Where The Grass Is Greener...

Memory Lane...

so the other day i had a completely random memory.  i'm talking so random that it even surprised myself.  anybody from the old crew remember how we used to write stories back in like junior high??  well my random memory was about the story that i wrote where we all took a trip to vegas and christina b. ran away with the white tigers.  wow.  and you thought your thoughts were random :)  so anyways, it got me thinking.  i wonder if i could remember a random thought about every year of my life.  let's try shall we?

obviously the first few years of my life i wouldn't remember anything so these will just be stories about me that i remember.

1- i remember how my mom told me she had a HORRIBLE experience in the german hospital and just wanted to get out of there as fast as possible.  as a result, she decided to not get her tubes tied as planned and got out of dodge.  can you imagine life without "little roger"???? i know, me neither :)

2- i "remember" how my dad left me and my big brother in the car (running) while going into the restaurant/bar where my mom worked to tell her we had arrived to pick her up...this was literally going to take like 60 seconds.  well, apparently 60 seconds is long enough for me to crawl into the front seat, pull down the shifter lever, scrape a few cars, and drive off about a 10 foot "cliff."  luckily me and aaron were ok.  after pops came running out, aaron made sure to take all blame off him by saying "but dad, i told him to turn!!"

3/4-the only memory i have from virginia beach besides the snails is riding my big bro's bike for the first time without training wheels...i'm assuming since i actually have a short memory of this, i must have been 4 pushing 5.

5/6- ahhhh, vegas.  and kindergarten.  so as the story goes, i came crying home one day after getting off the bus.  i explain to my mom, "this girl on the bus called me a stupid mexican."  to which my mom replies (she always had a way with words ;) haha love ya mama) "well travis, you are mexican."  and i reply, "no i'm not, my dad is!"  :)

7- we move into our new house and i can remember putting on those hooded towels and jumping down the stairs saying "SUPERMAAAAN!"  Honestly, though, who didn't do that as a child?

8- tetherball superstar.  i don't know why i have random memories playing tetherball, but i remember me and my friend percy knight were masters.  the only people that beat us were eachother.

9- third grade.  i remember my teacher mrs. wise.  and i also remember this was the year that i switched to four-square.  my famous killer hit was the "back-spin" where i'd punch the bottom part of the ball so that it would hit the other guys square and spin back so he couldn't get it.  i know...PRO. :)

10- this memory is weird.  i can remember it like it was yesterday.  so one day i forced myself to not play 4-square the entire recess period after lunch so i could practice my "times-tables" since i had failed miserably the first time i had taken the test.  my thought process went something like this: "travis, who cares, go play." "no, i have to learn these stupid things." "but you can practice them while you wait in line after you go 'out'." "no, you'll never lose and never get to practice."  wow, what kind of 10 year old wrestles with himself about playing during recess??? 

11- who can forget the move to Minnesota in the middle of WINTER???  here's an embarassing moment for you...travis getting his shorts pulled down on the playground by JC...love ya buddy :)

12- 6th grade trip to the ELC where luke and i took a canoe ride and decided to explore one of the shorelines.  as luke is pulling the canoe out of the water enough so i can get out, the canoe crawls up the side of a rock and dumps me over the side.  lovely.

13- before it was determined to be "racist" our school used to have an auction for a certain group of seniors (i can't remember if it was a club or a sport or whatever) where they'd auction themselves off to be servants for a day.  usually at the end they'd ask anybody else to come up and volunteer to be auctioned off to raise more money.  i think it was jason p. or joey e. that convinced me to go do it.  seriously, who would bid on a goofy looking 7th grader to be their servant for a day???  apparently a gorgeous senior (who happened to be one of jess's friends).  i fully admit i had crushes on all of jess's friends.  i can't remember exactly how much money i raked in for the cause, but i know it was one of the highest. :)

