Raising wild n crazy boys and another year Bearded!

Well 'Thoughts' fans..another year has come and gone.  2013 is in the books.  Last year seemed to watch the Beard morph from a tangled mass of manliness into a well groom piece of art.  There was one full shave mid-summer which I hope to be forgiven for.  In terms of quality it would be hard to rank years but I would put that one at the top.  Watching my boy grow has been a trip.  Wylie is now the age that Ayden, our nephew, was when he stayed with us for most of a year while his mom was deployed.  Seeing the similarities and differences between the two at this age has been and will continue to be fun.  Life for these boys at our house is best summed up in these two clips.

Click to this link to watch Wylie Video then watch Ayden below!

 

If the videos played for you when reading this I hope you know me well enough to laugh.  If they did not play for you the videos were mostly educational tutorials.  Very happy Ayden, Gina, Dave, Ellie, and Vivi are in Charlotte now. 

2014 is shaping up to be a busy one here at the Buchanan household.  We found out my beautiful wife, Ericka Faye, is expecting another baby.  This one will be a boy as well.  Porter Call Buchanan seems to be the hands down favorite for names.  Wylie is going to have some competition around the house for attention. 

In addition to Porter's arrival in July the Beard and I are also going to run a marathon (1st time), a Spartan Sprint (could do in my sleep, 'the Beard'), and a Spartan Beast race (3rd time).   Goals are to not die (marathon), have fun watching my guys from work (Sprint), and beating my time from last year (Beast). 

Fingers crossed, we will also be working on a third restaurant here in Charlotte.  We love running restaurants but are really pumped to have the creative wheels turning for a new place.  It will be challenging but incredibly rewarding to hammer out an amazing place with Chef, Jed, and the rest of the crew.  Goal will be to be the best and to have fun doing it.  Period.

That about sums it up.  Oh, one more thing.  We have been without our beautiful truck since 1/25 when we took it in for a spark plug change.  Since that time 4 of the 8 plugs broke during the process (Ford 5.4L 3V Triton owners beware), a igniter spring fell into the block, a piece of the broken 5 plug fell into the block, a piston shattered, a head was removed, and two shops both denied responsibility.  At this point we will probably be about $3,000 in the hole but with a new head, new piston, 8 new plugs, and all the trimmings.  Really just want my truck back at this point.  Have been driving a Mazda 3 (Wylie was taught by my wife to call it the Panty Dropper) and a Chevy HHR.  The Beard and the Boy have been embarrassed to no end.   

Enough rambling...More to come.