It certainly has been a while since I’ve managed to post anything but things have been so busy lately that I just haven’t been able to spend any time making updates. In fact in the past two months we really haven’t even taken any pictures so I haven’t been able to fake like I’m keeping the site updated by posting pictures. Here’s a quick run down of the last couple of weeks.

Jen and the kids got to take a trip to New Orleans for Mardi Gras but it happened to fall on the same day that I needed to be at work for yearly maintenance activities so guess what, I didn’t get to go. I know Alex had a great time because he would keep me up to date on all the exciting stuff by giving me call from the parades, called me waiting for parades, or calling me on his way home from the parades making sure I knew about all the cool throws he caught.

“Dad, you’ll never guess what. We caught FIVE footballs and you know who we saw? Sean Payton!” He was so excited half the time he didn’t know what he wanted to tell me next.

Andrew had a good time too and by the end of it all he started to figure out how to hold out his hands in the “Throw me something mister!” position. They only came home with a small fraction of the beads they caught but Andrew still loves to put them on and parade around the house.

I think it’s now official that Alex has gone to more Mardi Gras parades then I have. Oh well, I guess there’s always next year.

Happy Valentines Day. (Courtesy of Krispy Kreme Donuts.)

When I picked up Alex from school today I asked him what he did at school and he sad they worked on rhyming words.

“What rhyming words do you do?” I asked him.

“I did the word talk”

“So what rhymes with talk?”

He paused for a moment and then said “Dad, what is the piece of equipment football players wear to protect their penis?”

“A jock”

“Ya, talk rhymes with jock.”

When I was coming home from work yesterday I got half way here and I ran into one of the fiercest sunshowers I’ve experienced in a long time. It was coming down so hard it was difficult to see two or three car lengths in front which was made even more difficult by the fact the sun was glaring off the water on my windshield.

I’ve never been a big fan of sunshowers. Pick one or the the other already, sun or rain, you can’t have it both ways. With that mother nature came to her senses and the rain stopped. Well, ok, maybe it didn’t happen quite that fast but by the time I was home the ran was pretty much over.

My brooding over the silly ran and the forty five minute commute through Saturday afternoon rush hour which is another one of my pet peeves by the way. Why does it take me just as long to get home from work on Saturday afternoon as it does during the week? I just couldn’t catch a break yesterday. Anyway, when I got home I noticed that Jen’s parents had sent her traditional birthday King Cake, yes.

After dinner Jen cut us all a piece for dessert and before he could take his first bit Jen reminded Alex to be careful since there is a little plastic baby in the cake. He was about to pick up his piece when he stopped and looked a little concerned. The cake came with a “History of the King Cake” brochure that I thought might put his mind at ease so I started reading it.

“In the past such things as coins, beans, pecans or peas were hidden inside each King Cake. Today, a tiny plastic baby is the common prize.”

“He, he, isn’t that funny, imagine a cake with peas on the inside.” I don’t think Alex found this funny at all. After a couple of minutes without touching his cake he asked me about the peas inside. I tried to assure him that this cake didn’t have peas in it but between the baby and the peas he wasn’t having any of it. More cake for the rest of us, Whoo Hoo.

It has been raining all weekend and this morning the temperature dipped below freezing so things have started icing over. In preparation for the “Arctic Blast” I cleaned out the garage so we could get Jen’s car in. While cleaning up I took the last bit of bird feed and filled up one of the feeders, I figured it would be nice to put something out for the birds in the bad weather.

This morning when Alex and I got up there were a couple of blue jays, a few cardinals, a dove, and an assortment of other smaller birds hanging around all getting something to eat. I opened the blinds on the windows in the kitchen so we could get a better look.

A couple of hours later I was doing something in the kitchen when I turned around and out through the window I saw the biggest bird I’ve ever seen in our backyard huddled on the ground. From where I stood I could see the it’s back and it had it’s wings spread out onto the grass like it was making a tee-pee under it’s head. At this point I realized that this wasn’t any regular bird but the hawk that help himself to dinner in our yard this summer.

I tried to grab my camera to get a picture but when I turned around it took off and in it’s claws was a bloodied mess of a bird carcass.

“Holy cow, did you just see that?” I called to Jen.

“See, see. I told you. Now do you believe me, the bird’s huge.”

So once again I thought I was doing something nice for the birds and I ended up setting up a buffet for the hawk. I guess everyone has to eat.

I’m (possibly) back from website and blogging hiatus. Things were busy over the Christmas break and I just couldn’t find time to make updates to the blog or the website. We’ve been so behind on just about everything this season that we didn’t even manage to get our Christmas cards out on time so we’ve fallen back to our tried and trusted New Years Card. We actually got the cards out a couple of days ago so you can be looking for those in the mail in the next day or say.

In addition to being busy we have all been sick at one point or the other in the two weeks. Andrew started it off with a double ear infection, Alex contracted pneumonia right around the same time, Jen followed up with a sinus infection, and I really thought I was going to escape the whole episode unscathed but yesterday it finally caught up with me as well.

Alright, enough for now, The Saints playoff game is about to start and Alex is decked out in all his Saints gear. Let go Saints!

When Jen picked up Alex as school the other day he said,

“Mom, something really bad happened at school today.”

“What happened?”

“Teagan likes the Tampa Bay Buccaneers!”