14- ahhhh, the year i got my snowmobile.  on one such trip, my buddy tim and i had broken away from the trail a bit since the trail was following the powerlines.  i failed to see a minor "bump" in the road that was more like a launching pad and before i could slow down i was launched into the air hanging on for dear life.  fortunately i didn't die, but unfortunately i can't say that i landed it, either.  so there goes travis, chasing after his sled before it runs into some trees.  afterwards my significant other at the time said i must have been pretty high because she looked over towards us and found herself staring up at the bottom of my sled.   could that be why i sheared off a couple of my suspension bolts the very next weekend???  :)

15- Freshman year...hmmmm...i remember coach conboy adding about 50 pounds to my weight for the football program because he "doesn't put anybody less than 150 pounds on his roster." :)

16- ok so travis decided to run a stop sign on his first drivers license test.  it goes without saying that i was pretty mad at myself....until i went back for my second try a week or so later and saw that there wasn't even a stop sign there!!!!  it was just a pole for a sign, but there wasn't a sign attached to it!!!  so my anger turned to the butch cop that failed me the first time...i still haven't forgiven her.  that's a whole week of my life that i was able to drive by myself that i will never get back.

17- ahhh junior year band trip.  for the sake of all those involved (myself included), incriminating evidence will not be revealed in order to protect the innocent :)

18- turning in my freedom in exchange for combat boots and 'seven basic responses': yes sir, no sir, no excuse sir, sir may i ask a question, sir may i make a statement, sir i do not understand, sir i do not know.  yes, i used that last response a LOT.

ok i think this post is getting long enough so we'll just call this "memory lane--part 1" and call it a night.  (you're probably saying to youself, please spare me part 2!!)   

better late than never...

so this was supposed to get posted yesterday, but since our beautiful and always working while staying low priced time warner cable decided it did not want to work for a billion times once.  soooooooooo, here is my lovely CINCO DE MAYO post!! :)

it's become a rather big deal here in the U.S. to celebrate cinco de mayo and as the resident mexican of this blog, i felt obligated to explain the history behind the holiday.  so jess, here's your answer...

it may (or may not) be a well known fact that mexicans LOVE mayonaise.  if you're from po-dunk, fin-town USA, you may not realize this since there are only a few such mexicans who have ever graced the town with their presence ;)  but anyways, now you know...mexicans love mayonaise.  so waaaaaay back in history, right after mexico had staked it's claim as an actual country or republic or whatever you want to call it, the then queen of england wanted to "congratulate" mexico and sort of send a peace offering out of respect for what they had accomplished.  obviously, what would you send a bunch of mexicans???  tortillas??? noooooooooo silly.  mayonaise of course!!  so off the armada went...set sail for the new republic of mexico.  they set sail at the end of april hoping to arrive sometime in the beginning of may.  well, sure enough, they ran into the notorious spring weather that the great seas are known for.  and on may 5, 1700-something the armada sank to bottom of the atlantic.  so the mexicans, not wanting the queen of england to feel bad since they figured they may need her help someday declared a holiday and call it SINK-O DE MAYO!!

and now you know....the rest of the story :)

ahhh...utah

so while i was surfing around this afternoon, i came across this picture on one of my friends' myspace page.  honestly, can you think of a more beautiful baseball stadium???

Where...

So i'm finally copying everybody else's idea and doing the "where" blog.  Here goes nothing...

Where...

is your cell phone? right here beside me. 

is your significant other? she's taking a nap on the couch.

is your hair? still on my head thank goodness--you don't want to see me with a shaved look...ugh.

is your mother? probably at her soon-to-be-open quilt shop with jess's mom :)

is your father? hmmm...same as mom unless he's at one of his 8 "part-time jobs"

is one of your favorite things? naptime baby...why do you think i'm fiiiiiinally putting up a blog??

was your dream last night?  in my head, the only safe place for it :)

can you get your favorite drink? red robin!!  strawberry lemonade, yum!  or maybe chocolate milk in the comfort of my own kitchen.

are you right now? in the living room, relaxing on the glider.

