Twilight, snow, friends and Barbies

Christmas afternoon I started to get tired and I took a nap. Melinda woke me and before I was fully and awake and in my right mind, I somehow consented to go see 'Twilight' with everyone. There was a group of about 9 of us so being in a crowd of family made it fun to laugh at all the super sappy romantic bits. The movie was an over-the-top chick flick. My favorite part was when the vampire hero Edward went into the sun and instead of disintegrating like any respectable historic vampire would, he "sparkled." It looked like he had a fight with some glitter glue and tragically lost. Yet, I have to say now I will feel more informed when I hear all of the Twilight references from my DW and DD. They have now both seen it 4 times now, but Connie and Wendy have seen it so many times that they've stopped counting.

It was snowing when we left the theater. The white blanket of snow covering everything, and the gently falling snowflakes illuminated in the amber street lights looked sublime. The roads were quite slick, but traffic was light and we had snow tires.

Saffron was very happy to play in the snow the next day. Here she is helping shovel the snow.

Ian and I did most of the heavy lifting.

Yesterday Melinda went out to dinner with her old high school pals, Jen and Amy to Paradise Bakery. I can't imagine how they managed to get out of their with only 1 cookie. Last time I was there I bought 2 dozen. Well I did give them away as gifts, but I swear, those cookies are like heroin!

After dinner at Grandma and Grandpa's tonight, Saffron brought me downstairs to play Barbies. I didn't really want to but she asked me so cutely and sweetly that I couldn't say no.

Connie's book group selections

Here are the next book selections for the After Hogwarts book group:

May 16th ~ Golden Compass by Philip Pullman

June 13th ~ The Looking Glass Wars by Frank Beddor

July 11th ~ The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale

Aug 8th ~ Dealing with Dragons by Patricia C Wrede

Sept 12th ~ Flipped by Wendelin Van Draanen

Oct 10th ~ Surving the Applewhites by Stephanie S. Tolan

Nov 14th ~ The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis

Vacation at home (day two, part 2)

We got home from the aquarium later in the afternoon. Melinda and I had reservations for the Armstrong Mansion, so Connie came over to stay with the kids overnight. We got some Papa Murphy's pizza for them and they watched movies and played Lego Star Wars.

Melinda and I went out to eat at Christopher's Seafood and Steakhouse downtown at the Peery Hotel. Since it was the Friday night after Valentine's day, every restaurant was packed. But after a 35 minute wait, they seated us. The wait was definitely worth it; the food was absolutely fabulous! I had a pork chop stuffed with crab, spinach, parmesan, and wrapped in bacon; it was divine. Melinda had a tuna steak with wasabi cucumber sauce, it was quite tasty. It was kind of expensive, but we used Brian's Happenings card, so it wasn't too outrageous. Plus, it feels more like an occasion when it's at a really nice place.

Melinda was worried about leaving Saffron overnight, but she was just fine. Connie said when she woke up in the morning she growled at her (probably because she expected her mom) but then she went back to sleep anyway.

So it was nice to have a night out without the kids, though I suspect they thought it was even better to have a night without the parents.

Couple of the hour

Yesterday we had had a wedding and a baby shower for Ruth and Darius. The rest of our family was finally able to meet Darius, and they weren't disappointed. We're so glad that Ruth found such a fine gentleman that takes good care of her. They are such a kind and loving pair. I absolutely can't wait for their baby; he or she is going to be über cute. I mean just look the parents!

Mom and Connie got this fabulous wedding cake that was very elegant (and tasty, too.) Darius cooked up some jambalaya and their was plenty of cornbread.

Clair made a great MC for the night. We did a quick round of Mafia and we were totally bamboozled by the chosen mafia; we had no clue. Speaking of cute babies, Makenna was completely adorable laughing loudly every time we did. Everyone is anxiously awaiting for this years rendition of the "Thanksgiving Song."

Mom hosted the ever-popular Newlywed Game where we found out that Clair has lots of holey socks, Bobby is the only guy Carrie ever gave her real phone number to, Darius likes to ride horses, and I have a diaper in the glove compartment.


My lovely wife Melinda had a good time (probably laughing at me for taking so many pictures.) I used her mom's cool new digital camera and her dad's big flash attachment. Only problem is it makes me want to get a new camera.

Michel brought 3 of her girls and Joy brought Olive, her dog. Olive is my little canine friend. My little hairy, loose-skinned, drooling buddy. We all talked about how we met our significant other. Michel didn't let me forget about the time she made Brent a chessecake to impress him and I pulled the instant mix box out of the trash. Whoa, I was such rude little punk then!


Carrie and Bobby were very gracious to host the party at their house. They have these super high-tech light switches which people kept leaning into and turning out all the lights. I would hazard a guess that their was some smooching going on during those dark episodes.

I got to meet Bobby's mom and dad; Bob and DJ (I don't know if I spelled that right?) Their first "meeting" was pretty funny - Bob and his friends drove up to DJ and her friends and honked at them and drove away. Then DJ met him later and said, "Hey that was you!"

We had a great time. It was cool to have everyone together (though we did miss James who is in China.) Ruth is going to make a great mom and we're so happy to have Darius as a part of our family. Because so many of us are far apart now, it's extra special when we do get together.

Its always fun for everyone when Grandpa comes

Friday I took the day off, so Melinda went to pick up my parents from the airport so I could sleep in a little. She left about 7:15 so I was kind of worried when my mom called me wondering where we were. Melinda must have just missed them so she went to the Park and Wait. Unfortunately, the van wouldn't start after she turned it off.

