kind of a wierd day off

I took yesterday off to take Andrew down to Indy for a follow up for his eyes. We were not leaving until 10:30, so I figured that I had a couple hours to get something else done in the morning. My dad is coming up for the weekend so I want to get the house cleaned up and possibly some yard work done. I decided that the morning would be the time to try and dump the big screen TV since the recycling center is only open Monday through Friday from 8 to 4 (or bankers hours). I got everything set up with borrowing my in-laws truck and arranging for my brother to help load and unload the truck. I get up, grab a shower and run over to pick up the truck. I waited for my bother to show up to load the TV, but the agreed upon time has passed and a call to the house goes unanswered. I figured he is on his way or I told him the wrong day. So anyway after a bit of grunting and groaning I load the TV into the back of the truck myself. Even though it's pretty big it wasn't too awkward to tip into the truck. I didn't have to really worry about scratching or breaking it since it was broken anyway. So I am on my way to the recycle center with the TV, a VCR and two printers and call my brother to leave him a message, and he picks up. The conversation goes like this:

Me: "hey Dan"
Dan: "hey Dave, what's up?.... (pause)... oh Crap...I will be there in 5 minutes"

I tell him that I got it loaded and I was on my way. I end up stopping by his house to pick him up since he has a keyboard that he wants to recycle too. We find the place and pull into the fenced-in area. There are 4 or 5 guys helping to unload trucks. The guy comes up and sees the TV and comments that he didn't think they took TV's that large. Crap. I knew there would be something like this even though the website clearly states TV's of ANY size. But after a conversation with his boss he tells me they do... whew. So dump all that stuff off, pay my $5, and head back for home. We are trying to leave for Indy by 10:30 to give us a chance to eat lunch before Andrew's appointment, but we weren't pulling out of the garage until 11:00. The trip down was pretty uneventful. Andrew's eyes are still doing pretty good with little to no change from the last time we took a 4 hour car ride for a 15 min appointment. The doctor doesn't want to chance anything and wants to see us in 6 months for another 4 hour drive for a 15 min appointment. Unfortunately we didn't get down to Indy early enough to eat lunch before his appointment so we had to go to the Cheesecake Factory for lunch after the appointment (tragic I know). So another $60 lunch with bring home cheesecake for dessert. We get back and head to grandma's to pick up William and visit with my mom for a while. After a while we head home so I can tear apart the family room of all the furniture and steam clean the carpet. As we are pulling up to the house I forgot that I still had the in-laws truck and needed to return it. Nuts. So my quick trip to return the truck turned into an hour chore since my in-laws had company and I ended up talking with them for a while. In my conversation with the company I get some information that sheds a dark light on a former boss (mentor) of mine that shocks me quite a bit. I might tell the story later. So I finally get home and start pulling furniture out of the room and into the kitchen. I am trying to get the carpet cleaned as quick as possible since there is no way that the boys will go to bed with me running the sweeper and steam cleaner. I am fishing up around 9:30 so the boys can fall asleep. As I sit on the couch (in the kitchen) I eat my cheesecake and try to think of what else I want to try and get done before my dad's visit. Actually I am trying to think of what I have enough time to get done. I am falling asleep in the kitchen around 11:00 and head to bed.

Kindergarten

William started kindergarten last week. Looking back at these photos and video I should have been there. So far he really likes going to school and hopefully he will do well. Andrew really wanted to go with him into class, so that just added to Jen's fun for the morning.

Seeing this video it takes me back to an 8mm tape of my first day of school. The boys are growing up real fast. I guess I will just buckle up and get ready for take-off.

TV shopping

I was doing a little TV shopping this afternoon while I was out and about. I have heard that lcd is better than plasma, but it's not like I am going to be running a satellite or cable through this thing. The main complaint that I have heard is the glare off the screen, but I am going to do some more research into this. I stopped at best buy and circuit city just to get an idea of how big the TV's are and to get an idea of pricing. I was leaning toward circuit city since they had 36 month no interest, but I found out today that best buy offers the same thing now. The guy at best buy also showed me some projection TV's that are similar to a flat panel, but you get alot bigger screen size for a comparable price. We just need to determine a couple of things before making a purchase. One is the size that we need for the room. I am not sure it is feesable to replace the big screen with a similar size, but now that I have had the 27 inch TV in the front room I am getting used to it. The other is financial. Need to look at what the budget can handle for the next 3 years. I just set up payments for Christopher's birth so that is also a factor. (Christopher will be ours in 35 more payments !!!) And with the kids going to private school and so on and so on.....

