For as long as I can remember one of my fondest memories growing up was playing in the snow and building snow tunnels with my dad. In actuality though, I’m not sure how often this occurred and in fact the only real memory I have is based on a photograph that my mom took of the two of us sitting outside a tunnel. So maybe it only happened one time but the memory that the photo provides is good one and something I’ve always enjoyed.
Its probably just part of being a boy but I’ve always loved to build tunnels whether it was the in the sandbox, the dirt by a pine tree or in the snow. So I was excited (kinda) when we got absolutely dumped on last week here in the MidWest. Supposedly it was the worst single snowstorm in a couple decades. We got almost 2 feet of snow at our house, school was closed for two straight days and the company I work for even closed up shop for a day (which never ever happens…).
After the wind had subsided a bit I took Mia outside and we promptly began work on a giant tunnel that would stretch the length of our driveway, have several chambers, and…well, ended up being about 5 feet long because digging snow is hard work – and it was cold out.
At first Mia didn’t quite comprehend what was going on – she was just excited to be not in school and outside playing with her dad. But when I finally broke through and connected the two ends at which I had been digging her face stretched into a wide look of disbelief – you would have thought we had dug through to China she was so excited she could see me on the other side. So that was pretty cool.
The first tunnel ended up getting somewhat filled in from clearing the massive driveway but a couple days later we dug the tunnel out again and that night received some freezing rain ensuring that it will be there until June. At least we’ll have time to build those other chambers…
King of the Hill – You can see the two entrances for the tunnel here
Mia has reached another milestone in her short life – the ability to listen to a longer book with chapters.
About a year ago we tried to read Charlotte’s Web one chapter a night and while she loved to read it every night she didn’t always remember what had happened the previous night or seemed interested in seeing the story progress. More often than not she wanted to go back and re-read bits that we had already read.
So, while perusing the library a little over a week ago I found myself in the older children’s section and noticed that the library had several books sitting on top of the shelf that were being featured for the week. One of the books was The Boxcar Children by Gertrude Chandler Warner. I don’t remember the first time I read this book but I loved it. I always had a fantasy about going out and living on my own, making cool and useful things out of common objects and who wouldn’t want to build their own swimming pool?
I checked the book out and told Mia I had a special story to read her that night. We got home, Mia got ready for bed and we settled into our big comfy recliner and started the book. And from the first page she was enthralled. She was so interested to know where the children had come from, what was going to happen at the bakery, and why they didn’t buy any donuts…
As we neared the end of the first chapter I was very curious to see her reaction when I stopped reading and it was exactly what I had hoped for. She was very disappointed that we had to be done for the night but she was excited that we would get to continue the story the next night. This also served for her as a very good motivator to get ready for bed quickly because we wouldn’t read until everything was done.
Well, Mia loved the book and we ended up finishing it in about a week (Mickie read a couple chapters during the day when Mia couldn’t wait to see what would happen next). So now I am really excited to be able to share some of my favorite stories with her – the only question is what story will be next? I’m thinking of Matilda by Roald Dahl but we’ll have to see.
We find Mia born circa 2004 enjoying a video game 17 years her senior. Like a good parent I have introduced her to the the finer games like Punch Out (unfortunately not featuring Iron Mike).
Mia and I were watching Hannah Montana this morning and a commercial came on for a show on Disney’s new network (XD) which is primarily aimed at boys.
Before the commercial was over Mia turned to me and said with disdain in her voice, “Dad, would you watch that movie?”
I said, “Sure.”
“Well, I wouldn’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because its for boys.” And she emphasized the word boys like the evil disgusting creatures we are.
I love Valentines day and I really dislike Valentines day.
First, why do I dislike it? I really can’t stand the fact that we (guys – and to some extent girls) are pressured into expressing some sort of mega-love and affection on one particular day. I always feel that if we don’t do something spectacular or if I don’t come up with the world’s most creative date then somehow I have failed. I guess I also feel a little guilty because I know I should be expressing the mega kind of love on a regular basis.
But I also love it because it does lend itself to more creative outlets. Its also a blast if you have a daughter. As Mia grows older I want her daddy to always be her valentine. There is not a lot of things cooler than being able to buy your daughter a flower.
This year I got Mia a couple of small presents and a flower of course but the last couple years have been all about the Valentine card that I give her. This year I made her a card with some of her favorite people: Diego and Boots. I happened to have a picture of her in an explorer hat so she got to be Dora.
