Visiting the Twins

Two weeks ago I took off a day of work and headed up to the QC to meet the twins, and of course to hang out with Katie, Carl, my Mom (she was up there for a few weeks), and most of all Carter-man. I jetted from work about 4:30 on Friday and was so excited I actually missed my exit to get on the interstate, so my dumb-ass was delayed about 20 minutes. After battling thunderstorms all through Missouri, thinkgs cleared up in Iowa and I chilled listening to the new Shinedown CD. All was well until I hit my normal truck stop on the east side of Des Moines, about 2 1/2 hours from Katies, when things went bad. Do you know what's more boring than driving through Iowa by yourself? Driving through Iowa by yourself without a stereo. Yep, right as I pulled into the truck stop the radio made a weird noise and then went out. Long story short, we still don't know what's wrong with it (my roomate was a car audio guy for a few years at Best Buy), so right now I'm screwed. The rest of the way to my sisters I pretty much called everyone in my phone book, plus played poker on my cell phone. Safe, right? On the way back I borrowed Katie's iPod, but about two hours into the trip home I found myself singing out loud to Madonna's "Like A Prayer." Man, I'm gay.

Without further delay, here is a pic of Tristan and Tyler with Uncle Matt, just minutes after we met for the first time.
Here I am feeding....we'll go with Tristan. Actually you can tell them apart because Tristan is always in blue, and Tyler is always in something besides blue. I did a good job telling them apart until right before I left, when they were in matching white swaddles. One of them started crying and my sister asked who it was, and all I could say was "the one on the right." She kinda got pissed that I couldn't tell my own nephews apart, but they are IDENTICAL TWINS!!! But we had a good laugh out of it. Now, I didn't volunteer to feed them, but Katie's so busy she just gave me a baby and a bottle and said "here ya go."
Here is Carter waiting for me to take him outside to ride his tractor, while I'm chillin' with Tristan.
This might have been my favorite moment of the weekend. Carter really took to me right away, and this was on Sunday afternoon when he grabbed his toys and insisted that I play with him. He was so close to me that I couldn't even see anything, but when I tried to shift him a little bit away he would crawl back to be right next to me. Notice his mardi gras beads, too? He's a party animal.
Here's a pic of Carter on his all time favorite toy, his John Deere tractor. The funniest story of the weekend was definately the last time I took Carter out for a ride. The back story is that Carter doens't quite totally get the whole concept of driving. Sometimes he doesn't want to press the gas peddle, he doesn't have the best aim when steering, if you cheer for him hell take both hands off the wheel and clap for himself, and if you wave at him he'll 0nce again take both hands off the wheel and wave back, not looking where he is going but not letting of the gas. Oh, and if he runs into something, he also doens't let off the gas.

OK, so his favorite thing to do is drive right at you, and then you jump out of the way real quick or lift up a leg and let him drive under. Well we were doing this one time, and just as I was about to lift up a leg for him drive under, he decided to slightly change course. I didn't have time to shift my weight properly, so i just stood there while Carter drove straight into my nuts. So his head is pretty much right on my junk, he's now leaning back so far that his hands aren't on the wheel, his hat falls off (but the pacifier stays in), and of course this whole time the pedal is to the metal (well, actually plastic). Katie is watching this thing the whole time and is laughing so hard that she pees herself and has to go change her underwear. I finally kinda move outta the way, Carter finally stops then and looks back at me like "what the fuck was that all about?" Sorry Carter!!!

Tristan Allen and Tyler William

Well, the boys finally decided it was time to enter the world, on the 4th of July no less. The two little firecrackers (both are redheads of course) came into the world at 3:33 and 3:40 am, weighing in at 5 lbs, 5 oz and 5 lbs, 10 oz. Mother and kids are doing well, and Carter is doing really well with them, too. Tristan is in blue and Tyler is in green.
Presenting the entire Hoyt family. Man, they are going to have their hands full.

Rockfest

A few weeks back I went to Rockfest, a huge all day long festival put on by 98.9, the local hard rock station. I had actually bought a ticket, but at the last minute my friend/Howl boss Jake had a free ticket for me, plus passes to the 98.9 tent and the Miller Light tent. So I went for free, had free food and beer, and a special raised stage to watch everything from. The bands on the main stage were Another Animal, Trapt, Chevelle, Saliva, Sevendust, Shinedown, and the reunited Stone Temple Pilots as the headliner. Another Animal was blah, Trapt was really good but their sound equipment was messed up, Chevelle was awesome, we didn't pay attention to Saliva and just ate and drank, Sevendust pissed us off by not playing a single on of their hits, Shinedown rocked it, and Stone Temple Pilots were incredible.

