Its an EMMA GRACE

Emma was being so much a lady and keeping her legs together like glue that we almost did not find out she was a girl. But the doctor knows how to work with babys and says he got her to let him peek really quick. The doctor asked what we wanted and we gave our reasons for both a boy and girl but told him we would love our baby no matter what. Then the doctor said.."Well you better start a wedding fund"....it took us a few secounds but we got it and the doctor was sure to come back and clairify "just to clarify, I think you having a girl". We are so happy to know we can call our sweet little girl by her name. WE LOVE YOU EMMA!!

Christmas!

Reminder of one of our Favorite Christmas of Sarah and my life...We love you Kelly and Paul!!!

Our tree is cheering for CLEMSON!!! GO TIGERS!!!

Tree Protection by AH-64 Apache Attack Helicopter...Watch our DJ and Peaches...Don't mess with the ornaments!!

Poor DJ!!

DJ has been squatting on things (but not "going"), and seems to be straining to go to the bathroom..and just not acting normal...Poor little guy! We took him to the vet today and they had us leave him all day for tests...He spent from 11am -5:30pm at the vet with some very noisy but sweet dogs...They are trying find out if he has diabetes, aids, leukemia or just plain UTI....We need to get a urine sample from him tonight to give to the doctor (DJ would not give a sample today, even when he was squeezed) Sarah and i will not be squeezing him, but we will put out a litter box with a few pieces of newspaper and drain off the urine when he goes (hopfully he will). With all the tests they ran on him today i noticed that they had to shave part of his neck...Poor guy...and apparently he doesnt smell right because Peaches is hissing at him...Ahh the Drama in the Parks home no longer stays upstairs with the girls.
DJ and his Christmas pose

What did they do to you buddy!!

I guess he is just experiencing early balding

Football games!!

Sarah and I got to go to one of the oldest and biggest football rivarys in the country...Southern VS. Gambling..It was a fun game with lots of music and its always fun to go to the Super Dome for a game..

Hole in the tub

So i saw the need to continue to "fix" our bathroom because our towel rack fell off the wall, and we developed a hole in our tub....So i went to Lowes and Sarah and I got a caulk gun and a caulk tube and i went to work on our bathroom.

Black Friday

So i decided to continue the tradition that Sarah and I began last year of getting up early on Black Friday to buy stuff. Unfortunately one of us had to stay home with the girls. So I decided to be the early riser, but first i had to make a plan. I got all the ads out and figured out what we needed and wanted and where it was avalible. Then i looked at which stores had the most things avalible and figured out how i could go to the least amount of stores and get the most stuff. I ended up needing to go to 4 stores, K-mart, Target, Best Buy, and Radio Shack. Thats right ladies and gentleman i didn't have to go to Wal-Mart!! WOO WHOO!! Well next i drew up a map of where i needed to go and in what order...this was very entertaining to our girls...Anyways i got up at 5am on Friday...and was out the door..First stop was Best buy where i bought 2 movies for $5 total....Next stop K-Mart to get $8 CD players for the girls (no more borrowing or "she took it without asking") but guess what happens to $8 CD players....they run out...Oh well...On to Target to get presents for our family, more movies, and a George Foreman for the house. Last stop is Radio Shack to get new phones for the house and one more present. I was home by 8am and ready to go a whole day at work, and prepare for the whole weekend of work. As our Paster Ray Conata would say "move towards the pain"...We just need to figure out how to not be in pain :c). Pray for our girls...Sarah....Me....and Emma/Eli...

LIVING IN 2007

You know you are living in 2007 when.......

1. You accidentally enter your password on the microwave.

2. You haven't played solitaire with real cards in years.

3. You have a list of 15 phone numbers to reach your family of 3.

4. You e-mail the person who works at the desk next to you.

5. Your reason for not staying in touch with friends and family is that they don't have e-mail addresses.

6. You pull up in your own driveway and use your cell phone to see if anyone is home to help you carry in the groceries.

7. Every commercial on television has a web site at the bottom of the screen.

8. Leaving the house without your cell phone, which you didn't have the first 20 or 30 (or 60) years of your life, is now a cause for panic and you turn around to go and get it.

10. You get up in the morning and go on line before getting your coffee.

11. You start tilting your head sideways to smile. : )

12 You're reading this and nodding and laughing.

13. Even worse, you know exactly to whom you are going to forward this message.

14. You are too busy to notice there was no #9 on this list.

15. You actually scrolled back up to check that there wasn't a #9 on this list

AND NOW YOU ARE LAUGHING at yourself.

