Last night Jen and I went out and had a little early birthday celebration. We started off by going to the movies to see “The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou” with Bill Murray. Jen just hated this movie with all fiber of her being but I have to tell you, I loved it. It’s a really quirky film and I would feel bad if you went to the theatre and hated it so I would probably have to recommend that you wait for the video. (Jen hated it so much that when we left the theatre she said, and I quote, “If you ever spend our money to buy that on DVD I’m going to kill you.”)

After the movie we went to eat at a small restaurant we spotted some time ago in downtime Plano called Jorg’s Cafe Vienna. I’ve been wanted to try it out for a while now but we never knew if we could bring Alex with us or not so I thought that this would be a good oppertunity to try it out. They had some really fantastic food and great beer. Jen had the bratwurst meal and I had the sausage sampler with one knockwurst and a weißwurst. Both meals came with large helpings of potato salad, sauerkraut, and rot kohl.

I would have to say a most excellent birthday movie and meal.

The other night when we were at the mall Alex and I stopped in at Barnes and Noble while we were waiting for Jen. In the kids section they have a Thomas the Train setup that he likes to play with and it gives us a chance to sit down and look at some books.

Just before we went into the play area I stopped by to pick up a baby name book, no we haven’t started that yet so don’t even ask, and to keep Alex occupied I handed him a copy of the Illustrated History of Rail and Steam to look at. This may sound like a kids title it certainly was not. It was about three hundred pages thick all glossy with pictures and text. Alex started flipping through it telling me all out the pistons, connecting rods, steam domes, sand domes, smoke stacks, and wheels on all the trains he came across.

At one page he stopped and said, “Hey it’s the GG1!”

I got a little closer and read the caption over the picture and sure enough, it said it was a GG1. (You can see pics here and here.)

I just burst out laughing because only Alex, the two and half year old train whiz, would be able to point out the GG1 in a three hundred page book. He was right proud of himself too and while I was laughing he said,

“See, I’m a smarty pants.”

Can’t argue with that.

Trust that everyone had a good New Year’s Eve. We had a pretty low key night and took Alex over to Roy and Rhonda’s so he could play with Marissa and then we just spent the rest of the night relaxing at the house. We packed Alex off to bed just after 9:00 o’clock and then Jen and I watched “Lost in Translation”.

I’ve spent the majority of today updating the web site with the Christmas pictures and some other pictures that Jen took of Alex right after Christmas. You can find all that good stuff from the home page. We are also working on our New Year’s cards since we didn’t manage to get anything pulled together in time for Christmas so look for those in the mail some time soon.

Alex was coming out with the zingers today. When we arrived home after being out tonight we were heading upstairs, Alex was going up the stairs in front of me and I was following behind him. That’s when he blurted out

“Dad, don’t beat me.”

As in, don’t pass me on the stairs and be the first one up. Now, at home it’s really no be deal to come out with that but I can just see us out in public somewhere and he blurts out the don’t beat me line. “Ha ha ha, oh oh, your such a kidder son..”

During the week the weather here has turned quite cold and we have a little bit of the white stuff on the grass just in time for Christmas.  Last night the temperature dropped down about 17 degrees (-7 C) and with the wind blowing it felt pretty cold.

Alex pulled another fast one on us the other day.  I guess it really wasn’t a fast but on Tuesday I was at work and just started a new meeting when my phone was ringing with a number I didn’t recognize.  Usually if I don’t recognize the number I don’t answer the phone but that day I did.  It was Jen calling from the neighbours house as Alex had locked her out of the house.  She went to take something out to the car, and it being so cold out she told Alex to wait inside for her to return but he figured that he would lock the door in the meantime.  I left my meeting was about to run out of the building when Jen called back and said that Alex managed to open the door back up. 

You know it wouldn’t be so bad but this is now the second time that he has done this.  You figure that we would have learned after the first time but apparently not.  This time we are going to have to be a little smarter and put a key in the garage.

I’ve posted pictures of Alex’s “Big Boy” room to the web site so you guys can get a look at it.  The pictures didn’t turn out that great since to get a feel on how the whole thing looks I took nine photos and then put them all together to get a kind of panoramic view.  You get the idea of how it looks though.

Tonight, actually in a couple of hours, we are heading out for Christmas Eve service and then after that we are going to head over to Kelly and Wade’s place for dinner.  (No traditional meal of potato salad and wieners but it sounds as if they are putting on a pretty big spread.  I had some wieners in my beans for lunch so maybe I can start a new tradition.)  We decided to go to the early service with Alex instead of trying to chance a late one since he has recently decided that naps really aren’t for him anymore. 

