We had been planning to go grocery shopping since we arrive back in home Tuesday night. Turns out that Shane’s out of state payroll check was being held by the bank for 5 business days, which meant it was suppose to available on Thursday.

Thursday night comes around, and we are all ready to go grocery shopping. Just before we leave, Shane checks his account. The funds were NOT available. Talk about being rather frustrating! Perhaps it is a good thing that there isn’t a local branch of the bank we are having the problems with. This way it makes even more sense to change to a local bank. Now we just have to take the time to do so, with both our personal and business accounts.

First thing Friday morning though, we found the funds were available so we decided to go Friday night. We ended up with a late start getting out of the house. Since there is a Cinzzetti’s near the Whole Foods Market we were planning on shopping at, we decided to eat there then shop.  It’s never a good idea to grocery shop on an empty stomach.

Cinzzetti’s is a bit different that many Italian restaurants, it’s basically an Italian buffet, and it’s wonderful.  I highly recommend it to everyone.  When we finished eating, it was 8:50.  Our problem was that the grocery store closed at 9.  Nothing like everything conspiring against us, huh? Well luckily enough for us 3rd time was the charm.  We were able to actually get our groceries this afternoon.

Of course that isn’t the only thing we did this afternoon.  Much to Allyssa’s enjoyment we also squeezed in some time at Loose Park.  It’s one of her favorite places, since it has slides.  Of course, chasing Allyssa around the park makes enough exercise for mom and/or dad.  This picture was actually taken on Wednesday, the 1st.  But it still shows how much she enjoys the slides.

Yep, you heard me, another move. Sounds like we will never get settled. The job in Schaumburg, IL with Verizon Wireless just wasn’t the right job for me. I thought it would be fun to not have to write code any more, but I ended up managing a couple of WordPress installs and that just isn’t what I want to do. When this new opportunity came up I had to take it.

Oh, yeah, this time the move is to Kansas City, Missouri where I will be working with someone I have known and worked with for over 2 years. I will again be writing code and building web sites and promoting the weight loss program that I know works – still down about 25 pounds from the first run and getting started to do it again.

We have spent this past week at Laura’s dad’s home in Holmen, WI, catching up with family and taking care of things that needed to be taken care of here. This time we have a condo waiting for us when we get there, so I packed up the necessary items from storage yesterday and will drive down tomorrow morning. The condo is a perk from the employer so we don’t have to spend thousands of dollars on a hotel room while we look for a place. It’s a small, 1 bedroom condo but it’s much larger then then hotel room we lived in for 6 weeks. It’s also close to shopping and entertainment so we’ll save money on driving everywhere.

Hopefully this one will be the one that lasts a while. As soon as we get settled we will share photos of our new digs and try to keep you updated as life continues for the Lambert clan. Now that we will be nearly 8 hours away from family and friends this blog will become an important lifeline to keep you all updated on the trials and tribulations of raising such a beautiful young lady.

It’s been way too long since we were able to drive our car rather then the van, but as of today, we can! Those of you who know about this will want to hear about the hassle with the DMV I have dealt with this past few months. It seems our tax dollars, which are used to pay those idiots at the DMV, are being wasted. I will elaborate:

We bought the car on August 4th, 2008, but due to an accident I had back in 2004 when I did not have insurance, I was unable to register the car until I paid the damage judgment against me. This started a search for the person I owed the money to. Ironically, the DMV nor the court systems could help me find him, and any old contact information I had was long outdated.

After nearly 3 months of trying to find him, I suddenly remembered where he had worked, and thought to call there to see if they had current contact information. Fortunately, he still worked there and he eventually contacted me back. Problem was, he wanted all the money up front before he would release the judgement. I worked it out through family and friends to be able to pay him the full amount, but informed him if he wanted his money he needed to meet me at the court house in La Crosse and sign the satisfaction of judgement. He was more than willing to do that. This is where the fun began!

I received the satisfaction of judgment on November 13th and called the DMV the following Monday. The yahoo that answered the phone told me that he sees the judgment is satisfied and that I now need to file SR-22 insurance and pay a $110 reinstatement fee. This really frustrated me because when I called the DMV back in October to find out what I needed to do, that person said nothing about insurance or a fee, nor did the notice the DMV sent me when I tried to register the vehicle. If I had known about the SR-22 requirement back in October, I would have done it. Turns out it only added about $25 to our policy – not bad.

Then today I called the DMV to make sure the SR-22 filing was on record, and was told it was, BUT, the satisfaction of judgement was not. I flew off the handle – yelling at this poor woman, Mary, who quickly calmed me down and told me what I needed to do. I scanned and emailed the satisfaction to her, and she immediately called me back to get the payment of only a $50 fee. The $110 the other yahoo mentioned included the $60 to reinstate my license, which I didn’t need to do today. She then transferred me to someone in the registration department who expedited the filing of the satisfaction, and told me we could get temporary plates so we could use the vehicle. FINALLY, someone at the DMV who knows what they are doing.

To make this long story short, now that you’ve waded through the whole thing, Laura made a trip with the van to River Falls to get our temporary plates and we can now drive our more fuel efficient vehicle again. So, for those wondering, we will be back home for Christmas, though we will once again spend Christmas Day here at home as a family.

Those of you who know me know that I need to lose weight, a lot of it. So this past weekend I started a new weight loss program, the Extreme Regime. It’s designed to burn fat and detox the body and help you lose weight quickly. Well, maybe not quickly, but lose it nonetheless. I am currently weighing in at a hefty 245 pounds, and my goal with this regime is to get myself down below 200 by the end of the year.

