I’ve always had an interest in Israel but mostly because of the Biblical significance and how it relates to my Christian faith. However in recent days I’ve been very intrigued by its history in the 20th and 21st century. I’ve been absolutely fascinated by the Jewish people and their struggle to exist as a people and as a nation.
I recently have been reading books and getting documentaries from Netflix about their war for independence and then the 6 day war. I guess what has fascinated me the most is how despised of a people they have been. A good portion of the world would like to see Israel wiped off the face of the earth completely. What I find interesting is that the world for the most part stands by and for the most part idly accepts those feelings.
I just finished reading Night by Ellie Wiesel which is a first hand account of someone who lived through the holocaust. I can’t remember reading a book that was so chilling and numbing. Probably like much of the world thought at the time, my mind did not want to believe what I was reading. I had the benefit though of historical fact, other testimonies, and the privilege of walking through the Holocaust museum in Jerusalem to aid my understanding.
Reading that book has given me a deeper perspective on what it must mean to be a Jew. They fight against those memories every day. And each new day is a fight to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
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.
I came across a video today that combines two things I really like – A Capella and Star Wars. Strange, I know but work with me here. If I could sit in front of a computer all day and just play this would be exactly the kind of stuff that I might produce – but alas real work has to be done. So enjoy.
Just wanted to share a great deal with you all that I found. At restaurant.com you can buy $25 dollar gift certificates for just $2 right now. Use the code eighty at check out for 80% off your purchase. I looked up some of the restaurants you can use it at near us and there are several. Okoboji grill, The firken and Fox, Fireside Grill in Altoona, Cheddars and many more.
If you need some Christmas gifts, now would be the time. Do it quick though. The sale ends tomorrow!
I have gotten into a blog by Jill which is awesome. Yesterday I had a little sewing party here and away we went. I now have a new sling, burb clothes and baby bibs. It really was not hard at all and it was so much fun cutting out all the patterns with friends. I will post a pic soon of my new items.
You really don’t need any experience to do this and it makes a cute and cheap baby gift. Find a friend with a sewing machine or come on over and use mine!!
I am going to try to make a tutu and babylegs for my neighbor’s baby who is turning 1 on Sunday. Mia is too old for the legs and I don’t think Josh would let me put them on Jace so I need to find someone to give these cute things to. I am sure Mia will be wanting a tutu next.
Hey all. Since I am updating this now for Josh, I am going to put in something that I found. At Babies R Us you can exchange your old bottles for new BPA free ones for FREE!! How awesome is that. I took in 10 Avent bottles that I used with Mia and came home with 12 Dr. Brown’s and Mam’s for no cost out of my pocket. The bottles have to be ones that they carry in the store at that time and have all the original parts (bottle, ring and nipple). Now I am not really that concerned about the BPA in bottles but to get new ones is always better. Especially when you don’t have to pay anything.
Now if you really want to cheat the system, my sister came up with this idea. I don’t promote this because I think BRU is already doing such an awesome thing but I will tell you her idea.
BRU will give you the amount that the store is selling them for currently. So I took in 5 9oz Avents. Well the store sells them in 3 to a package or in singles. So 3 of them went for one package price at 12.99 then the singles went for 5.99 a piece. So if you just took them in randomly you would eventually get more money back. 5 singles instead of 3 pack and 2 singles. But like I said I wouldn’t promote this since they are already doing us bargain shopping moms a deal.
Target also is having some amazing deals for kids clothes. 75% off most of kids clothes. I found Jace several shorts/tees for next summer anywhere from .98 to 1.98. Lots of maternity as well for 75% off. But I did not even think about buying that!!
Just a quick update to show you how big Jace is getting.