Dylan Rings,  will be closed next week for our annual shutdown around the fourth of july.   Since a lot of people take vacation or go to the beach, and business was so very slow during this week,  we decided a couple of years ago we would take vacation that week too. Leslie and I will spend one day doing administrative paperwork,  then we are going to take our son and daughter to the aquarium on a tuesday in the middle of the day. We will spend the rest of week relaxing and probably on lake jordan.  Cant wait for some good ole r& r.  

 

I learned today that some good customers and friends of Dylan Rings,  lost someone on father's day.  Jim Debartoli and his daughter, (katie) went kyaking on the coosa on fathers day.  Jim's kayak got stuck in some rocks and flipped and his foot got lodged in some rocks.  They were unable to resuscitate him.  This makes the second family close to leslie and I that had lost their most precious fathers on father's day.  I cannot begin to imagine what katie and Patty are going through right now.  Patty and Katie,   just know that we are praying for you and our hearts go out to you both and Jim's kids.   God bless you.

This past sunday was fathers day,  while i was dropping Sean off at boy scout summer camp, and playing with Harley in the kiddie pool,  Abigail's Uncle Monty,  had gone to church at FUMC Montgomery,  and had lunch with his father for fathers day.  After he got home he had fallen and become unconscious.  Baptist hospital life-flighted him to UAB.  The surgeons there told them that he had an anurism burst,  and did not give them much hope.  After a very long day and night,....  Abigail's family decided to meet with the organ donor team,  and let the lord have Monty.   Monty's organs will give back  someone their father/ child/ spouse,  so that they can continue God's purpose for all of us.  It is very hard to find the good in certain situations,  and this is why we will embrace Abigail and her family with our presence and our prayers.  When you remember this later and are looking back  this is one of those times in life where you will only see one set of footprints in the sand, and remember that Jesus is carrying you now and those are his footprints.  May God be with you Abigail!

June 22 is my wonderful and beautiful wife leslie's birthday.  She is 34.  We had a birthday bbq this past saturday to honor her and had many friends over to help her celebrate.  She had a wonderful time celebrating with everyone.  There was so much food on my barrel grill I had to take some off before i could get the rest cooked.  Leslie is a wonderful wife and I am so glad i have met her and look forward to helping her celebrate the next 34+ birthdays !  Happy Birthday Leslie!!!  we love you!

 

35 years ago I beat Steve Rider ( my cousin) into this world by a day.  I have always felt some weird sort of connection,  grouping with him due to our being so close in age.  Growing up we were always grouped together when together.  On June 5, 2008,  he was diagnosed with Leukemia,  and needed a bone marrow transplant.  He was lucky enough to live in one of the places in the world that was best for treatment and research of leukemia. This past January he received his Bone marrow transplant.   In one of his subsequent checkups the doctors found that his body was not making any new blood cells.  His doctors put their heads together and decided the best course of action was to start over and introduce radiation this time and re-transplant bone marrow from the same donor.  On June 5, 2009 Steve Rider passed away.........Steve has left the world of the living but will not be forgotten,   I still feel that connection and grouping with you as we were the oldest grandchildren together.   We will miss  you, but will always remember you.

We are slowly adding a more diverse inventory.  After some interest expressed by some customers,  we have decided to start to carry some brides maids/ groomsmen  gifts.  We are going to carry wedding items,  baby items,  first communion/baptism/ christening items,  collectable items,  etc..  We already have instore a first communion rosary box and cross set,  a baby christening/ baptism bonnet that turns into a brides hanky,  a flask set, compacts, a limited edition Dale Earnhardt knife, a martini shaker and glass set.  We will begin to put these items on the website,  but please stop by the store and see what's new!

Our Audit is almost complete.  The auditor spent a couple of days here going through things, and gave us a draft of what she had found.  We are going to go over the draft to investigate and double check that the auditor is correct in her findings.  We will meet her again on Friday, to go over all her findings and to show her how some of the findings are not taxable.  She found several transactions that she says should have had sales taxes, and a few that we were supposed to report and pay consumer's use tax.   We found out that when we donate an item to a chartiable event or group,  we have to pay sales tax on it since it was pulled from inventory!  I personally find this horrible,  we decide to donate and give up the money we have invested in a product to sell,  and now i have to report it and pay more just because i dont have it any longer.   I think this policy will make it harder for us to donate objects to charity again!  We donated our inventory to chaity,  the state should default the tax on those items for chaities sake as well!