Disney Recap

First off . . .I admit it . . . I would like to write more often but too many times come up with the greatest blog posts while I am laying in bed and am too lazy to get out of bed! . . .whew I feel better now. There is always something refreshing about just plain admitting you are lazy!!

Now onto the recap:

Thursday Jan 15
I was planning on working today until the girls could get home from school. However I got bored at work and thought it would be brilliant of me to be home before the girls so I could have the car all loaded up and ready to go by the time they got home around 3:00. So I left work at 10:30! Never can be too prepared!

By 3:15 we were on the road and ready for the 9 hour trip to Mom's in Winter Haven. The girls are actually great travelers. Much better then than mother! In our van we don't measure trips by the actual hours its going to take to get there we measure them by the movies on the DVD player that it will take. It does get a little confusion on trips that we plan for the girls to go to sleep at some point though. I mean is it fair to tell them that because we want them to go to sleep by 9:30 that it will take 4 movies (6 hours) when it will really take more like 6 movies. If a movie is playing and they are sleeping does it still count? (if you read this blog and you have an opinion about this. . . or even if you read this blog comment - there will be a big surprise for all those that follow this blog at the end of the year. . . )

After a quick combo stop of gas and food at exit 86 in SC we convinced the girls that their first trip to into Georgia would really be no different than the previous 4 hours. They love traveling to new states. They were so disappointed that it was dark by the time we got there and they couldn't see any peaches! Of course we have lived in SC for the last 14 months and I am not sure that they have seen a Palmetto tree either. . .

Our last stop was at the FL welcome center. Nothing eventful here other than all the memories that it brought back for me. Traveling as a kid we ALWAYS stopped at the Florida welcome center. There was always something about the fact that you were now in Sunny Florida even though it was usually in the middle of the night after an all day drive from OH.

We made it the rest of the way without any real hiccups which is always a blessing when driving that far. Traffic was good, the girls were good (including the Wife), and we were able to get into Mom's under the Mapquest time (which of course is ALWAYS the goal!)

More to come later this week.. .

Future Blog topics that I am planning:
Disney Trip (day 2-5) probably two posts
Fantasy Golf - soon to be addicted
Vegas Recap - this is going to be a couple months old but it needs to be told
Alumni game
Love my family



(in no order)

Kiddie Parties

The beauty of having pre-school age kids is that they have pre-school age friends. Right now The Princess and The Honey probably have more friends in town that The Wife and I. I'm totally ok with that because we get to attend all kinds of cool birthday parties. In Sept we went to a horse farm for Gabe's b-day. Everybody got to ride horses tour the barn and the best part. . . eat Chick-fil-A!! Yummy. Today we hit the motherload of kiddie parties. We left the house at 9:45 to head out to Chuck-e-Cheese! Lots of games and pizza and little kids running around everywhere all hoping to get a big high five from a scary rat. . . . Seriously, I'm really not sure that there is a less creepy looking mascot around. But play some happy music and boom Chuck becomes more popular than this chick! But no complaints. The Princess and The Honey each had a great time, we weren't embarrassed by either of our kids and hey . . . who complains about free pizza and games and 2 hours of your kids being entertained on someone else's dime! Thanks Louis and Casey!

After running out of tokens at CEC, we head to The Little Gym for Madison's party. Our kids made the quick transition from the sensory overload of sounds and smells of CEC to chaotic joy that only comes once you enter a large room with wall to wall 6 inch foam mats! There were uneven bars to swing on, balance beams to jump off of, hanging rings and even a blowup bounce thingy. This (as well as CEC) turned out to be a great place to have a birthday party. And as long as you are paying for it and my family is invited I definitely recommend it! 2 hours, more sugary drinks and a piece of cake later and it's home to crash for nap time. . . . another great thing about being the parent of pre-schoolers. . . NAP TIME!!!

With birthday parties on the brain.. . Seems like lots of parents go way out there for extravagant B-day parties. I guess at least for us we will be getting two for ones thanks to the close proximity of the girls b-days. They may not always like that but I guess it's either that or college. . .

I am trying to remember my most memorable. Unfortunately I can't really associate any of these with ages but I know once we took a van load of my friends down to Aunt Clairis's place because they had a pool, once I was surprised with a shaving cream fight in my back yard by all my friends, once The Wife surprised me at our house by having some people over. Then there were the back to back years of opening a diamond ring at Brightons, and getting whipped by my own belt in the Flats in front of 8 of my closest buddies!

Lastly, today is a special day for The Wife and me. It was exactly 12 years ago that I convinced her to let me take her out on our first date. Funny how I am not really a details guy, but I remember the cream pants and brown and black patterned shirt that she wore and that I wore my favorite white sweater with red and black stripes on the sleeves. I also remember that I got gnocchi at Cibo's, but that really isn't too hard to remember since I have never gone to Cibo's and not got gnocchi! We topped the last first date of my life off with some cards back home with the folks. . . . with a first date like that it's no wonder that 12 years later it still feels like we are on one really long date. And twice she has even allowed me get to second base. . . and we all know . . . .

what that got us .

So it is day 3 of this resolution and I am stumped. . . should I write about my day. . . should I come up with random thoughts. . . should I try to be outrageously funny (again). How about all three.

My Day

• Slept till 8:30 - the girls were up a little after 7 but played not so quietly in The Honey's room till The Wife couldn't stay in bed any longer. Fortunately for me, the noise that the girls make in no way inhibits my desire to continue to lay in bed (by now completely covered head to toe under the comforter).
• Work on kitchen sink - Anyone that has been to our house and more specifically tried to use our kitchen sink knows the frustration of a kitchen sink that doesn't swivel. Two hours later I came to the conclusion that we own a kitchen sink that doesn't swivel - unfortunately.
• Play some spades at yahoo. I won 3 and lost one. Had to quit when my partner "QuakeMaker" cussed me out when I couldn't cover his nil bid with my 2, 4, and 5 of hearts. Love those friendly games!
• Dinner at Stevie B's with Roush's and Curtis's. Our assigned seat was available, so lucky for anyone that may be in our seats we didn't have to make a scene.
• Bed time for the little ones, Facebook time for The Wife and more football watching for me.

Random Thoughts

• I'm ofer-5 in my streak for the cash attempts.
• Maintain-don't Gain I'm afraid is not going so well
• Mall Cop looks funny
• Will anyone read this?

Outrageously Funny

• I got nothing

Resolutions

I started working on my resolution list for 2009 today. On the top of it was create a blog. . . . check.

I have been wanting to write a blog for a while now but never actually set it up. So here goes. First off a little background. Normal players in this blog will be "The Wife", "The Darling", "The Honey" and "The Dog". . . The Dog's name is Dezi and is taking up most of the couch right now, the others you will have to figure out on your own.

This blog is intended to be informative for family and friends, but most of all funny. Although The Wife insists that people that try to be funny are not really funny, so I promise to try to be funny without trying too hard to be funny but still be funny. Eventually I hope to include cool links, photos of me and the family and loads of entertainment. . .until then welcome to 2009 and What 'n the sam hill. . .

One last thing before I wrap up this first ever blog post. . . I imagine by now everyone has started resolutions. At the top of The Wife's was create a facebook profile. . . check (unfortunately). For now I am resisting the urge of facebook - in spite of all the connections TW (The Wife) has made since her facebook discovery about 2 hours ago. Appearently this facebook thingy is pretty hip with the young kids. It's too bad she didn't start her resolution last night. . . maybe we would have been able to stay up for the big ball dropping. But then would it still count towards her 2009 resolutions?