One day....

We will become regular bloggers ! ! ! Right Kim and Stacey??

Well, the past couple of months have been eventful.

Kristi is still teaching...has three more weeks to go and I believe she is ready for it to come to an end this semester. She still has intentions to do it again next semester, however, she is ready for it to be over for now.

We have visited my parents in Richmond at the beginning of October and are planning on traveling this Friday to go visit again. My mom's b'day was at the beginning of Oct so we were up there to see her for her b'day. This time, she bought the grandkids tickets to see Disney on Ice...we will see how The Boy does sitting through his first major show.

We went on our second trip with Ricky. We went on one of those cheap $99 for 4 days and 3 nights if you listen to a 90-120 min sales pitch on timeshares. We went to Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg b/c we both love the outlets up there and we were needing some clothes for The Boy. We stayed in a Holiday Inn Express and contrary to the commercials, I didn't feel any smarter when I left. Our room was a normal hotel room with two full beds so Ricky slept in a bed all by himself for the first time. He is getting too big for a pack and play and any portable crib is too small as well so we figured we would give it a shot. Night #1....Kristi woke up at 3:30 and SMACKED me...she tells people she gently woke me up....but she SMACKED me and went "OHHHH" and pointed down at her feet. There was Ricky balled up and sound asleep. We still don't know if he fell out and just didn't wake up or he got up and figured we weren't going to wake up and just laid down on the floor and went to sleep. Night #2....un-eventful. Night #3...again, at 3:15ish, we hear this loud CLUNG and both of us shoot straight up at the same time. We hear little feet come pitter pattering around the corner coming back from the FRONT DOOR ! ! ! He had opened it and the latch at the top caught (Praise the Lord) and wouldn't let him open it up fully and he just closed it back. HOLY COW ! ! ! We locked the "deadbolt" and the latch, however, in hotels, that deadbolt releases when you open the door from the inside. I strongly oppose that feature now that I almost had my son walk out in the hallway and end up who knows where at 3:15 in the morning!!!!

During the day, we took Ricky up to Ripley's Aquarium in Gatlinburg. He enjoyed getting out of his stroller and running through the exhibits, but I think is still a little young to fully enjoy it. We rode a Trolley and he called it a "BUS" and everytime we saw a trolley the rest of our stay he would say BUS...BUS...BUS!!! He sat in the seat by himself, not on a lap and hung on and just took in the sights. I took the two of them back to the top of the mountain where I proposed to Kristi and we shared a special moment as a family. And of course, we shopped. Our shopping has drastically changed since the spring of 2007. Ricky racked up ! ! ! ! I needed some suits and S&K was running "Buy one get one free" on the entire store so I took advantage of that and I don't think Kristi bought anything for herself. Overall we had a very good time as a family.

Kristi and I traveled down to Statesville to buy a boat trailer so we could bring our boat home. That was a full day!!! Drove to Statesville...looked at some used trailers...bought a trailer....the guy had to re-wire the whole thing b/c the lights were not working...drive another 3o mins to Lake Norman....load the boat (which I have never done before!) and then strap it down and turn around and drive all the way back to Bristol. Kristi found a storage place and I was worried about backing the boat into a small storage place but when I got there, it was a huge warehouse that I just drove right in and unhooked it...YEAH! Looking forward to next summer to get back on the water again!!

We went to a pumpkin patch with some friends from church. They have a daughter who is a little younger than Ricky. It was one of our first COLD days, so we weren't there very long. We picked out a couple of pumpkins, had some hot chocolate, the kids played with toy tractors, and we waited for the hayride. They would not start the hayride until they had 20 kids ready to ride and there were nowhere near that many kids while we were there, so we just packed it up and left.

Halloween - we had the hardest time trying to find a decent costume for him this year. We finally resided on letting him wear the costume we had for him last year - a monkey. Then my sister, Alison, in Tampa called and said she could send a Pottery Barn Spider that my nephew Davis wore when he was Ricky's age. Kristi and I signed up to work our "booth/trunk" at our church's Trunk or Treat. So we met at her parents and when I got there, Ricky was in the monkey suit and going around to some of their friends houses in their neighborhood. Kristi and I had to get going and we didn't want Ricky to be at the church for hours, so we left and her parents were going to bring Ricky up after awhile. We told them to put him in either one he would put on, so we still didn't know what he officially was going to be for Halloween. We were at the church for just over an hour when they arrived and he was in the spider outfit. He looked so cute! We took him around to all the activities they had set up for the kids and he got his candy for doing the activities. He did a great job of putting his candy in his bucket and not trying to eat it at that time. I think he ended up with a lolly pop while we were there and that was it.

Kristi's dad is still having some numbness so they did an MRI with him today and he should get the results and speak to the neurologist this week...Friday I think.

Kristi's brother got a new job at Regions Bank. I would have loved to get him on board at Wachovia, but that is considered a conflict of interest. So the best I could do is sit and talk with him about what I look for when I interview and we discussed banking in general.

We went apple picking last weekend as a family. Kristi's parents, brother and his family and us. Ricky had a really good time. We picked a little over 3 bushels. The orchard is on top of a mountain and it was cold up there. That along with the fact that we filled up our boxes and buckets within 25 mins, made that a short trip.

I guess, since the last update, Wachovia has been in the news quite a bit. First Citi was going to buy us, before we apparently went under and then Wells Fargo came out of nowhere and offered a better deal. I still don't know what the implications are going to be for my job. There is my position over the branch managers and then I have a sales partner who is over the sales people in the branches. Wells Fargo's current model has everyone in the branches report up to the manager, so there is only a need for one leader...not two. However, our service scores are much higher than their scores are, so they are intrigued by our model. We will just have to wait and see what happens. All I can do is keep doing my best and try and top the stank rankings. September's end of the month rankings had me #1 in the entire company - almost 200 people do the same job I do and I was at the top of the stack rankings. As long as I continue to do that, I would hope there would be a position for me when all of this is said and done.

Well....there is the long update. That would be the benefit of being on the ball with this...our updates wouldn't be so long!!!!