MR's Christmas Party

Here is the picture from MR's Christmas Party. The night had a very 80's feel to it with us playing 80's trivial persuit. There are 16 things added to the orginal picture. Can you find them all?

What's the deal?

I came back to work after Christmas kinda expecting a eazy 4 day week to another three day weekend only to come back to a couple of huge projects that has put me out on the production floor for two days straight. Don't they know I have a blog to maintain?

The one thing that I love about being in an office this time of the year is that we have a break table that is usually full of stuff to snack on. Every once in a while, during the year, someone might bring in a little something to snack on, but this time of year it's quite the nice display of cookies, cheese and sausage, and candy. Yummmmmmm.

Man, what ANOTHER weekend

WOW. What a busy busy weekend.

Friday night - I decided to make Christmas cookies. Yeah the same ones that I was talking about for about a week now, but I needed to get them done since I saw the rest of the weekend getting full fast. Jen had to work, so I started after putting the boys to bed. The recipe that I use is one that has been in our family for years (as long as I can remember). They are a real good sugar "cut-out" cookie with real grated orange peel in the dough. The cookies went together pretty fast, but didn't have the exact taste that I was going for. The recipe calls for butter flavored crisco, but I used regular since it's all that I could find in the pantry. Of course I found the butter flavored crisco after I was done and I dug a little deeper in the pantry. Dang. In keeping with tradition from my grandma, I drank a beer in a regular glass and gave up a nod to grandma. I seem to remember my grandma having a glass of beer handy when she was cooking. While I was making cookies I put in "Christmas Vacation" for atmosphere while baking. After cleaning up my mess (I would frost and decorate Saturday) I decided to get a head start on making caramel corn. Jen decided to make caramel corn for her co-workers as gifts but had to make at least 5 batches to fill the tins that she bought, but in inspecting the pantry, no corn syrup. I had used the last of it for my Hoosier pies at Thanksgiving, so, no caramel corn tonight.

Saturday - The family gets up and Jen heads to Meijer to grab some corn syrup for the caramel corn and to look for honeybuns (another tradition with me). She gets back and I start putting together the stuff to make the caramel corn, but just remembered that we were almost out of popcorn too. Opps, So, Jen head out to Scotts to buy popcorn and look for honeybuns again (none at meijer). She gets back and I start putting together the caramel corn and I make a little routine where one pan is baking while I cook caramel in the stove. The first batch is good, but the caramel seems like it isn't mixed well enough. I call it grainy, but it's like the sugar isn't melting. I thought it might be a fluke so I keep going. Second batch, still not right. Third batch, still not right. We decide to stop. We figure that the corn syrup that she bought is bad somehow, or the brown sugar has an issue. I still say it was because I wasn't stirring the pan well enough before putting the caramel over the corn. SO, a third trip to the store, this time to Kroger's to buy new corn syrup and to look for honeybuns (still can't find them). We start the process again and finally it's starting to go together much better. So with the three first tries, the 5 batches for the co-workers, 1 overcooked batch, and 1 batch for my mom, we ended up making 10 batches of caramel corn. Once Jen and I got into the routine we were able to hammer them out pretty fast. Finally we finished the caramel corn and Jen headed out to deliver the caramel corn and do some other stuff. When she got back I headed out for some last minute shopping. When I got back Tracy and the boys had come over so we visited with them and the boys played until 9:30 or so.

Sunday - The boys kinda slept in since they were up late the night before and we started putting stuff together for the day. Jen continued baking, while it was my job to frost/decorate cookies and get the boys bathed and ready for church. I had to make a Kroger run to get yeast for Jen's next project in the kitchen. We got stuff done around the house and headed out to church around 4:00. Upon arriving at 4:10 for a 4:30 service, it was already standing room only. Lucky for us we found a couple chair in the cry room so we were able to camp out there. William was being difficult. He had his cars, but insisted on kneeling in front of the chair to play with the cars on the chair. Of course with chairs being at a minimum he wanted to play on my chair. Initially we said no, but I finally ended up standing just so I wouldn't have to deal with his whining and pouting. After church we headed over to my mom's house. Mom puts out a great meal with shrimp cocktail and other snacks for an appetizers and then a great pan of Johnny Marzetti that was delicious. We exchanged presents with my mom, uncle, brother, and sister-in-law. We all got some neat presents, of course the kids getting the vast majority. Upon reading my blog about what I wanted for Christmas and my memories of "ULTRAMAN" and other stuff from my childhood, by brother got me the DVD collection of "STARBLAZERS" which is another cartoon/anime thing that we watched at kids. I had stared collecting the VHS copies of the series a few years ago, but at $20 a tape for one or two episodes it became real expensive so I stopped, but now I have the full series. The kids of course were loaded with all kinds of toys and some clothes. Some of the most interesting stuff were the things that my mom brought back from China. We even put the boys in these silk pajamas that mom brought back. My brother presented my sister-in-law with a pendant that he designed and that he created from scratch that brought tears to her eyes. (Stay tuned for pictures and more description about that). We finally headed for home around 9:30 or so again. Upon putting the boys to bed we still had a ton of presents to wrap for the next day so we were up till about 11:00 wrapping presents.

