Year-End Wrap Up

I was talking with a friend at church the other day and he likened the Christmas season to a car accident.  Despite how much preparation goes into getting ready for everything, it still manages to sneak up and leave everyone wondering what it was that just hit.  Given how the past month has gone, I felt that this was a very appropriate analogy.  Now that things have started to settle down, I decided that I finally better sit down and try and recap our activities over the past few weeks.

It’s Time For A Gallery Update

Some of you may have noticed some changes to our gallery page.  I’ve recently started using the NextGEN Gallery plugin for Wordpress.  I like it much better than Coppermine which is what I was using before. When combined with the WP lightbox 2 plugin, it makes a very nice gallery.

At Holly’s request, I’ve also re-enabled the password protection on the page.  It’s not 100% secure since I currently have a random preview image showing in the sidebar, but it should help keep unwanted visitors from lingering a bit too long.

To go along with this new gallery format, I’ve added pictures from Halloween and Nick and Chelsea’s wedding.  I’ve also added a pic of me feeding a mouse to an owl and some random images of the kids.  If you would like to check them out, and don’t remember the page password, please feel free to use the contact page to let us know that you want to see things.  Or, you can just give us a call and we can tell you.  Whatever is easier for you.

I’m So Funny

Last night Chelsea came over for a few hours.  She took the kids to a Halloween party and then we hung out and watched Heroes while she was fooling around on her laptop.

Shortly before she went home, her computer was sitting closed on the floor.  She stood up to go to the bathroom and her cell phone flew off of her lap, bouncing off the top of the laptop.  I made a comment about how it’s not a good idea to go throwing things at a laptop because screen breakage is inevitable but she just laughed me off.

Before she left, I told her that I needed to put something on her computer.  She assumed that it was something cool like a game and handed over her laptop.  Little did she know that I had no intentions of putting a game on her system.  While she was gone, I replaced her very cool Batman wallpaper with this image:

What A Week…

I know that it’s been a while since I posted anything.  I actually have good reasons for not doing so.  Last week was complete chaos in the Zohner home.  Let me try and catch everyone up.

Last Friday, my sister Chelsea got married.  Because of this, my mom came into town from Denver.  The last time she was here, she made a comment about how the basement looked just as it had months earlier when she last saw it.  I wasn’t about to let that happen again so I spent 35 hours over the weekend painting and installing the home theater speakers.  I started on Friday afternoon and finally finished Sunday evening.  Lucky for me, Chelsea and Nick came over and helped a bit which actually ended up helping a lot because without them, I wouldn’t have been ready on Monday when we had the flooring installed.  Now I just have a few things left and then the basement will be complete.  YAY!

“It’s Like We Have A New House”

Over the past week, a lot of things have been done to our house.  First, I finally finished the drywall in the basement and have started working on installing baseboards.  I also managed to get the doors hung but one of them is a bit tweaked so I’ll need to spend some time working on getting it corrected.

I’m hoping to have everything finished by the time that Chelsea gets married a the end of the month.  That gives me three weeks to finish baseboards, prime and paint the walls, and get flooring installed.  I’ll also need to get doorknobs and window coverings installed but that’s about it.  It’s so nice to finally be able to see a light at the end of the tunnel that doesn’t resemble an oncoming train.

The Pinks Of Their Eyes

This morning, Alex woke up screaming.  Holly went in to see what the problem was and found him standing in the middle of the room with his eyes closed.  Holly asked him what was wrong and he told her that he couldn’t open his eyes.  She asked if they were glued shut and he said that they were.  He also said that Emma did it.  (Emma can be so mean. )  She took him into the bathroom and cleaned the excessive amounts of eye boogers out so that he could once again see.

It was at this point that Holly was convinced that she, Alex, Emma, Chelsea, and maybe Hannah all have pink eye.  She took the kids to the doctor where her thoughts were confirmed.  Chelsea got lucky and just has allergies.  For now.

Another Weekend In The Mountains

Last Friday we loaded up the van and headed back up into the mountains to do some more camping.  We liked where we camped a few weeks ago so much that we decided to go a few miles up the road.  Actually, the campgrounds were all reserved months ago.  We just happened to get lucky in the fact that they were great places to pitch a tent.  But I digress…

Camping with friends is always more fun so we went with our friends, John and Dana Rimington and their three daughters.  For additional fun points, we also brought along Chelsea and her soon to be husband, Nick.  We tried to get my brother, Ryan, to come too but he had to work.  Maybe next time…  It was really nice spending time with everybody.  The kids enjoyed playing with John and Dana’s girls and they loved having Nick and Chelsea along.  I know though that if Ryan had been able to make it, he would have been the star of the weekend.  The kids love playing with him so much.

I Need To Do Better

UNOFFICIAL ANNOUNCEMENT!

For those who have not heard yet, my sister, Chelsea, is engaged.  Since it’s not my wedding, I’ve been spared from having to do too many things.  One thing that I did volunteer for though is making a DVD slideshow of Chelsea and her love interest, Nick.  I get to choose what pictures and music are used.  Can you say “bathtub pictures”?  It’s going to be fun.

On Sunday, I started going through stacks of old pictures deciding which ones I was going to use.  As I was looking through Chelsea’s scrapbook, I found pictures of my graduation, when I went on my mission, our mom at an Amway convention, and my first Christmas with Holly.  It was like taking a trip down memory lane.