Monday, February 28, 2011

Well I survived another weekend.

Jason went to Uncle Roger’s house and Sam had a birthday party.  I would like to say it was a productive couple of hours but that would be a lie.  I went home, put the dog out, cleaned up the dog toys, threw away whatever Abby was just chewing on, and finished exterminating rival factions in war torn Africa.  The last bit is where the productivity tended to lapse.  Oh well, that is what Sundays are for.  Sam enjoyed the party and was sad to leave.  She missed out on her turn to sing and that is what she loves to do.  She will be a future karaoke queen. 

Jason came home exhausted as per usual.  They were showered, made lunches, and in bed by 8.  A good night’s sleep will do them a world of good.

Christine has been doing what she is extremely capable of, planning and scheduling.  She looked up, set up, and booked our flights and cruise.  Her R&R will be very cool for the whole family.  Now I just need to remember to do all the stuff here that Chris normally does.  She is the Logistics person.  I am the mule.  Now I have to do both and I am sure something will be missed.  I looked up Airport Taxi’s and I believe that will be a better choice for us.  The cost is less than parking and the convenience is unbeatable.  I have a control thing about not having my car there but I may be a bit tired on the return leg.

Since torturing our kids has become somewhat of a sport for me, I will not tell the kids where we are going.  They are only allowed clues; Not in the U.S. and Closer to Mom than Dad (Geographically).  It is fun watching them in front of a world map trying to figure out where they might be going.  We will give them clues as we go and let them know before we leave so they can tell their friends.

Tonight is Jason’s first real Boy Scout meeting.  He gets to meet and I get to write a big fat check.  The nice part is that as we go along I can drop him off and not have to hang around each time.  I will at first just so he is comfortable with the set up and then – FREEDOM!  It shouldn’t be too hard not to get sucked in for a little while.  As we go along I may end up volunteering.  I like the idea of being able to enjoy it with Jason as opposed to being the leader and having to split my time.

I will try and have pictures next time.

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Winter Break

I took Jason and Sam to High Velocity Sports for their winter break drop in.  They loved it and were mad I came to get them.  I had intended to go to work while they tested the facility.  I left my backpack at home so I didn't have my badge or keys.  So I went home and enjoyed a few hours of kid free time.  I cleaned up a little, surfed the web, ate lunch. All in all a good afternoon was had by all.  I believe they will do this during spring break in April as well. 

I am now at the Rec Center pool with Jason waiting for Sam to finish up with Gymnastics.  She is going to go swimming for a bit tonight as well.  When we get home I need to cook quickly so they can get lunches and showers in as well. 

We saw Gnomeo and Juliet yesterday.  Snow days are an awesome time to see movies.  The snow scares folks so they don't go anywhere.  I did, of course, have folks who sat directly in front of us.  A whole theater and they sit right in front of us.  Oh well.  The movie was so-so.  It definitely did not need the theater to bring it to life.  The kids enjoyed the movie and it had a lot of Shakespeare references which was funny for me. 

Ha ha, Jason just asked what was for dinner.  Both kids assured me it would be ok to eat dinner after we got home.  I don't think it is a good idea to have dinner and then do Gymnastics. 

Off to get Sam.  Should be an interesting evening.

Monday, February 21, 2011

Snow Cleared....for now

So I got out the snow blower and whisked away the 9” of snow on my driveway.  I am pretty sure I had 12 – 14” on the sidewalk but I didn’t feel like dragging out the drywall square out to the curb.

Sam and the dog played in the backyard and had quite a bit of fun.  At some point I was blowing off the driveway when Abby got a bit too curious.  She got close, I didn’t see her and she got covered.  On the plus side she stayed back the rest of the time. 

They seemed to be having a lot of fun together.

Sam was in the back yard and fell into the hole Abby dug last summer.  That was comical. 








Weather.com says we have a 70% chance of more snow and the radar picture has a large blue blob heading our way.  I am no tea leaf reader but I am guessing I will be clearing more snow.

Snow

The meterologists did it again.  1 – 3” they said.  What schools do these people go to?  They should all be ashamed to cash their checks.  The willing and equally stupid media for over or under hyping these storms is aslo getting old.  I’ve got just under a foot of snow on my deck and around 8 - 10“ on the driveway.  I was expecting much less after I watched the weather on the news.  Silly me.  In a moment of weakness I believed them.  Usualy I go to the Weather channel online and look at the radar to see the size and movement of the storm.  The dog loves it.  The kids are hoping for more.  I am hoping the city gets out and plows the main roads.  I have things to do today.  Sorry if this sounds angry but I was reading the news and people annoy me. 

The dog didn’t mind the snow.  She has the ability to not sink all the way and loved digging her face in the snow.  She ran all over and jumped and played for awhile in the snow.



Have fun.  I am off to snow blow!