I thought I'd start off with an edited version of a girl flashing. While there weren't as many boobs being shown as we thought there might be, there were still a few white trash ladies willing to show what their momma gave them to 50,000 people. Classy.

Jake (high schoo friend/boss/got us the free tickets and passes), Lugo, Minks (both high school friends) and me. This is at the 98.9 tent, drinking our free beer and standing on the platform so you could see over the crowd.
We all went into the crowd for STP, and Jake and I managed to work our way up to the second row. Here's their guitar player with the smoke and light surrounding him in a cool way.
Scott Weiland, STP's lead singer and noted drug addict, towards the end of the set. The band sounded amazing live and I knew about 75% of their songs. They interact with the crowd a lot which is cool, but Weiland did sound amazingly strung out when he would talk between songs.

P&L and Alex Gordon

These pics are pretty old, but here's some pics of me and some of my boys out at Power and Light District, which is where I work for my side job.

From left is Killa (my summer roomate), me, Shane (college friend) and Lugo (high school friend). This is at Howl at the Moon where I work.
Here's a pic of the "Living Room" area of P&L. All of the bars form a giant courtyard in the middle that is covered by a huge roof. There's a stage where they have free concerts, and then different areas to sit as well as outdoor bars. It's cool because you can go down there and hang out and not even go into an actual bar.
Here I am with Alex Gordon, future All-Star for the Royals. He's their starting 3rd baseman and was the number 2 pick in the draft a few years back (i.e. he's a multi-millionare). Anyways, he came up to the bar right next to me to get a drink and we chatted for a minute or two. He was a laid back guy, he was there with some of his friends from his hometown and his wife. He actually joked to me asking if he could order an 86oz bucket of Jack and Coke (we sell these buckets of girly drinks), and I told him I worked there and he actually could get one. After he placed his order I asked if he got one, he said no, and I called him a p*ssy. So yeah, I called Alex Gordon a p*ssy. I offered him a shot too, but he passed since he had a day game the next day. His exact response was "I have to play at 1 tomorrow, I'm getting drunk but not that drunk." GO ROYALS!!! Oh, and in the picture he looks wasted but he really wasn't, it's just a bad pic.

A New Low

Once again, sorry for the delay in getting a new post up. It was End of Quarter at work, so I've actually been busy, plus the whole side job thing. Here's a quick update.
- So I've hit a new low in my life. Not only am I on match.com, I'm too lazy to even do it myself. My friend Laura just moved to Milwaukee with her husband, and she has a decent amount of downtime, so she is now officially me on match. That's right, she has my username and password and is now sending messages to ladies as me. I figure having a girl do it can't be any worse than what I was doing (since I got nothing on there), so I'll let everyone know how it goes. If anyone else has the urge to be me, let me know and I'll let you experience the wonderful world of online dating.
- My sister's pregnant with twins and is about to burst. Pretty sure all of you know that, but for some reason she wanted me to mention it. Happy now Katie???
- Eating a cheeseburger and onion rings at 1 am last night was a bad choice.
- On that note, I gotta go to the bathroom. I'll post some new pics soon.

Random Things and Pat's Wedding

Here are a few thoughts and comments.
- So girl number three from the last post, Courtney, didn't quite think of it as a date on Monday. What was I thinking assuming that two single people going out to dinner and then grabbing a drink, all while I pick up the tab, would be considered a date? How foolish of me. In her defense, it didn't start out as a for sure date, we were going to do lunch, then happy hour, and then it turned in to dinner. She could have at least made the fake "how much do I owe" dinner comment, not like a would have let her pay anyways. So, that basically leaves me with no prospects right now. Back to failing at match.com or something.
- Two more signs that I'm getting old. First, I went on my annual float trip last week (pictures soon, I promise), but we actually couldn't float at all due to rain and high water. What scared me is that while I had a really good time, it wasn't the highlight of my year like in the past. I actually had a better time once some of us bailed and stayed at a hotel room on Saturday night. I'm not sure what's going on here, but I don't like it.
Second, I for the first time ever took off flip flops last night to put on tennis shoes for no good reason. I have literally never done that in my life. Hell, I used to wear flip flops when it was snowing outside and 4 degrees out. Pretty soon I'm going to be taking metimucel and yelling at kids to get the hell off my lawn. Although it does bug me when the neighbor kids park their bikes in my yard...
Alright, for those of you that don't know my good friend Pat got suckered in to getting married a few weeks ago. He lives in Atlanta now with his bride, so some of us made the trek down there for the festivities. The highlight of the weekend for me was when the maid of honor, a gorgeous, sweet, innocent little Southern Belle, was saying how much she enjoyed "fluffing" the bride's dress, making sure the train didn't drag, get bunched up, etc. Hearing this girl go around saying what a great fluffer she was was hysterical. For you ladies out there who don't know what a fluffer is, it's one step down from p0rn star. Look it up. Also, this girl looked just like Cameron from the Real World if that gives you a visual.