In case you were wondering what I found out today.. Here is a quick overview

inches	type	price	Tax	place	mo/payment
42	plasma	749	52.43	bb	22.26
42	lcd	799	55.93	bb	23.75
42	lcd	899	62.93	bb	26.72
50	plasma	1099	76.93	cc	32.66
47	lcd	1199	83.93	bb	35.64
50	plasma	1251	87.57	cc	37.18
50	plasma	1299	90.93	bb	38.61
50	project	1299	90.93	cc	38.61
46	lcd	1399	97.93	cc	41.58
46	lcd	1499	104.93	cc	44.55
47	lcd	1529	107.03	cc	45.45
60	project	1599	111.93	cc	47.53
65	project	1699	118.93	cc	50.50
65	project	1749	122.43	bb	51.98

I would appreciate any opinions on the whole lcd/plasma controversy. Or I probably should just ask MR since he is the owner of two new TV's.

The good news is that I found out that I can take the old TV to a recycling center and get rid of it for $5, but the bad news is that I have to get the inlaws truck, load it up, and drag it over there.

The boys are growning up

This is Christopher's 6 month picture (taken at 7 months). He can't really sit up like that on his own quite yet. He is getting alot better, but still prefers rolling all over floor. This picture was one of those times when Jen held him until the last possible moment, moved her hands, and snapped the picture. The funny part is that Jen sent me the link to the website that had thumbnails of all of the pictures on that day. When I tried to right click on the pictures to save it on my PC the site wouldn't let me. So, I just turned to my Mac, pulled up the pictures, and drug it to my desktop. he he he heeeeeeee.

Today is William's first day in Kindergarten at a new school. He is excited about it which makes me feel pretty good, but there is always a little worry. I think there always will be. I worry that the other children might look at him a little different due to his speech delay, but I think his friendly personality will make up for alot of that, but you never know how other kids will act. I will post pictures tomorrow.

So I was looking through the newspaper on Friday and saw that they were having an open house in New Haven for the Fort Wayne railroad historical society. It was a chance to see some old steam locomotives and take a ride on an old train. Like many boys, if there is any activity with cars, trains, or planes they are into it. I recalled a memory of my dad taking myself and my brother out to New Haven at least 25 years ago to see an old steam locomotive. I remember that my dad knew one of the guys working on restoring the engine or something like that. My brother actually remembered the guys name, but I forgot it already. Anyway I remember climbing into the cab of this old engine while it was working and it was quite impressive. I wasn't sure if this was the same locomotive that I saw over 25 years ago, but the one thing I did remember that to get the whistle to work, you had to pull a lever on the far right side of the cab, and sure enough when the boys and I climbed into the cab, there was that lever. I forgot how huge this train was. It had to be at least 20 feet high. Unfortunately it wasn't working, but they did have a restored 100 year old caboose that we got a chance to walk through and down memory lane. They were offering rides in one of those old cabooses so I took the boys on it for a ride. The caboose was pulled by a 1950's diesel locomotive that was also pretty impressive. All around this warehouse where they were working on the trains they had other project cars all over the area. Most of them were no where near completion or even started, but as I understand that the group that works on the trains are all volunteers and they only do a few events like this to get donations.

At the midway point of our ride we pulled up next to a fairgrounds with a bunch of RV's. I noticed the sound and look of old steam powered tractors. I asked the conductor of the caboose if that was the Maumee Valley steam and thresher show. Back in the days of working for WOWO I had been to this event a bunch of times and always found it very interesting. Along with the old steam tractors they also had a pretty impressive flea market. Also part of this complex was a large field where they flew remote controlled airplanes. After getting off the ride we headed over to that other show. As I pulled up I noticed people leaving and people packing up the flea market. We were too late to see the flea market, but there were still a couple of the old steam tractors around. I took the boys over to the remote controlled airplane area and they really enjoyed watching the people fly their planes. I am sure when they get a bit older we will buy an airplane. We got back to mom's house and I put together their planes that they got a cracker barrel on vacation and they had fun playing with those. The wood that these planes are made of is that flimsy, thin as paper, wood. So I don't plan on those lasting that long around the house. Minutes into putting them together I was already in repair mode with the scotch tape trying to put planes back together again.

