Today however I woke up and decided to upgrade my fire pit in the backyard.

See I had this fire ring for years and it did fine, but I always wanted more. Wanted it to look a lot better.

I went to Lowes and Home Depot and found some stones that were suitable for the project at only $1.88 each.

I got 45 and ended up only using 40.

The most important part is to get your base ring nice and level then the rest just falls right into place.

Here are the results.

We had a blast aboard the Carnival Triumph. This ship was HUGE! For starters this ship costs a whopping $420 Million to create and it showed. Let me tell ya this thing was 893 feet long, 143 feet tall, has 13 decks, huge show lounge for their awesome shows that can hold up to 1400 people, 6 dance/sing/nightclubs, 4 dining rooms, oh man the list goes on. They have 1100 crew members and it can whisk away 2758 passengers of on the vacation of a lifetime. You can seriously get lost on this massive vessel.

We embarked on our 7 day cruise from the port of New Orleans on a Saturday.  We slowly cruised down the Mississippi river all night until we reached the mouth where it empties into the ocean. From there we sailed for 2 days or 936 miles to our first stop, Belize.

For the two days we were at see, we spent time lounging on the lido deck soaking in the sun, ate food, explored the ship, ate food,  took in some shows, ate food, worked out in the gym, ate food, and so on.

First stop Belize.

While at Belize we did a Land rover and Cave Expedition. When we got to Belize we left the dock in a smaller boat that held about 20 people and we cruised at a moderate pace down the Sibun river. Videos and more after the jump.

We made our way down the river to a camp where the very very old Land rover vehicles awaited us. We then got our own vehicle and cruised down the back roads of Belize to some another spot where we would get out and cross a long rope bridge and into some old Mayan caves. In the damp caves we saw lots of bats and other interesting things.

So that was our first exploration day.

Next stop Isle of Roatan (Honduras)

In Roatan Honduras we bussed to a location called Fantasy Island. Google Earth it here.

Here we did a Shipwreck Snorkel Adventure. They took us by boat about 250 yards out to sea from a gazebo, where they dropped us off and we swam back snorkeling over a shipwreck that was about 60 feet or so below us. It was awesome and we loved it there on Fantasy Island. We may go back one day to stay for a while. I had some underwater pictures that did not turn out so well so I didn’t attache them to this post. Our guide took us on a  stroll around the island to look at the monkeys and other wild life. It was great.

Here is a picture of the entire place.

Here is distance best I could configure from the gazebo to the drop off point.

When we arrived on Fantasy Island

Our Tour Guide David, luring the monkeys down from the trees

Monkey on the beach. They are everywhere.

The wildlife on Roatan.

Next stop Cozumel.

At Cozumel Mexico we didn’t take many pictures at all. We did a Clear Kayak and Snorkel Adventure. Yes we love to Snorkel!

The Kayak was a clear as a water bottle, I like to think of it as the Wonder Woman’s invisible jet, it was like that. You could see clear to the bottom. We made a big loop around the beach and then later we snorkeled in about 30 feet of water.

Here is a summary our good times on the Carnival Triumph and all three destinations set to music

We had a great time and and the staff and everyone on board the Carnival Triumph were amazing.

I definitely would recommend a cruise to everyone. There is soo much to do on and off the ship, you will need a vacation after you get back from vacation.

Two little words promising eternal commitment:  “I do.”  A wedding day is one of our most cherished memories. The love, the romance, the thoughts of “happily ever after” swimming in our heads, the anticipation of our honeymoon night, the endless possibilities the following years may bring… all consume our thoughts. Well, at first, anyway… until the excitement gives way to planning.

This unforgettable event must be planned, after all. (Eloping is incredibly underrated, but can only be fully appreciated once planning has engulfed us and devoured on our brain.) Suddenly, we’re bombarded with more mundane decisions than our sanity can bear. How many guests? Who will we invite? Who will sit where during the reception? Whose feelings have to be considered over sitting arrangements, invites, or brides’ maids choices? What colors do we want to use as our theme? What kind of cake? What kind of dress? What kind of music? What food will we serve? Will there be dancing? What should the centerpieces look like? What flowers do we use? What is our budget? The questions hit us without relent as if we’re the target of a 10 year old boy with a new BB gun, a hell of an aim, and an ample supply of BB’s. They overwhelm us, frustrate us, stress us. The days leading up to the “big day” are filled with anxiety, nerves, what ifs, and…yes… excitement.

Once the planning is done and we’ve reclaimed ownership of what’s left of our sanity, it’s time. The guests await our entry. The much anticipated moment has come: walking down the aisle. Once we do, the stress dissipates and the elation hits us. All in one moment, the decisions, the anxiety, the frustration all melt away…because this is the moment…this is our moment. The second we see our soon to be spouse dressed more amazingly than ever imagined and eager to become one with us, nothing else matters. Who cares about the flowers, the food, the colors, touchy feelings of relatives you probably won’t speak to again for years? No one exists in that moment except the two of us. We lovingly repeat our vows, or butcher them, whichever our nerves allow. We exchange rings, we kiss, and we’re announced husband and wife. Time to party!

