Happy Birthday, Holly!

Today is Holly’s *mumble mumble* birthday.  Everyone be sure to call her to wish her a happy day.

Thanksgiving Dinner Preperations

I love Thanksgiving dinner.  A few years ago, I started doing the cooking and now I seem to do it every year.  I don’t especially like spending three days cooking for a meal that lasts maybe thirty minutes tops but I love having leftovers for the week and a half after Thanksgiving Day.

I’ve used a few recipes over the years but for the last three or four, I’ve stuck with the same basic menu because it’s got something for everybody and everything for me.  Our feast consists of the following:

• sausage stuffed mushrooms
• deviled eggs
• French-cut green beans with almonds and fried onions
• ranch mashed potatoes with bacon
• baked sweet potatoes stuffed with marshmallow and pecan strudel
• savory mushroom stuffing
• regular stuffing
• potato crescent rolls
• German chocolate pie
• pecan pie
• pumpkin pie

Hannah vs. The Outbreak Monkey

Over the past month or so, everybody in the family has been battling one form of illness or another.  It all started with everyone suffering from bad stomach cramping.  It then evolved into a mutant virus that might be confused with the stomach flu.

Emma was the first to begin exhibiting flu-like symptoms.  She ended up missing two days of school and, even now, is still not functioning at 100%.  Holly also got hit by this bug causing her to miss three days of work.  I think that she is now finally over it after a week of suffering.  I’ve been experiencing some symptoms including stomach discomfort and a fever but, so far, I’ve managed to avoid too much downtime. Alex has been able to avoid the majority of the contagions very effectively.  Hannah, on the other hand, has not.

11 Years

On Saturday, Holly and I celebrated our eleventh year of marriage by realizing that we’re old.

I wanted to do something nice with her so I made reservations at Ye Lion’s Den, a restaurant in Ogden specializing in deliciousness.  When we usually go out to eat, I try and get something that won’t break the bank; anniversaries are different though.  I like good food and if I go to a place with really good food, I want to enjoy it.  Needless to say, I enjoyed it.

Holly decided that she would be a bit adventurous and order her rib eye steak medium.  (Normally, she likes her meat very well done.)  I think that she mistakenly asked for medium rare though because that cow just needed a few band-aids to get it back out grazing in the fields.  She ended up sending it back and a few minutes later, she received a piece of meat that was no longer mooing and was absolutely amazing.  Fortunately for me, she couldn’t eat it all so I got the leftovers.  The meat wasn’t as good the next day but it was still very tasty.

The Day After

So all of the votes have now been counted and we now have the first African-American president in the history of our country.  While I’m proud of the fact that we’re not a bunch of racist haters like some would have us believe, I’m very concerned over having Barack Obama as Supreme Chancellor… I mean president.

As I was watching various news channels last night, and started coming to the realization that our country thinks that socialism is cool, I started trying to mentally prepare myself for the next four years.  I keep trying to convince myself that the most liberal member of the U.S. Senate won’t be too liberal of a president.  It’s not working. I know too much about history and I have too much knowledge of his policies.

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.

Halloween 2008: The Aftermath

So Halloween this year was pretty good.  We started our festivities early in the week with some pumpkin carving.  We had five huge pumpkins but a lack of time so only three of them ended up getting carved.  Holly decided that it would be fun to do Shrek and I unleashed my inner geek (what’s new?) and did Mario of Super Mario Bros. fame.  Emma decided to do an original creation which turned out pretty good.  Like every other year, there were lots of dads commenting on how cool our pumpkins were as their kids took our candy.

This year will be known in my mind as the year of the recycled costume idea.  Emma decided that she wanted to be a devil, Alex wanted to be a tiger, and Hannah wanted to be a clown.  Whether it is dumb luck or just coincidence, we have each of these costumes in the appropriate sizes in our costume box.  Everybody was happy and we saved money.  You can’t ask for more than that - especially if said costumes yield free candy.

Trick Or Treat!

Holly is out with the kids, roaming the neighborhood, asking strangers for candy.  I’m on door duty.  I’m sick of running up and down the stairs and it’s only 7:00!  I anticipate that I’ll have more content to post in a few hours but, in case I don’t get to it tonight, I wanted to wish everybody a happy Halloween.

Remember, if you decided to play a Halloween prank on somebody and try and scare them so bad that they we themselves, be careful.  You might get punched in the face.

Greed And Corruption: The New American Way

Given the recent headlines, you may think that this is going to be a post on the economic crisis that our country is facing.  Well, you’re wrong.  However, what I say in this post can be related to the problems that our economic and housing sectors are going through because the root problems are the same: greed and corruption.

I actually want to give everyone a follow-up on our recent car situation.  You may remember that our Dodge Colt finally died and that we had to buy a new car.  If you remember those facts, then you probably also remember how the fine folks at Auction Direct in Clearfield made a very valiant effort to screw us over.  At the time, it looked as though our returning the Nissan Maxima was the end of the story but it actually wasn’t.

Having Two Remotes Is Fun

Some of you may remember a few months back when I posted my thoughts on Logitech’s Harmony One universal remote.  I love this remote.  It has got to be one of the best gadgets in my house.  Anyways, I discovered a new use for it: teasing my kids.

Sunday night, Emma and Alex were watching television.  I was standing behind the sofa with my Harmony One while Emma was trying to surf channels using the television’s remote.  She would change the channel and I would mute the television.  She’d then un-mute it and I’d change the channel.  After a few minutes of this Emma became extremely frustrated and actually got up to change the channel.  I muted the TV again.  She was so angry that she shut the television off and told Alex that they couldn’t watch TV because it was broken.  At this point, I couldn’t contain myself any longer and began laughing.  I told Emma that the TV was fine and that I was the one causing the problems.  She responded by hiding my remote when I wasn’t looking.  Lucky for me, I was able to find it relatively easily.