Vacation - Days 5 & 6

So we woke up on Tuesday morning and decided to go skiing! We'd talked about it as a possibility earlier in the trip, but decided that yesterday was the day. So, we spent much of the morning gathering the necessary gear from Lee and Gene's houses. We had some lunch, then headed to Snow Valley for night skiing (which actually starts at 3pm). It was a very good time. Both of the kids did well, and were stretched out of their comfort zones. Timmy did the chair lift for the first time. The bunny hill was very long (as bunny hills go). Cyndie helped him a lot and he was very game. He petered out a lot faster than the rest of the crew, so after a bit he spent the rest of the time in the lodge with various adults from the group (Papa Lee, Uncle Gene, Cyndie) rotating through to provide oversight. We'd brought with his busy bag (thanks Auntie Karen!) and he was perfectly happy, what with that and a few video games and some ice cream. Emma was a bit unsure at first. She definitely wanted to do the bunny hill first. But after that, she settled in on chair 13 which was pretty similar to the runs she's used to back home. By the end of the night she was zooming right down the slope. Cyndie and I were able to take a couple of runs down from the top too, which was very nice. All in all, it was a very fun trip!

So today we're packing up Lee's house and all our junk from Christmas. We'll stay the night down in the Mobile home and leave early in the morning to go to Glamis for a couple of days of dune buggying and riding down near the border with Arizona and Mexico!

Vacation - Day 5

Today's big activity was a movie. As has become something of a tradition when we go on vacation, we went to the movies to see the latest kid-flick. We hit a sold out matinee of Alvin and the Chipmunks, the Squeakquel. Though the adults in the group pined for something a bit more meaty, the kids got to pick, and it was the latest Chipmunks fair.

Alvin and the Chipmunks, the Squeakquel (3.2/5)

As may be expected of any movie that has a tagline of "the Squeakquel", this was not Hollywood at the height of its powers. Nevertheless, it was fairly entertaining. The kids enjoyed it, there were a few one liners in there that I'm sure flew right over the kids' heads. Mostly it was singing CGI chipmunks, cliches about high school, a silly "villain", and hijinks typical of kids cartoons.

The overall summary: A good movie for young kids, but not much there for teens and adults.

Movies I've seen recently:
Juno - 4.8/5
Slumdog Millionaire - 4.6/5
Iron Man - 4.2/5
Lars and the Real Girl - 4.1/5
Wall-E - 4.0/5
Traitor - 4.0/5
The Dark Knight - 3.9/5
Star Trek - 3.9/5
TransSiberian - 3.9/5
Wolverine - 3.8/5
Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist - 3.7/5
Definitely, Maybe - 3.7/5
Up - 3.7/5
Kung Fu Panda - 3.5/5
The Passion - 3.5/5
Valkyrie - 3.5/5
Appoloosa - 3.5/5
The Incredible Hulk - 3.4/5
Stealth - 3.4/5
New in Town - 3.2/5
Alvin and the Chipmunks, the Squeakquel - 3.2/5
He's Just Not That Into You - 3.1/5
Horton Hears a Who - 3.0/5
Inglorious Bastards - 2.9/5
Push - 2.8/5
Jonah, a VeggieTales Movie - 2.4/5
Meet Bill - 2.1/5
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - 1.9/5
Burn After Reading - 1.5/5

Vacation - Days 3 & 4

Deep thought for the day ... what's up with Christmas presents anyway?

Our kids got all kinds of fun toys (which, admittedly, they have spent quite a bit of time playing with). However, as I'm sitting here watching football and browsing the web, Emma and Tim are playing with 20 year old cars and trucks that Papa Lee has had for as long as I remember. They are perfectly happy, and are playing together great!

We had a fun trip to church this morning. Saw some long time family friends in Sunday School (Underwoods, Sam McCreery). It's quite nice outside, so we made another trip down to 7-11 for slushies and coffee. Timmy drove his remote control truck all away around the neighborhood during our subsequent walk.