The cake we’ve obsessed over for months is now adorning our face, as well as our clothes, thanks to the traditional “feeding of the cake” Kodak moment. The guests are inhaling the food like vultures at a roadkill theme park. Everyone is dancing, eating, and congratulating. The day was absolutely perfect – more than we ever hoped for. Now for the honeymoon.

Fast forward a few years. Like any married couple blindly feeling our way through the unknown cobwebs of marriage, we have our ups and downs. We have those moments when we still feel as blissfully happy as the day we wed, if we’re lucky. We have those moments when we wonder how in the world to communicate with this creature we love so very much. And, yes, we have those moments when we’re not sure if we’ll ever figure out this thing called “marriage.” But with all its ups, downs, ins, outs, trials, and more trials…with all the difficulties, we still take that one day each and every year to remember – celebrate – the day that forever changed our lives…our anniversary.

We remember how cluelessly, naively happy we were on that amazing day… how we couldn’t have possibly been privy to the trials that awaited us. On that day…our anniversary… as our vows reiterated, “We Did.” With each passing year, we think about the good times, and bad, that year has presented us. We celebrate our union and the fact that “We Do” today just as much, if not more than on our wedding day. Then we think about the years to come. We realize how much we’ve learned since our day at the alter. We welcome, and fear, what the future years may bring – however incredible OR daunting it may be. And we realize how unfaltering our love is, even in the face of adversity. We become aware that the person celebrating alongside us is our partner, our lover, our best friend. That’s when we know that next year, and the year after that, “We Will” — yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

“A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.” ~Mignon McLaughlin

Happy Anniversary Mitch and Melanie!

Chick Hughes

Chick Hughes writes an advice blog about love, relationships, and sex. Check it out at http://chickhughes.com/

A few sample articles are:

Sexual Fantasy, Reality, and You

http://chickhughes.com/sexual-fantasy-reality-and-you/

Bound By Criticism

http://chickhughes.com/bound-by-criticism/

Chocolate: Eat, Drink, Be Frisky
http://chickhughes.com/chocolate-eat-drink-be-frisky/

Sexual Standoff: My Needs, Your Needs
http://chickhughes.com/sexual-standoff-my-needs-your-needs/

I wrote about them on www.instructables.com to share what I did with others much like I do here.

Check it out

How to make sturdy umbrella stands for under $15 – More DIY How To Projects

Wow your deck is huge!(that’s what she said) but no seriously it is. We decided to make it like we wanted it now rather than add on to it later.

The pool is a 24′ round Sand Dollar II with a 7 foot deep end. The deck is hard to give dimensions on but its just friggin large as you will see in the pictures and videos in this post.

The backyard is a never ending project and it seems that there is always something to do, but I love it. Its like my own backyard oasis. I love staying busy doing things out there.

For years I have pushmowed the yard and thought “man it sure would be nice to cut and go right into a pool for a swim”. Well now I can and have done so!

Next on my list of things to do is to get some night time lighting on the deck. After that I need to work on some tunes for the deck. I am thinking marine speakers and some place to plug in mp3 players and iphones.

Oh and just so you all know, I did not build this deck….so you cannot book me for work haha. Kevin Craig at KevinsCustomDecks built this awesome deck. He is local to North Central Mississippi. I am not going to publish his contact information here on the web, but if you are serious about having a deck built contact me and I will release and email address where he can be reached.

Here is a video from atop the house.

Here is a video of a quick walk around the deck

I don’t even remember much of April other than the swimming pool was completed and at the end of the month the deck project began.

May is always a busy busy month for us somehow every year, partly due to Visions. Starting off in May was the Grenada High School Visions Spring Show called One Moment More where it was about music from the past decade in movies. Here is a video of Justin performing Folsom Prison Blues.

After that it was time to move forward trying to get the deck complete before Graduation so that we could have a Birthday/Graduation pool party.

This didn’t quite go as planned with bad weather popping up often.  We did manage to have a party at the end of the month, but I will get to that later.

So graduation was looming, and I wanted to get the backyard done up real nice. I decided that I wanted me some stones in the backyard leading up to the deck steps. Some really really large stones. I thought about busted up concrete like from a sidewalk or something. I had a friend that suggested to me that he had some that I could have for free. I drove all the way to Ackerman, MS to find out that the stones were gone. The leftovers were too large anyways. I would have had to dig up ground, a lot of ground to put them in place. Lot of backbreaking work.

I then looked to local garden centers for some stone and found some nice ones. Some Arkansas Field Stone. Problem was that it was $260 for a pallet that only contained about 8 stones, and really they were not large enough to suit me. I had a ways to go with them.

