Happy New Year! We’ve made it through another year and I’m starting to sound more like my parents, “Where did the year go, it went by so fast.”

Lets start the year with some humor. Nothing says “Thank you” from your employer like a personalized 2008 desk calendar with your name misspelled on every month.

It was a good Halloween this year. I’m sure everyone is just dying to know what the kids went out as this year so the pictures are below.

Alex decided he wanted to go as a Saints football player this year and he was very exited his costume. He wore his cleats, gold football pants, Saints Helmet, and his number 9 Drew Brees jersey.

Andrew was Curious George this year and like usual Jen worked hard on putting his costume together and she even took the time to get me dressed up as The Man with the Yellow Hat.

For trick-or-treating we met up with with the Alex’s “Comanche Cubs” friends and we all went around as a big group. Andrew had a good time but there were a couple of costumes out there that scared the living daylights out of him. We would go up to a house and older kids covered in fake blood, welts on their face, wearing crazy wigs and carrying chainsaws would come behind us and when Andrew would turn around and see them he would just freeze with this look of absolute horror on his face. We ended up having to carry him a good portion of the way after that.

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It’s been a long time since I’ve taken the time to update the web site or post anything here. Things have been pretty busy around here with Alex starting kindergarten, a week later Andrew started back at pre-school, and Alex has started playing on a soccer team. We’ve also not taken very many pictures in the past couple of months so there hasn’t been a whole lot to post.

I’ve decided to take the Jeopardy approach and put together a potpourri page. It’s has some pictures of Alex on his first day of school, Andrew playing outside, and some other sundry items.

We’ve been making an effort to eat a little healthier and as part of that plan we have tried to eat more fish. After a number failed attempts to actually cook fish ourselves we have come to the conclusion that if we want to eat good fish we are just going to have to go out to get it. The other day we went to the Rockfish Seafood Grill a place we’ve been a couple times in the past that the kids like. The restaurant promotes itself as a casual neighborhood place and to promote that atmosphere it’s decorated like a fishing cabin.

Every aspect of the restaurant is done up in fishing cabin style. There are fake stuffed fish hanging on the walls with names and places of where they were “caught”, pictures of all varieties of boats, motor boats, sail boats, canoes, you name it, fishing rods, paddles, life jackets, you get the picture. Part way through the meal Alex had to go to the bathroom and even the bathrooms are done up in fishing cabin style, including the signs indicating which is the men’s and women’s room. I can’t stand when restaurants try to be all cutesy with their bathroom signs. “Roosters and Hens”, “Crepes and Tarts”, “Hogs and Heffers”, “Jams and Jellies”, “Stag and Doe”, insane. I always have this moment of panic when I open the door that I’ve made the wrong choice and I’m about he walk into the women’s restroom.

Sticking to the fishing cabin theme our neighborhood fish restaurant has the bathrooms labeled “Inboards and Outboards”. Easy enough to figure out but then Alex got curious. “Why does the boys bathroom say outboards and the girls bathroom say inboards?” My mind has never gone blank so quickly as it did in that moment. I had absolutely nothing to respond with. The best I managed to come up with after about 30 seconds of humming around was “well inboards and outboards are opposites, just like boys and girls are opposite.” I don’t think he bought it.

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.