More info on the steam locomotive can be found at: www.765.0rg

blogging and surfing

Saturday night at 11:00pm and I should be in bed, but I chose to grab the laptop, light the tiki's, and surf the net out on the deck. I can't believe that I haven't done this yet this summer and it's the middle of August already. Seems like most weekends there is one reason or another that kept me from coming outside. Usually it's the fact that after the boys are in bed and I watch a little TV that I fall asleep in the chair. The weather has been fantastic since we got back from Rochester so now I am going to try my best to enjoy every minute of it. I actually got some landscaping done in the front yard this afternoon that was waaayyyy overdue. When I watch the kids on the weekend, when Jen is at work, I usually try not to take Christopher outside since I can't really watch him that well, but now he is able to hold his head up and be a little more independent. I put him in the exersaucer (and in the shade) and got quite a bit done outside. The other boys tried to help me as well, but spent most of the time playing in and around the van. Chris lasted a couple hours with me until getting fussy and headed inside for his afternoon nap.

As I was working this afternoon I thought to myself that I hadn't been surfing on the deck this year, so here I am. It's a bit chilly tonight (around 63) but it is very clear with a full moon rising. One of the tiki's has bit the dust (out of fluid), and the cicada's are out in force tonight. There is a solice in these moments that I really enjoy, but don't get often enough. I just need to turn off the TV a little more often and just do something else. It was a bit annoying when we lost the big screen in the front room for most of this week, but it was also kind of nice just turning on the radio and not watching the "boob tube". When I was doing a TV swap with some other ones on Thursday night I thought about not putting a TV in the front room. But now I am just talking crazy. Nope, just going to take a little discipline on my part to try and get the most out of the rest of summer. William starts Kindergarten next week so I know that fall can't be too far away. Tomorrow it's church and Triangle Park for lunch celebrating my Uncle Dave's birthday. After that Jen goes to work and I am either going to bring the boys home and get some more stuff done or take them out to see a steam locomotive in New Haven.

ahhhhh.. beautiful night....going to be good sleeping...

R.I.P

For the past year I have been writing about the TV going out. Every time I blog about it I usually go home and it comes back to life. This time I think it's definitely gone. Ever since we got back from vacation we have been trying to get it to work by unplugging it, letting it set, and then powering it up again, as the Philips people recommended. We decided to call in a TV repair man. I didn't think these people still existed. Best Try wanted to charge us close to $100 to come and look at it, but the names that we got from the Philips company would only charge us $55 for a service call so we decided to do that. Jen and I had talked about how much we would be willing to spend to save the old TV but never came up with an actual number. She called me yesterday after the guy looked at the TV and said that it would be around $300 to fix it. I figure $800 for a new 42 inch TV when I can have it repaired for $300 is something that is doable, so I tell her to go ahead and have it fixed. But then he tests a few more things and says that there is one more thing that needs replacing as well, that he would have to order, and that would take the repair bill close to $600. Crap. That's a number I can't deal with when I can have a brand new flat screen plasma for $800ish. I tell her to declare the patient dead. Now the search for a new TV and how the heck do I get rid of a 55inch projection big screen. I think I might have to make a trip to the dump. I put my 27 inch TV in the front room last night and it's like watching TV from 40 feet away.

Stay tuned for the search

Our trip to the Q collective

***** You might want to get a bag of popcorn and a beer... it's going to be along entry *****

I knew that the trip to Rochester was coming for weeks, but it seemed to just pop up in my mind last weekend before going into full planning mode. Overall I say that we did a pretty good job (especially Jen) in getting everything together and making sure we had everything we needed. Someone to take care of the cat.. check (I guess we have too :)) Of course the mind wandered with any possible thing that we might need for the kids. The last trip that we actually took was to geekfest two years ago and we only had two kids. It's always the little stuff that you forget. I just kept reminding myself that it's not like we are going overseas, it's just Rochester, and they have stores there too. Little did I know they had a heaven-like (according to Carrie) store called Weigmans or something like that. The other factor is how the boys would do being stuck in a car for at least 8 hours. All I can say is thank God (and my dad) that we had a DVD player. So let the journey begin.....

