Alex and I were sitting on the couch this morning reading his “ABC of Canada” book and we got to the last page, “Zz is for Zamboni, cleaning the ice”. Not to confuse him while he’s been trying to learn his ABC’s I’ve got into the habit of pronouncing it Zee. But today when I was reading out of habit I pronounced it Zed.

Well, he looked at me and said

“No, that’s not right, it’s Zee. Zed is German, you say Zee.” I tried explaining the difference between to him but he just wouldn’t listen, today it’s Zee.

Alex came home from school the other day with the “Trunk or Trating – Fall Carnival” newsletter.

“Come join the 3rd annual Trunk or Treating tradition of fall fun! Kits (adults too) can wear their non-scary or biblical costumes and trick or treat out of a car truck. “

I must be the most cynical person around because my first thought was what an absolutely horrible idea. Lets get our kids comfortable taking candy from the trunks of strangers cars.

Alex found my old hockey game in the garage the other day and he bugged me for a couple of days to clean it up and bring it inside. I finally gave in and found all the parts, cleaned it all up, and brought it inside. I think I’ve created a monster. On Saturday he played for an hour and half straight and even at that we had to pry him away from the game. The next morning when he woke up the first thing out of his mouth, “Lets play Hockey”.

He absolutely loves playing the game but it’s kind of frustrating for anyone playing with him because he hasn’t yet been able to figure out how to move more then one player at a time. So what usually happens is that he picks a player and you have to keep the puck close to that player. Then after some time he moves on to another player and you have to keep the puck close to that player.

During the course of a game we also end up switching sides a couple of times depending on the colour of the goalie that Alex wan’t to be. It’s loads of fun.

Day 1

The first day we only made it to Birmingham Alabama. Alex did a really good job on the ride and we were really considering going the whole way to Atlanta but after we ate dinner and got back into the car it was pretty obvious he wasn’t into going the rest of the way. We decided to get a hotel room and our first attempt wasn’t too successful. It appears that Birmingham is some type of hotbed for vacation, busniess or who knows what else since four hotels were completly booked up.

Day 2

Apparently Auntie D was in some kind of panic and was trying to find our cell phone number today. Birmingham is only a couple of hours from Atlanta so we were pretty much there but we hadn’t called to let them know when we would be arriving in town. We arrived in Atlanta without any problems and when we got to the house Doug was preparing the super turkey for Thanks Giving dinner. The turkey didn’t quite work out but the pizza was fantastic.

Day 3

We took a trip out to Stone Mountain today. Alex had a fantastic time and I think he liked the ride on the “Pumpkin Train” the best. One of the exhibits at the park is a fully operational diesel train that takes you for a ride around the mountain. For Halloween they had the engine all decorated as the “Pumpkin Train” which made it that much more exciting. In addition to playing in the park we also took a ride on the cable car up to the top of the mountain. Alex still remembers the trip and pointed out to me today again that we took the blue cable car up the mountain, not the red one. Blue and red car aside I’m just happy that I made it up and back down without passing out from the height.

Day 4

We took the trip out to the pumpkin patch in the morning. It was about 30 minutes north of Roswell and on the way there Alex, D and Doug watched “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.” We bought the movie for this trip since he is getting excited about Halloween and it was something else that we could keep him occupied with on the long trip. He watched it the first day of driving and I wasn’t sure that he really liked it but when we got to the pumpkin patch he was so excited and said “I’m at the pumpkin patch just like Charlie Brown!” He played with the pumpkins, jumped around on the hay bails, we took our picture in one of those stick-your-head-through-the-wooden-cutouts and we bought a really nice pumpkin. (By now the most well traveled pumpkin around.)

This was also the wedding proposal day. Now you see Michelle and I, and of course Deanna, were the only people who didn’t know this was coming. Patrick and Jen have know about this for some time.