Tonight we'll likely see Gene and Brandon again for dinner (along with Papa Lee and Grandma Kim). Good stuff!

Vacation - Days 1 & 2

We are officially on vacation ...

We hit the road at 5:30 on Christmas Eve morning with a couple of inches of snow on the ground and a bunch of sleet and freezing rain on top of that. We were not horribly optimistic that our flight would leave on time. However, the closer that we got to the airport (and Lake Michigan), the better the roads/weather were. By the time we were there, there was no weather problem at all.

The flights were largely uneventful. Many thanks to Auntie Karen whose goodie backpack gifts to the kids were very helpful (and continue to be exciting for them, even after all the "other" presents). Papa Lee picked us up at the airport in his big motorhome and we traveled in style through the LA traffic to Grandma Johnson's house for Christmas Eve dinner.

Yesterday was a morning of snacky eating, presents, and hanging out at Uncle Gene's house (and some time with cousin Brandon, who Emma and Timmy have been dying to see for a couple of months). We also hung out with Gene and Jon and Sarah for a while which was fun. Then we spent the afternoon up at Papa's and did a few more presents there and had a big meal with Papa and Grandma Kim and her kids.

Everyone has adjusted pretty quickly to the new time zone, though having the kids in the same room essentially means that they will never sleep in since one will wake up, and then wake the other up. Now that the crazyness of Christmas is over, we can settle down and relax and enjoy seeing the cousins/uncles/grand parents!

Vacation - Day 0

Yeah, I'll call it day 0 of vacation since we don't fly out (fingers crossed)* until tomorrow morning. It was a pretty relaxing day. The kids started off with a sledding play dates with some of the neighborhood kids. Cyndie and I used that time to do some packing and wrapping of presents. Since we are getting to Lee's house in late afternoon on Christmas eve, we decided to try to wrap all the presents before we leave. We're done, but found out after doing so that you're not supposed to wrap presents for checked baggage. Oh well! If they have to open packages so be it. I stuck a sticky note on each package in the hope that that would help TSA determine if something needed opening or not.

*The flight is scheduled for 8:45. The airplane we fly on arrives from Baltimore at 8:15. The snow has started. We're praying we make it out okay. The flight is through Las Vegas, so as long as we get out of Milwaukee, we won't have any issues.

Emma and I took a run to Wal-Mart midday to get a few last minute items for the trip, and a couple of gifts. She's very generous with her money, especially when it comes to buying things for others. So much so that we have to encourage her to save it!

Now, the bags are packed for the most part. The house is mostly clean, we're basically ready to go. Cyndie and the kids will drop the dog of at the dog-sitter, and then it'll be dinner and early to bed for the flight tomorrow.

A few random pix

A few random pix for a wintery day (still snowing as of 2pm).

Here's Pepper's new look ... as you can see, we now have proof he has actual eyes and ears!
Timmy in his Christmas hat from the Dollar Tree.

Not sure when this is from, but it's the two oldest cousins playing computer games!

Cyndie got this one of Geneva Lake "turning over". It's deep enough that during the winter, the

Last Day

Yes, it's our last day of school and work before vacation starts! Cyndie is working at getting our house ready so we don't come home to a mess, and also trying to get all the laundry done so that we have some clean clothes to pack tomorrow!

Some nuggets:

• Pepper got his first hair cut yesterday. It was the first time Cyndie had ever been to a groomer, so I think there was a little miscommunication. He looks cute/hilarious. Cyndie asked the groomer to do his head and feet and clean up the rest of his body. So Pepper has a "normal" hair cut for a Miniature Schnauzer on his head and feet, but the groomer left his body long. So it kind of looks like someone put a much smaller dog's head on Pepper's body! Or maybe that some wild, head shrinking natives got a hold of him and shrunk his head! One thing is for sure. We now know that Pepper has eyes!
  