Wednesday - I would have liked to be on the road by 9:00am but Jen was thinking more like 10:00 so we were shooting for something in between. Of course we were up by 7:00am and starting putting the last stuff together and getting ourself ready. I was waiting until the last possible moment to load the van since when I start that and the boys have their shoes on, it is time to GO for the boys. So I get the van loaded, snacks, DVD player, cooler with drinks and so on. We are pulling out of the garage a little after 10:00 (not too bad). Jen road in the back with the boys so she could be closer in case they needed anything or if Christopher fussed. I wanted to take it easy on the drive over for the boys sake which mean stopping for meals and frequent potty breaks. I have a feeling that when they get older I will be like my dad (and many other dads) and just drive drive drive until we get there. We little after the Ohio Line it gets to be around noonish so I start asking the boys how they are doing. They are fine gazing at the DVD player and Christopher seems to be pretty good too. I remember from the last vacation to Sandusky that the first "travel plaza" in Ohio is a pretty bad hole in the wall, but all of them after that are very nice, so I opt to drive further toward Toledo. The one thing that I was trying to avoid on the trip was pulling off the toll road. Yeah I know the gas is a bit cheaper and you have a better selection of restaurants, but to me it's a hassle. So we stop neat Toledo and have lunch at Burger King at a travel plaza. Now I don't usually eat at Burger King so I am not familiar with their menu, or should I say how the menu will agree with my stomach. I didn't want to get down the road a few miles and have to pull off for internal reasons. Good new is that the Jr. Wopper did pretty good with my stomach, the bad news is that the onions stayed with me until dinner (burp).The drive through Ohio was pretty uneventful. Lucky for us Carrie called to find out where we were and told us about the best way to get through Cleveland. Mapquest tells you to go through it to the South, but it's best to just stay on 90 all the way through. I guess John had emailed me that on Tuesday night but I didn't check my email before leaving. A few other people heading to Rochester had listened to Mapquest and had quite the adventure. Granted, 90 does some real funky stuff with off ramps and lane changes, but it is better. I noticed that John was right and the gas prices in Ohio are definitely better. I was going to hit the last off ramp in Ohio before going into Pennsylvania but missed it. I am thinking that this is the first time that I had been in Pennsylvania, but think that I might have went through a corner of it years ago on a road trip to North Carolina to visit my Aunt and cousins. We only travel in Pennsylvania for less than an hour before you get to New York state. I know for a fact that it was the first time that I had ever been in New York state. The scenery in Pennsylvania and New York is very nice. Lostsa trees and hills. I find it interesting that the first signs that you see in New York aren't welcome signs, but signs about what are state laws and doubled fines. A little after Buffalo we decided to stop for dinner. We got off the toll road and stopped at a Cracker Barrel. The boys did pretty good, but Andrew wanted to wander and was getting cranky. Let's just say this is the first of MANY times that you will hear that Andrew was cranky during our trip... I was trying to get to Rochester before it got dark since we had to look for the Q's house and it's easier to read house numbers and see colors of houses in the day time, but that didn't work out. I missed their house and had to turn around. Lucky for me their road isn't too busy so I could go real slow. So we pull in a little after 9:00pm. So 11 hours on the road, whew. I could have made it in 8 going straight through, but it worked out stopping when we did since I didn't feel that tired. So start the pandelerium of kids playing and running all over the house. I unloaded the van and we started to visit with the Q's. Finally we decided to put kids to bed. We put both the boys on a air mattress in the lower level of this tri-level house with a basement. Andrew started fighting me on staying on the air mattress with William saying "I don't like it" "I don't like it". He said that about 20 times that was quickly followed by his snoring seconds later. William was wide awake. I think he was excited about being there, so he kept flipping and flopping (of course shaking the mattress and waking up Andrew). I was sitting in the room with them until they fell asleep, but William wouldn't calm down. I just kept having flashbacks it the first trip that we took with William to Bowling Green 4 years ago where he didn't sleep the whole night. We spent all night trying to keep him from crying in the hotel room in fear of waking up the other guests. I even took him for a drive at 3:00am to try and knock him out to no luck. I think both William and I got about an hour sleep that night in Bowling Green. But after a while he finally conks out and I got upstairs to see it's around 11:00pm. After some more visiting with the Q's we finally called it a night around 1:00am or so. I am thinking that it will be nice to sleep-in in the morning since the boys will sleep in too, or at least I thought they would.

