Eric Holen

The house to the right of us, as we are standing on our porch, is up for sale yet again. This is the fifth time that the house has been up for sale since it was built and sometimes I wonder if we are driving away our neighbors.

Our home was the third built on our block. Sometime later, the beautiful two-story house to our right was built. I know it is beautiful because I would walk through it during the construction. Shortly after construction started, the first “For Sale” sign went up because the original owners (sale 1) walked out on the contract.

After it was built, the sister of one of my fellow firefighters, and her family, bought (sale 2) the home. They were there a couple of years, but we didn’t get to know them that well. We did have one run in with her husband on my birthday with the margarita machine.  We were a little loud in the backyard and got yelled at. They were there a couple of years and then moved on.

Next, a stay at home dad and his wife bought (sale 3) and moved into the home. Again, we didn’t get to know them very well. What we did know is that they were having marital problems given the occasional fights they would have that would spill into the driveway. While I cannot confirm, I believe they got a divorce, which resulted in the house being foreclosed.

Today, a wonderful couple from California, and their son and daughter-in-law, life in house (sale 4). Yvette and I made an effort to acquaint ourselves with the family and say hi whenever we could. They have several dogs who love to bark and play with our dogs through the fence. Unfortunately, despite our best efforts, there is a for sale sign in their yard.

So if you are looking for a beautiful two-story house that sits next to some neighbors (us) who will run you off in couple of years, please stop by.

On Monday, we sold Megan’s bedroom furniture to a family with a little girl.  Megan is my daughter, who I haven’t seen in almost 14 years except for her pictures on MySpace.

Yvette and I originally bought the furniture in early 1996 when Megan was 4 years old, anticipating that she would visit us occasionally when her and her mother moved back into town with her new dad.  Unfortunately, while I got to see Megan twice that year, I didn’t bring her to our home and she never used the furniture.

Over the years, the furniture provided for a little used guest room and then an even less used backup guest room.  Yvette had taken to storing her collection of Precious Moments figurines and collectables on the hutch and dressers.

The decision to sell it has been a few months coming.  After Christmas, Yvette and I started our annual cleanup and finalized our decision to sell the furniture.  We listed the furniture on Craig’s List and after several inquiries and two viewings, it’s gone.

Yvette was concerned that my selling the furniture would bring up some issues for me, but it didn’t.  What surprised me were my remembrances, not of Megan, but how the furniture had been a staple of Yvette’s and my relationship over the years.

As I mentioned, we bought the furniture in 1996.  Yvette and I were living together, but I had not yet proposed to her.  At the time, we were living in a two bedroom apartment.  I had to move my computer desk out of the second bedroom and into ours to make room for Megan’s bedroom set.  The bedroom set followed us from the two bedroom apartment, to our mobile home.  Then we moved to Austin and the bedroom set followed us to another two bedroom apartment, then our mobile home, which we had relocated from El Paso, and finally into our home that Yvette and I share today.

When the furniture walked out the door on Monday and the bedroom stood empty, a couple of things occurred to me.

• The bedroom set was our first furniture and big purchase together.  Even though we were not married, Yvette and I discussed the decision before I made the purchase.  Since then, we have always discussed and gotten consensus before moving forward on a big purchases.
• It was the third oldest piece of furniture or set in our home.  The only pieces that are older are my heavy duty television stand, which I bought in 1989 and my dining room set, which I bought in 1990.
• In all that time, I don’t think that I ever slept in the bed for even one night.  However, our moms, a couple of Yvette’s cousins, a couple of my sisters, and a niece have used the bed.
• Selling the children’s bedroom set reinforced that Yvette and I are not having children, although we had known this for a long time.  We used to call the room “the nursery”, but over the years we began calling it “The Precious Moments” room.  Since we love babysitting, we will need to come up with a temporary bed for those times when we get to keep “our kids” overnight.
• Finally, it’s the first time that we have had an empty room in 14 years and we are not quite sure what we’re going to do with it.

Yvette and I will always have a place in our minds and hearts for Megan; however, if she visits us someday, we may just not have a place for her to lay her head.

I have not been active in politics, other than U.S. Presidential elections or when there was an issue on the ballot that was important to me. However, that changed in December when I found out that a friend of mine and fellow volunteer firefighter was going to be running for an at-large seat on the Kyle City Council.

I have known Mike Fulton or “Big Mike” as he is known around the Kyle Fire Department, for the last few years. Our relationship began when he joined the department to serve his community and the surrounding area.