Monday - Sunday morning we hear the sound of William leaving his bedroom around 8:00 or so and we are waiting for him to come into the bedroom, but he doesn't. After a few minutes we go to the balcony where we see him downstairs playing with the toys he got the night before. He didn't even notice that there were presents around the tree and in the stockings. The morning was busy with opening presents and having breakfast. Jen had made cinnamon rolls since we couldn't find the honeybuns, and they were pretty good. So we get the crew cleaned up and head for the in-laws house whereupon we have more food and present opening. We hung out there for most of the day and stared to head for home around 6:00. We ended up hitting my mom's house one more time to give her a chance to see the boys on Christmas, and because we had forgotten a present for her the night before. Finally home around 8:00 and kids quickly to bed. Jen and I just looked at the carnage in the living room. She likes to say that it looks like Radiator Springs exploded in our living room. After trying to clean up a little bit I headed to bed. One more holiday down. The plan for New Years? Not a F##&*ng thing.

Man what a weekend

Friday - I took Friday off to get my shopping done, or at least a good dent into it. I had an idea of what I wanted to get so I figured a good trip to Wal-mart would take care of it. About an hour and $100 later I left the store with a good dent put into my list. On the way home I decided to run to a hardware store to buy stuff to strip the paint and stain off those old kitchen cabinets. You know, the project I started 6 months ago. I found some goo that was working really good, but I ran out, so I stopped to get more goo. I noticed when I went into this hardware store that they cut car keys with computer chips in them. SCORE!! I talked to the guy and he told me that it would be around $30 for a key to be made, that is so much better than the $80 the dealership was going to charge. I ran home and grabbed the jeep, and went back to the hardware store to have a key made on the way for an oil change. They put my key in their machine and pushed a few buttons and then started pulling off key blanks on the regular key display. I had a copy of the jeep keys made before without the chip and it didn't work and they were getting ready to cut another key like this and I stopped them. Upon talking to the hardware employee (later confirmed by the dealership) Jeep's have a special system that requires only the dealership to copy keys. Damn. it's nice to have that security, but why is it so expensive? I guess that goes back on the christmas wish list. After the oil change I went out and about to do some more shopping, but didn't really find anything. Either that or I was just too tired to continue.

Saturday - Saturday started with a lazy kind of morning, but we noticed that Andrew had the sniffles, so that translates to preparing ourselves for everyone getting the sniffles. We packed the crew up and headed to Bell's rink in New Haven for a 5th birthday party for Charlie. This is a nice gathering of friends and family that is also pretty fun. I was chasing the boys around and actually got William to try rollerskating for the first time ever. He actually did very well and was having a fun time, but found the video games much more interesting. I have a feeling that he will want to try this more every year if we keep going back so I might have to refresh myself on rollerskating too. Let's seeeee... it's only beeeeeenn.... mmmmf... years. After the party ended and we were given last call we headed home where Jen made dinner rolls and I got a bit of a cat nap (I needed that) We packed up the crew again and headed for the mall. We had pictures taken of the boys a few weeks ago and the studio informed us that one of the pictures that we ordered with Andrew (his 1 year) was blurry and required a retake. So we took or lives in our hands and took the crew to the mall on a Saturday night (mistake). We got to the portrait studio and had to wait. I was trying to figure out why since they were only using one of the two studios and the photographer and 2 other people were behind the counter making plans for the night. Anywhooo, we get Andrew's picture taken and we are waiting for the pictures to appear on the screen and we get the pictures from the first photo session and lo and behold there is the picture that they said was blurry as clean as if we were looking into a window. They later explained that when they were printing the 8"x10" they must have bumped the machine. yeah, right. It's a good thing we weren't charged anything for the retake. Being the foolish people that we are we decided to do a little shopping while we were at the mall (mistake again). Nothing like trying to push a stroller through the mall on a saturday night the week before christmas. One, idiots just stop in front of you to look around for no reason. Two, just trying to get a stroller through some of these stores with the tight fixture placement is a nightmare, especially if you are trying to chase the 3 year old. Three, the three year old now has the sniffles and is looking like he caught the cold that Andrew had, so he wants to ride in the stroller and tries to kick out the 1 year old. Four, they were hungry. Five, we didn't have an idea of what we wanted. I am such a guy where I want to get stuff and get out. I am not a wandering shopper, especially not with two kids in tow. So we buy one thing and call it a night. Of course William now with the cold in full effect wakes up at least 6 times during the night screaming and crying. So much for sleep that night.