Thursday - 7:00am Andrew wakes up and thus wakes up William. I get up and entertain the boys so they don't wake up the whole house. We go upstairs and grab some breakfast. I grab an "awful big" muffin (as Mary calls them) and a glass of milk and that's enough breakfast for me. After a lazy morning with members of the crew waking up one at a time all morning. The Q's have a real nice TV that was just purchased not too long ago so I get to surf around the satellite. After a while we decide to pack up the crew and head to a museum of play that is in Rochester. This is my first experience in following Carrie "leadfoot" Q through the highways of New York in an effort not to loose her. We pull up to a huge building that is full of all kinds of stuff for kids to do and play with. As soon as you go into the front doors there is a carousel and an actual 1950's dinner that you can eat in. As soon as we get in the doors Andrew want to be carried which is not a good thing. This is the first clue that we probably should have done the museum on Friday to give the boys a chance to recover from the car ride, but William did just fine. Andrew on the other hand was a day full of crying whining flopping and meltdowns. This museum of play is a very cool place with TONS of stuff for kids to play with and on and over and under. It's a very hands-on experience in every part of this place. I was a bit unnerved trying to keep track of the boys in the seas of kids, but we only lost track of the boys a couple of times, but it's a pretty safe place to be lost in. Upstairs in the museum they have a collection of toys from different decades. That was pretty fun to see stuff that I played with as a kid behind glass in the display. There was quite a collection of old video game stuff that I got a picture of. I will post that later on. The kids weren't really interested in this part of the museum so we didn't stay too long upstairs. We decided to call it a day and hit the carousel on the way out the door. We looked at our watches and we were only there for 3 hours but it felt like we were there alot longer than that. (might have just seemed longer due to Andrew). We got home and grilled up some burgers and dogs to feed the crew. After that we broke out Mario Cart on the Wii. Yeah the kids (especially Keith) was beating the pants off of all of us. I couldn't quite get the hang of how much to steer the wheel so I found myself oversteering alot of the time which put me in a ditch usually. I don't know if I would have had a little more time to learn how to steer if it would have been more fun. So after a while of playing that we put the kids to bed. I stayed downstairs with the boys again to make sure they got to sleep alright. Andrew fought me a little bit, but went to sleep pretty quick. I was upstairs by 10:30 or so. After we were sure that all the kids were asleep we broke out Rockstar for the Wii. This is the version of guitar hero that has drums and bass and microphone. The Q's have two guitars so it worked out that everyone had their own instrument. I opted to play the drums being the most experienced in the group even though I haven't touched a drum stick in years (decades). The drum setup is alot like the tri-toms I played in high school so I thought it would be a breeze. Surprisingly I actually sucked at it. I thought I was keeping pretty good time and hitting the notes, but not according the the game. After a while I just picked up a guitar and was pretty good at the easy level. John is really good on the hard level, but has alot more experience than us. The Q's don't have a clock in their front room so it is easy to loose track of time so imagine our surprise when we saw that it was 2:00am. I felt bad for us, but even worse for John since he still had to work during our visit. But I didn't feel too sorry for him since he could go into work basically whenever he wanted.

Friday - Another 7:00am wake up call from the boys. Five hours of sleep it not enough. It seemed like I just got to bed when it was time to get up. So another lazy kind of morning and it's 11:00 before we know it. We decide to run over to one of their malls to just wander around stores, check things out, and try and wear the kids out. Andrew is in typical form, but was happy
when I was carrying him on my shoulders or giving him "penny penny" to throw into the fountain. After blowing a couple of hours there we head back to the house. Jen and Carrie decided to take the kids over to a playground that is close. I opt out of that idea and decided to try and take a nap while they were gone. I wasn't able to do that since Christoper was being a little fussy. After that it was a lazy kind of day with the kids running all over the place. I had a pretty good back ache in the morning, but with the help of some ibuprofen it finally let up when we hit the mall. The kids went down for the night pretty well with only a little bit of fuss. Either they were getting used to the air mattress or they were just that tired. We broke out the rockband game again (I think Jen is addicted) and started playing, but I was just too tired. Not sure if it was the lack of sleep or the medicine, but I fell asleep and trudged down to bed around midnight.