Mickie and I had a great time as well. We started the afternoon out by going to see the movie “He’s Just Not That Into You” which was cute and fun and a pretty good date movie. Though I was thinking during the movie how awkward some of the scenes would be if you really were just dating and watching that movie. There are so many awkward stages in dating and while fun at the time I really wouldn’t want to go back and re-enact them…
After the movie we hopped in the car and drove back to Polk City to Lakeside’s building on the Polk City square. All the guys from our small group decided to put on a dinner for our wives (we had originally just tried to get reservations at a nice resturaunt but couldn’t get them – this ended up being waaaay better.) Each couple had their own table draped in a vintage table cloth, a set of candles and some pre-meal entertainment in the form of a Valentine word search. All of the girls had special heart filled name cards at their place as well.
The romantic atmosphere was enhanced by quiet music in the background with songs including Valentine Girl by the New Kids on the Block and Elvis’ Love Me Tender among others. We also had a looping fireplace video, with crackling and popping sound effects, on the wall.
For dinner we paid one of the guys in my small group to serve us. He went all out and wore black pants, white shirt and tie and was really awesome – he even provided us with some Andes after dinner mints. (Ethan, you rock!!) We catered in Chicken Spedini from Latin King and a cheesecake from the Cheesecake factory. Despite the pasta being a bit cool the meal was really very good.
After the meal we played the Newlywed game which Mick and I came back to tie for the win.
It was a great night and a lot of fun. Now I need to start working on what we will be doing next year.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise but I wanted to get it on the record. My wife is awesome.
I love my kids but I am not wired to stay at home and do all the mom stuff on a day-to-day basis.
Mickie worked a 12 hour shift today so Mia, Jace, and I hung out. We started off great. Jace slept till about 8:30 and took his bottle like a champ when he woke up. I got everyone dressed and packed in the car and we headed into town to do some grocery shopping. We needed to hit both Wal-Mart and Target for some essentials. Both kids were awesome. Jace slept most of the time and Mia helped me find everything I couldn’t see on the bottom shelf. She even tried to sneak some snacks into the cart…
Because of the coupons Mick had sent along we saved almost $30 off our bill. That rocks.
Speaking of rock… After the groceries were bought we made a detour to Best Buy. I have some gift cards still from last Christmas and was finally going to purchase the new Guitar Hero. Unfortunately they were completely sold out – but only for the Wii. There were plenty for every other game system. We still had a good time though. Mia had a blast playing the drums on the demo set.
We got home, I fed Jace again and Mia and I played Mario Kart for awhile. I was very impressed at how much she has improved. She can actually complete a lap and there were several times that she didn’t come in last against the computer. I would say that she’ll probably be beating me soon but I wouldn’t let that happen…
While Jace took his afternoon nap I put up Christmas lights…in 5 degree windchill. That was fun… I’ll put up some pictures when they are all done.
After we had some supper, Mia and I cleaned the house and were all ready for mom to get home.
Fun day – but not one I would want to do daily. I love my wife.
A couple weeks ago me and one of my good friends were hanging out early in the morning during our weekly accountability session and we wanted an easy way to be able to date our wives.
Its so important that you continue to date your wife after you’re married but with kids and responsibilities it becomes almost impossible. So we committed to work it out. We got together with one more friend and formed a co-op of sorts to help each other out.
The way it works is that we schedule date nights for every other Friday and each couple rotates to watch the others kids. Since we have 3 couples in our rotation we get 2 dates in a row and then watch kids for one week. We each have 2 kids so the number of kids isn’t a huge burden for one couple. In the future I could see adding more couples to the rotation but we would have to double up on the babysitters which could be fun as well.
Last night was the first one and was a lot of fun. We dropped the kids off around 6 and headed to Okoboji Grill in Ankeny. We had a $25 gift certificate from Restaurant.com that we had bought for $2. The only stipulations were that you had to spend at least $35 and %18 gratuity was included.
The gift certificate was a bit of a fiasco because they were very slow with the service so they offered to pay for part of our meal – unfortunately we couldn’t have them do that because then we wouldn’t meet the $35 requirement. They ended up giving us a coupon for a free appetizer for next time. Our total bill we paid was around $18 which included 2 entrees 2 drinks and 2 desserts. The food was worth a little over $40 so we got a pretty good deal.
After that we just walked around Wal-Mart. Doesn’t sound too exciting but it was fun just being together by ourselves. We tried to play the guitar hero demo they had set up but it didn’t work right.
I’m really looking forward to these nights and hopefully it will work out. Get together with a couple friends and do it yourself!
We left on Tuesday and decided to drive all day to maximize our time out there. There were a few things that we were a little apprehensive about:
This was Jace’s first long car trip – he would be tested on his sleeping ability
Our portable dvd player quit working
We would be making stops every few hours so Jace could eat
Last time we took a winter trip to Colorado we got stuck in Nebraska for three days. That is a punishment no one should have to endure.