Friday, February 18, 2011

Cub Scouts to Boy Scouts

Sorry about not getting to this quicker.

Tuesday night we had our annual Blue and Gold ceremony for the Cub Scouts.  This is where the older boys “graduate” to Boy Scouts.  Since we only had two kids crossing over it was a small affair.  The event was well run, and my favorite, short.  It was simple, quick and moved well.  We got Zeemo the Yo-yo guy for entertainment.  He was quite funny.  He got the kids involved and they sat and watched with great manners.

The Arrow of light Ceremony went well with some funny moments.  There is an arrow with 7 candles.  As the leader read what each of the rays meant, the kids were supposed to light the candle. 

We used a childproof lighter. 

It worked. 

Both of them had problems lighting candles and it was pretty funny.  The crossover went well.  The Scoutmaster from Jason’s new troop handed him his new neckerchief, slide, and red Boy Scout epaulets.

Jason was also presented with a wooden display case for his Arrow of light award.  He can take this award with him into     Boy Scouts.

Jason’s first Boy Scout meeting is the 28th.  

I get to write more checks.  

Yea!  I think he will have fun though.

Sunday, February 13, 2011

A boy and his dog.

Aww! So cute.


The pup is not allowed on the couch but how can you get on her when she is being so nice?

Time for School!

Oh dear god, Thank goodness it’s (almost) Monday!  TGIM!  I need adults around me and my son needs to go to school.  I love him very much but that is too much energy to keep inside for 5 days.  He is not 100% but close enough.  I just hope that Sam stayed away long enough not to get it.  With them both cooped up they started diving at each other’s throats.  They will sit and play for hours and then Bam!  Someone said something or touched that or looked at them the wrong way and fireworks start flyin’.  Their good kids and I believe the right amount of school and recess will do them a world of good.  After school for the next couple of days is going to be hectic.  Brownies on Monday, Gymnastics and Cub Scouts on Tuesday.  

Whoo Hoo! 

It was so nice today that for awhile I opened the front door and back door to air out the house.  

Fresh Air!  I miss it.

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Sick Days

Jason has some sort of walking crud.  This has kept him home for the past couple of days.  This has of course kept me home as well.  Since my wife is in the garden spot of Afghanistan we can’t even split the days.  Since I am at home stuff at work has just exploded.  I had to talk someone else through my job for an emergency situation.  I miss my emergency situations.  The doctor thinks he has an algery thing going on in his nose.  His ears, throat, and lungs were good but the cough and stuffy nose were not.  I got a shopping list for some meds and I headed off to Target.  I was unaware that Claritin was made of rare earth minerals.  10 little tablets are priced close to a modern fighter jet.  Oh well, anything for the kids.

I could not make it as a stay at home dad.  Not that the housework is all that bad it is the lack of other adults.  I hate SpongeBob and I am not a big fan of soaps so the day is kinda shot.  I ran out of laundry to do and you can only pay bills once.  I did make rival factions vying for control of Post-apocalyptic Africa pay with their lives for awhile.   That was cool.
Every time I come down to the office at night I have a little tag-a-long.  It is my cute little girl.  She jumps on the computer and starts asking me non-stop questions.  I showed her Google and all the wonderful answers it has.  Now I get bombarded with "How do you spell…"

Monday, February 7, 2011

Long Weekend

Jason is third from the right
Last weekend Jason and I went to our last Cub Scout winter camp.  As per usual we had a blast.  They do a great job with the programs.  I took Chris’s Droid along to play with.  I was an app downloading fool.  I had a lot of fun with it and learned quite a bit about re-loading apps that crashed, sorting and searching apps, and along the way figured out how to launch a two liter bottle across a parking lot with water.  Good stuff. 

At what point did meteorology become a science?  An old lady with a crystal ball is about as accurate.  “Flurries” do not equal 6” of snowfall.  “Slight possibility of snow”, does not equal 6” of snowfall.  Snow storm equals 6” of snow.  I think all meteorologists should be fired.  They should just show us a radar picture and we can guess.  I think it would be a hell of a lot more accurate, but I digress.
Mike careening out of control!
Jason making a great run.
GPS Rangers.  Jason is middle-left
The sled run was great with all of the flurries accumulation on the ramp.  Most of the kids jumped right on as well as a couple of us adults.  Big problem as I see it was the climb back to the top.  The kids learned how to use GPS to navigate from point to point, how to build a water rocket, and played capture the flag in a foot of snow.  It was Awesome for tiring out a group of kids.
Water rocket instruction.

When I came home I expected to find my driveway full of snow.  I was prepared to spend an hour or so snow blowing and shoveling.  My neighbor dug me out since he knew I was out of town.  I was impressed and very appreciative as I was still worn out from lack of sleep and lots of cool activities.  That night he invited us over to the annual Super Bowl party.  Lots of fun and I got to hold three different babies.  Love babies, less fun when they can move and demand money for the littlest chore.  It was a good night and a great weekend overall.  I see an early night coming for us.
No fire is too hot for SMORES!