• Last night we had dinner with my folks and then decorated gingerbread cookies. Yummy!
  
• It's snowing again. We've got at least a couple of inches of nice, fluffy snow already.
• There's supposed to be a pretty big storm on Thursday (the day we fly), but it looks like it will be later in the day, so hopefully we won't run into any problems.
  

Nearly there

Christmas vacation is nearly upon us, and in some ways feels like it's already here. Both of my local sisters have already left the area on their vacations, so that only adds to the feeling.

Some thoughts on the weekend that was:

• We got 95% of the Christmas letters out the door last week ... amazing. We are so utterly poor at this that I think in the last 15 years, we've only sent out letters 2 or 3 times. Usually we stall during the writing portion of the letter. If we make it that far, then it's labeling the envelops. If we get there, then it's getting them in the mailbox with stamps!
• Enjoyed the kids' Christmas concert on Thursday. It never ceases to amaze me how the teachers can manage 15 - 20 tired kids sitting in a hot gym for 1 1/2 hours watching the other classes perform. Kudos to them! We could see Emma where she was sitting watching the performances. By about 7:30 (it ran from 6:30 to around 7:50), she was slouching down, yawning, wiped!
  
• Busy day Saturday ... Daisy and Sally were over for a couple of hours in the morning, then we ran errands as a family, got quiet time in, then Cyndie and the kids ran to a swim party at a local hotel all before coming back home for Coffee Shop (our small group from church) and the White Elephant give exchange. Man, were the kids tired after that. They slept SOUNDLY.
• Laura and Gow stayed overnight after Coffee Shop and we hit the jacuzzi and then watched two more episodes of 24. We're trying to finish up last season before the new season starts!
• Sunday morning we went to a birthday party for a little friend of Tim's. It was really brunch/playtime/party/Advent celebration all rolled into one. Lukas and Mathias are the two brothers and they play really well with Timmy. Mathias is about 5 months younger than Tim, and Lukas just turned 3. We've also gotten to be pretty good friends with their parents (Nils and Erika). The bummer thing (for the DeVries crew) is that they are missionaries to Mexico who are just in town (staying with Nils' parents) until the new year. So Timmy will lose a couple of fun playmates ... at least until they come back to town again!
• Sunday after church we had a fun dessert auction/variety show to raise money for the youth group to go to winter camp. It was a lot of fun, and we came home with an excellent strawberry rhubarb pie!

Now we're headed toward vacation. Cyndie and I wrapped presents last night, contributing even more to the Christmas spirit. The kids' last day of school, and my last day of work, is tomorrow. Then we'll have Wednesday to relax/pack, and we head to the airport around 6am on Thursday. Hopefully we'll beat the snow storm that is predicted!

Heading toward vacation

As this week started, it felt like it was going to be tough to make it through a week and a couple of days of work to get to vacation. I was in a Christmas mindset what with the excursion down to Chicago last weekend and all.

Well, I was shocked back to reality on that front with a big project for work. It's essentially a project that would normally take a couple of weeks, but, because of vacation schedules and the client's schedules, we need to get it down by Friday noon. So much for a mental dreamland of Christmas bliss ... reality strikes. So far, it actually hasn't been too bad. The work is progressing well, and I'm thinking there's a decent chance that I might even finish early. However, that could all change when the client get's their hands on the functionality and starts complaining, err testing. We'll see. For now, I'm optimistic.

Tonight is the kids' Christmas concert. My folks will join us for dinner, and then it's off to Woods School to enjoy the singing/band/etc. It will be nice this year in that Timmy won't have to sit with us (or should I say squirm and fidget with us). Since he'll be doing his thing with his class, he'll be in his room some of the time. It should be fun!

The Chicago Lights

We had a great time this past weekend down in Chicago. Leslie, the great lady who has been leading worship at our church for the last couple of years, lives down in the city and invited the regulars from the worship team (and our families) down to see the lights and do some Chicago stuff. It was a blast.