What set Mike apart fairly quickly, in addition to responding to emergencies, is that he truly wanted to serve. He showed his drive fairly quickly by taking on the planning and coordination for our annual fish fry, which is the largest fund raiser that our fire department holds each year. In addition to overseeing the fish fry, Mike took on the additional responsibility of handling the silent auction, which occurs during the fish fry. His efforts really showed with the culmination of a successful fish fry and silent auction, which brought thousands of dollars into the department. He has continued to taken an active role in the fish fry every year thereafter.

Mike and I find ourselves responding on the same fire calls, but I am not ashamed to admit that he responds on more calls than me. Mike is driven to support the fire department and the community that it serves.

Shortly after Mike joined the fire department, I found out that he was an active member of our homeowner’s association (HOA). Today he is the vice-president of our HOA board and continues to show support for his community and neighborhood. He has helped lead the way with changes to our neighborhood that made it safer, while stretching our HOA dues farther. Today, we now have security cameras around our pool and a new fence around our park, both for the safety of the neighborhood children and families. Mike also helped change management companies and other maintenance contracts, in his ongoing efforts to reduce our HOA expenses. Not a month goes by when I don’t receive an HOA email from Mike about something going on in our community.

Mike regularly attends the Kyle City Council meetings and, when we a little quiet time before a fire meeting or call, he likes to share information on the happenings with the city and its citizens.

Mike is happily married to Jossette Fulton and has two children.  He is also a U.S. Army veteran.

I am honored to be able to call Mike Fulton my friend and proud to say that “I support Mike Fulton for Kyle City Council”!

• A blog post by Zak White on goals has got me thinking differently on how I want to tackle 2010. More to come while I think about turning my resolutions into goals.
• Had alot of fun babysitting Wyatt this past weekend, but wish it had occured for different reasons.
• Excited that Sarah, my super smart sister, actually called me for advice. She is considering buying a house and wanted my input.
• Extremely happy with changes that Yvette is trying to make in her life. I am here to support her.
• Actually looking forward to our carpets getting professionally cleaned on Saturday. The first time since we moved in over six years ago. All of the previous times involved Yvette, me and the Rug Doctor.
• Also looking forward to getting new furniture delivered on Saturday. I can’t share why yet (it’s not a child), but be patient until April for the news.
• One of my goals (see the first bullet) is to get off my behind and work towards my graduate degree. Next week I get to drag Yvette to an orientation at the University of Texas. I am hoping that she’ll want to start going back to school too.
• This past weekend, I managed to run on 3 or 4 fire calls including a small structure fire. That’s more calls than I had run the previous month. I forgot how much fun I have, just need to set aside time to run more calls.
• Looking forward to this Sunday when Larissa and Justin Ely drag Yvette and I to their church for a tryout.
• Had a relaxing three days off, but not happy that I chose to be lazy instead of pulling down the Christmas lights.
• Excited that I am going to be able to catch up to my best friend who I haven’t seen or spoken with since my wedding, 13 years ago. I tracked him down through his mom on Facebook.
• Just plain happy to be able to blog my thoughts today.
• Also pleased that today, which tends to be one of the busiest days in our Tele-Centers all year long, has not been that bad.

Earlier this month, Yvette treated me and herself to a 4-day cruise aboard the Carnival Ecstasy for my 40th birthday. Like last year, Yvette let me decide what I wanted to do and I chose the cruise to celebrate. This was our sixth cruise, our fourth time traveling to Cozumel, our third time departing from Galveston, our second 4-day cruise, and our first cruise in December. Except for the weather, I could not have been happier with the cruise.

I brought the idea up the idea of a cruise to Yvette in August and when we found a deal for $269 per person, she was sold. It had been almost 20 months since our previous cruise. I was little nervous about it only being a 4-day cruise, given that our last four cruises had been 7-day affairs. While I won’t give up the longer cruises, one of the great things that Yvette and I agreed about with the shorter cruise is that there was a lot less stress from planning and packing, giving us more time to enjoy ourselves.

The cruise departed on a Thursday. That morning, Yvette and I tucked the “kids” into their cages and drove to Galveston. The drive wasn’t bad, but we had a late start because we were so relaxed. We still made it to Galveston with plenty of time to spare. It was cold that day and we were bundled up in our coats. Yvette made a comment about whether I thought Carnival would have any Christmas directions, which I thought was funny. Since this was our sixth cruise, we received our gold Sail & Sign cards which serve as our access to the ship, onboard charge card, and room key. When we reach our 10th cruise, we’ll graduate to platinum cards. Carnival was taking the H1N1 virus seriously and had short questionnaires for guests to fill out before they boarded. We probably spent an hour working our way through the security checkpoint, registration and on to the ship, but its part of the fun and it only builds the anticipation.