The Price we pay to drill

So the other day I decided to let the girls in on my house fixing adventures. This time i was working on the landscaping timber for the front yard. If your wondering where i am in the process let me tell you.
I began with Looking at and determining that the wood was rotten and needed to be replaced.
Next I bought the new landscaping timber (only 3 logs the first time, cuz i mis-estimated) it turned out to need 9 logs.
Next i tore out the old logs.
Then i measured the garden and determined how long i needed to trim the logs to in order for them to fit.
Next i measured where the re-bar was and marked on the landscaping timber where to put the holes.
HERE WE ARE IN THE PROCESS.
I was going to allow the girls to drill some of the holes in the timber so i put my 12V drill cordless drill on one of the holes and told the girl to go at it. Well she made it about 1/2 through the timber and the drill died. I figured out my cordless rechargeable drill was not going to survive the 27 holes that needed to be drilled if it could not survive through 1.

To Make a long story short i decided i needed a corded drill. I went next door to the hardware store and told them the size i needed and they were anything but helpful. So i decided to walk to the Ace Hardware down the street. I thought it was about 9 blocks down so i decided to get some excersie and walk. I invited the girls to come with me, told Sarah, and off we went. 2 miles and about 30 blocks later we were at ACE (3535 Magazine). 4 miles total walked and not enough time left in the day to drill the holes. But don't worry i did it on the rain day we had 2 days later. Next step putting the timbers on the re-bar and planting new plants :c).

My New Project..AN ARK

So for some odd reason while the rest of the country is having rabid forest fires (south California), droughts, and back in SC water restrictions, We here in New Orleans are taking on water. I checked the weather last night to see if it was going to rain because i was going to finish my landscaping timber project today on my day off. Well it said something like "scattered showers". They lied....It began raining this morning and has not stopped since, Urban Flooding is so bad by our house that i had to walk through 1/2 ft. of water on the sidewalk going to the Circle K just down the street. Lucky for me I have my Crocs (i used to hate them when people would wear them, but they are just SOO useful). Poor Bella the dog had to go potty on the cement because all the grass had at least 3in of water on it. When i find my camera PC cord i will post a video of my walk to the circle K....Pray for the people in the city because Sarah and I live in one the highest parts of the city. Most of the girls schools have been canceled because of flooding, i guess part of the "charm of the city" is all the water we get to experience. I should get my Kayak from the storage unit and go for a "paddle"...Ahhh the joys of New Orleans.

Landscaping the yard

I didn't feel the need to talk about mowing the lawn anymore because it was not a challenge anymore...Ive got it down to about 35 min...including blowing the grass off the sidewalk..However i did do something new...I "trimmed" the tree in the front yard...Turns out i have a Japanese Yew...I found this out as i was trimming it and our paster walked by (isn't New Orleans Great!) He told me that he is lucky enough to have the largest one in our neighborhood. Too bad for him i have the largest live Oak...which are much cooler. Anyways..he told me the name and i forgot it of course..so i took a trimming and fruit sample inside and looked it up...He was right, Japanese Yew. Well the trimming didn't turn out so good for the tree...but they grow back i hear :c). Sorry Mike!

I Began the process of replacing the landscaping timber in the front garden. I began by pulling off the old rotten pieces and i met lots of new friends, Worms, Skinks, and lots of slugs (the girls call them leaches and run away from them). It was a bigger job than anticipated...as always. Sarah came home so i got a decent stopping point and cleaned up the yard (i had pieces of wood EVERYWHERE....

New Light in Living room...Stringing cable..restringing phone

Today i took down the light in our living room and i rewired the new light fixture that sarah and i picked out up by connecting the white to white, black to black and gold to gold (gold is a new one for me). So now we have a new light fixture in the living room...We also have a new one to put up in the bedroom...but thats for another day.
Friday i decided to restring the cable cord so that it was not strung across the room anymore. So i drilled a hole next to the hole a drilled for the Fax phone cord and...WOOOPS...i snapped the fax phone cord in half...so then my new priority was restringing the Fax cord..cuz hello...we are running a business here and get lots of Faxes...Matt made a boo boo. Well i restrung the Fax line then strung the cable cord...YEAY MATT...All boo boo's fixed and i accomplished something.

