Articles by Michael

Well, it’s that time of year again. We look back at our accomplishments and failures from last year and strive to do better/more next year.

Yeah… I’m looking forward to hitting the breaks.

It’s time for Maria and I to reflect on our accomplishments but in the mind frame of “Are we happy?”. And I sure hope her answer is the same as mine. A resounding yes!!

We’ve done so much in such little time, trying to improve our daily lives with foresight on the future.

But truth be told… We’re spent. Dead tired.

This year I’ll be looking forward to lazy days with the family (after the kitchen is done of course). Boy, I sure hope I can pull off this relaxing thing…

Happy New Year!

Well, it happened. Far sooner then I imagined. I knew it would come, perhaps in five or so years, but not today.

I was wrong.

Isabella and I went outside to play in this winter’s first snow. She went over to her friend’s house, coaxed her outside, and turns to me.

“Dad, you can go home now.”

Utter shock on my face.

I blow it off, chat with her friend’s mom for a bit, then I get the look that means “what are you still doing here!”.

After being asked again politely by my four year old to leave, I say my goodbyes and walk home.

I knew this day would come, but I thought I had a while to prepare. I guess not.

Tonight I remembered how nice the simple things in life can be. We have a tradition in our house of doing Christmas light rides nearly every night from Thanksgiving to New Years, so tonight we loaded up the car and took the Mecca to Olin Park. Boy was it packed!! The kids had an absolute blast, and hearing their giggles and laughs coming from the back seat made my heart melt with joy. Kids get it. It’s not about opening presents crammed under a fire hazard in your living room, it’s about creating memories, having experiences, and establishing traditions with loved ones around the holidays is what matters most.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Last night, we experienced something I never thought would happen to us… A kitchen fire. We were prepping for dinner and Maria walked past the stove and noticed flames, sparks, and smoke, oh joy!!

She called me inside and I immediately sent everyone to the neighbor’s house. I was able to put out the fire and the folks from the MFD confirmed everything was safe. So after hauling out the burned up oven and attempting to clean up the awful mess, Maria and I went to get the kids. Both big kids were visibly shaken (rightfully so, how often do you run outside with no socks in the middle of the night with a fire truck coming to your house) but OK. So proud of them for being strong!!

Looks like Santa’s bringing us new kitchen appliances after all…

It seems crazy how life takes twists and turns. I sit here in the dark, rocking my snoring son Noah to sleep for the fifth time tonight. Thoughts race through my head on how life was and how it might be in the future. It’s sometimes hard to stay grounded in the present, without drifting too far in the past or looking ahead to the future, but my kids do that for me. My crazies keep me grounded and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Well, as you can see, Maria has been busy posting photos and writing entries on the site. But, what you don’t see are the changes I have been making (and that’s good ). I have updated the site to the latest and greatest versions of software, so please let me know if you come across anything that is broken. I also prepped the site for a new video section, so keep your eye on that page. I’ll be updating that page as soon as I have some time to make/upload the videos (sometime in 2014…).

Isabella Grace Wescott Block was born on Thursday, March 1, 2007 at 3:39PM. She weighed 8 lbs 2 oz and was 19.5 inches long.

Check out some more photos of Isabella in our Photo Section.

Maria,
I love you with all my heart. You know how much you mean to me, but words will never be enough to show you just how much I love you. I know that you’re ready to be done being pregnant, just hang in there! Hopefully, a few pictures of your favorite summer-time retreat (that isn’t Miller Park) can lighten your spirits through the home stretch until that little someone special arrives.

Check out the start of our new online photo gallery.

Love Always,
Michael

One long year has past since the last time I wrote, and boy have things changed! Lots of stuff happening on the homefront. We’ve done a ton to the house this past year, including: new washer and dryer, new eve covers, new retaining wall, new landscaping, new roses, etc. Pictures will be available soon!!! Have been busy with assisting my grandparents with major home repairs.

Oh, did I mention that we are expecting our first child!!!! We’re not going to find out if it is a boy or a girl, so don’t even ask

That being said, I thought I’d revamp the photos section and streamline the posting process a little bit (thanks iPhoto and Jalbum!!!). Hopefully, this will mean more memories to share with everyone and photos will be posted faster.

Well, I knew that owning a home was going to be a challenge throughout the year, but this is ridiculous! Maria and I have been to the yard waste drop site 4 times already this fall and have dropped off almost 20 bags of “stuff” (not including the 3 currently in the garage…). I know it has to be done, but give me a break! My trees still have all their leaves! So, how did 20+ bags of yard waste magically appear at our place? I have no idea… all I know is that I am sure I’ll be at 60+ by the time the snow comes!

Wow, this is soooo cool! I am entering a blog post WITHOUT even visiting mikeblock.com!

If you are a Mac OS X 10.4 user (and you should be), check out the WordPressDash widget. Publish your posts without ever opening a web browser. Great for getting those ideas down on “paper” fast!

Well, that’s it for now!

