Monday, November 26, 2007

Thanksgiving Survival



We survived Thanksgiving!

I went to Portland and celebrated with Mickey, Meaghan and Aunt Jeanne and their families. It was a lot of fun. I even has Mick cart me around Friday morning to get some bargain deals and save me a ton of cash.

I got home late Friday, picked up the kids Saturday Morning and then we shopped for our Lebanese Feast on Sunday. We had a family form church over. they have 2 daughters and they all played High School Musical: The DVD game. It was nice to have people over for dinner again. It was something we used to do all the time and it felt good.

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Winner Winner, Chicken Dinner


The checkout ladies at the local supermarket always seem to dispense the mindless chit-chat. Last night one rubbed me the wrong way. I was working from home and had a nice dinner planned. Then, I got a call from work and had to come in to do a couple things. Realizing that I wouldn't have time to come home and make dinner before the kids stomachs caved in, I went to plan B.

Plan B, involved picking up an 8-piece bucket of chicken from the supermarket, and serving it with the leftover Yukon Gold mashed potatoes I served the day before with my roast. Also, a nice salad would be served. Karissa is a hug fan of "chicken on the bone" and can shred a drumstick cleaner than a starving pirahna.

I get the chicken and get to the front of the checkout line, where the lady looks at me and says:
"Looks like it's your night to cook"

So many things I thought about saying back to her:
"Why is that? Do you assume that because I'm a man, I can't cook?"
"You have no idea the hell I go through on a daily basis!"
"Don't judge"
"I see the dental plan here is horrible or you'd have fixed those teeth"

But I said none of those, I just nodded and swiped my card.

Saturday, November 17, 2007

Taking joy in children's joy



As a parent, sometimes you have to do things you don't want to do, because your children enjoy it. Today was one of those days. I took the my kids to see High School Musical On Ice. Sure it was two hours I'll never get back, and could think of many dozen different ways I could have spent the day, if I were selfish. But going there, and seeing the pure joy in their eyes, when their favorite TV stars hit the ice was enough to make up for the time lost.

Thursday, November 15, 2007

U/O

Since moving here almost three years ago, I've been looking for signs of life here in the valley. Salt Lake is not really a small town, yet not really a big city. The thing that really bugged me for a while is that a lot of bigger chains, whether they be restaurants or clothing or concerts, don't have Salt Lake as a home. That has changed a bit in the past month, when The Cheesecake Factory and now Urban Outfitters have opened.

I'm not big in waiting in line, but Amber wanted to and I agreed to wait for the U/O to open their doors this morning. We get a free tote or something.

I just wish Giordano's Pizza would hurry up and open out here.

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Foofa


So at the office the past couple days, we've had models coming to videotape them performing karaoke in order to be potential cover models for PlayStation SingStar. Usually Emily takes care of videotaping them and then I edit down their video to a 45 second clip for Sony. A model stopped in while Emily was at lunch, so I went ahead and did the taping. While talking to this girl, she mentioned that she worked on a childrens TV show. Being hip to the childrens TV scene ever since I became a Sesame Street baby, I asked which one. She said Yo Gabba Gabba, and then she found herself inundated with a series of questions about Caleb's favorite show!

I was so excited to be talking to a girl who wears a this pink costume for a living and dances and sings in it, that I think I scared myself. It was fascinating to hear about the show which was created by her brothers and that basically feels like H.R. Puffenstuff on an acid trip.

For the record, I'm rooting for her to get the SingStar gig, maybe I can get Caleb an elusive Yo Gabba Gabba tee shirt out of it.

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Caleb


Isn't this little guy just the cutest. For the record, ladies, he's taken. He currently has two girlfriends, Savannah and Nicole. He broke up with them last week, but told me on Monday, "Don't worry Dad, we are back together again."

The boy is getting more play than his old man.

Kids are anything but predictable

So yesterday, we had a great day. Kelsey and Karissa had a ton of homework, but did it all without complaining. I have set up the office as a lounge, with comfy chairs to relax in while working on homework. They also like using the big white board to figure out problems. Kelsey played with her friends, while Karissa worked on her secret art project. Caleb cut paper into a million little pieces. We had a nice dinner, relaxed and watched a little TV and went to bed.

So why in the heck did they wake up this morning ready to kill each other? The first 2 hours of my day were spent trying to seperate kids from fighting and then myself getting thrown into the middle of the fights. Luckily we sorted it out before school, but I'm a bit off kilter from the debacle.

Sunday, November 11, 2007

First Blog

Well, here's my third attempt at starting a blog.

I started the first one about three years ago, when everything was going dandy in my life. So my entries were really boring, like how can I program my TiVo and crap like that.

The second attempt was about a year ago at the advice of my therapist, while I was angry and bitter, so that's probably not best for the masses to read.

I'm planning for this one to be an update on what is happening in mine and the kids life. It will probably have everyday mundane things with a semi-jaded edge. Who knows, maybe down the road there will be tales of romance. (That's intended to be a joke, but probably came off semi-jaded).