will wonder what the heck they were thinking and find themselves preaching the Gospel in China or someplace like that.

CJ may become an amazing salesman like the great Zig Ziglar (pictured here). Like ol Zig, he'll make you want to do whatever he wants...wait a minute, he already does that. Oh my...there is no telling how influential CJ will be when he gets Zigs age. He'll actually be able so sell ice cubes to Eskimos for real.

CJ may be President someday, if so he'll make sure that every house has a video game console and plenty of games. He'll also make sure that everyone knows he's in charge.

My weekend with family

What a nice weekend last weekend. My Mom, Dad and Ashlyn were all in town this weekend to visit and to celebrate my Dad's birthday. He's finally going to retire at the end of this year sometime or at least semi-retire. He's a stud and a half. No one has worked harder to love and support their family like my dad. He's one of my hero's! My mom is just flat out awesome! She worked her tail off cleaning our house before we had some guest Wednesday night, while Dad and I installed a new Microwave and oven that Amy bought the day before. My mom also volunteered to keep each one of the kids on two separate nights. That may not sound outrageous but she's dealing with sleep apnea and hooks herself up to a machine at night that helps her sleep. She's only getting a max of 5-6 hours of sleep per night and you know from my blogs that my kids are rock stars...so for my mom to deal with their energy and need to stay up late and get up early was a big deal. Amy also needs my mom for that motherly thing that mothers and daughters share.

Ashlyn was great! The kids absolutely adore her and want to hang on her the entire time they are with her. The time was real short but we had fun. One of Ashlyn's highlights was a visit to the world famous Sprinkles of Beverly Hills http://www.sprinklescupcakes.com/. Ashlyn wanted to go so bad she could taste it!<-insert drum tap here.

We look forward to having them come back very soon. My dad has to help me fix this house up and my mom needs to help me get this place clean. Ashlyn needs to get up here and help me clean the dishes! She's really good at cleaning dishes and making her dad sad when she leaves, not that those have any thing in common except that she's just good at them.

I love my family!
Brian

There's an airplane in my living room.

Ok, this isn't really a funny post but I just have to tell you, yesterday Amy and I purchased a 60" large format printer and we under-estimated the actual size of it. I had to call up my good friend Ken from down the street just to help me get in to the house. It's 8 ft long and 2.5 feet wide and 5 ft tall....so basically it takes up 100 square ft of space. Here's a picture of the printer from stock photography. When we get it set up in our living room, we'll shoot another picture of "The Beast" and how it takes over our little house.

Holt Design Studios is bigger and badder then ever! Watch out world here we come!.....Ok, maybe Watch out Lewisville here we come!....Ok really maybe watch out neighbors here he come!

Brian