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Another Free Comic Book Day has come and gone and the kids and I were there at BuyMeToys.com, our local comic shop. I’d have to say that I was underwhelmed with the new offerings from the publishers this year. BuyMeToys still did a great job with the event. As always, they had tons of free comics available including tons from the previous years too, and they gave every last visitor five books of their choice as well as other goodies like pins and bookmarks. Here are a few shots…

Outside BuyMeToys at Free Comic Book Day 2010...

Looking through the comics at Free Comic Book Day...

The kids with Princess Leia...

Wow… It never ceases to amaze me how much your own problems can suddenly seem so small. I am currently unemployed and the job market in this area stinks. Sheila and I continue to discuss how we can cut back, and what our options will be if I can’t find anything suitable in this area. The stress level is up…

Suddenly, I find out today that my brother Jim and his wife Cammi lost their house and EVERYTHING within while they were away at work yesterday. A fire gutted their home. Gone… House… Clothes… Pictures… Personal Items…

I know that at some point, both he and I will look back at this point in time and think about how much those around us helped out, smile a little inside, and think about how glad we are to be wherever we are at that point. But right now it stinks.

Jim has hands down gone through more (a LOT more) drama in life than I have, and I really feel terrible about his situation right now. I’m sure he’ll hear all the normal things over the coming weeks such as “at least no one was hurt” or “it could have been worse, the garage could have gone up too and you would have lost your Harley.” But none of that will lessen the sting right now. I know they are going to be hurting for a while…

Jim and Cammi, you are loved by many. We are all thinking of you. Jim, I pray for you more than you know and I will continue to. Keep your chins up.

With love…

Yeah, I know… I really stink at this “blogging” thing. Thousands of ideas, no time to post them. Oh well, I guess you have to enjoy what little I do post…

So we chose not to pay the ridiculous prices for school pictures this year and opted to take our own pictures. I think Sheila did a great job with it, and those of you who normally get pictures of the kids should be getting copies in the mail in the near future. We’ll be getting them printed soon. But for now (and for those of you not worthy of printed copies) here are some digital shots to enjoy…

But really, that whole “not worthy” thing was a joke! If you want copies, let me know…

So we hit the big 15 year anniversary mark late last month! Yeah for us!!!

We didn’t really have the fundage to do anything spectacular like we had hoped to, but spending the weekend with the kids was great time for us…

Here’s a pic of two of my crazy gals. I’ll post more later!

Yeah, this past weekend proved to be a real nugget of joy…

Things were off to a bad start with the weather. It rained all weekend without let up, and now we’ve got a leak in the living room and a whole bunch of water in the basement. Now, I know things could be worse. I could live down where they just got pummeled by Ike, but then again I’ve consciously chosen NOT to live where Hurricanes, Earthquakes, Floods, and Tornadoes are a regular occurrence. Score one for the Michigan! (I can deal with snow just fine)

So Saturday was a funeral for a friend of ours who just died of a heart attack in his early 40′s. Their entire family is so sweet, and I just can’t imagine what it will be like for his wife and little girls now, or his parents for that matter. Sheila’s family was close with theirs since she was a kid, so it was a rough day. The kids weren’t too happy about us going either because they had to miss a local going-away party for some friends of ours who are moving to Texas. Lessons in life are tough, but they all understood that we needed to be there for the family that was grieving. Sheila and I did get to see a lot friends that we hadn’t seen in a long time, though it was bitter sweet considering the circumstances. I also got to see Coco and family, so that was a nice treat as always!

Overall very little got accomplished this weekend. It was consistently dark out, we woke up late, went to bed early… Oh and Saturday night we got a nice surprise being woke up at 3:00am by some idiot that came up and banged on our bedroom window. Probably some kids with nothing better to do..

So that’s about it. No real point to this post but to TRY to force myself to be more regular with posting. I’ll try to get some pics up soon of the kids first day of school from a few weeks back!

Love to all…

The example set by my parents in how to love each other through good times and bad will always stick with me. They seem more loving towards each other now than ever before (at least in my relatively short time being around). They celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in April and we had a few parties to mark the big event. On the gallery page, first you’ll see the pictures of the grandkids having fun at Nana & Bampa’s house and giving some small gifts. After those pictures are some of a small formal dinner we did with the older ones. We had fun at both and I think Mom & Dad did too!

See the images here…

Sheila turned 36 today! man she’s OLD!!!

I’m a dork, I know…

So here I am waiting for a report to run at work and I have a decision to make. Take a few minutes to write up a quick post to my ever-neglected blog, or clean my desk. It’s obvious by the fact that you’re reading this that my desk remains cluttered…

I’ve been torn recently because this blog has a split personality. I love talking about geeky things like toys, comics, etc, but I also love updating friends and family on what’s going on with everyday life and sharing family pictures. Unfortunately, I don’t’ think many of my family members are interested in the latest U.B.Funkeys figure I found or what comic I just enjoyed reading. On the flip, I don’t think the people finding my site by searching on Custom Invader Zim Figures are all that pumped to see a gallery on my kids bowling.