Sidewalk

Hey Kelly...Watch out for the hole!!! (when Kelly visited us she kept tripping in this hole in the sidewalk where grass had grown up in it and you did not see how deep it was).
Haha not anymore...the last few days I've been planning my first concrete laying experience. I measured how big the rectangle was that i was going to pull the broken concrete out of and pour new concrete. It was 60x40...so I've seen people pour concrete...they have a wooden rectangle made from 2x4's and they pour the concrete in them. So i made a rectangle too....I subtracted the 2x4's from the 60x40 measurements and made my rectangle...then i bought a 2 bags of concrete, the 2nd one just encase i needed a little extra to fill the hole. I decided after looking at the broken concrete that about 1/3 of the rectangle was in pretty good shape other than a crack through the middle...so i decided to leave it be. I took the broken concrete out of the hole and dug out a 3-4 in rectangular hole. Then i checked the weather report to look for 3 days in a row of sun so the rain will not ruin the setting of the concrete. Turns out Saturday was a great day to do it :c). So i poured 2 bags in and said UT OH...cuz it bairly filled the hole...So i ran inside asked Sarah for my wallet and Drove off to Lowe's...Meeting a train with 59 cars that i got to watch on the way back...GREAT!! So this time i bought 3 bags...the 3rd bag of course was just in case i need a little more. Well i get home pour in 2 bags and find i needed the 3rd one....I poured it in (5th bag) and found i was going to need 1 more....I didn't have time to go back to Lowe's before it set so i decided to put the Broken Concrete pieces in and see if that helped....Well i took me walking up and down Magazine looking for random pieces of rock or brick but i finally finished the sidewalk :c). Then the we heard the all the girls in the front room at 10:30pm (1 hour after lights out) and had to go give consequences for being up after lights out and being in other rooms...Push over Matt let the girls come out and sign their name in the wet cement after they write their point down. The girls do not have writing in cement ediqute and ended up making the sidewalk look kind of ugly...but i made it and they signed it...so all is well. Pictures to come.

Bathroom Fan

On Monday while Sarah was at School i decided to replace the bathroom exhaust fan, because the fan did not work. Felt like a good reason to replace it. Anyways for those of you that have never installed an exhaust fan it turns out to be fairly difficult. The idea is simple...Connect 3 wires on the fan to 3 wires in the celing. The hard part comes in when you try to take out the old fan that has been in the celing for 30 years or more with 30 year old wires and nails. About 2 hours later i had the old fan out and i looked up into the hole and found that there is only one stud going along the side of the opening, making it hard to sucure the fan in the hole. That might be why it was so hard to get the old one out (someone put it in really good). well i ended up connecting a hook about 3 feet up into hole and strung picture hanging wire down and "hung" the exhaust fan out of the celing. It doesnt look great but it works...Pictures to come!

2nd Stay at the Oshner Hotel

My second stay was more miserable than the 1st stay. My 1st stay atleast had the first time wonders with it...WOW THERES A CAMERA IN HERE.....WOW AN INTERCOM....WOW THIS IS A COOL HOSPITAL....I GET TO WEAR THIS ODD MASK....Anyways this time i didn't get the pre-sleep dvd about sleep disorders....The Brewers won (chasing my Cubs in the NL Central)...and they told me i was going to wear the mask the whole night....I begin my evening by telling my personal assistant that i can not sleep on my back....to which she tells me that in order to wear the mask i have to be on my back....So i was optimistic about the night...maybe this time i can sleep with this crazy machine...Well she straps it on and i tell her it is too tight...Okay she says and "loosens it"....It still hurts i tell her...Oh you will get used to it she tells me...GREAT...Well about 2 hours in i could not stand the pain anymore and i buzzed her...I tell her to take it off I'm better off without it. So she takes it off...for 2 minutes... then comes and straps it on again. So much for sleep. I finally got to leave about 6:30am and i went home, gave my wife a kiss, and rolled over on my stomach so i could sleep, and off i was to dream land...Oh by the way..its 6:00pm and i still have the marks from the mask on my face and my nose still hurts...I told that lady it was too tight! Life goes on :c)

Baby, SWAT, 2nd stay at 2,000 Hotel

This is my official Press release about the upcoming birth of my 1st child:
On Monday September 17th 2007 Sarah M. Parks walked in the door after her Grad Class and annonced that she would be taking a pregnancy test. I was encouraged but skeptical for this was the 7th test we had taken in the last few months The ever encouraging person i am i put down the computer and walked into restroom and she took the test. She then said "I'm Pregnant". Well i looked at the stick and did not see the normal cross that we are usally looking for, so i made the wrong reponce to this wonderful news. I said "are you sure?, let me check the box" So i check the box and sure enough Little Peanut Parks is on the way. So we Hugged and began talking about how excited we were and how we would tell our parents. Sarah said she could not wait till Nov. 8th when we head to South Carolina, and i agreed so we called her Dad then Mom. Next Matt made his family calls....no one seemed to believe us at first. Just wait till our beautiful baby is born...She/He will be so cute.