is your ex? ok, so you caught me on a technicality...here she is :).

is your fear? losing a loved one.

do you want to be in 6 years? moving to edwards air force base in california for test pilot school followed by flight test engineer work...the next step to becoming an astronaut...lol jk...kinda :)    

were you last night? another solid night at home...we're crazy like that.

was the last place you drove? to the golf course this morning...only to be rained out.  oh, did i mention it is now bright and sunny and 70 degrees outside??  no, i'm not bitter.

did you grow up? hmmm, interesting question that you've asked.  here goes nothing...(deep breath) bitburg germany (2yrs), fin-town MN (short time), virginia beach virginia (2 yrs), las vegas NV (7 yrs), fin-town MN (7 yrs).  oh wait, what am i saying???  i still haven't grown up yet :)

was the last place you ate? other than the delicious brown sugar-marinated baked ham, mashed potatoes, corn, and croissants followed by homemade apple crisp and ice cream i had last night...um, probably the cafeteria at school. 

is (are) your TV(s)? in the living room.

are your pets? sorry, no pets at this time in my life.

is your computer? as the name might imply, it's on my lap.

is your mood? relaxed.

is your oldest friend? hmmm. i'm assuming this means my oldest friend that i'm still in contact with...virginia beach virginia working for NASA.

is your car? spicy orange, aka the little orange jelly bean, is patiently waiting outside for her next hot rodding event :)

is your wedding ring? on my left ring finger.

is your favorite store? home depot...unless ebay counts.

is your favorite place to be in the summer? golf course...unless i'm home in minnesota, then out fishin with gram

was the last place you laughed? this morning in my bathroom when i was using mouthwash and aubriee was trying to mimic me when i gurgle before spitting it out...it's a good thing the sink was there or the mouthwash would have been sprayed all over the carpet :)

was the last place you cried? probably the last extreme makeover home edition.  i'm a softy, i fully admit it.

are five places you go on the internet on a regular basis?  blog-land, hotmail, ESPN, ebay, MSN

what. a. weekend.

i'm not quite sure how the weekend flew by like it did, but it feels like it should only be saturday night.  but that's what happens when grandmama, grandpops, and our little nephews come down for a quick trip to enjoy the birthday festivities.  we had an absolute blast and winkerbeaner made out like a bandit with her mother-lode of gifts.  oh, and daddy will be eating cold cut sandwiches for lunch for the next two weeks ;)  haha.  so anyways, on to the party details. 

we ended up having a pretty good turnout.  in addition to my folks coming down with trenton and jace, miranda's entire family from cincinatti/kentucky came up, too.  and we had some friends from around this area including the MC from our wedding (who is now married with an adorable little daughter whom aubriee can't wait to play with).  I have to put a couple pictures in of them just so you can see what i'm talking about.

but anyways, i'll let aubriee tell you about the rest of her part/weekend...

hi!  can you believe that i'm 2???  time flies when you do nothing but eat, sleep, and play.  i'm so glad i finally turned 2 because it's my favorite number.  just ask mommy or daddy.  whenever i count, i say 2, 2, 2, GO!!!  for some reason they keep trying to teach me the rest of the numbers...but what's the point??  anyway, i had a blast at my party.  there were so many people there i couldn't believe it.  daddy tried to get a few pictures of everybody so here is one that shows the most people and has a glimpse of my gift stack :)

we started out filling our bellies.  i made sure all the girls (including grandmama G) were wearing their princess tieras.

after that, we got to fill up on cake!  i sure wish my favorite jess could've made my cake, too, but alas, sam's club had to foot the bill :)  i even helped mommy cut the cake ;)

after cake, i got to start opening my presents.  luckily my cousin trenton was here to help me...some of them were pretty tough! :)

i made sure to write down everything that everyone got me so i could send out thank you's ;)

when it was all said and done we were pretty wiped, but we still managed to get a few "family photos" in and grandpops and daddy put together my new kitchen for us to play with (past my bedtime...shhhhh).

thank you to everyone for all the great gifts and the birthday wishes!!  for those of you who were at the party i hope you had a great time and for those who couldn't make it...you've been put on notice...363 days until the next one ;)

wuv,

"aubiee"  (haven't quite gotten my r's down yet :) haha)   

Tough job...

