Sunday, September 17, 2000

It has been a very busy weekend! Yesterday we spent the morning at a financial seminar that just may change our lives (more on that in a bit!) Afterwords we went out to John & Anne’s new house in St. Charles for a delicious lunch! We spent the afternoon learning about finances (mutual funds, conventional & Roth IRA’s etc…) It was a very enlightening afternoon! Amongst many many other things, he clued us in on The Motley Fool which is a great site for all things financial. Afterwords we headed over to my brother’s house to celebrate my niece, Shannon’s 17th birthday. She sure is growing up fast! We spent most of the evening there until about 8:30 when we headed up to the Holiday Inn at 270 & the Rock Road where the Wolfhounds were holding a reunion. Why did we go? One of my best friends from high school is married to a Wolfhound and it was our first chance to get together since graduation. Kristen was one of the three people in school with a Ford Mustang. There was me, Eddie Wichmann (Hey Eddie, you out there?) and Kristen. We spent a couple of hours at the hotel with them. Jim is a very personable guy and boy was he ever in demand at the reunion! He couldn’t get away for anything! Each time he would pull himself away from one conversation, someone else would call him over! It was really great to see Kristen again after all these years! She still looks the same (although I think this was the first time I’ve ever seen her in a dress and not in jeans!!!) They drove all the way to St. Louis from El Campo, TX where they live. We made tentative plans to get together over the holidays when they will be back up this way. We plan to meet up again next April in Houston when we will be there after our cruise.

So tonight, we met with John and Austin from Primerica to go over our financial situation. Good news! We are exactly were we thought we are! No suprises! They came up with a plan to accelerate our payments on the house and can get the mortgage paid off in twelve years! That beats the heck out of 30!!! Hmm…. I think I will just sit and stew on this one a bit more before I give out any more details. Sorry, I just want to think things through and watch carefully how certain things progress over the next few days. Stay tuned for updates!

Mark has officially joined the ranks of the “OJA” (On-Line Journaller’s Association) I have added a link accordingly.

Lastly, a sad note. Kit-kat has passed. My sincerest condolences to Charlie and Tracy