I think what I’m going to do is free the two from their bonds. Augiewan.com will remain my more personal “family & friends” oriented blog and theSpeakeasy.com (a domain I’ve wanted to utilize for quite a few years now) will become my “geek” blog. Sound good? Speak now or forever hold your peace!

OK, so I forgot about this post I started and now it’s time to go home. So here are a few proud pics of my evolving new office…

First, a shot of one wall in my ever-evolving office. Proudly displayed in the middle is my Invader Zim poster. Below is my small Green Bay Packers display. GO PACK! To the right you can see some figures which include Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy characters, Edward Scissorhands, and Smiley Bone in a cow suit. To the left we have some of the guys from Cartoon Planet and Rogue from the X-Men movie.

And lastly, we have my brand spankin’ new white board, just hung on the wall today. Tomorrow, I leave on a training trip so I needed to leave something on the board. I think Zim fills it nicely…

Booyah, and have a nice day…

Great Googly Mooglies! It’s been quite a while since I posted and so much has happened. Here’s a brief recap:

I got a new job! Yes, that’s right, I’m employed once again. I have to admit that despite having a bit of a severance package, it was very unnerving for me during those many weeks. I mean, I’m sure it is for anyone that gets laid off, but this was a first for me. A wife and four kids to support, and this was my first time to be out of work since before I graduated High-School. But hey, that messy part of my summer is over and now I’m gainfully employed and ready to move ahead. I’m doing very similar work, but as the Director of Ecommerce for Epopus, a consulting firm within the furniture industry, an industry in which I’ve worked for almost 11 years via FurnitureFind.com.

The kids are back in school! All four of them are in school for the full day now and Sheila’s just now getting the hang of no one else being home all day. That’s not to say she’s alone. We have two super-cute little nephews (both living right here in town) that she loves being around and Sheila’s mother is also visiting for the summer/fall time period.

Married for 14 years! As hard as it is to believe that much time has gone by, we’ve been married now for 14 years. We love to include the kids in on our day, so we celebrated by giving the kids presents. (we exchanged ours the night before) Sheila and I followed it up this past weekend by spending a night in Chicago as we’ve made a habit of doing for our anniversaries. We had a blast, but I think we’re going to have to come up with something a bit more “unique” for the next one coming up. The big 15 is looming!

The new bedrooms are (almost) done! One nice side-effect from being off work for a bit there, was that I had some time to work on the girl’s bedrooms upstairs. I finished up the walls, we got most of the painting done, we got the carpet laid, and the girls have officially moved in their rooms. I now need to finish by staining and hanging the doors and doing the same with all the trim. I think that’s going to have to take a slight back-seat for now though. I really need to get the gutter re-hung on the back of the house and get the roof ready for winter. I don’t want any major messes like we had last winter!

Well, those are the big points. I’ll try to get back to a more regular posting schedule now that things have settled a bit. Come back soon!

OK, this has just gotten ridiculous. We’ve been back for two weeks and I’ve done a really poor job of getting the rest of the pictures up. I was trying to look through the pictures and my notes to write a little about each day, but I’m too far behind and have other topics to move on to!

So here are the rest of the pictures for those of you who are interested…

Tuesday 8-14 – (91 Pictures) – We went on a guided hike to an abandoned bear den, which we had gone on last year as well. It was a great hike, and the sun was in just the right spot in the sky for us to get some great pictures on the trip back to the van.

Wednesday 8-15 – (48 Pictures) – Shalen put together his 3D shark puzzle in the morning. We spent a good chunk of the day at the beach at White Fish Point. It was a very nice sunny day, but it was a bit cool and breezy as well. The rain came in just as we were packing it up and chased us to the van.

Thursday 8-16 – (204 Pictures) – This was the biggest day at the falls. We spent the morning at the upper falls (the big one) and then ate lunch there at the brewery. We then spent the afternoon hiking up and down the lower falls (the smaller series).

Friday 8-17 – (86 Pictures) – Today was the big day at the Blueberry Festival. The kids all entered the coloring contest and Moranda and Shalen won in each of their age groups. We then followed it up with a nice evening hike near the campground.

Saturday 8-18 – (119 Pictures) – This was our last full day in the UP. We took a drive and took the kids to a black bear rescue/sanctuary. We then took one last long hike along the river in the evening.

Sunday 8-19 – (2 Pictures) – Time to go home…

Pictures Shalen Took – (89 Pictures) – Shalen took these pictures on the bear den hike on Tuesday.

Pictures Hailee Took – (132 Pictures) – Hailee’s turn with the camera was at the falls on Thursday.

Pictures Moranda Took – (132 Pictures) – Moranda took these on Friday at the Blueberry Festival.

Pictures Corbin Took – (274 Pictures) – WARNING! These could make you dizzy.

Tired of pictures yet?!?!?!?