Daddy: it's a tough job...but somebody's got to do it.

Well winkerbeaner...what can i say...i hope you had a wonderful birthday.  I'll post more pictures tomorrow or monday, but I just want to wish you a HAPPY BIRTHDAY and mommy and daddy (and lil' gomper) love you!!!

six word story.

a few days ago jenny tagged me to do this and i'm fiiiiiiinally getting to it :)  as much as i want to put "happy wife, happy life...true, true" i'll resist and try to come up with something else haha.  hmmmm...how about this:

grateful for health, happiness, and love :)

Slacker

Yes, i know i've been slacking lately :(  what can i say?  i'm trying to improve the GPA this quarter ;)  anyways, i think i'll finally check the "where did that blog name come from" box off the list.  but before that happens, i will pre-emptively strike with a couple pictures to make sure this post isn't a complete failure.  and just so you know...yes, i do believe i have the cutest lil' grill on the block :)

and since i know how much you loved her clogs from an earlier post, i decided to get a close-up of them just so you can see what 5 bucks will get you at the outlets :)

ok, now to bore you with another post.  where the grass is greener.  it comes from a saying i heard a few years back, but before i get to that, i'll set the stage a little bit.  i think it's safe to say that i was a pretty smiley kid back in the day.  there wasn't a whole lot that got me down from as far back as i can remember and even through the "dreaded high school years."  i don't mean to toot my own horn, but i think i was a pretty happy go lucky kind of guy (feel free to disagree and let me know how far off i am).  :)  so anyways, graduation day came and off i went to YOUR united states air force academy.  i was lucky enough to spend 5 wonderful years in gorgeous colorado springs, co.  (5 instead of 4 since i "wasn't good enough to get in the first time" and spent a year at the prep school).  now i'd like to say i did a pretty good job at not letting "the man get me down" but looking back i think i couldn't be more off.  it's like i got sucked into the cynicism that abounds at the "blue zoo."  maybe it was all the pointless rules we had to follow.  maybe it was living day in and day out with 4,000 other cadets who had nothing better to do than complain about how much life sucked.  maybe it was the fact that we weren't allowed to leave campus during the week until we were seniors.  or maybe, just maybe, these are all terrible excuses and there really was no reason to complain at all.  sure, the saturday morning room/uniform inspections sucked, but honestly, we were done by noon.  how bad could it have been?  i mean, who else gets paid to go to school???  sure, 80 bucks a month as freshmen wasn't exactly a lucrative nba contract, but it sure beats seeing 20 grand in the negative doesn't it??  ok, so anyways.  after graduation i really noticed how great i had it.  gorgeous campus.  rocky mountains.  all the basketball my knees could handle.  and those beautiful academy women.  haha, just threw that last one in there to see if you were still reading ;)  so right then and there i began to see just how bitter i had become and how much it changed my personality.  maybe that's just what happens when you grow older and the academy was just a small part of it.  but even so, is that really an excuse?  i can't say that it is for me.  so sloooooooowly but surely i've tried to get back to the easy going, laughing, smiling, grateful kid i used to be.  about a year or so after graduation i heard a quote that i absolutely fell in love with: "when the grass looks greener on the other side...water your own grass."  i had it on the bottom of my email for the longest time until the air force decided they didn't want personal quotes as footers in our emails and i got more responses about that quote than i did to my emails.  :)  but the bottom line is that it is soooooo true.  life isn't about how bad i have it or how much i wish i had something or sitting here being a pessimistic dirt bag.  there are always things to be thankful for and always things to make you smile (especially when you have a beautiful family :)  so find the good in life and the bad days will soon be forgotten.  i guess i need to wrap this up since it's already too long.  the reason i named my blog what i did was to remind me not to you this as a place to gripe (yes, i know i've already vented a few times...my bad).  i also think, though, that venting is different than complaining and everybody needs to vent every now and then to get a load off and get back to their normal self right??  so make sure you hold me to it and yell at me if i'm getting whiney and i'll gladly thank you for it.  oh, and i promise i'll try and blog a little more often :)   