We headed down Saturday morning with Gow and Laura and their kids. We fit perfectly into the Suburban (8 people, 8 seatbelts), so we were able to take only one vehicle. Leslie fed us a light lunch and then Andrew, the other worship regular, and his girlfriend and her kids showed up. We headed downtown for an afternoon of wandering and looking at the lights. We walked through Millennium Park, watched ice skaters a bit, did the bean thing (our kids LOVE that thing every time they see it). Then we headed over to Macy's to take a look at the famous Macy's Christmas windows. After that we headed over to an outdoor German market that was PACKED. I cannot remember ever being with that many people in such a small place. Then it was off to Lincoln Park Zoo to see their lights, some animals, and ride the carousel. After that, everyone, especially the kids, were pretty much pooped, so we headed home.

Leslie's kids had prepared the kids' meal for us, so the kids were able to sit down right away and eat. Man, Leslie and Don (her husband) were good to us. The kids ate, played a little, and then we put them to bed. During this process, the adults were treated to a variety of yummy appetizers. Cyndie and I were joking that between the shrimp appetizer, and this excellent cranberry/cream cheese/bacon/garlic appetizer (on crackers), we would have been happy just with that. But after the kids were down, all the adults sat down to a quiet (so fun) meal together. We ended up eating/talking for three hours. It was really great to just hang out with other adults with no time pressures or kids coming to interrupt. All of the couples have small kids in one way or another (Laura and Gow with their little ones, and Marika, Andrew's girlfriend is a single mom with a 9 and 3 year old, so she especially, but Andrew too, were grateful for a nice, quiet meal), so we reveled in nice meal. Eventually, we were all pooped too, so hit the hay.

In the morning, we just relaxed, had a nice breakfast, and hung out a bit. I think we ended up leaving around 11:30 or so. Early enough to get home and have some down time before church. All in all, it was an outstanding weekend. We were so blessed by Leslie and Don's hospitality!

Santa came early!

Well, we found some pretty good stuff at this afternoon on our little jaunt to Beloit. After a little mishap where the seller forgot we were coming*, we saw the stuff**, wrangled a little, and were off.

*It was actually kind of nice that he forgot as it gave us 20 minutes to go to the local Culver's and share a burger, fries, and cup of Joe.

**We saw the stuff in his garage. With the double door open. While the temperature was around 10 degrees. It was kind of hard to picture myself actually using the stuff when it was that cold.***

***On our way down we saw the first ice fishing hut of the year ... crazyness, the lake wasn't even nearly all the way frozen. I guess some people ... not me ... just HAVE to fish.

I found interesting the combination of activities that we undertook this afternoon on our mini-date. Prior to going down to Beliot, we stopped off at Kohls to find a good winter jacket, snow boots, and a winter hat for me. Nice, right?

Here's some pix:

Emma trying out the pair of skis we bought.

Tim on the wakeboard.

Some of the "other" stuff (buoys, adult life jackets)

Here's a group picture.

The big ticket items were a slalom ski, a pair of skis, and a wakeboard. We also got 6 orange life jackets, a fitted infant life jacket, a fitted adult life jacket, a ski rope, and some buoys. All in all, 90% of what we need to get started!!

Weekend ... we're ready.

The weekend is only a day away ... though I'm taking off a little early, so let's call it 6 hours. Excitement!

There are a couple things I'm looking forward to:

• At around 3:15 Cyndie and I are headed to Beloit to look at some gear for the boat. Laura and my mom found this guy via Craigslist who is getting rid of some extra stuff he has. We're hoping we can pick up almost everything we need at FAR less than retail price!
• Tomorrow morning we're headed down to our friend Leslie's house in Chicago. Leslie has been the worship leader at our church for the last year and a half or so. This is a little worship team excursion, so we'll head down there with the kids and Laura and Gow and their kids for a fun middle of the weekend excursion. The other regular guy, Andrew, and his girlfriend and her kids will join us and we'll look at all the fancy windows (Macys, etc) decorated for Christmas and see downtown Chicago all fancied up. I think we're also planning on hitting the Lincoln Park Zoo, also decorated and lit for Christmas. After the cold of this week, the weekend is looking good ... the high is supposed to be 37 in Chicago on Saturday ... downright balmy! We'll head back to Leslie's for a big dinner and some hangout time. We'll stay overnight, and then come back home Sunday mid morning.

