I’m really becoming a slacker when it comes to updating my blog. I apologize, life happens.

I finally took a much needed break away from work. It was somewhat of a break as I still received phone calls from my co-workers four of the five days I was away from the office.

The Memorial Day weekend Lis, Lukas and I drove to California to hang out with my folks at a dog show and to take Lukas to Disneyland. The trip was okay. The weather in SoCal disappointed us, Disneyland was a mess (waiting an hour in line just to get a hamburger?!?) and the drive back home was not that fun but like I said it was still nice to get away.

Lis and I were able to catch an improv show with Randy for our anniversary. Yes, we’ve been married for five years! Yikes, time flies when you’re sometimes having fun. My friend Dennis and his family drove up on Sunday to hang out with us. We had a nice time and after they left my parents, brother, Lukas, Lis and I went swimming in the heated hotel pool. Memorial Day was a good day as the three of us spent time walking around Angel Stadium and Downtown Disney for most of the afternoon. Tuesday was Lisy’s 31^st birthday and we spent that standing in long lines at Disneyland. Isn’t that place ever slow?

After too long of a drive home we settled into our home and prepared ourselves for another busy weekend. Dennis flew up on Thursday and my buddies and I hung out together even spending a late night with each other. It’s always nice having a late night especially since we only have them once or twice a year. Fine by me, that’s all my body can handle these days.

Friday night we caught a Mariner game. Don’t even get me started on the Mariners. When’s football season already?!

Saturday was the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life. And once again it was a blast! I made it the entire night for the second year in a row. And this year we had more overnighters on our team (15), more participation, we brought food (thanks Dad for cooking burgers!), and it all led to a repeat Team Spirit championship! Really there was no competition as this was the first year that every other team just didn’t seem into it. It was very disappointing but it didn’t stop us from having a good time.

Alexandre and Jacque took part in the talent competition doing a samba dance routine. It was very cool, though the little kids in the competition got much of the love. That was only the start of our day.

Randy missed out on a second straight Mr. Relay competition thanks to a little boy that ended up winning the title. There was no way Randy was going to compete against a little kid. Randy did pull out all his tricks and talent-wise he was the finest of the group. He answered the questions clearly and with humor and he out-danced the rest of the competition. But he couldn’t get any love from the audience who didn’t seem amused with his antics.

It was much of the same for Relay Idol as a young country singing ringer, who was all of about 12 years of age, won the competition. He was good and young and that combo is killer these days. Just ask David Archuleta…oh wait. Randy sang “Getting’ Jiggy Wit It” and again continued to try to get the audience into the game. No luck so it was Michelle’s turn to try to get everyone involved. She dedicated “I Will Survive” to the Survivors and when she asked if there were any survivors out there at least two clapped. Thankfully someone came up to her afterwards and told her ‘thanks’.

They introduced a lip sync contest this year so I thought it would be fitting if five guys from our team “sang” a Backstreet Boys song. Little did we know that the elementary school champions of Monroe were competing also! They did “Thriller” and knocked the socks off the crowd and us. We had a practiced for about an hour on Thursday and we hoped that our dance routine would be good enough to compete with the kids. Thankfully they put some energy into the crowd and we didn’t miss a beat (okay maybe a couple but c’mon!). We lit up the crowd, had a great time and did a fine job. You can see the video here:

That evening we stayed up all night dancing the night away. Usually there are a bunch of high schoolers and/or some adults that stay up with us. Not this year! By 3:30am everyone had disappeared and Team Force was left dancing with each other. No biggie for us. We had a great time, showed a lot of energy and once again it led us to our second straight Team Spirit competition.

Thanks again to everyone that participated. This was my favorite Relay for Life. I had people willing to participate and excited about participating and staying up all night. It was nice to have some new blood on the team and it helped us in dominating the competition, though we would’ve had a great time even if there were no points involved.

Check out my photo album above for pictures!