Thankfully Jace slept like a champ, our friends the Moultons loaned us their dvd player (I had actually bought a new one on Woot.com but it hadn’t arrived yet), the stops weren’t too bad and the finally the weather was great!
Please note that when taking a long trip having a good audio book to listen to makes the trip go a lot faster – that and having headphones for the portable dvd player your daughter is listening to – one can only take so much of the Wiggles Christmas…
We finally pulled into my parent’s driveway about 14 hours later with everyone still in good spirits.
Wednesday the girls went shopping for Abi’s wedding stuff and the guys visited one of my favorite restaurants for lunch – Woody’s Wings ‘n Thing’s. It’s actually called Wingman now… Funny thing is that I don’t really like wings all that much but I do here. I guess it is an acquired taste.
Stacia helping Mia with her Cloodle
Thursday was the big day and we all went over to my brother’s new house. It is a very nice and cozy place. There were about 20 of us there and we all fit very snugly around the table. The food was awesome and it was a lot of fun having everybody there.
That night we just hung out and played games. Mickie and I teamed up to smoke everyone at Cranium. We have a great system where she is the all-time guesser. It limits what she has to do and feeds my ego…
Friday. Oh Black Friday.
I’ve never gone shopping on Black Friday before today and wow – what an experience.
We saw an ad for Power Wheel motorized car we had a been wanting to get Mia and it was being offered at a huge discount at Wal-Mart. So I set my alarm for 4:30. I didn’t hear it going off until 4:41 so I hastily dressed a ran out the door. The Wal-Mart was only a couple minutes away but I didn’t know what I was getting myself into.
When I pulled into the parking lot it was almost full. I still can’t believe the insanity of it all. I hurried up to doors and found a scene straight out of the movies. There were pallets of toys in the aisle and people with carts surrounding them like a pack of vultures waiting for the 5am gun to go off.
Not wanting to look like a dork and run, I race walked (yeah, that’s not dorky at all) to to the bike section. To my dismay there were no boxes of the advertised Power Wheel. What happened? Were they gone already? I thought you couldn’t get them until 5 am. Then I spotted a couple with a big box in their cart that looked like a Power Wheel. I made a beeline for them and asked where they had got it. They told me that it was just sitting out. At this point I was a little upset and was thinking “what is the point of the 5am start time if you could come at any time and just put it in your cart???”
Yes, we got the blue one so Jace could use it too.
Luckily I then overheard another customer asking a Wal-Mart employee where the Power Wheels were and he answered “In the Garden section.” Of course! The Garden section – why hadn’t I looked there first…wait…
So off to Garden section I went. When I got there I could see why they were there. The Garden section is behind a closed door. And in front of that door were about 50 people with carts fanned out looking like there were at the starting line of the Indy 500. I didn’t have a cart and for a second considered going to get one. But I was already way back in the line and decided to stay put. As I looked through the glass door I could see the prize. There were 3 pallets of Power Wheels probably 20-30 total. I started to plot my strategy.
What happened next was nothing short of awesome. 5 am came and the employee opened the door. Thankfully no one got hurt when all 50 of those carts made a rush for the door. As physics would have it all 50 can’t get through at the same time. As physics would also have it, they were spaced just far enough apart that I was able to weave in and out of the traffic jam like a motorcycle during rush hour. I chucked my pride out the window (while still keeping my testimony intact) and sprinted into the Garden section. I reached the pallets of gold and procured my prize. The box wasn’t all that heavy and I was willing to carry it to the register but there happened to be an abandoned cart in the back which I claimed.
Since that was all I wanted I made haste to the register and was out of the store and back home by 5:10. Sweetness.
After my Black Friday adventure the rest of the weekend paled in comparison. We watched CU gets their hearts ripped out by 57 yard field goal and played 7 up 7 down every night. Saturday the young couples got a few hours away while my parents watched the kids. We ended up going to see the movie Twilight. It wasn’t my first choice but the girls really wanted to see it. It ended up not being half bad and pretty interesting. It would be cool to be a vampire except for the whole blood drinking thing…
We drove back on Sunday in mostly good weather and made really good time.
It was a good week. I’m very thankful for all of my family.
So, while perusing the library a little over a week ago I found myself in the older children’s section and noticed that the library had several books sitting on top of the shelf that were being featured for the week. One of the books was The Boxcar Children by Gertrude Chandler Warner. I don’t remember the first time I read this book but I loved it. I always had a fantasy about going out and living on my own, making cool and useful things out of common objects and who wouldn’t want to build their own swimming pool?
But I also love it because it does lend itself to more creative outlets. Its also a blast if you have a daughter. As Mia grows older I want her daddy to always be her valentine. There is not a lot of things cooler than being able to buy your daughter a flower.
Just a quick update to show you how big Jace is getting.
We have a boy!