Thursday, March 6, 2008

INTRODUCING......

... MR. & MRS. KURT KNIGHT!!!

























Till next time....


Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Going to the Chapel.... and...

...errrr... scratch that... GOING TO THE BEACH! and... We're gonna get MARRIED!

Pamela and I are about to change the weather... come Monday (2/25), we're looking at temps in the 80s, cool ocean breezes, sunny skies, & beautiful beaches.

We're all in:
Wednesday, February 27, 2008 at 4:00PM on the white sands of Montego Bay, Jamaica, Pamela Susan Denson and Kurt William Knight will make things official by joining hands, joining hearts and then swapping spit.

We are excited - Let the PARTY begin!!!


Obviously, since my last blog was over 6 months ago, I've been downright lousy at keeping any interested parties informed about our latest happenings. In an effort to make up for lost time, here's a brief outline of our major events since my last post:

  • Dad's Surprise 60th Birthday Party (July/'07): battling a 6-hour airline miscue, Avery & I still managed to sneak into town unannounced and added an even bigger surprise to the already happening surprise party. Dad's reaction, when I showed up holding Avery, was priceless and was truly worth every minute of airport layover helldom it took to get there.


  • Chris, Stacy, Gwen & Nadia come to town!: In August, Stacy & Chris flew out with the girls for a week long visit in Richmond. Avery enjoyed the heck out of her cousins while they were here. Chris & Stacy took the liberty of renting a mongo mini-van that we all piled into like circus clowns throughout the week. No less than 30 minutes in town - straight from the car rental joint - Chris gave the anti-locks a nice test as an 18-wheeler in front of us stopped cold on I-64. Fortunately, that kid cart bit down like a fatty on a chocolate bar and we all survived. It was a great visit and we enjoyed their company, mucho.


  • Pamela got a new J-O-B: Pamela decided to test the free agent waters on the employment market and she reeled in a nice gig. Her new company zings cash around similar to frisbees at a beach party - for fun - they like to schedule staff meetings in Vegas, Orlando and Rome of all places... pretty crazy, yet pretty damn cool for her. I've been shopping for a nice new toga as I'd like to tag along and see the Caput Mundi.

  • Avery turned the Big #2: Avery's odometer rolled to "2" on Saturday, September 1, 2007. After her afternoon nap she awoke to find a patio full of presents, Dora balloons and, best of all, loving family members and friends gathered for her Birthday BBQ Bash. After some hefty BBQ, we all tried to beat the heat with some cake and ice cream while Avery plowed through the generous multitude of presents, including those shipped in from Dallas, St. Louis & Springfield, MO... The kid made out like a bandit and if that wasn't enough, we road tripped to Newport News the following day where Avery did it all over again with her beloved Papa. Sidebar: Long story, short. Otis nearly didn't survive the birthday weekend as he somehow managed to trounce in Avery's cake we ordered for the BBQ. Hurriedly minutes before the party started, Pamela picked up the cake and then ran in a gas station on the way home for a few bags of ice - cake in the front seat, Otis in the back seat - two minutes later, there are paw prints in the cake and chocolate tracks all over the Jeep! That little... AAAGGGGHHHHH!!!

  • Randy/Abby's Wedding: Excellent! Randy & Abby brought home the gold in preparing for and doing their wedding up right. In late October we journeyed back to STL where Pamela & I and many others all had a blast celebrating their big day... The honor of being the best man was bestowed upon me by my homeboy Randy. With that title, it gave me free reign to plan the Bachelor's Party! Yeah! I'll spare you the boring details, but his bachelor's party consisted of renting and RV for the weekend, cramming seven smelly guys in there and driving from STL to Columbia to watch the ranked MU tigers stomp a historically touted Nebraska squad. Then, we had to pony up and head to KC to watch the KC/Jacksonville NFL game. Then, we chugged home on fumes early Monday morning from KC back to STL and called it a weekend. It was boring, seriously... not much else to talk about... ;-) !

  • Halloween!: The candy WAS a big deal this year!



  • Richmond Marathon (Nov. 10, 2007): I set my sights on this puppy in late June and amazingly enough managed to stick to my training plan (with major help from Pamela) until race day. I chugged in at 3:40:52 and it was a very gratifying experience to cross the finish line. It was even better to hear the support from family and friends cheering me on. Thanks for picking me up and keeping me going! Here are a few pics. I'd love to expand more on this topic, but dammit - I have to start packing for Jamaica!

  • Engagement: December 1, 2007 - On this day, I was finally able to feed Pamela enough booze so she'd say yes. OK, actually we just had a really nice evening at the Jefferson Hotel in downtown Richmond. The atmosphere... the mood... That place is pimp. Hilton doesn't have shit on Thomas Jefferson. My boy, TJ, did that place up right 200-some odd years ago. OK - Being the lady-killer that I am, I had to melt the girl's heart with some sweet nothings before popping the question. Then I dished out the hardware and it's been on ever since. Pamela knew something was up, but was generally surprised as I sprung this on her at the beginning of the night...