Wow, who knew it took 3 hours to get from Madison to Milwaukee!! Well, it did on Friday night, but that didn’t stop us from hitting the game again on Saturday. So we spent about 10 hours in the car this weekend and only 6 hours in the stadium! At least we got to see 2 great games (1 win, 1 loss). It took our minds off the extreme heat and our upcoming bathroom remodel. Things are going well, sad to see the summer beginning to slip away from our grasps again this year. Boy how time flies…

PS- I finally got around to writing an “About” page. Nothing special, just a few words and a great picture.

Hi everyone! This is Michael’s better half I thought it was about time that I said hi on our very own website. Well things are well over at our place. Little by little the house is coming together, and we are trying to work with the outside. We spent 6 plus hours on Saturday digging a flower bed, and tonight I planted glads and lilies, we’ll see if any come up. It sure is fun to have your own website. We’ll have to add some new pictures soon, we sure have plenty of them from various projects. I hope everyone is well, and enjoying the summer. Go Brewers!!!

Boy, summer is almost here and it feels like it was only yesterday that I was shoveling snow for the first time at our new place. Not too much exciting news to report. The yard is coming together quite nicely, but still have some work to do in the downstairs bathroom. Maria and I have been to a couple of Milwaukee Brewers games already. Glad to see that their season is off in the right direction.

It sounds like my dad and I are going to do some projects in the near future, most notably building a garage workbench, tree removal, and the electrical work from hell. I think it will be a while yet before we’ll have our open house. We have the furniture in place, it’s finding the time and energy to finish the little (and big) projects that we have started (can i say that I hate looking at the downstairs bathroom?), but I know it will all come together in the end.

Somedays, I wish I were Superman and could fly around the world…

Well, well, well… fancy meeting your here. It has been a while since my last post and for some very good reasons. Maria and I have totally destroyed our yard. We hauled out 20 plus bags of nasty fake wood chips (yes, there is such a thing as fake would chips) and cut out some old bushes from the front too. We have the tree guy coming (hopefully soon) to get an old tree out of the backyard. We also have the last of our furniture coming this week! We are going to pick up the patio furniture midweek and the dining room is being delivered sometime Friday. Finally, we will be 85% settled. We still need to finish up painting the downstairs (I plead the 5th on the upstairs) and do a lot of electrical, but it has been so nice outside we thought we’d conquer some outdoor projects next. You know, get 10 things started at once

Hi Everyone. Well, rather than working on the house, I have upgrade the core technology of the site instead Now, I am running on the latest version of wordpress. This should allow me to do some nifty things, like completely static pages and a custom theme switcher. Other than that, little has changed around here except the few changes I made to the default “designer” template. I hope to pick a few I like and decide on a “default” one soon, but will also keep a few nifty ones that others can choose from. Ether way, I hope to have the photos section better incorporated into the site design really soon.

Update: I just completed the directory move and now the theme switcher is working! We now have 6 total, but look for some more cool changes to the themes soon…

Well, we made it! February 18, 2005 marked the beginning of our 30 year debt

We had a lot of help from family, friends, and a 17′ U-Haul. We spent all morning packing that truck. Man, we had a ton of stairs to climb that day. We made it to the house shortly after 4PM. We were really tempted to drive the truck to the title company, but thought it might look a little tacky, or worse, paying 99 cents per mile would sure add up.

Once at the house, we simply flew. That truck was emptied by 630PM and the pizza was on its way. We had a few casualties that day. Railing banisters, RIP. Queen box spring, RIP. Just ask, I can tell you, but it’s a long, long story…

Well, not quite yet officially, but Maria and I are sure getting excited! The home inspection went great and we already have about 1/3 of our stuff packed and ready to go. Bring on the closing!!! Just some paperwork left to get done, then the place is all ours! Here are some quick house snapshots that we took while we were at the inspection. More to come, I promise!!!

Hello everyone!

It has been a while since my last update, but it is for some very good reasons. For one, I was out in San Francisco for a week for work (yeah, I know, pretty rough). Did the conference thing, but took some great photos too.

Maria and I have also been house hunting like mad, and we finally found one! The house inspection happens Wednesday. We are so very excited. Wish us luck! I’ll post photos as soon as the closing is finished on February 18.

Hello everyone! I hope everyone’s holiday season is merry and full of cheer. Well, I am actually done with all of my shopping, except for some homemade gifts from the heart, which I’ll be franticly be finishing until early on Christmas morning. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Hello everyone,

I have been a busy little beaver and have posted a ton of pictures for everyone to enjoy. Don’t worry, ALL of the wedding ones will be up really soon… but probably not before the craziness that we label “the holiday season” are up now. Hope everyone enjoys their holiday season!

Hello everyone! Boy, this is exciting news for me! I have finally gotten around to launching a very nice personal site, complete with a ton of photos! I am really glad that Maria and I are going to be able to share some of our exciting and fun times with all of our family and friends, where ever they may be.

Even though the site is up, there will still be some changes down the pipe:

• Further customizations to the main layout
• Better integration of the photos section
• Expanded content
• And much more…

All of this will take some time, but should look really nice once it is completed. Hope you all enjoy!