On Day 2 Doug and I were in the Kitchen alone and as he was preparing the Turkey he said to me, “You know, I was thinking about asking Deanna to marry me, and I would like to know if that was ok with you?” That wasn’t exactly how he said but at the time Deanna kept coming into the kitchen and disturbing the conversation but this is what it boiled down to after a couple interruptions. Of course I was ok with this and naturally asked if it was going to happen this week. “Oh no, I have to get a ring still.” Pfft…I can’t believe that I fell for that, I’m so gullible. I had this feeling that it might happen but I still wasn’t sure. (I’m sure now that Doug and Jen were going over the plans because when they were alone in the kitchen and I walked in they suddenly started talking very excitedly about work which sounded like a way phoney conversation to me. I knew that I had just foiled something but as well as being really gullible I’m aparently not that quick to put two and two together and still thought nothing of it.)

Now I did’t say anything about the conversation that Doug and I had to Jen because hey, I have all the way to Florida to talk about this since it isn’t going to happen now anyway. Of course Jen knew that he had already talked to Doug and knew that he had asked me and of course, “Oh my god, he hasn’t said anything to me what a weasel!” which I refuse to feel bad about since Jen has known since July that this was going to happen.

Of course Doug did a fantastic job in proposing. He came out dressed in his suit and right there Deanna knew that it was going to happen and broke down. (I’ll admit that I too had a couple of tears in my eyes.) He had written this very nice poem that he was reading to her, the right music was playing in the background and there you have it. We have it all on video tape and I’ll put it together once we get home so everyone will be able to see the wonderful moment.

That night we went out to dinner to the Olive Garden as a little celebration.

As a side note, Alex got up in the middle of dinner and said” I’ll be right back.” Jen asked him where he was going and he said he needed to go potty. So Jen took him into the bathroom where he went potty for the first time (besides in his little potty at home).

(Personal note – I’m a little confused on the music choice, Phish’s “Wasted”. I’m not a Phish fan (phan?) but going on title along seems a little odd. A good portion of the lyrics appear to be “Come waste your time with m” so you’ll have to explain the significance to me sometime.)

Day 5

Engagement bliss, the wedding is still on! Just kidding. Saddly we had to leave today for Florida and to start our visit with Omi and Opa. Doug and Deanna came to the hotel to have breakfast with us and then we spent the majority of today driving. Actually we spent the entire day driving since we encountered two accidents that delayed us an hour each. We arrived in Naples late and Opa was surprised that we had reserved a hotel room. He assumed that we would be spending the time at the condo and I had no idea there would even be room there. So we ended up spending the first night at the hotel and the next two at the condo.

Day 6 and 7

I’m just going to lump these two days together since they were pretty much the same anyway. First thing in the morning breakfast. Then off to the beach for a couple of hours. Back to the condo for a couple hours rest and decision on dinner. Trip to the grocery store for buns and necessary super supplies. Then cook and eat super. Six o’clock time for Lou Dobbs. Six thrity off to the pier to watch the sunset. Then back home for relaxing and off to bed.

Opa drove the whole time (against Jen’s wishes) so we moved Alex’s car seat into his car. He still drives the same way I’ve always remembered. As soon as the light goes green we are off like a rocket. After one particularly quick start and rapid acceleration Alex looked at us and said “Here we go!” I guess he figured that we were on some kind of amusement park ride.

On the second night Omi was going to make spaghetti. So we have the meat sauce cooking the stove and of course Opa is testing it out. Now for as long as I can remember, even from the time when I was a little kid, the sauce has never had enough bite for Opa, its always been missing something. Usually he just adds red chili peppers once it’s been served and without fail he ends up making it way too hot. Of course we didn’t have any chili peppers so they were rummaging through the cupboards looking for anything that might add that little oomph. Keep in mind I’ve been maintaining the whole time that that the sauce is fine. The only thing we really came across in the cupboards was curry powder, and lots of it. Why anyone would need five bottles of curry powder is beyond me. This now turned into a battle, Derek vs Omi and Opa. I argued that no spaghetti, no matter how bland it may appear, needed any curry powder. They thought what harm can come, it needs some taste. After a couple of minutes I really thought that I had victory in hand but the minute I retreated from the kitchen to take care of something else I was handed a resounding defeat with a few quick shakes from the curry bottle. Luckly it wasn’t enough so that you could taste it.