I drove out to the airport and luckily we were able to jump start it. Later I Ian and Saffy to Checker Auto to get a new battery. I undid the battery and took it in, and they checked and it was OK (it just needed charging). So I put the battery back in but Ian dropped one of the screws in the engine compartment. We couldn't find it so we went in to find a replacement screw. We tried one out but it wasn't the right size. So we were going to go back in and get another one when Saffron threw the wrench (which she insisted to hold) into the engine. I reached in to get the wrench and we found the screw! It's nice when things turn out like that!

We had a great time with my parents. The kids we're really excited to have them around. They got up early and were just waiting for them to arrive. They bought us bagels for breakfast and we sat around and chatted before they took a nap. When dad came back later from the Carrie's pain clinic, we ate bean dip with Clair and Makenna, and then went for a walk later.

Saturday dad made blueberry pancakes with us (yum!) before Connie drove them to Roy.

Books, asthma, fences and leaves

Yesterday Melinda, Lisette, Miles and his friend Davis went to Connie's book group at Barnes and Noble. Connie does a really nice job. It's really useful to have a source to find good new books. Lisette especially loves it; the last book they read, Maximum Ride, by James Patterson, really sparked her interest so she went ahead and read the whole series.

Melinda said she was feeling sick since she went downtown to see the symphony. After the book group she wasn't breathing well, so I sent her to see her dad. Looks like she had an asthma attack. She is feeling much better after taking Prednisone and using an inhaler.

I finally got around to staining the wood fence. Our neighbor actually owns the fence, and is very good about getting both sides of it taken care of. In April or May he started staining our side with me, and then he left the rest for me to do. He even left all the stain, a roller brush, and a paint brush. Well now that it's November I finally did it. I have dreaded doing it for for almost 6 months. I had to just walk outside grab the stuff without thinking about it. Actually it was pretty easy. Melinda and I decided that I have this deep seated rebellion about not wanting to do something that someone else tells me. Sigh. Rebellion is so taxing. It would have been so much easier to have just done it then. Oh, well.

The kids helped me rake up the neighbors lawn this morning. Melinda thought it would be good for them to do more service. Really, it's more like minimizing the disservice of our tree dropping leaves on their lawn. But the kids enjoyed it, especially jumping up and down in the trash can to compact the leaves. We took them to the back yard and spread them around the garden beds.

Winwoes

Woe is Windows. Connie has Windows XP on her Dell laptop, and yesterday it died. Not the computer, but Windows. It kept coming up with an password error and it wouldn't even boot into safe mode. Microsoft's site said it was a corrupt registry and they had a fix for it, but since the passwords in the registry were corrupt, I couldn't even fix it using the repair console. I had to reinstall.

Today Windows Vista on my work computer died. I installed the latest version of iTunes, and then it wouldn't reboot. I tried the recovery console, but it couldn't repair it. I could have run the System Restore utility, but I had disabled it to improve performance. So I had to reinstall.

I once read that you spend 6 months of your life at stoplights. I don't even want to think how much time I've spent installing Windows. But I guess I can't complain, I suppose it's better than digging ditches, and everyone has to make a living off of something.

Off to China for James

Friday night I had some of my siblings over at my place. We were having a little get-together for my brother James. He's the baby of the family. He's actually 14 years younger than I am, but only 13 years older than my oldest daughter. We're always glad to have him visit; he's great with the kids and really pleasant to be around. He's been going to school in Anchorage so we don't get to see him too often. He's taking a little break from school right now to teach English in China. It should be a really good experience for him. He'll get to visit Hong Kong for a few days before he gets to the mainland. He'll have room and board at the school and they will teach him a little Mandarin. He plans on having time to visit the Great Wall, the Forbidden City, and the Terracotta Warriors. It should be very educational and a good experience for him.

It was fun to have my siblings over. I haven't seen Joy for a little while. Her hair has grown out longer and it looks good on her. Also, she brought over her new dog, Olive. She is an adorable young bulldog. She was so much fun to play with, and Ian loved walking around the yard with her. I think it made Melinda kind of nervous though. She wanted me to take a shower to wash off all of the "dog germs" after Olive kissed me. Just imagine Lucy from "A Charlie Brown Christmas" right after Snoopy kissed her, and that would be Melinda. But Olive was just so cute and so fun! She has this loose skin that's so fun to rub, and she is just so solidly built that she's fun to squeeze!

Connie made it over after her Harry Potter book group at Barnes and Noble. She's been really busy at getting book events going over there, and she does a really good job at it.

Clair came over earlier with little Makenna. It seems like school has been keeping him very busy. But you can tell he loves his little baby. He makes a great dad.

Carrie shared tragic pet stories with us. I didn't realize that when little Peaches (the dog) died that James didn't know about until a week later when he asked mom, "Where is Peaches? I have been looking for him all week and I can't find him."

Michel was over with most of her kids. She is starting to teach school this fall so she has been busy getting her classroom ready. The cousins had fun playing together and James enjoyed seeing his nieces and nephews before he had to go.

On Saturday I took James out to do a few errands and then Carrie picked him up in the afternoon so they could hang out and then she was going to drop him off in the airport.

Saturday I also swept up dog hair off the kitchen floor. Still, it would be fun to have a dog to play around with. Melinda is going to be really nervous when she reads this.