We made it back from New York in one piece, or at least I’m pretty sure I’m in one piece after taking what has to be one of the most “exciting” NYC cab rides of all time.
I’ll have lots more to write about once I get a little more sleep. Our flight was delayed last night and we didn’t get home until midnight so I’m a little beat.
Alex didn’t have school this past Friday so we turned it into a father and son outing day. Jen was home and was going to take Andrew to a pool party with her so it was really a good time for us to just go out. We started off in the morning by going to the mini-golf course to play a round of golf. I figured it was best to try and get an early start since the weather here has been about a zillion degrees and I didn’t want to be out playing golf at high noon in the sun. We arrived at the mini-golf place and of course to get to the mini golf course you have to walk through the arcade where Alex spotted the air hockey table so we ended up getting side tracked for a moment before we started golfing.
Alex is getting much better at mini-golf and on the first hole he managed to need only three shots to get the ball in and I needed four. (I’m not sure if that speaks more to his ability or my complete lack of golf skills.) We managed to burn through 18 holes faster then expected and I found myself back inside playing a couple more rounds of air hockey. I managed to convince him to try the “18 Wheeler – Pro Trucker” and a couple laps around the track on some motorcycle game but we always came back to air hockey.
When I was finally cleared out of cash it was lunch time and Alex decided on “Steak and Shake” since he was hungry for a shake. After lunch we had about a half hour of down time and then we went to see the new Pixar movie “Cars” which we both enjoyed. Can’t ask for a better day then that.
Like I promised in previous post when I found the Mother’s Day Ice Cream Pizza recipe I was going to share it with you. Here it goes,
My mom is the greatest!
Just take a look,
Here is my favorite thing that she cooks:
She makes it with
regular ice cream and
chocolate ice cream and
pepperoni! It tastes
like sugar!
Here is what an ice cream pizza looks like:
(At the bottom Alex has drawn a very colourful ice cream pizza.)
So the other day when I came home from work we were sitting around the table eating when dinner when Alex starting saying, “We have a surprise for you.” He wanted to tell me what it was so bad I thought he was going to explode. He just starting making thing up, “Dad, you know what the surprise is? It’s (Jen’s eyes would get really wide at this point and she would just about jump in to stop him from saying anything but he would finish the sentence with) milk!”
After dinner I had to go hide upstairs and hide while Jen and Alex worked on the surprise and when I got to come back down stairs I had to close my eyes and Alex brought me a bowl with the surprise. He was jumping all around he was so excited when he yelled out “Open your eyes! It’s ice cream pizza!” I will say the ice cream pizza he had put together was probably a little better then the original recipe. It started with a pastry base with cinnamon and sugar spread on top, then two scoops of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream on top of that and all covered with hard shell ice cream topping with a few chocolate chips and sprinkles to round it out. Tres tres delicieux. Feel free to try this recipe yourself.
I’ve added a couple of pictures to the web site from our trip to The Science Place a couple of weeks back.
I mentioned in my previous post that we just got back from New Orleans but didn’t say anything about the trip. We were only there for a couple of days to see Jen’s Dad get awarded his Doctor of Philosophy in Urban Studies. Over the weekend I got the pictures of the ceremony sorted out and added to the web site. I was working on some other pictures I took when we went to the science place but just ran out of steam so I haven’t posted them yet. Look for those in a couple of days.
Looks like one of the great Canadian Halloween traditions is going to be coming to and end this year.
A 50-year-old Halloween tradition in Canadais about to come to anend as UNICEF has announced the cancellation of its orange box campaign.
After consulting with teachers and parents about its Halloween program, the United Nations Children’s Fund said the time has come to put the cardboard boxes to rest
(Source URL: http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2006/05/30/unicef-boxes.html)
I still remember the year I dressed as Luke Skywalker for Halloween and I had my orange UNICEF box tied around my neck with string and I went door to door collecting candy and spare change. Geez, I must have been in grade two or three at three at the time. Actually maybe it was grade four since I think that was the year “Return of the Jedi” came out. Just about every house I visited had some kind of penny container, plates being the favourite of old ladies from what I remember, and all the kids carried around their UNICEF boxes. After the “Trick or Treat” and getting the candy it was “Do you have any change for UNICEF?”
I tell you by the end of the night that box sure did get heavy hanging around your neck.