Saturday - Another 7:00am wake-up. The Q's had to take care of a couple of things in the morning, but we finally were ready to hit the road to Niagara around noon. We had to stop at the cellular store to let John get a new cell phone since he broke his (or it was broken for him) on his recent vacation, guys event, or whatever you want to call it. Before we left I find out that we only
need birth certificates to cross over to Canada and won't need passports until 2009. I have heard that the Canadian side of the falls is a little nicer, but it has been years since I had been there so I didn't know. Unfortunately we forgot the birth certificates so we were stuck on the American side. We headed to Niagara, not on the main highway, but on a kind of scenic back road. Actually it was a very nice 4 lane road that went right along Lake Ontario. This was a real nice change of pace to the crazy Highway 90 to buffalo and it gave us the opportunity to see the lake. Checking out the lake was another of the things that I wanted to try and do during vacation. We didn't get a chance to go the the shore, but I got a chance to see it which was fine. We passed a couple of state parks that were shore front that I am going to keep in mind for the next time. After a while the 4 lane highway became a 2 lane road that went through a lot of small towns and farmland with just about everyone selling firewood for some reason. It was nice to see that New York was kind of like Indiana in that aspect of small towns and agriculture. As we get to Buffalo this little road runs next to the main roads of Buffalo, but without the stoplights. The condition of this road is pretty poor and looks like they have been thinking about working on it for the past 10 years. When you can see 5 inches of dirt around barricades you know they have been there for a while. We stop at this nice little park near Niagara for a picnic lunch. At the far side of this park you can see a place downstream of Niagara that acts like a whirlpool. From the Canadian side you can take a gondola over the whirlpool.

After eating lunch and dealing with a very persistent bee that wanted John's Dr. Pepper we headed to Niagara which is pretty close to the park. We get to the main area of Niagara where the falls are and get stuck in a traffic Jam. It tells you to go straight to park, but you can't get through the intersection without getting stuck, and then the cross traffic gets blocked and so on and so on. Finally John just turns left and I do the same after the next light. We pull into this pretty sad looking parking garage that charges $10 for the day.We unload the kids and try out best to try and figure out how the heck to get out of the garage. Again this is a pretty sorry garage that doesn't have any instruction or directions on how to get to anything. We finally ended up carrying the kids and strollers down 4 flights of stairs since we couldn't find the freakin elevator. We get to the street where John asks me which way to go. I just point a direction since it seems like all places lead to the falls. I was wrong and we ended up having to walk around a run down building that added another couple of blocks to our walk. Someone is really missing the boat in this area with the crappy run down buildings and lack of any real tourist attractions. Either that or we just choose the worst place to park around the falls. As we are heading toward the crowd I see this guy kind of mulling around the front of this run down building. I just kept telling myself "he is going to hit me up for money" and sure enough he walked up to me and said "excuse me". I just ignored him and finally said "go away" after he persisted. I must look to friendly to panhandlers. We crossed the street to head to Niagara Park. I expected a little nicer area for tourists with some better stores and things. I wasn't expecting all of the "hot dog" carts along the pathway selling all kinds of food. We finally get to the falls after some more misdirection of where to go. That's it, I am going to stop following John :). It's still an awesome sight to see Niagara falls. The beauty and majesty of it is overwhelming. We finally found out how to contain Andrew. Strap him into a stroller and don't let him out. He actually didn't mind being in the stroller for most of the day, but did want to get out and roam a little bit. It was a very busy day around Niagara and filled with a TON of Indian people (dot not feather) for some reason. We went to the visitors center for a potty break but it was too small and too full of people. Again I think someone is missing the boat. We walked around for hours and went on the observation deck to get a better view of the falls. I thought about trying to do the Maid of the Mist ride with the boys, but I think I will save that until they are a bit older and can really appreciate it. We headed from what I think are the horseshoe falls over the the main falls through a real nice park. It was alot of walking, but it wasn't really that bad. The boys did really well and stayed with the group for the most part. It helps having Carrie coral the boys also. We saw where we needed to go if we ever want to go to the caves of Niagara with a huge line waiting to get in. Our last stop was at the main falls. It is so strange that a 4 foot "fence" keeps you inches away form the rapids at the top of the falls and from the falls themselves. Most attractions like this you can't get that close to ever.