I’ll keep you update to date here, but will share most of my progress and research on my new blog, Down to 200. I am sure that I will start to lose some of the excess baggage, but more importantly I am going to learn how to eat better and maintain that weight. This will be some time in the works of course, but if it works for me, I’ll put you all in touch with the wonderful Dr. Heidi who can help you as well! I’ll start this off with my before picture – and no, I am not showing my hideous overgrown belly. Enjoy.

This past weekend we spent a wonderfully relaxing weekend in Green Lake, WI where Aunt Joanne and Uncle Bob, as well as Aunt Kathleen and Uncle Stan live. We stopped by Kathleen and Stan’s first for a few hours and enjoyed the back deck as you can see in the first photo. It was a beautiful day with just about perfect weather. The ulterior motive for going out to Green Lake this weekend was to go down to North Freedom for a Fall Color Train Ride. More on that later.

While we were visiting with Kathleen, we decided that since the weather was so nice we’d take Allyssa out to the swing out back for her first ride. The swing she is using to the left is one that my mother had for her other grandchildren, and gave it to Kathleen a few years ago. Little did she know that she wasn’t done having grandchildren, but at least Allyssa was still able to enjoy the swing. Since she loves to move around and be moved around, she really enjoyed swinging. Guess we will have to get one for her.

After visiting with Kathleen and Stan for a while, we drove over to Joanne and Bob’s, who planned to join us for the train trip. We drove down on Saturday morning and picked up our reserved, first class tickets. To the right you can see that Laura seems to be enjoying herself, but Allyssa isn’t quite sure what to think. This is her first ride on a train, but I can assure you it won’t be her last.

We had reserved first class because the car was supposed to be air conditioned. Turns out the air conditioning unit had stopped working a few weeks ago, so we would have to endure the heat. Thought it was a bit warm out that day, the trip itself wasn’t too bad, and Allyssa and I truly did enjoy the trip.

The train ride is an out and back ride, and for the first half of the trip we were at the back of about an 8 car consist. The problems started at the end of the line, when the locomotive (diesel – they still don’t have steam running) ran around the train to pull us back to the station. This put us, still in the last car, right next to the locomotive. Allyssa didn’t like the sound of the horn – it was very loud – so that left me watching for whistle posts the rest of the trip so mommy could cover her ears. That seemed to solve the problem.

Grandma (my mother) went along with us for the weekend, though she didn’t go on the train ride with us. Here you can see Allyssa enjoying some quality time out on the deck at Joanne and Bob’s. I got in some quality time out on the hammock, but alas, nobody took up the camera and got a picture. Allyssa really loved swinging with daddy – next time I will make sure to get some pics.

The weekend away from the hustle and bustle of everyday life really did me a world of good. I have always enjoyed going to the lake, and I hope it can become a part of our regular family activities. It sure is wonderful to have such loving relatives who make us feel so welcome every time we visit.

Wow, I can’t believe it has been over two months since our last post! Guess it’s time to give you all an update. Allyssa is almost 5 months old – well, she will be in exactly one week. It’s so hard to believe it, and she is growing so much, as you can see in this picture I took as she was waking up this morning. Even fresh out of bed, she is one HAPPY baby!

It’s really fun and uplifting to see her smile at us every time she sees us. She can be playing in her little “exer-saucer” toy that Grandma bought for her, or sleeping soundly with one of us. It doesn’t matter how long we have been gone, or if we just saw her 10 seconds ago. When she sees our faces, she lights up with joy. It’s also a lot of fun to try and make her laugh – which is pretty easy now. Just pretend like you are eating her feet or tickle her under the armpits and she goes crazy. She also loves to “fly” and crash into the cushy couch.

We’ve been slowly collecting some cute outfits for her to wear, but she quickly outgrows them. Today she has a fun, frilly outfit of pink and blue that, and although the pieces weren’t purchased as an outfit, they really go together nicely. Here she is pictured in that “exer-saucer” I mentioned above. She loves to stand up with someone’s help, and this toy lets her stand by herself and play. Some days, like today, she will play for a long time, while others she quickly becomes bored and lonely and wants to be held.

The only bad thing about being a dad is that now her poop has taken on a little bit of an odor. Not too pungent yet, but enough to let you know that she is dirty – and then she wants to be changed right away. This of course can be very difficult when you are away from home and someone forgets to put the baby wipes back in the diaper bag.

But now for some good news – she has started to accept drinking from a bottle. We have gone through many bottle and nipple types, and we finally found something that she seems to tolerate. Though she won’t go through a whole feeding on a bottle, it’s enough to let mom get out of the house once in a while. I think that will really help her sanity a bit – and mine.

I see now that Blogger let’s us easily add video to our blog posts, so I guess we need to get out that video camera, take some precious moments videos and share them with you. That is of course if I can find a piece of software that will take the wide screen video from our camera without distorting it. Until next time!

Well, as you can see, I work way too hard during the day that when I finally get some time to spend with Allyssa, we usually nap together. This was how we spent our quality time on Monday, and I’ve been so busy since then I just finally took the time to post the photo.

For those of you that do not know, I am working on a social networking web site for network marketers, you know, those people that first sell you something then want you to join them in the business? Well, I found a business that I like and is going to help me get healthy so I can spend more time with my family. I have been taking the whole food supplement known as The Pops since April and it is really starting to make a difference in my life. But I shall spare you the details here for now – take a look at my Healthy Dad web site for all of those details. I’ll just share that since taking The Pops, I have more energy during the day and sleep better at night. Want proof? Look at the picture above.

Ok, you’ve seen another picture, now it’s time for me to get back to work.