  • Trip home for New Year's Eve: We drove! Ouch! It was great to see everyone over the holidays and we are already looking forward to our next journey back... Although, at the moment, I'm mostly looking forward to: my bride, my speedo & our tray of Piña Coladas!!!

Other topics include the usual work grind, home improvement projects and finding cool activities for Avery to partake in. In January, we enrolled her in a Gymnastics class. She didn't love it at first, but finished very strong the last two classes... She even received a medal last week! (so did every other toddler, but hey... come on... she did good!).

Also - for a slideshow of some of our latest & best pictures check out Pamela's MySpace Page! (http://www.myspace.com/pknightrider)

Well now... did I mention we're going to Jamaica to get married!

Till next time, Mon!

Monday, July 9, 2007

Cuatro, Cinco!

Damn, I say - Damn! Time keeps flying by. Over two months have passed since the debut of The Knight Line and the fan mail has finally started to die down. Uhm, not really, but we'll roll with it. OK - lots of topics to hit - the last two months rollercoastered through providing many good, enjoyable ups and unfortunately, also, shuttling us through the occasional dip in the track. Let's get to it.

Current Events:
ROAD TRIP - The beginning of May was livened up with a week-long visit from Mama & Papa Knight. The wiry old seniors decided to hop in the sled and reindeer their way 15 hours across the Eastern half of the nation. (Technically, my Mom is not a senior yet, but she's been married to one for so long, we'll have to find her guilty by association!) That trip can be a beast, so we were happy to see them when they pulled in. And they were even happier to see Avery, but that is understandable. It was a good week and they got to share plenty of grandparent/grandchild time together. Avery was spoiled as she played hooky from daycare all week and happily bummed around Richmond with Mama & Papa. The action-packed week included a zoo visit, a day at the beach, a road trip over to Colonial Williamsburg/Jamestown and two trips to Maymont (http://www.maymont.com/). Towards the end of it all, it left me wondering if the two Missouri steam engines charging through the week would have enough coal in the furnace to make it back home. But hey, I guess 60 really is the new 40. Rock on. All-in-all, some good quality time was shared and we are eyeing forward to the next visit.

Lección de Espanol - A peek inside our living room on a standard day would reveal a continuous running loop of Dora the Explorer episodes. No big surprise considering Dora and/or Diego rule the freaking Earth when you are a toddler. So with Avery it’s all Dora or all Nemo. Harry Potter will make a cameo appearance once in a while, but you get the idea. Speaking of Diego, he's kind of a punk, riding around in his jeep thinking he's cool all the time - I mean, Dora is the original - she made it to the big time and Diego just latched on to the curtails of her success. It's like Jessica Simpson's little tramp sister Ashley lip syncing her way into the industry garnering a few ounces of success solely because her sister is a legitimate A-list knockout. Anyways, I digress... So, like any other day, Dora is on the tube doing her thing, Pamela and I are mulling through some chores while Avery is contently playing with her toys. Avery has her back to the TV while Dora counts to three in Spanish - uno, dos, tres - then to our surprise, Avery picks it up on her own and yells, "Cuatro!, Cinco!". That is when Pamela and I just look at each other in disbelief and ask the only obvious question, "Did you teach her that?" Upon further investigation, with neither of us providing any Spanish lessons, we put Avery on the spot to count to 5 starting with, "Uno". BAM! She belts out, "Dos, Tres, Cuatro, Cinco!", and just grins as bright as the morning sunshine. That was pretty sweet and Mommy & Daddy could not have been more proud. Now either, she's pretty damn smart or she watches way too much Dora. Maybe both, but since she obliterated the language barrier that day we have moved on to other basic Dora phrases, such as: "Hola Chicas!" & "Hola Amigos". "Gracias" & "Adios" get their fair share of wordplay as well.