After viewing the falls we hit the gift shop and got the boys a couple of T-shirts so they could remember the trip. The Q-kids got a couple of stuffed birds that chirped and sang. (I feel sorry for Carrie:)). Then it was the loooonnngg walk back to our cars. But again it didn't feel that long and we had Andrew contained in the stroller. I was making a contest of seeing if I could hit people with the stroller as they cut in front of me, but I didn't have any successful hits. After going through the gauntlet of crappy stores and people selling hand made jewelry we made it back to the parking garage and find out that they do have an elevator. We thought that we were parked on the 3 rd level, but when we got there we didn't see our cars. John opted for talking the stairs down a level, but I didn't feel like doing that again so opted to just follow the ramp down to the next level, but the ramp didn't exactly go down to the next level. Like I said this is a messed up parking garage. We finally had to jump a railing and pass over the strollers to get to our cars. I so wanted to make a comment to the teller as I was paying my $10, but decided against it. We head back to Rochester on the busy highway 90. I am trying to keep up with John around traffic and through toll gates all the while watching the lightning flashing in the sky. We decide to stop at at Bob Evan's on the way home and feed the children. Ironically it's the same exit that we had stopped a couple of days earlier to eat on the way to Rochester. While we were eating the heavens opened up and it poured rain, but finished before we had to leave. Dining with the boys that night and all during vacation went pretty well in restaurants. Andrew wanted to wander a little bit, but he ate well as long as it was mac and cheese or some other generic kid food. After that it was back on the road with another stop at the Cheesecake Factory for dessert. How Rochester rates one of these and Fort Wayne doesn't I will never know. I didn't realize how close the restaurant was to the Q's house... lucky buggers. We get home and put kids to bed pretty late. I had my dessert and headed for the bed as well since we had a long drive in the morning. I think Jen might have played rockband a little more.

Saturday - We get going with a tearful goodbye. Again shooting for 9:00 but actually leaving a little after 10:00. I get the fun of driving through rain, sometimes downpours, until we get just outside of Cleveland (so about halfway). As we are going into downtown I can see the Cleveland skyline and Lake Erie next to each other. I am not sure how I missed it the first time, but I was probably worried about traffic. Sometime I would like to stop and check out the Rock and Roll hall of fame and an area called "the flats" that my brother and co-workers recommend, but not until the kids get older. After crossing the Ohio state line I started looking for a place to eat. Since we have McDonalds coupons I look for the golden arches. They aren't that easy to find in New York and Pennsylvania (or at least they aren't on the road signs). I pull off on the first sign of McDonalds and end up driving 4 miles into a quaint little town with the restuarant. I would have preferred to stay near the interstate to keep better time, but I wasn't sure how often we would see the signs. Of course just about every exit from there on in had a McDonalds right by the interstate. We make pretty good time through Ohio with another stop for a potty break near Toledo. I decided to fill up Herbie (what the boys call the new minivan) at a toll road rest area. The name of the gas station is Volero so I have never heard of it. I pull up to the pump and get out to pump the gas, I swipe the card and the screen on the pump says " key zip + enter ". Huh? what the hell is a key zip? I know what a key gen is but not a key zip. I figure that it might be some special thing that only Volero gas stations have. I look around the pump to make sure I am not at a special pump or something but don't see. I cancel the transaction thinking that I might have hit a wrong button, but it asks it again. I cancel again and go ask the attendant. "What is a key zip?". He tells me that I need to put in the zip code for the building. What? how the heck would I know what the zip code is for this building??? "No" he said "the zip code for your billing not the building". Opps I felt like such a dolt. I am surprized that Jen didn't poke her head out the window wondering what I was doing. The freakin' display on the gas pump has enough room for at least 80 characters, how hard would it be to actually type out "Key in billing zip code and press enter". Let's see....39 would do it. So anyway, we get to the Indiana state line and to hwy 69. The next 40 miles are a cake walk since we do it all the time coming back from the in-laws place. It is around 7:30pm and we figure that if we go for it we could be home before 8:30, or the other option was to stop for dinner. We chose to stop for dinner since there wasn't that much to eat at home since we purged most of the food due to vacation. We decided to do one last splurge and go to Caruso's at the lake James exit. We love this place, but rarely get to go since it is too far from Fort Wayne to drive and we are usually too tired after visiting the in-laws to stop on the way home. We had a nice dinner and the boys did pretty well also. The last 40 miles went real quick, and it felt good to get home. Another 11 hours in Herbie, but again the boys did very well with only a few little fusses. We got home to a cool evening that allowed us to open the windows and air the house out a little bit. We get the boys to bed and do a little bit of unloading and putting away and just general collapse. I finally get up to bed after 11:00 and fall asleep very vast. Unfortunately I forgot that it was Sunday night so the garbage truck comes promptly at 5:30am which is even louder since we have the windows open. William joins us at 6:00am but he finally falls asleep in our bed. I got up at 6:30 since I had to take Herbie into for servicing on the way to work. And also I get to be out on the floor walking back and fourth and helping with a phone book for the past 4 days, so I am still trying to catch up on sleep and rest. And of course trying to find a few minutes here and there to write this blog entry. It's taken me 4 days!!!