Always thinking the hard way around something, I found my solution. I will mix up concrete or mortar in a wheelbarrow, then plop it out onto the ground creating my own stone, shaping it at random. Then imprint it with another stone, and color it up later with stain.

I did a few and it turned out to be exactly what I wanted. Problem now was the stone that I was using to imprint with was too heavy, so I looked to the internet rockmolds.com and purchased me a rubber stamp that looked like lava stone. This was the ticket!

Here is a video of what they look like.

Not quite done with them yet. I have several to make right below the steps on one side of the deck.

Feels damn good when your ideas become reality.

Here is a shot of the pool from underwater. I took this with my camera in a ziplock baggie.

Here is me jumping into the pool with the camera then I think I saw a leak in the baggie

Then came Graduation. Went really well. The boy graduated and ready to go off to school.

We had planned on having a party that weekend but the deck steps were not complete and weather was wet. We managed to pull it off the following weekend that rolled around and it went well. The shrimp boil was ON! Delicious! Goodtimes! Pics to come later if I feel like it.

Here is a gallery of some of the images from April/May.

As you can see…been busy.

That’s right the new “I Love My Weiner” website that’s all about Dachshunds. Visit it here www.ilovemyweiner.com

This site is chock full of informative and often updated articles about Dachshunds of all types. Also there are videos and discounts on pet supplies.

If you are a Facebook user you can become a fan here  http://www.facebook.com/ILoveMyWeinerDachshunds Or Follow Dachshundjack using Twitter …sometimes there is different content on each.

Also have been working on getting our swimming pool installed and coming up with some plans for a deck. The pool is an above ground pool, 24 feet across, eight foot deep.

The tree next to the pool is coming down asap, and I gotta get the dirt moved and get the deck built.

More pics to come later.

I think maybe in the future I will write once a week like a digest of whats been going on… I dunno…maybe.

I guess to catch you up real fast starting with the latest while its fresh on my mind, I will start with a movie that I saw last night.

I went to the local theater here to see To Save A Life. I gotta say I was BLOWN away by this movie. It was simple film making at its best with several very powerful messages in for all ages.

I am gonna take a moment to rip off  IMDB.com and show you the full synopsis of the movie and possibly spoiling some of it for you but trust me you need to see this movie.

The film tells the story of Jake Taylor, a young man who has it all: a basketball scholarship, the ideal girlfriend, and the right friends. But faced with the demands of the in-crowd, Jake has written off his childhood best-friend, Roger. Isolated and mistreated, Roger finally takes his anger to the extreme when he shows up one day on campus with a gun.

Jake’s last-ditch effort cant stop Roger, and the events which follow rock Jake’s world. He begins to question everything, but most of all, he cant stop asking: Could I have saved Roger?

In his search for answers, Jake finds himself looking for the next Roger. He reaches out to geeks, losers, and loners. But crossing the strict high school caste lines threatens everything Jake values. And pushes him to answer the most important question of all: What do I want my life to be about?

This film doesn’t shy away from the real struggles facing our teens.. It is rated PG-13 because it portrays some of these issues accurately: from teen sexuality, to abortion, to cutting, to drug and alcohol abuse, to suicide.

But because it does so, teens are praising this film for its realistic and relevant portrayal of their world and responding enthusiastically to its message. As teen author and speaker Zach Hunter comments: It conveys the raw emotions of life and the ups and downs of high school My friends who have seen the film are already talking about it and encouraging others to go see it.

A must see for all teenagers and parents.

See the trailer here

Ok…moving on. I have been BAD sick last week with the flu or a severe chest cold. I manage to pull through it and just have a  minor weezing cough right now that fading day by day.

While I was sick I managed to start a few new top secret web projects, so you will to stay tuned for those.

I also managed to watch several good movies at home.

THE ROAD

FLASH OF GENIUS

PERFECT GETAWAY

The Road, I got to see an advanced copy of this. It was well…bleak. Very sad. Its about a boy and his father and their struggle to survive in a post apocalyptic world.

Flash of Genius was a very good movie based on the true story of Robert Kearns, the inventor of the intermittent windshield wiper and how FORD Motor Company stole his idea.  He later battles FMC in court and wins, but don’t let these simple sentences stop you from checking this movie out, as you will never look at your wipers the same again. Good flick!

The Perfect Getaway was a movie that I expected to be very scary or suspenseful but it wasn’t. Don’t get me wrong it was a GREAT movie. This is one of those who dun it movies and you will never guess, not in a miiiillliiiooonnnn years. Watch it!

That’s all for now, I’m tired of writing and I am sure you are tired of reading.

I will try to post more soon.

I quickly grabbed a Nikon Camera (s230) with video capture capabilities and started to record. You just never know what might happen.

I then later edited it a little bit in Adobe Premiere Elements 8 and made it a little funnier.