Here is a shot during the ceremony, with myself being the groomsman second from the right. I am actually down a step there, and somehow I was the second tallest groomsman. Not sure what that says about Pat's friends. Ok, so I know I'm used to RLDS churches that are made of aluminum siding and have a basketball hoop behind the pulpet, but this historical Catholic church had the creepiest crusifiction thing ever. Complete with fake blood.
Here's Pat and I, and yes, I busted out the tuxedo t-shirt during the last hour of the reception. I don't think the bride found it nearly as amusing as I did, and I could possibly have been the first ever person to wear one during a reception at the Biltmore (this was a black tie affair). Also, note that in Pat's hand is "the breadball." What is a breadball you ask? Why it's a ball made of bread silly. To show our true maturity, a ball was made out of 4 slices of bread at breakfast and entertained the entire grooms side of the wedding party for the entire day. Once again, I don't think the bride was that amused.
Here's all the guys from Blue Springs that made it down, Schicker, Tommy, Stout, me, and Jistin.
At about 7 am, I was coming back from dinner and noticed Pat's older brother Matt passed out in the lobby, still in his tux. Being the great friend that I am, I helped him back to the couch in my room. Since this is a family blog, I won't post the picture of me t-bagging him 5 minutes prior to this picture being snapped.

I Swear I've Been Busy

OK Folks, I want to apologize for me sucking at putting up new posts, but I'll try my best to play catch up and post a bunch of new stuff. I've been out of town for a wedding and then a float trip (where we weren't even able to float), plus I started my new side job, plus I've had multiple dates. No, that wasn't a typo. Multiple dates. Here's a rundown of what's going on in my life.

- My good friend from college, Killa (aka Adam Kalie-something really Hawaiian) moved in with me for a summer. No, I didn't play volleyball with him, and he's not actually from Hawaii (grew up in DC, and he's one of two Hawaiians in the country to play ice hockey, with the other one being his brother). Anyways, I'm cutting him a deal and only charging him $100 a month because he's still in school and is paying rent at his place in Lamoni. I bet you have a few questions, like "is he your age Matt?" Yes he is. "Oh, is he working on his doctorate" No. As the quote from Tommy Boy goes, "A lot of people go to college for 7 years." "Yeah, they're called doctors."
- I started my job at Howl at the Moon, working twice a week. It's actually pretty fun, and they have really tight security at the Power and Light district, so my job's pretty easy. But man are drunk people dumb and annoying. I'm glad I know I'm not like that at all when I go out. Right?
- On to what you all have been waiting for...I've gone on a plethora of dates lately!!! OK, so one wasn't even really a date, as she was gracious enough to let me know ASAP that we "should just be friends." Lame. But I had the honor of paying for a nice meal out, then taking her home right away and not even getting a kiss because she "didn't feel that great." Even lamer. And I can't even say her name, as she is a blog fan. But you know who you are out there!!!
Date #2 was a blind date set up by the semi-crazy (in a good way) photographer from my sisters wedding. Long story short, I saw her at another wedding and we chatted, she found out I was single and wanted to set me up. Things started OK on the date, she was a cute redhead, but man, this girl would NOT shut up!!! I consider myself a talker, and I couldnt' get a word in. All I heard the whole time was "blah blah blah", and then she would wink to emphasize points, which is creepy and annoying. Well, my friends said to give her at least a second date, so I texted her a few days later, and what did she write back? NOTHING!!! B**ch, I didn't like you anyways, and now it looks like she has the upper hand. She did have really nice shoes, though.
Date #3 just happened last night, and it was random as well. I had to get a new badge at work, and it turns out the lady that does that is my best friend from HS Drew's (he lived next door to us and was the bass player in the David Cook Band) fiance's best friend from HS. To recap, her best friend from HS is engaged to my best friend from HS. Anyways, we had met before years ago and started talking on work IM, and actually went out. She seems cool and is beautiful (tall, skinny, dark curly hair, dark brown eyes), as well as having a loud laugh which I find makes her confident. The highlight of the night was us going to a dive bar for a post dinner drink, and the wasted lady next to her who may or may not have been homeless talking to her about masterbation and soap operas. Not joking. Hopefully we'll go out again, I'll keep you posted. **EDITORS NOTE** Date #3 (Courtney) is also good friends with a girl that works at Howl, who is dating my friend from HS/boss Jake. Small world. Also, in the post a few months back where I wore my volleyball medal out all night? It was Courtney's bday party that night at a swanky place, so that's why we went next door to drink and do oyster shooters. Even smaller world.

Alright kids, more updates to follow.