I guess this might be "thoughts for thursday"??

wow, evidently pops is quite the hit with his inaugural celebrity clause.  although i shouldn't be surprised about him being a hit.  as i recall correctly, i think every other girl in my h.s. class told me he was a hottie...and i think that's a conservative estimate.  anyway, on to other subjects.

gas stations.  smoking.  common sense would tell you that these two generally don't mix.  oh crap...there i go again throwing that "common sense" term around loosely.  ok, so i know there are signs posted practically on all sides of every single pump, but apparently people can't read.  normally it bugs me while i'm pumping and maybe for another 2 minutes afterwards and then i'm over it.  and it really wouldn't be that big of a deal except that this happens roughly 2 out of 3 times i fill up at the local kroger.  well, today sent me over the edge.  before anybody jumps to any conclusions, no i didn't rip somebody a new one about the whole "combustion of a flameable gas" concept...although sometimes i really really want to.  i can just picture it, me screaming at the top of my lungs so that everybody in the entire parking lot can hear me.  anyways, here's what sent me over the edge...it's probably human nature not to confront somebody about this so i can't fault anybody for not confronting somebody who does this when i haven't done it either.  but you would think that the person running the register that's located at the pumps would at least mention it to somebody who is standing there talking to them with their cigarette hanging out of their mouth while they check out.  maybe i'm just crazy.  does this bother anybody else???  or is ohio the only state that has stupid enough people to do this???  or maybe i'm off my rocker and this really isn't a very stupid idea.  hmmm.  anyways, before i close this post i want to make it clear that i have no ill feelings towards people who smoke by any stretch of the imagination.  it's their decision and it's not like i haven't done things that are detrimental to my health.  however, i do have ill feelings to those who are completely retarded and decide it's ok if it's my life they play with just because that can't wait another 6 MINUTES to light up.  ok i'm out.

random thoughts...

so i'm sitting here while miranda is watching the CMT music awards and i'm thinking...

a) does martina mcbride have the most gorgeous eyes you've ever seen?

b) i think 90% of the ladies in my "celebrity clause" are from country music

c) do any of you guys have "celebrity clauses" in your marriage?

  --on a side note, i did not think of the "celebrity clause" on my own...nor did i come up with mine after everybody else started one.  i have to admit that my pops was the one who was the original inventer of the clause...and i quote: "i told your mother if barbara mandrel ever comes along to sweep me off my feet, i'm allowed to go" :)

d) i think taylor swift would be perfect for my brother-in-law :)

e) i love country music.  i hate listening to country music videos/radio.  it's simple, all music stations these days have a habit of playing the same 7 songs over and over all day long.  country music is notorious for this.  that's why i switch between espn radio and Fly 92.9.  It only took 80 thousand years for somebody to come up with a radio station like this...but it was worth the wait.  i think i can go an entire week not hearing the same song and never wanting to change the station at the same time.

f) i still haven't given the background behind the blog name.  i need to get to that.  i don't mean to create great anticipation because it's pretty simple really.  maybe i'll do it tomorrow.

g) i bought a new suit.  i haven't owned a suit since i was like 15 and that one was a deep deep purple so i don't think it counts...how in the world did i ever wear that????  i don't mean to brag, but this new one is "big pimpin" as my sophomore year roommate would say (a few of you might remember him as the MC from our wedding)

h) and i'll close with a favorite pic of mine of my nephews, trenton and jace (a.k.a. lil' willy and mikey)...