To top it off Omi decided that we needed to add mushrooms to the sauce. No problems here except that they came in a can with the pull top lid. Of course Omi can’t open it because it’s just too hard so Opa went to give it a try. Opa was struggling too and just before I was about to suggest that I finish the task the lid sprung free and Opa ended up cutting his hand on the lid. It was absolutely nasty. He got the flexible skin between the thumb and index finger with the edge of the lid and gave himself this really deep cut. He ended up bleeding through a handfull of band aids and a whole boat load of paper towels, kleenex, and toilet paper before it stopped. (I asked a number of times if he wanted to go to the doctor to get it looked at but of course he didn’t want any of that.)

We still ended up going to the pier that night, bleeding hand and all, but I had to drive. I got sweet revenge for the curry incident by driving slowly and taking off from green lights like a sane person.

Day 8

Long long driving day. We drove all the way from Naples to New Orleans. We were planning on doing it in two days but when we got within 3 hours from New Orelans we fingured there was no point in stopping so we pressed on. Twelve hours of driving. Ug.

Tomorrow we head home and then it’s back to work for us. As soon as I have a chance I’ll post pictures of the trip and pull together some video.

Last night we competed in the Richardson Corporate Olympics. Every year a group of companies gets together and they have a friendly competition and money raised goes to benefit the Special Olympics. For the last two years we have both competed for TI but this year the Richardson School District decided to enter a team of their own so Jen went over to the dark side and swam for them. (She took a lot of good nature kidding about this from the TI team.)

To make things more interesting this year they decided that instead of awarding points to the individual places they would combine the times of the two swimmers for each company and the total time of the two swimmers would be the team time. That combined time would then be used to determine the place for the team.

It was a pretty close competition the whole way thorough. I swam all the events, 50 Free, Back, Breast, and the relay and Jen swam the 50 Free and Back. Overall RISD had a pretty strong team for both the women and the men and they managed to field ex-swimmers on both the men’s and the women’s side. TI didn’t have the depth but in the end we managed to squeak by RISD by one point for the overall victory.

Our Times

           Jen       Derek

50 Free   29.08      26.29

50 Back   34.86      30.89

50 Breast            36.36

It was short course meters so the times aren’t as slow as they look.

I’ve posted the Balloon Fest pictures to the web site which you can get to from the home page.

Alex is really big into safety right now. As we drive down the road he gives us the running commentary of just who and who is not wearing their helmets while riding their motorcycles or bikes, and letting us know just who is being safe.

“He’s warning a helmet. He’s safe.”

or

“He’s not warning a helmet. He’s not safe.”

Now for someone who is so into safety he throws it all out the window whenever any type of rescue vehicle goes by. When he spots a fire truck, an ambulance, or a police car, he always yells out for us to chase after it.

“Dad, go pass the fire truck.”

“No son, that wouldn’t be safe.”

“No Dad, go, SPEED!”

Tonight at the dinner table he also announced that I’m a “speeder”. I’m not quite sure where that came from but apparently I’ve been branded a speeder by my son.

Well no balloons tonight. We got some food and parked at the Texas Instruments Plano location where we would have had a really good view of all the balloons launching but nothing happened. They were scheduled to go up right around six o’clock and we waited around until after seven but still no balloons went up.

The only thing that we could think of was that it might have been too windy for them to go up but it was hard to tell. Maybe we’ll have better luck tomorrow.

Hurricane Ivan hit the coast pretty hard but luckily New Orleans was spared the worst of the rain and winds. Someone ran by the house and it appears that besides a couple of branches down and things being wet nothing was really out of place. I’m sure Jean’s dad will let us know more once they get home tonight. Hopefully the car ride home takes slightly less then the twelve hours it took to get here.

Alex had a great time playing with Grandma and Grandpa and I’m pretty sure that he wore them out with all the ball playing. Heck, he wears me out with all the ball playing.

This weekend is the Plano balloon festival and since Alex is really into balloons I think that we might try and head down there. If we are lucky like last year then we might have a couple that land just down the road and we will be able to get really close.

I might even be lucky enough to get some good pictures to update the web site…..We’ll have to see.