I actually posted these pictures a couple of days ago of Andrew’s first “haircut.” He doesn’t have enough hair that we needed to take him to a hair place for a full on haircut but the sides and back were pretty long and needed a trim.
Things started out alright but a couple of minutes into the trim it seemed to end up the way just about everything ends up with him, in tears.
Auntie D and Uncle Doug just finished up their week long stay with us and I think that they had a pretty good time. During the first two days I had to work so I didn’t get to participate in any of the fun but they went to Adventure Island for mini-golf and to the movies to see Shrek 3. By the sounds of it mini-golf was the highlight since Alex got a hole in one on the 12th hole. (He just pulled out the scorecard again to show me the hole in one.)
During the time they were here I think we managed to get in all the stuff that Alex talked about showing them before they arrived. Two of the big things he really wanted to take them to was lunch at Mr. Gatti’s and Soccer Tots. For those who don’t know Mr. Gatti’s is a pizza buffet restaurant with a video arcade/midway. It has 4 lanes of indoor video bowling, a half dozen racing video games, skee ball, various shotting games, you name it. Basically the kind of place you can burn through 30 dollars in about 10 minutes.
I don’t recall any places like this from my childhood, just arcades, which were always scary places to me. Whenever I went to the arcade I only ever had about a dollar so I had to be very strategic which games I played. If I picked a new game that turned out to be too difficult I would end up burning through my quarters too fast. I needed to scout out the games that were easier to maximize my game play time per quarter spent. Kung Foo fighting games, they were out. Games that cost 50 cents, forget it, way too rich for me. In the end I pretty much stuck to 1942 and Galaga which to this day are about the only video games I can play. It also stressed me out when everyone would crowd around watching every move you made and critique your play. Let me put it this way, I was never the guy everyone was standing around watching set the high score, I was the guy who barely made it past level 2. (Now that I’ve drifted way off topic I remember one particularly embarrassing occasion on the game Paper Boy where I made it about 30 seconds into the game before it was all over.)
Luckily Alex doesn’t seem to suffer any of the neurotic tendencies that seemed to plague me as a child and he jumps right into the games and gives them the what for. He played a one on one racing game against another kid who must have been about nine or ten and was competitive, even taking the lead at a couple points in the race. There’s one thing hasn’t changed from my childhood though, the games were over when the money ran out.
July 4th was lots of fun and was one of the few days that it didn’t rain. We went over to a friends place out in the country where we swam in the pool, ate hot dogs, drank beer, and when the sun went down it was a fireworks bonanza. I’ve never really lit off fireworks before so this was a first for me and I’m happy to report that we all made it back with all our fingers still attached. In all seriousness though I can’t believe some of the powerful fireworks they sell to pyromaniac amateurs.
On the last day we kept things pretty low key with just Alex’s soccer practice. Jen was commenting that this was the first time that any family has actually come and seen one of Alex’s soccer practices. He had a good practice and put on a show for us.
That wraps up the highlights from their visit. We all had a great time and I know we were sad to see them go.
When I was posting the sesame street pictures the other day I forgot about about the picture that Jen and I got with Elmo. During breakfast with Elmo and Friends one of the features was a come and get a family picture with Elmo. As you can see it was only Jen and I that managed to summon enough courage to actually go and pose with Elmo.
We’re back from our Princeton/Philadelphia trip and we managed to survive. We started the trip off in Langhorne, PA at Sesame Place, moved on to Princeton to attend Ryan’s graduation, and then finished up with a day touring the historical sites in Philadelphia. We took about 300 pictures during the trip so it’s going to take me a couple of days to sort through them and find the best ones for putting up on the web site but I’m hoping it doesn’t take too long so look for them soon.
On to the new pages! Hot off the…presses….digital bits….whatever catchy phrase you use now a days, I’ve finished Andrew’s birthday pictures. On the day of his actual birthday we made some cupcakes, put two candles in them, and had a little celebration at the house and after dinner he opened gifts from the family. Andrew has caught on to the gift receiving/opening idea much quicker then Alex did. He sees the gifts all wrapped in fancy birthday paper and he knows exactly how to get in there and open them up. I suppose he learned that from his brother.
Last weekend we had a bigger party at the house where we had some friends over for a Bar-B-Q. A couple of days before the party I got the Bar-B-Q out to check it over to make sure it weathered the winter ok. It would be more then a little embarrassing to have people over for hamburgers and sausage and not have a working Bar-B-Q. When I stored it away before the winter it was already in pretty sad shape and the winter months were not kind to it. On one end the burner element had completely disintegrated into rust and when I started it up only two giant flames shot out at weird angles from the burner producing a sound more like a propane torch then a Bar-B-Q. So the day before the party we had to go out and get a new grill and I spent a good portion of the night putting it all together.
Since Andrew is very into Sesame Street at the moment we had a Sesame Street themed party. Jen was her ever creative self and made a fantastic Count von Count birthday cake and she made these super creative Sesame Street characters to hang on the walls. Here’s the pictures for our family celebration and the cook out party.
On the morning of Andrew’s big party Jen had convinced me earlier in the week to sign up for my first race of the year, an Aquathon. It was a two mile run, 400 meter swim, and then a two mile run again. For the last couple of months I’ve actually been running one day a week and swimming two days a week as my exercise so this seem to fit right in with my training. There were only thirty or so people signed up for the race and I managed to place 5th overall. After the first run I was in eighth place, I moved up to fourth in the water, and then only one person managed to pass me on the second run. The deciding factor in doing the race was the fact it was taking a place a couple blocks from the house so Jen, Alex, and Andrew came to cheer me on. Jen took a couple of pictures which I put up here.