Besides some of the issues that we had with Andrew the trip went well. Herbie did well too with 1250 miles in all of our driving around. He got a little better than 27 mpg on the way out but a little less on the way home due to the rain and windy conditions. Thank you to the Q's (if you are still reading this diatribe) who have a very nice place is a pretty cozy city. We hope to see you again real soon......

A corny kind of weekend

Friday night we headed to Turtletown (Churubusco) for a high school graduation / bon voyage party for a friends' daughter. The daughter was heading down to campus on Saturday to begin her collage career at IUPUI. On the way out we had to go past alot of corn fields, which are in their peak growing season, so they are at least 6 - 8 feet high. William asks what they were and it occured to me that I never really explained where corn came from or showed him a corn stalk being the city boy that I am. So I was describing how that is were corn comes from. Upon getting to the party out in the country, it is right next to a corn field. So I take the boys over to the field and show them the corn stalks. Unfortunately there wasn't any corn on the stalk yet so the lesson might have been a bit lost on them. Anyway, the party was pretty fun. Filled with high school kids everywhere. The boys (especially Andrew) had no problem walking up to everyone and saying hello. It was all in part with the persuit of the dog that they wanted to pet. I was able to get the boys on a trampoline in the backyard too. They hadn't been on one of these in quite some time and seemed to have alot of fun. I commented to Jen that we might have to get one. This is where I find out that she is ethically, morally, and religiously against trampolines. OK not really all of those, but it's more of a safety issue with her. I comment how can it not be safe with all the padding and mesh walls? And we don't have to worry about a dog eating it unlike some others..(*Keith*-cough). We might have to revisit this one in a few years, we will see. So after hanging out for a while we head home to get the kids to bed.

Saturday Jen had to get up and go to work so the boys and I just hung out for the morning. After Jen got home we headed to church. After church Jen and Christoper dropped the rest of us off and Menards to get some supplies while she went to get dinner and a few groceries. We are trying not to stock up on perishable supplies too much because we are heading to Rochester later this week. So the boys and I wander Menards and buy "stuff". My plan was to try and get the battery backup installed for the sump pump again so I could worry less being out of the house on vacation. So yes finally after a year of talking about it I am finally getting it done. We get home and have dinner. After putting the boys to bed Jen and I break out Indiana Jones Lego on the Wii. We are real close to finishing the game, but I am sure that there is alot that we have missed and will require us to go through the game again and again. We ended up playing it until 2:00am.

Sunday morning came real early with the boys. After getting everyone up and together we headed over the the in-laws. Every year they get bags of corn on the cob. The menfolk usually are in the garage de-husking the corn and the womenfolk are usually inside where they boil the corn and cut it off the cob. Then they bag the corn separately and freeze it for the year. Actually most of the corn is for Thanksgiving at their house, but there is quite a bit left for the rest of the year. I believe we did 16 dozen ears of corn (about 200). It actually went pretty quick out in the garage with the boys helping us by taking the de-husked corn inside for Jen and her mom to boil and bag. They actually helped de-husk and take the silk off of some of the corn. Overall it took us about 3 or 4 hours to do all of the corn. Oh and did I mention that it is the in laws 40 wedding anniversary? Nothing says like happy 40 years like doing corn. oh well, they don't usually celebrate birthdays or anniversaries that often and usually not actually on the day of the event. After finishing the corn we were talking about taking the in laws out to dinner for their anniversary, but I really wanted to get the backup installed. So we ended up just getting a bucket of the Colonel for a quick lunch at the house. After that I could have really used a nap, but I headed for the house with my father in law and brother in law. My brother in law has just started a new career as a plumbers apprentice, so that might come in real handy. The directions for the install are pretty basic and not real descriptive so it scared the crap out of me. Overall the install went pretty good. Yes there was a minor flood when the check valve fell off the pipe and drenched my brother in law, but as he says "at least it wasn't poopy water". (he had some experience with that unfortunately). And I had to make another trip to menards for a part, but only ONE trip which is a record for us. Still the sump pump worries me anyway, and now we have cut pipes, installed more hardware, and are relying on alot of "I guess it goes there" kind of installation. I am sure eventually I will stop worrying about it. So 3 hours of installing that I head back and pick up the family. We get home and get the kids a bath and into bed REAL late. Jen talked about trying to finish the Indiana Jones game since we only had one more chapter to do, but I was way to tired. But I am not too tired to all of a sudden go into a panic that we have alot to do in two days before leaving for Rochester. I know it's not like we are going overseas, but still we haven't actually taken a vacation in two years, and not with 3 kids, so we have alot to try and get done.