It’s been a while since the last post and I’ve got lots of stuff to cover. Today Alex and Andrew started their Friday summer school program. For the next six or seven Friday’s they both go to school for part of day which gives Jen and I a couple of hours just to do some stuff together, sans gosses. Unfortunately today Jen had to be at school for a couple of hours for a meeting and next week I have an all day training class that I need to be at but after that, free time. Today we used our couple of hours to go out for lunch to “Steak and Ale” which is definitely a place we go without the kids. I’m sure we could take them but it was nice to relax, eat a leisurely meal, and not have to worry about keeping either of them entertained.
Today was Andrew’s very first day of school. In the past he has only been to the sitters but this was his first time in a class with other kids his age. They said he had a good time and he was all smiles when we picked him up so I think he enjoyed himself. They even said he even took a 50 minute nap on his mat. We were a little concerned about the sleeping arrangements because he has only ever slept in a crib and for some reason this day care doesn’t have cribs for the infants. We only needed to send him with a sleeping mat similar to what we send with Alex and we figured there was no way he was going to stay still long enough to get any sleep but apparently he did alright.
Alex was his usual self during drop off, reserved, pretty sure he didn’t want to be there, sad face enough just to make us feel a little guilty, but in the end he came around and had lots of fun. When he got up in the morning I was in the office working on the computer and he came in and after a couple of minutes which gave him enough time to wake up we had the following conversation.
“Dad, I want to go to diegosdinosaureadventure dot com.”
“Huh, what are you talking about?”
“I want to go to diegosdinosaureadventure dot com.”
“Is there even such a thing?”
“Ya”
It took me a second to realize he was taking about the television show “Go Diego Go” on the Nick Jr. network that he watched while we were in New Orleans this past weekend. Just to humor him I typed in www.diegosdinosauradventure.com and of course came up with nothing. I went to the Nick Jr. website and they have a number of flash games to go along with the TV shows which he enjoyed playing before I had to rush them out the door to school.
Out of this whole episode I’ve come to the conclusion that Alex thinks just about anything he can dream up dot com should exist. I want to go do discovery dot com to see the dinosaurs, can we visit nhl dot com to see hockey, can I look at noggin dot com to play games. It probably says a lot that in previous to this time whenever he mentions a website address it has existed. I figured he was just some kind of website address savant and was picking them up from tv or other places, which I know he is, but it looks like he thinks everything can be turned into a web site. I guess that fact that mceachernfamily.com even exists isn’t exactly doing much to counter his opinion.
Speaking of the website Jen had mentioned in the past that from school she can see the main part of the web site, like the home page and pictures, but when she clicks on the blog link it comes up with a warning and indicates that the site is blocked. Today when she was at school I went down there to help her save her files from her work computer and while I was waiting I thought I would see what kind of warning I could get. I was presented with this light grey web page that had this big warning sign picture with this text below:
http://www.mceachernfamily.com/blog/ currently belongs to the following category of web sites which XXXX blocks as part of its Internet usage policy: Pornography.
To request that this site be unblocked, please submit the online form located on this page of the XXXX Intranet:
NOTE: Students may not submit requests. All requests are logged, including the requestor’s name.
Apparently the school district considers our blog to fall under the all encompassing category of “Pornography.” (Everyone under 18 turn away now before I get in trouble 🙂 Actually, I figure by even putting the word pornography in this post some web filter alarms bells are going to start sounding and some people might not even be able to read this.) I always love reading stories about internet filters gone wrong and how they really aren’t that smart at what they do and just how easily they can be defeated. Just for grins I tried http://blog.mceachernfamily.com and low and behold it figured that web site was just fine for viewing.
It took me three days to get this post together.
It’s been a while since I’ve managed to find to find the time to sit down and actually but together a post. I just put Andrew down for his nap and Alex is on the computer upstairs looking at the Dino Planet section of the Discovery.com website so I have a few minutes of free time. I should probably be doing stuff around the house while I have the time but instead I’ve opted to take a timeout to post.
Mother’s Day was this past weekend and Alex made Jen a very nice card at school. It was a “I love when my mom makes…” and they got to fill out the rest and draw a picture. The other kids in the class did cards that said “I love when my mom makes pizza” or “cookies” and things like that and Alex’s card was “I love when my mom makes ice cream pizza.” I have no idea where he got that idea but it was pretty funny. If I could find the the card I would write down exactly what he said but it seems to have disappeared somewhere. When I find it I’ll post what he wrote.
Next week is our nine year anniversary. I can’t believe that it’s going to be nine years. I’m going to have be honest that I don’t have anything spectacular planned for the big day but we just booked a trip to New York City for a weekend in June and Kelly and Wade have graciously agreed to watch the kids so I guess that could count as an anniversary getaway. Every time we say “New York City” we can’t help but mimic the Pace Picante commercial from the 90’s, “Nooow York City!” (I so know you just did it.)