1. What time did you get up this morning?
I was paged at 3:00 this morning so that’s the first time I got up. I managed to fall asleep again around 4:30 until Andrew woke me up around 7:30
2. Diamonds or Pearls?
Diamonds I suppose.
3. What was the last film you saw at the cinema?
Blades of Glory.
4. What is your favorite TV show?
Hmm, I don’t watch much current TV so I’ll go with Rome even though I don’t have HBO. (I just finished watching season one on DVD.)
5. What did you have for breakfast?
Quaker oat meal, a blueberry muffin, and a cup of Earl Grey Tea.
6. What is your middle name?
I have two, Christian Hans.
7. What is your favorite cuisine?
Italian I suppose.
8. What foods do you dislike?
Brussel sprouts, Asparagus, and a bunch of other vegies.
9. Your favorite Potato chip?
Humpty Dumpty Ketchup flavour.
10. What is your favorite CD at the moment?
Chantal Kreviazuk – Ghost Stories
11. What kind of car do you drive?
Honda Civic
12. Favorite sandwich?
Ruben
13. What characteristics do you despise?
Selfishness
14. Favorite item of clothing?
Levis Jeans.
15. If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you Go?
Australia.
16. What color is your bathroom?
Pink flowered wallpaper. It was here when we moved in and we haven’t changed it out yet.
17. Favorite brand of clothing?
Levis I guess.
18. Where would you want to retire to?
Don’t know.
19. Favorite time of day?
Evening.
20. Where were you born?
Toronto.
21. Favorite Sports to watch?
Swimming of course.
22. Who do you least expect to send this back?
Just about everyone.
23. Person who will respond first?
Mom.
24. What laundry detergent do you use?
All Free and Clear
25. Coke or Pepsi?
Pepsi.
26. Are you a morning person or night owl?
Morning I guess since I’m usually up early.
27. What size shoe do you wear?
13
28. Favorite animal?
Chimpanzee
29. Any news you’d like to share with everyone?
No.
30. What did you want to be when you were little?
Cowboy.
31. Favorite candy bar?
Coffee Crisp. Mmmmmm.
32. What are your favorite childhood memories?
Spending time with family during holidays.
33. What are the different jobs you have had in your life?
Swim Coach, Web designer, and IT Manager.
34. What color underwear are you wearing?
Green with yellow chicks. The “cheep cheep” kind. Hey, it was just Easter.
35. Nicknames:
D
36. Piercing?
Left ear, but I haven’t worn an earning for ages.
37. Eye color?
Brown.
38. Ever been to Africa?
No.
39. Ever been toilet papering?
No.
40. Ever loved someone so much it made you cry?
Yes.
41. Ever been in a car accident?
Yes
44. Favorite restaurant?
Pranzo, which has sadly been out of business for a couple of years.
45. Favorite ice cream?
Ben and Jerry’s Chunky Monkey.
46. Favorite flower?
Beats me..
47. Disney or Warner Brothers?
Disney
48. Favorite fast food restaurant?
McDonalds.
49 What color is your bedroom carpet?
White.
50. How many times did you take your drivers test?
Once
51. Before this one, from whom did you get your last email?
It was spam!!
52. Which store would you choose to max out your credit card?
B&H; Photography.
53. What do you do most often when you are bored?
Surf the web.
54. Bedtime?
9:30 – 11:00 depending on the day.
55. Who are you most curious about their responses to this questionnaire?
Everyone!!
56. Last person you went to dinner with?
Pat and Bob.
57. What are you listening to right now?
Internet Radio, http://www.virginradio.co.uk/
59. What is your favorite color?
Blue.
60. Lake, Ocean or River?
Lake
61. How many tattoos do you have?
One.
62. Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
Chicken
63. How many people are you sending this Email to?
The thousands of people who read this web site…ok, so the handful of you that do.
64. Who sent this to you and what is something you didn’t know about him/her?
Jessie. I didn’t know she was a Green Day fan.
65. What materialistic thing would you ask for if you had one wish to make?
One million dollars…
66. Time you finished this email?
8:24pm
Now hup to, your turn to respond.
I’ve got the pictures of the playset posted on the web site here. Like I said on those pages we decided to get both Alex and Andrew a playset for their birthdays. I guess it’s kind of handy that both of their birthday’s are so close together so it’s easy to get them both one big gift.
So far I would have to say it’s a big hit though you have to watch Andrew around i since he occasionally likes to pretend that he’s a daredevil and climb in and around things he shouldn’t be. I’m just hoping that this thing doesn’t lead to another hospital visit.
We all went to the taste of Plano tonight and I have to admit that I ended up eating so much food that right now I fell a bit sick. Well actually Jen feels a bit sick too.
The general premise of the whole event is for one low price you can sample the food from about thirty different restaurants. When it’s all over you’ve ended up eating stuff from BBQ ribs, subs, goulash, brownies, cookies, ice cream, gorge, gorge, gorge. Taken on their own these are all fine foods but I’m pretty sure these foods were never meant to be combined into one meal.
One of the things Jen and I found rather puzzling was the people that walked around with multiple bags of food from different vendors. It would never have occurred to me to walked around with a bag collecting stuff. And it wasn’t just one or two people with bags either. Those of us without a bag were in the minority.
I’ve been letting this site crow cobwebs the last couple of months and unfortunately I don’t see it getting better in the near future. In case you haven’t checked out the home page recently I posted some pictures of a recent trip we took to the Dallas World Aquarium and the Dallas Fire Fighters Museum.