Tomorrow we are doing Christmas over at our house since…ugh…..I have to work….bah humbug.   If things go well I won’t have to actually go into work and I’ll be able to do most of it from home which hopefully won’t be too bad.  I just don’t want to miss anything here.

The past week has been pretty awful.  Alex started off not feeling very well and then I came down with cold/flu on Tuesday or Wednesday of this week and then yesterday Jen started feeling awful.  Alex and I are pretty much over it by now but my throat is still raw and I sound like Boris Karloff.  Jen is just getting to the worst part of it now so hopefully in a couple of days we will all be feeling healthy again.

We’ve tried to continue being somewhat productive around the house and today we got Alex fully moved into his new room.  Once we had the bed moved in and the curtains put up it really seemed to come together and I think it really looks good.  Once I get a chance I’ll get some pictures together and post them for everyone to see.

Besides the sickness and hanging out here we haven’t done a whole lot of anything this last week.

It’s been pretty busy around here since I posted last.  On Friday Alex and I worked in the morning to put up the Christmas lights in front of the house.  We have the same “display” as last year but I gave some thought to putting up some more lights but I haven’t been able to find any.  I wanted to put some more on the bushes leading from our door out to the road but there isn’t a place in town that has any net lights in stock.  I’m not that ambitious that I would do it without net lights so same as last year looks pretty darn good.

Later that night we went out and bought our Christmas tree.  It’s about a seven and a half foot Douglas fir tree and we put it in the same spot in the front window.  We let it sit though the night to let the branches fall and on Saturday afternoon we decorated the tree.  I tried to get a picture of Alex but he wasn’t really in the mood and kept hiding behind the tree.

Sunday was the big day for us we took Alex to his very first movie, “The Polar Express”.  A Christmas movie that takes place in and around a train, I tell you, it just doesn’t get any better then this.  Alex had a fantastic time and I predict this is going to be a movie purchase in the future.

On Monday’s Jen goes to swim with the Texins masters team around lunch time and typically she tries to put Alex in the kids room during this time. For some reason he just hates going there. Lately Jen has been able to drop him off at school and he just walks right in the room with no fuss but the kids room is just a whole other story.

Since she works out around my lunch hour I figured that I would just come up to Texins with my lunch and Alex and I can have lunch in the eating area. That way I get to see him during the day, Jen gets to swim, and Alex avoids the pain of having to be in the kids room.

We we sat down to lunch and I got his sandwich out for him and my sandwiches for me, and after about two bites he picked up his pudding and said,

“I need to eat this yoghurt.”

Now I don’t know if he really thinks this is yoghurt because he does eat yoghurt, or he really knows it’s pudding and he’s thinking to himself, “You know, if I just keep calling this yoghurt maybe I pull a fast one on dad and he won’t notice the difference.”

I negotiated a couple more bits of his sandwich before opening the pudding and then he dug in with gusto. By the time he finished his pudding I was done with my sandwiches and pulled my pudding out of my lunch box. Well, his eyes just lit up and his little mind raced into action. He started with the big one,

“I need to eat this one too.” he said.

“No, this is Dad’s pudding, you already ate yours.” I told him. Hmmm, that didn’t quite work so,

“We need to share this one.” By which he meant, here, you take my pudding cup that’s pretty much done and I’ll start on your full one.

What’s a Dad to say?

We took Alex to his first hockey game tonight and went to see the Frisco Texas Tornado. I guess they would be similar to the Guelph Storm and the teams in the OHL league as all the players seem to be about the same age.

It’s kind of nice seeing a smaller team since we were able to get seats really close to the ice, fourth row. I’m pretty sure that I’m not going to be able to afford any type of NHL tickets that get you that close but come to think of it, since the NHL weinies can’t decided if they are going to play then this works out for me. I just hope that Alex isn’t too disappointed when we finally do go to a big NHL game and we end up sitting in the nose bleed section he isn’t too disappointed.

Alex had a good time and we managed to stay for the entire game. He wanted to leave somewhere in the second period but Jen took him or a walk around the area and got him a cookie and that set him up for the rest of the game. Speaking of food they served the biggest darn hot dogs on a really good pretzel bun, and to top it off I don’t think you can find any complaints about a place that servers Molson Canadian.

The Tornado won the game 8 to 3 so we got to see lots of scoring.