 That is a real forecast, not some made up chicken bones, dart at a map pipe dream from a meteorologist.

Thursday, February 3, 2011

Busy Day

So when did stores stop selling snow boots for girls?  I can find the crappy fashion boots all over but boots that do the job of boots, No Way!  So I finally found a cross between fashion and practical that my daughter would wear.  I also picked up hand warmers since I believe itmay be cold this weekend. 

I left work a few minutes early so I could get my haircut and swing by the bank before the kids got home.  I made it by 5 minutes.  I needed change at the bank for the quarter wash.  This weather has played hell on the poor van.  I stopped there last on the way home.  As I was finishing up I noticed the rinse water was starting to freeze on the van.  Sam told me I should have waited until I got home from camp.  I had to remind her that “You gotta start at zero somewhere.”  I’m sure it will be dirty when I get home but that’s what the quarters are for.

I am still packing.  Had all day yesterday but as per my usual I am packing now. (It is 9 pm)  I am also waiting for stuff in the wash to finish up.  On top of everything else I have an appointment at Jason’s school tomorrow morning so I need to remember to remember the appointment.  I can see me heading to work on autopilot .  

I am sure all will be fine.  It just takes me doing the internal panic first, before the external calm is realized.

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

The Day After.

So late last night I was informed that work would be closed on Wednesday.  Good.  School had been preemptively cancelled so this saved me a day of leave.  When I crawled out of bed I was confronted with about 8 inches of snow and my two kids out in the middle of the driveway.  They were putting snow in the wheelbarrow so they could make snowballs for a snowball fight.  Since I had not yet snow-blowed the driveway they were making my job harder.  Oh well, at least they were getting along.  I went out and snow-blowed the driveway and then went and cleared the neighbors drive.  There are three of us with the same size snow blower and one with a four wheeler that has a plow.  We take care of the folks around us and most of us in a 7 or 8 house area were cleared out in an hour or so.  I came in and Jason was trying to get his soaking wet jeans off.  He has lost his snow pants, so jeans in knee deep snow don’t work so well.  I went in the basement and found our old military uniform box.  I gave him Chris’s old gore-tex pants to wear and although a little big they did the trick.  Off he went with dry clothes and they have been out there all morning.  

Not the largest storm we’ve had but still a pretty good one.

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Figures!

So the “Storm of the Century” has screwed up my evening!  They cancelled Sam’s gymnastics class tonight even though it’s not supposed to start snowing until 8 pm or later!  GRRRRRRRRR!  The makeup day will be during Chris’s R&R so odds are the storm just screwed me out of a gymnastics class.

Oh well.  At least they cancelled trash pickup for Wednesday already.  I won’t be digging out the cans to put them out just to take them back again.

I have to go and horde supplies now. 

Waiting on Weather

It was a sneak attack.  We got hit with close to a half inch of snow last night while we slept.  The horrors, the horrors!  The talking heads on TV predicted 3 to 4 inches followed by tomorrows 12 to 14 inches, making for a “hellish day of work and school closings!”  I am not sure how much school, if any, it takes to be a TV anchor but they all deserve their money back.  Hellish is supposed to be hot, not freezing.  Not to mention we live in Michigan, the “Winter Wonderland”.  I know it is the winter wonderland since it used to be on all the license plates.  Evidently after they took it off the license plates the weather was supposed to become more Florida like.  Well Al Gore be dammed but it is still a northern state and we get snow!  Yes, 12” of snow is a lot.  Or a little if you live in the Upper Peninsula, Alaska, Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, New Hampshire, Colorado, Maine etc.  The kids are dancing around like elves on crack singing “No School for us!” which means I get to stay home and listen to them tell me their bored.  Most likely I will tell them to go outside.  They will tell me what a bad idea that is and Sam will give me reasons it is a bad idea for 30 minutes.  We are preparing for the worst here at work and folks in Oakland County waited for an hour in line to put gas in their cars last night.  “Some drivers in Oakland County had to wait hours just to get gasoline on Monday evening.”  That is a direct quote from WXYZ’s website.  There are folks at Wal-Mart right now emptying out the shelves.  I am guessing it will be inconvenient for about a day, maybe two, but it will be alright.

OK, I am done ranting.  Everything else is going well.  I believe we found Jason a Boy Scout troop he will do well in.  They have structure and yet seemed to have fun within it.  That way Jason knows what to do without thinking they are barking orders at him.  Sam is still having fun with Girl Scouts and will start gymnastics tonight.  That should prove interesting. 

Wish me luck.  I am off to brave the “Storm of the Century!”