30

Well, as you all know, today is my birthday. It is my 30th birthday to be exact, and I am terrified. Yup, me, Mr. Laidback. It just has me thinking so much about my life, what I have done with it and what I am going to do with it. The song by Tim Mcgraw "My Next 30 Years" is really hitting home. Read this and you will understand :

I think I’ll take a moment, celebrate my age

The ending of an era and the turning of a page

Now it’s time to focus in on where I go from here

Lord have mercy on my next thirty years

Hey my next thirty years I’m gonna have some fun Try to forget about all the crazy things I’ve done Maybe now I’ve conquered all my adolescent fears

And I’ll do it better in my next thirty years

My next thirty years I’m gonna settle all the scores

Cry a little less, laugh a little more

Find a world of happiness without the hate and fear

Figure out just what I’m doing here

In my next thirty years

Oh my next thirty years, I’m gonna watch my weight

Eat a few more salads and not stay up so late

Drink a little lemonade and not so many beers

Maybe I’ll remember my next thirty years

My next thirty years will be the best years of my life

Raise a little family and hang out with my wife

Spend precious moments with the ones that I hold dear

Make up for lost time here ,In my next thirty years

In my next thirty years

But Tim's song isnt complete, it needs more detail. So I decided to blog today, and list all the things I want to do in my next 30 years. Here goes....

In my next 30 years I want to:

Be a better son to God

be a better son, brother and friend

Be a geat husband

be a great father

be more motivated

follow my dreams without fear

become a fireman

see more of the world

do missions work and help the less fortunate

learn to surf
skydive

go to an Ohio State - Michigan game, and a Carolina - Duke game

learn to speak Spanish FLUENTLY

give more hugs

stay in better touch with people

save more money

be more organized

go to the doctor and dentist more

stay alive......

First things first.....

It snowed last night. Now, Im not totally opposed to snow, however, if it is to snow here, I want it to be the kind that you can do somthing with. I want it to be the kind that cripples the city, which would only be like 3 inches. A dusting is just enough to piss you off. Anyway.....

So I have been a busy boy lately. Carolina went ahead and gave me my birthday present early this year, since she had it budgeted into this paycheck. I got a 36 gallon bow-front glass aqueon aquarium kit on Wednesday. It had a good deal of the things I needed. It had the tank, the water filtration system, the lid/light, and the heater. Now, my goal is eventually to get into the saltwater hobby. But to see if I even like the hobby or not, I decided to go freshwater first. Sorry Cheryl.... Well, so far I LOVE IT!!! I spent the first 3 days just setting the aquarium up, getting the water right, reading and studying what I need to do and tips, etc... I even went to an aquarium store in Gastonia (Wet Pets) and spoke with the owner of the store. He asked what all I had, and gave me some pointers. Turns out that since I used aragonite for the "bedding" that is would raise th ph levels to the point that I could only have one type of freshwater fish, African Cichlids. I was a little bummed until he showed me what he had, and they are some pretty fish!!! They are tropical afterall, so they come in many different varieties and colors. Once I got the water right, Sunday afternoon I bought the fish. I bought 6 to start, two yellow ones (Johannis) two blue ones (Socofolis) and two white and black striped with yellow accents (forget the names). Carolina loves them, I love them, and I cant wait to add more. With the size of tank I have I can have around 12 or so in there. African Cichlids love to be with other fish....Im looking forward to it!!!

As for other news today, lets wish Barak Obama the best of luck, send him our prayers, and hope that he can turn this economy around.

Here I am!!

I just liked this picture of her.....this is one of the first pics with the new camera.....

I am here to officially blog!! Yes ladies and gentlemen, I know it has been a while and some of you have been eagerly anticipating the next segment in Steve's Life - The Blog. So, without further delay, this is it. You will be caught up from Christmas to today (which was a huge day.)

So Christmas came, it was awesome, it left and never looked back. Isn't that always the way it is. We love you Christmas, we prepare for you and celebrate you and bake you cookies. All you do is wave as you pass bye and throw us some presents to distract us as you sneak out the back door. Ahh, who am I kidding, I love you. You were especially good to me this year. I had a "Gadget Guy Christmas" that will extend on into my birthday thanks to Mom and James. I will start with what you see, my camera. Carolina got me a new camera!!! I am now snapping pictures left and right with a Canon Powershot SX110 Is. It is an awesome camera. 9 Megapixels with 10x optical zoom (up to 40x, but with lower resolution.) Dad and Anne got me a toy I have yet to stop playing with also, a GPS for my car. Now I have tricked this thing out with all kinds of vehicles thanks to Garmin. I am currently setting sail on the map with the Black Pearl, mate. I even use this thing to get places I already know how to get to, sad. And for a combined Christmas / Birthday present, Mom and James got me a PS3. Obviously, my thumbs have gotten a workout. Now I will say I haven't gotten to play as much as I want, life just kind of gets in the way of my slacking off. Christmas overall was just awesome. I didnt have to work like I thought I would, I got to spend good quality time with my family. Nothing like champagne at breakfast, paw paw! New Years was pretty cool too. Brought in the New Year with Carolina and some of her friends, so you know we brought in the New Year LATIN STYLE!! It was REALLY cool. Hispanic people are just awesome to be around in a FIESTA atmosphere. They are so loving and joyous. Grown men I had never met before were giving me bear hugs saying
"Feliz Ano Nuevo!!" Hope everyone's 2008 was awesome, and youre 2009 is blessed!

Now onto today.......the car situation. Carolina's car had to go BACK to the shop this morning. It seemed to be slipping to the point where Carolina did not think she could get home from work, let alone drive to school, Columbia, clinicals....etc. "Just let her use your car" you say?? Sure lets just see how much hers will cost to get is fixed.....what? 1600? Well if you add that to the 600 we just put in it a month ago, thats 2200 dollars......yeah, we thought so too. So it was off to get a new car. Before we found out the death sentence for Tighty Whitey (Carolina's car's name) Carolina had actually laid the ground work for the new car by doing a little internet research, talking to a couple dealers, etc... We decided to stick with Hyundai because they have been good to us, and they are reasonable cars. If you haven't been in a Hyundai lately, check em out. Like Virginia Slims, theyve come a long way baby. So initially she thought about getting another Accent, since she liked hers so much. But after much thought and prayer, she came to the decision that this time around (her ex husband picked out and bought her last car,) she wanted to get somthing she liked, somthing she wanted, and somthing that would be functional for lifes little changes in the future (meaning children.) I know, came as a shock to me too. She always wanted an SUV, wanted black or red, and wanted to stay around a 300 per month payment. Well, she got all that in a 2008 Hyundai Tucson. Now we have a Tucson and an Elantra. We are a Hyundai family!!


So thats all for now, hope you enjoyed. I will get busy on here. I apologize for my lack of effort lately.

Things are getting back to normal....

I have really neglected this lately. With all of the hustle and bustle of the Holiday season, the news presents to play with, and now getting into a new work schedule, I have a lot of posting to do. So once I get all of the pictures uploaded to the computer I will post Christmas, New Years and so on....