So last week when I was driving to work early in the morning to go swimming I was getting off the highway on the last exit ramp when the car in front of me swerved hard to the right and lurched violently up into the air. Suddenly out from under the car came flying a tire. Not just the tire but the tire and the rim off what looked like a pickup truck. I swerved to the right but there wasn’t enough time and the tire bounced off the left front bumper of my car making a large thudding noise in the process. The person behind me said he thought the tire when flying off my car into the lanes of traffic and then went flying into the oncoming traffic lanes after that. When I got to stop and asses the damage the driver side headlight is cracked, the bumper needs to be replaced and the left front quarter panel is slightly squished from the impact. I guess it could have been much worse and I’m glad that I didn’t get hurt but now I’m going to have to go through the hassle of getting the car repaired.
I haven’t been really keeping up with hockey this year, I know, I know, what kind of Canadian am I, so to redeem myself have been watching a little bit of the playoffs with Alex. Out of the remaining teams there isn’t really one I care about but I would like to see Ottawa beat Buffalo. Considering they are down 3-1 in the series it’s going to be tough for them to advance.
When I came home from work this afternoon Alex was watching the New Jersey/Carolina game on TV. I asked him for an update and he told me
“The New Jerseys are beating the Carolinas 1 to nothing.”
He loves adding an extra “s” on the end of the names.
I put some more pictures up on the website Friday. Last weekend we took the kids to see a butterfly exhibit that the mall had going on. In one of the large open sections they had built a large netted butterfly habitat that you could walk through. Before going in you could grab a piece of cantaloupe to attract the butterflies but to be honest the minute I walked in the door I had one fly right at me and land on my nose. On the way out it was more important to make sure you weren’t carrying out any hitch hikers with you.
Andrew liked looking and pointing at the butterflies and he tried really hard to grab them. The one time he did managed to get hold of one the first thing he did was try and put it in his mouth. Apparently butterflies look a little more appetizing then green beans. Alex on the other hand wasn’t really excited about it and decided that he didn’t want them to get close to him. After we left he did say it was exciting and he had a good time.
You can the pictures here.
I’ve finally managed to get around to updating the website with the latest pictures.
The first page is a couple of pictures from April that just didn’t fall into any specific category. They are mainly of Andrew and cover walking, (or because these aren’t animated it looks more like he’s just standing there so you’ll have to take my word for it), playing outside, and playing with toys. You can find those here.
The second page is a couple of shots of Easter Activities. Dyeing eggs, the Easter Egg hunt, and a couple of good pictures of Jen and Alex just before they headed off to church. Those are on the Easter page.
The last page has the pictures of Andrew’s first birthday party. For some reason we don’t really have a lot of pictures from the actually party day but there are some good ones of him eating cake and opening some gifts. Birthday page.
Andrew just had his first birthday a couple of days ago and I’m going to sound like a broken record, and every other parent on the planet, but it’s really hard to believe that a whole year has already gone by. When did that happen? It’s also hard to believe just how much he and Alex have changed in the past year. In fact it’s amazing how much Andrew has been changing in the just the past couple of weeks.
Just over a week ago Andrew was just experimenting with walking taking two or three steps before falling down and then just the other day he walked from his room all the way into Alex’s room. That required him walking out into the hall and navigating around the toys on the floor to get to where he was going. That’s official walking. It seems like every day he’s learning something new, or just about.
Yesterday Jen took Alex to the doctor because he wasn’t feeling well and since they finished right around lunch time I drove to meet them. We decided on McDonald’s since it was easy for both of us to get to and we could be in and out quickly. They arrived before me and while they were waiting Jen happened to be standing near a life size cardboard cutout of Ronald McDonald. Andrew looked at the poster and yelled out:
“Da Da”
So it appears we’re only making great strides in the walking category but the Dad recognition receptors need some refining. Or the horror, maybe I really do look like Ronald McDonald. Once someone told me I sounded like Kermit the Frog but no one every mentioned looking like Ronald McDonald. What a combination, the voice of Kermit and the face of Ronny McD, there’s an attractive combination. Good thing I’m already married 🙂
After I picked up Alex from school this afternoon we came home and were playing a game of hockey in the living room. Just as we were about to start the game he said,
“We need to have a face off first.”
We came to the center of the “ice”. He had his stick on the floor and was holding the ball.
“Now we have to look each other in the eyes, and bring our heads in close.”
So I looked him in the eyes and we got our heads real close and then he added,
“Now we have to make mean faces at each other.”
We frowned at each other, added a growl for good luck and he dropped the ball. Now that’s a proper face off.