Sunday - Now Jen and I are also feeling the full effects of the cold with sore throats, sniffles, and sinus drainage. We are able to hobble the boys together enough to go to my mom's house for lunch. The food was very good and we had a good visit with my Aunt and my brother, but all of us were felling like dookie. After a few hours there we packed the crew up and headed to the other side of town for another gathering of Jenny's family. By the time we get there I am feeling the full effects of the cold and I am fading fast. I spend the next couple of hours chasing Andrew all over the house since he loves the stairs. Upon the first mention of leaving, I quickly pack up the kids and throw on their coats, (since leaving usually entails at least half an hour of us saying "we are going now") but I expedited that since I was beat. We get home and get a few things done where I head to bed. Of course William wakes up again at 3am and won't go back to sleep for an hour and a half. So I sit here at work Monday trying to stay awake and trying to think of when to get my shopping done and things baked, and drugs to take. Nose running, head pounding, eyes burning. Man what a weekend, and it's only the week before christmas.

Quinmores come to Visit

I have finally posted pictures from the Quinmores visit in November. I have put them on my new flickr account (since I filled the other account up). More pictures can be seen here.

De Plane ! De Plane!

I was working out in the production floor when something caught my eye. It looked like there was a problem with my co-workers arm. I looked a little closer and saw that he now had a tatoo on his forarm. Not just his forarm, but the WHOLE top of his forarm from wrist to elbow. It's a real mecabre dragon tatoo. Tatoo's are certainly not the taboo that they used to be, but still there are still certain types of people and types of tatoo's that you kind of expect on people. You know, like a school teacher having a little butterfly or dolphin on their ankle. Or like Carrie's tatoo on her lower back, some tatoo's just meet my exepctations, but this one blew me away. This guy seems pretty normal and a quazi computer geek. He drives a freaking BMW for christ's sake!! I can see a little something like the Dell logo on his upper arm, but I just can't put my mind around a full forarm "dragon" tatoo on him. But then I got to thinking, in a few months the hair is going to grow back on his forarm and he is going to have a harry tatoo of a dragon. I really don't try and stereotype people, but sometimes I wonder about peoples decisions.

What's in a Name?

Saturday afternoon my two boys and I met a couple of friends over at Casa's Italian restaurant. Now I didn't want to stuff myself on food since I was heading over to MR's party in a few hours, but I knew the boys would like to eat, or at least Andrew the human vacuum cleaner would for sure. I look at the special kids menu, and like all restaurants in the world they have the usual fare of hot dogs, grilled cheese, and macaroni and cheese. All restaurants offer these same dishes since the know that kids don't like anything new and will only eat the same basic things. Some restaurants we have been to might change things up a little bit to make it more like their restaurant, like toasting the bun for the hot dog or grilling the cheese sandwich a little different (if that is possible). So I order macaroni and cheese for the boys and milk. I forget to tell the waiter to bring the milk with the meal and he brings it right away whereupon my boys both drink themselves silly on milk before the meal gets there, dang. William actually shakes his empty milk cup at our waiter (behind my back) like he is telling the waiter "Milk, Boy". I am embarrassed that my child would do this, but lucky for us the waiter thinks it's cute. After waiting for a while the food finally arrives, where I see a plate of pasta shells in an Alfredo sauce much like the quatro formaggi that I usually get. I think that it's a dish for my friends, but no, the waiter hands it to me. I say "excuse me, is this the macaroni and cheese?" and the waiter says "yes". OK. A few things come to mind. How do you not put MACARONI in the macaroni and cheese? The name of the noodle is right in the title!!! Oh wait, maybe they don't have macaroni in this ITALIAN restaurant!! God only knows what they would have brought me if I ordered the hot dog... they probably would have brought me steak. Lucky for me, Andrew the human vacuum cleaner could care less about it as long as it is food, and William was being a pain in the butt anyway so he didn't want to eat since he was filled with two glasses of milk.