Me and Sarah saw a the Jefferson Parish SWAT TEAM truck driving down I-10. This pilice car was following the trucks bumper very close changing lanes and all.. It was cool Matt was way excited and staring. The Truck had all this cool gadgets on top that Sarah and I came up with uses for like...Loud Speaker...Laser guided rockets....Rope hook launcher..etc. Then a few cars up i saw a for real hummer (not the dorky H1, H2,H3) It was so cool.

Friday night i have been invited back to the invitation only Oshner Hotel. If you will remember it is equipped with some state of the art amenities, if you forgot about them check out their Hotels.com page i made for them...The $2,000 Hotel

Exploring the Garage

Mr. Matt's Meat Rub

So Sarah decided that it would be a great idea to cook hamburgers for Dinner on Sunday (Family teacher's cook day). During her nap yesterday Sarah calls me to tell her idea to make hamburgers. So i get 4 turkey burgers and about 8 cow burgers and start thawing them. Several hours later when I went to cook the burgers i noticed that we were all out of my normal main ingredient of WooWoo sauce (Worcestershire sauce). So my moto has become, "If we don't have it..Make it". I turn to the trusty internet which if you remember was my secret behind my rib rub. I find a recipe that surprising to me listed the base WooWoo sauce to be vinegar. I'm not a fan of vinegar....I think it stinks..has a bad taste...and it is just way to potent to me. But a recipe is a recipe. So i put vinegar, soy sauce, water, cinnamon, onion powder, garlic powder, and other ingridents. Then i decided that rather than adding the other spices to the hamburger later, I would just add it right to my new concoction. The end result is Mr. Matt's Meat rub. One girl tells me i should market it, i informed her i would never be able to make it the same way more than once cuz i add different stuff everytime (whatever i think of at the time i throw in). The end result were some very yummy hamburgers!!

Curtains, Rubbing ribs, and Millions of Bugs

A few days ago I found a curtain rod behind a box in the office. I decided that i would put them up. I lined up the curtain braces then I drilled my holes in the wall, nailed in the screw braces, and then screwed in the screws...At this point I realized that I am not very good at one of life's most basic tasks....Screwing in screws....It seems that about half the time I try to screw in a screw with my drill I end up stripping the screw...Its a mystery to me...please post a response if you can help me gain my manhood back :c).

Yesterday was Labor Day so i had to act like a Dad and cook up the labor day meal. I got 2 racks of ribs (which i held up to my chest and acted like they were my ribs..Fun day lol) and decided to cook them. Well after 2 YouTube videos and about 30 recipies i finally decided to make up my own rib rub using some of the ingredients from the internet and adding a few of my own...2 hrs in the oven and i actually made something the girls did not say "this is plain...it needs seasoning" to. So Score 1 for Matt :c). Ill have to make it for y'all sometime, though you need to start getting your taste buds ready for the SPICE you will find in food here in New Orleans.

Yesterday Started with us taking a road trip to Cutoff, LA (thats the true south according to one of our girls). Well on the way down and the way back i must of hit 2 million little black bugs. They are still on the Van as a Trophy......I figure I must have helped at least one person a second of rest from the bugs (THEY WERE EVERYWHERE). While we were in Cutoff i found a few of the bugs having more fun with each other than i thought they should. So i would catch these flying adolescents and separate them. Upon separating them i would inform them that they do not need to reproduce there are already enough of them. They just flew off and found other mates. Why don't adolescents listen to me!!.

Fax Line

Today I installed a Fax line into our house. This is how bad i wanted a Fax line that was separate from my house line. I hooked an unused phone line from down stairs to the upstairs office by drilling lots of holes and stringing 75 feet of phone line.

The $2,000 Hotel

I got to stay in a $2000 hotel last night i figured i should right a review of it for HOTELS.COM. So here it is:








DESCRIPTION:
Location:
The Oshner Hotel New Orleans in uptowntown New Orleans, La., is located across from River Road and just steps away from the mighty Mississippi river, surrounded by traditional New Orleans shotgun houses. Only 50 blocks from the festive atmosphere of the French Quarter, the Oshner Hotel is the perfect place for weary locals or travelers.
Hotel Features:
The Oshner Hotel New Orleans has unique amenities and very helpful staff who will watch you all night long through the in room surveillance camera to be sure you have the best possible night. Oshner Hotel offers a morning in room wake up service at 6:30am. Great for guests who have to be at work early in the morning.
POPULAR AMENITIES:

• Elevator/lift
• Gift shop or newsstand
• Parking (Parking Deck) - Self and Valet Parking available
• Room service all night with voice activated call box above bed
• Cable TV and DVD player (Welcome movie on arrival)
• Power Tilt Bed (To raise your head)
• Complementary Oxygen Mask at 2:00am
• Doctors on site
• Complementary Heart rate monitor on right hand
• In room surveillance camera

ROOM RATES:
Premium Room- $2,000 a night, 6:30am checkout

Weedeating and framing a window

Yesterday (Monday) was our day off, but also Sarah's School day. Sarah takes the car to school cuz its just easier, and i get to sleep longer :c). So while Sarah was at school i decided to touch up the yard with the weedeater to be sure that everyone felt my yard looked nice. I got a little sweat from the 110 heat index but it went well. I'm learning more and more about the weedeater the more i use it. DID YOU KNOW: If you push the bottom of the weedeater on the ground it releases more string ( i had been stopping it and pulling out more string every time it got low). Anyways you learn something new everyday.

Next I went around back to my window and put in the cross frames and added some thin wood to the back of the cross frames to hold the glass when i put it in. Next i wiped the glass down with goo gone and attempted to break off pieces of glue/mold/hard stuff from the corners and sides of the glass panes. The goo gone only worked a little, so I am going to try mixing goo gone with a razer and see if that works...So all that is left is to paint the window seals (its chipping bad so a fresh coat of white would look nice), to put the glass in and secure it. Pictures to come...Thanks for the feedback Kelly :c).

Pig Tails...Amish drug dealers...Framing New Orleans...and Lawn Care

I had my first experience with a food i never thought i would eat last night. Pickled Pig tails mixed with cabbage and pickled pig ribs. I actually enjoyed! Funny how your food tolerances change.

Last night me and Sarah watched a movie about Amish kids. When they turn 16 they are able to do what ever they want in the "English" world and then decide if they would like to commit thier lives to the Amish church for life. Well these kids do it up BIG...they would have parties out in the fields and invite Amish kids from like 5 states. A few of the boys moved into a trailer down by the tracks and ran a drug dealing business. One of these boys in the middle of doing drugs talks to the camera about how he thinks he is going to join the Amish church. And i thought Amish kids were tame.

Today Sarah and I went to a local framing shop to get my Antique Map of New Orleans framed. I have been looking at this map ever since i saw it in a gallery window in the mall about a month ago. Well i found it in a shop in the French quarter but it was $270. I found it online as a print for $15 a few days later, I ordered it, and when it came in the mail Sarah and I went to Michael's to get in framed. We took it to Michael's because we had a 50% coupon. Well even with 50% off it was going to cost almost $400. Not in our price range. Well back to todays framing experience. We went into this way cool frame shop and this nice old guy helped us pick out a frame and we triple matted it for about $225. Good thing people were nice enough to send me birthday money so we could afford that :c). THANKS GUYS. It should be ready in 10 days.

Tonight i did the whole lawn again. This is my second time doing this. If you will remember last i did the lawn i was given some not so good feedback from an old drunk man who had been doing our lawn before Sarah and I moved in. See post Landscaping from July 18th if you need a refresher. Hopefully this time I did a better job :c).

Painting...Walking...and Windows

I finally got to use my sander...I sanded the swinging bench on the back porch and painted it with some white paint i found in the garage..I got a lot on the ground but it looks good....YEAY MATT!!

Yesterday Sarah had her first day of school and took the car until 2:30pm. Knowing of nothing else to do i decided to get the true New Orleans Magazine St. Experience. So i began walking at 6020 Magazine at 12pm and experienced all the shops and houses as i made my way to the end of Magazine st (6 miles later) and a way cool Salvation army...where i bought 2 books for $.50. One of the books I bought was The Natural. By this time it was 2:30 and Sarahd had gotten out of class so i sat on the curb reading my book and asked her to come pick me up. Thanks Sarah.

Sarah had asked me to get her a window so that we could paint new orleans stuff on the glass and hang it out front of the house. She has a vision...and i can not wait to see it :c). Anyway, I was driving back from a 2 hour Wal-Mart experience by myself with the girls and I saw a pile of old doors and windows for a gutted house. So i pull a U-Turn and go to the pile. I discovered that there was no complete window with all the glass in tack so i grabbed 2 windows and a pane of glass and have been putting all the pieces togther the last few days. So far i have the outside frame of the window done and just need to put in the cross peices and panes of glass. Its quite fun but its hard to sit outside in the heat for more than 30 min so its going to take some time.