We got on the ship and immediately admired the Christmas decorations in the main lobby. Then we headed off to our room to drop our stuff before exploring. The ship had gone through a refit within the last several months and we were very pleased with how she looked. While the bathroom wasn’t as big as what we had on the Carnival Conquest, they added lighting which opened it up. The room had a flat panel television while the bed had a thick comforter that felt so soft. We couldn’t unpack any luggage because it had not arrived so, after admiring the room, we headed off to explore the ship.

While the ship has the same over design as Carnival’s other Fantasy-class ships, it’s still fun to explore its differences. With the recent refit of the ship, Carnival added large fake palm trees on the Lido deck, giant water slides on the back of the ship, an adult’s only quiet area with a hot tub, and a 9-hole miniature golf course. Yvette and I agreed that the ship looked great.

On the first day, even before the ship leaves port, we had been required to participate in a life boat drill. Each cruise we would take pictures of ourselves in our life jackets during the drill. However, Carnival has replaced the life boat drill with a safety briefing that did not require us to bring our life jackets to our muster station. After the drill, Yvette headed back to the cabin to wait for the luggage and unpack while I continued exploring and taking pictures.

One of the surprises on any cruise is who your dinner mates will be. On this cruise, we ate dinner with Mark, Joey his partner, Nancy who is Mark’s employee, and Lisa who is Nancy’s daughter. This was their first cruise. Nancy was going for her birthday and had brought along her daughter. Mark was going just because Nancy went, and he brought along Joey. This was the best group of dinner mates that Yvette and I have had on any of our previous cruises. We had lots of conversation and laughter each night. It was also the first cruise where we hung out with our dinner mates outside of the dining room.

On our first day at sea, Yvette and I signed up for a spinning class. Our hope was that the physical activity would help offset the good food and drink. I unfortunately had a collision with the bike when my foot flew out of the pedal, which came around and then gouged me in the shin. I finished the class while watching the blood run down my leg into my sneaker. I was able to wash my sneaker in the room and Yvette, who had packed a first aid kit, bandaged me up.

With the cold weather, Yvette and I did not sit out on deck. Instead, we spent time playing in the Casino, shopping, playing games with each other and reading.

Our arrival in Cozumel was uneventful and since we were doing this trip on the “cheap”, we skipped the shore excursions and opted for shopping. Cozumel is one of our favorite destinations. While we were shopping, a storm rolled through so we stopped and ate lunch in port. With shopping complete, we headed back to the ship. The ship’s departure was delayed for almost 30 minutes while waiting for a family of 5 to return. That evening, we and several others, commandeered one of the bars in the back of the ship and watched the Florida/Alabama and then the Texas/Nebraska football games on large flat-screen televisions. The crowd kept growing and getting louder throughout the games, but we all had a great time. In addition, Mark, Nancy and Lisa joined us to watch the Texas game.

Later that evening, I played a round of laser tag in a large inflatable arena. Out of the five of us who played, I came in second behind a teenage girl.

It was warmer on our second day at sea, and people were lying out by the pools. Yvette and I headed up to play some serious rounds of miniature golf. It was close, but in the end I managed to beat Yvette.

While Yvette and told me that we weren’t going to take any formal portraits on my birthday cruise, which lasted all of a couple minutes. We ended up taking lots of pictures and walked away with a couple or poses that we really liked. The only formal portraits that Yvette and I have of us were taken on cruise ships. This was also the first cruise were we bought the picture that they took of us getting off of the ship in port. Yvette said we looked good in it.

Unfortunately, the cruise had to come to an end; however, we were in for a surprise. I really enjoy watching operational stuff, so I got up early on our last day to watch us arrive in port. However, when I got to the front of the ship, I noticed we were in thick fog and moving very slowly. Later, the cruise director would announce that the Port of Galveston was closed until later that morning. We ended up arriving at the dock just before 1:00 PM, which after getting approval to leave the ship, getting our baggage, and clearing Customs, put us back into Austin at 8:30 PM.

Even with the weather, Yvette and I had a great time and would do a 4-day cruise again, just not in December.