In other food news.... Wednesday we took Andrew down to Indy for another checkup on his eye. (Everything is going well, but he will probably need another surgery next year to tweak things up a little more.) Now usually when we leave Indianapolis we hit the cheesecake factory to grab something to eat and bring back some cheesecake to snack on the next couple of days. After our last trip to the cheesecake factory and the $60 bill for lunch and bring home cheesecake, we decided to eat somewhere else. I saw a restaurant by the highway called "cheeseburger in paradise" and went to the website the last time down there. It's a Jimmy Buffet Margarittaville type of franchise with a tropical theme and food. The atmosphere of the restaurant is pretty cool and the food was delicious. The crab cake sandwiches were fantastic and Jen's wrap sandwich was very tasty too. I got 6 mini cheeseburgers that were a little dry but tasty. The funny part of the day was when we were waiting for our food there was tropical type music playing in the background. When a Regee song came on Andrew started to giggle and didn't stop until the end of the song. So it looks like we have a little Rasta in the family. Can you have Blonde dreadlocks?

Swiss Cheese Memory

Me and my swiss cheese memory. My brother commented on my last post about Christmas gifts and he pointed out some toys that we had as kids that I remember as clear as if it was yesterday. All of our GI Joe stuff and the ghost gun were as clear as his first drum set.



WHY DO I REMEMBER THAT KIND OF STUFF? Thinking about that stuff got my Swiss cheese memory working again and I came upon a mental picture of a movie that I saw when I was a kid. I think my parents took my brother and I to see this fine cinema. I vaguely recall it being a superhero type of person with a silver and red outfit with a facemask that fought monsters like the old Godzilla type of monsters with the typical Japanese genre of monster movies. I recall a huge satellite dish with an octopus type monster wrecking it. My brother and I were both into the Godzilla/Mothra/King Kong thing back in the 70's and 80's so it kinda makes sense that we would have seen a movie like this. (Actually I still love the genre and looked forward to AMC's Monsterfest around Halloween.) I kinda remember this movie/superhero being called Ultraman, and lo and behold, through the modern marvel of the internet I actually found the movie. According to www.imdb.com the movie was released in 1979 (I would have been 12 years old, that's about right), but doesn't say that there was an english version. Ultraman is still a popular character with tons of listings on eBay. You can actually watch some of the tv series on www.youtube.com. Was it really a movie in the theatre that we saw? Don't remember. Why do I remember it? Don't know. Would I want to see this bad Japanese movie again? Hell yeah!

What do I want for Christmas???

With Christmas being under a month away Jen asked me what I wanted for Christmas. She needed ideas for a list to give the in-laws and another to give her ideas for me. This year I am really stumped on what I want. For years it was easy. GI Joe with the kung foo grip and assorted toys, as I got older it might have been clothes, and now it's more like some electronic toy. But nothing is screaming "BUY ME" yet. Every year it gets to be more about the kids, which it totally fine with me, but it's nice to be a little selfish every year and to be able to let other know what you want. I think this year it more be stuff that isn't quite as normal. Maybe have someone make a copy of the Jeep keys so I don't end up taking them to work with me again (happened twice this year). This would make me happy so I don't have to worry in the long run. Maybe new controllers for our garage door opener since the ones we got from the house's previous owners were trashed with one not having a door on the battery compartment and neither one having clips on them so they get lost in the change dish/catchall. Gift Cards are so impersonal, and I hate giving them, but dang they come in handy, so load me up with gift cards to home improvement stores and restaurants.

I really enjoy giving presents alot more than getting them, but I am drawing a total blank on what to get anyone else this year either. I have one idea for Jen, but that's about it. She is taking care of getting stuff for the kids with a few ideas from me, but besides that I don't have a clue. Since money is a little tight this year Jen and I decided to put a budget on spending for each other this year. (OK every year Jen tries to put a spending limit for us and I always blow it. But this year I am really going to try). Our first year together she put a spending limit for us. I went to the mall at the same time she was working and I kept going back to her store asking if we could increase the budget a little more since I kept finding stuff. After a while she just told me not to spend it all. I did the same last year with that Lord of the Rings autographed poster which was way out of the "budget". I think I am going to take my one remaining day off for the year and just go shopping. It would be nice to do something else with the day, but it would also be nice to be done with shopping and not have to worry about it. I usually get in the christmas mode later in the month, but I think I will try to kick start it a little bit.