The Pamela Report - can you say, "Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever"? Well, unfortunately after a recent tick bite, Pamela can now tell you everything you ever wanted to know about it. Its a disease sometimes carried in the little bloodsuckers, like Lyme disease, except its a hell of a lot more serious and very rare. I've always said that Pamela is one in a million, but with an estimated reporting of only 800 cases in the U.S. per year, quick math tells me that she's actually about 1 in 500,000. Still, not too shabby I guess. Anyways, we were clued in that something wasn't quite right when a red dotted rash appeared one morning on Pamela's ankles. This followed what we "thought" was a migraine that she had the day before. Well, by late afternoon, most of her legs were covered with this mysterious rash. Come the next day, things continued to worsen and had spread across her stomach & back. By this point, she's starting to freak. Having remembered that we removed a tick from her a few days prior, we hit the internet to find out what was going on. Eventually, after some research, we determined that her spotted ass needed to get to the doctors office - pronto! Apparently, the jist of it is, the disease causes your tissues and organs to hemorrhage. The blood from the hemorrhaging causes the red spots. Blah, blah, blah, right? Well, its not as serious when its happening on your legs, but as it reaches the torso it starts boring holes through your kidneys and other vitals. Left untreated, you will be in some serious Ca-Ca. Anyways, it was a Sunday evening, and so off to Patient First she scooted. Eventually, once she was checked in, she got the good once over treatment. The Docs-in-a-Box felt it necessary to test for everything under sun since they had never seen a case of Rocky Mountain spotted fever before. Eventually, Pamela became the side-show at a circus. Once they actually diagnosed it as RM spotted fever then it was like she was a three-headed monster. At one point, one of the docs pokes his head out the door and is like, "Hey Larry, get in here, you gotta see this." Anyways, after a hearty 10-day dose of anti-biotics, all was well. Pamela was actually back to normal within a few days, so we were lucky the situation was not a lot worse.

Good bye to a good ol' boy - Kahlua will forever live on in the hearts of those who knew and loved him deeply. As we move forward, we take the many great memories of his life with us. For those close to him, he touched us all in special ways and he will be truly missed. For those that did not have the pleasure of knowing him, Kahlua was a big frothy, playful 120-pound chocolate lab. Pamela got him as a pup in college but he eventually became "the family dog" as her parents inherited him when she moved away after graduation. His hearty spirit stayed strong even when time took its toll on his body. He lived a great, full life and today we are happy that he shared part of ours. Good bye Big Bear - we love you!



Monday, April 30, 2007

Casa de Knight!

What up Ladies & Gents,

Going to start dropping down a blog here from time to time so all my peeps can check The Knight Line to see what we've been kickin' out here in Richmond, Virginia.

Current events:
Avery turns 20 months on May 1st!!! Man alive, time seems to be flying by - she just keeps growing and getting smarter each day. Her latest achievements include spelling her name and counting to 10 (sometimes 11!)... She's still working on the other letters in the alphabet but she has the A-V-E-R-Y down pat. She loves the movie "Finding Nemo" and multiple requests are raised on a daily basis to view this ocean classic. No fish stories here, she's a Nemo fanatic. She's also a fan of singing songs - in the bathtub, in the car, at dinner time - you name it and we've sang it. For the most part Avery is all smiles, but we have seen signs of the terrible 2's approaching. Fits come mostly at dinner time when she would rather just drink her milk than chow on the main course. Occasionally, she'll do this thing where she tenses up, holds her breath, then squeezes her face so tight she turns completely red and looks as if her head is about to explode off her neck. Veins pop out and everything. This is both funny and worrisome. If she gets that pissed about having to take a bite of a chicken nugget, I'd hate to see the day she's required to wait in line at the DMV for 2.5 hours to get her license renewed.
Another one of her favorite dinner time moves consists of the whirling helicopter arms technique, where she flails her arms from side-to-side across her face as food approaches. Thus, making for the occasional spoonful of potato salad to fly across the room and splatter the wall. Anyways, Pamela and I will continue to keep her fed as we usually take turns; one tries to hide their laughter while the other takes a more parental role and explains to Avery why its necessary for her to eat some food. All in all she does pretty good so we're not too worried, except for the exploding face thing.


Quick hitters:
Pamela nearly threw down with the store clerk at Marshall's yesterday. Closing time: 6:00PM - Pamela needs a price check on a new pair of sneaks for Avery so she strolls up to the cashier. The lady at the front says, "Go back and see if you can find a price for the shoes." So, Pamela trudges all the way to the back of the store and is searching for the price. It is now 6:05PM and she's "told" by a different Marshall's employee lady that she needs to leave now - "We are closed," she unfriendly grumbled. Pamela explains that she's looking for the price for these shoes, when the lady yells to the front of the store in a snotty-ass voice, "She SAYS she's looking for a price check," implying that Pamela is lying. So Pamela promptly states why don't you get over here, do your job and find this price for me, you dumb b*#%&. OK, OK - so, Pamela didn't say it exactly like that, but she didn't take any crap off the lady. Anyways, it was one of the rare times I wish I had been "shopping" with ol' girl. And that price - Pamela never found it. 6:10PM - She goes back to the cashier and the first lady is like, "Well, since we don't have a price, do you mind paying X amount?" Pamela, now feeling courageous and triumphant after putting the other lady in her place, says, "Uh, yeah I mind if X amount is more than the real price of the shoes?" And customer service being at its best, the lady is just like "Uhm, uh, OK". Finally, Pamela is just like, whatever people... ring up the damn shoes... I'll pay X amount... I'm getting out of this circus.

More to come:
This is my first shot at a blog, so down the road -time permitting - I hope to keep it updated with the latest going-ons that involve Avery, Pamela and myself.

Hope all is well.