Fun stuff!

On other fronts, we're actually trying to get out a Christmas letter this year. I think it has literally been ten years since we did this, and we've probably only sent out one or two Christmas letters ever. Go us!

It's only 14 days until Christmas ... the kids are excited, and so are we! We fly to CA on the 24th, and will stay until the 8th.

And the car said ...

No, that's not the ending of a joke, the punchline to end all punchlines. Here's what my car told me this morning on the way in to the office:

Yes, as in minus one degree. Fahrenheit. It is a cold one!

Hit the Library for some videos

We seem to be watching more movies that normal lately. This was an older one, Stealth, that we got at the library.

Stealth (3.4/5)

So this was one of those movies, a rarity, were I actually enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would. I'm sure it was largely because I went into it expecting it to be horrible, and it was a bit better than horrible. Yes, there was bad dialog. Yes, the concept was a bit far-fetched. Yes, Jessica Biel "acting" as if she is a warrior was painfully bad, especially when she was injured and down behind enemy lines. But all in all, it was fun, mindless schlock. A good way to pass a couple of hours whilst picking burrs out of one's dog's fur. One fascinating element to watch was Jamie Foxx. He really played a secondary character in the movie, but it's amazing how mediocre he looks in a mediocre movie like this, but he can really up his game in other movies like Ray.

The overall summary: Lots of fluff and bad acting with bad dialog, but surprisingly fun to watch.

Movies I've seen recently:
Juno - 4.8/5
Slumdog Millionaire - 4.6/5
Iron Man - 4.2/5
Lars and the Real Girl - 4.1/5
Wall-E - 4.0/5
Traitor - 4.0/5
The Dark Knight - 3.9/5
Star Trek - 3.9/5
TransSiberian - 3.9/5
Wolverine - 3.8/5
Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist - 3.7/5
Definitely, Maybe - 3.7/5
Up - 3.7/5
Kung Fu Panda - 3.5/5
The Passion - 3.5/5
Valkyrie - 3.5/5
Appoloosa - 3.5/5
The Incredible Hulk - 3.4/5
Stealth - 3.4/5
New in Town - 3.2/5
He's Just Not That Into You - 3.1/5
Horton Hears a Who - 3.0/5
Inglorious Bastards - 2.9/5
Push - 2.8/5
Meet Bill - 2.1/5
Jonah, a VeggieTales Movie - 2.4/5
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - 1.9/5
Burn After Reading - 1.5/5

Winter Report, part 1

Let's just classify this blog entry as winter report, part 1, because winter is definitely here. A week or two ago, I was outside working in the yard in shorts and a t-shirt*, but today, everything is covered in 12 or so inches of snow! Here's one quick winter equation for your viewing pleasure:

12" of wet snow + snow blower = much shoveling by hand

*Yes, I do wear shorts in abnormally cold weather, but it was in the 50s as recently as a couple of weeks ago.

It snowed a lot last night. But since the temps were only in the 20s or so, the snow is really damp and heavy. It's very pretty though! The kids' school was canceled today. But a friend of ours from the neighborhood is having a sledding party for a bunch of the neighborhood kids at noon, so the kids are looking forward to that. We were all out in the snow this morning ... me to blow the driveway and shovel, the kids to play, and Cyndie to rake* off the boat.

*Yes, I said rake. She discovered that a big leaf rake works the best to grab the snow way up on top of the boat.

After I finished, we worked on the fort that the kids started. They started yesterday and progressed a lot this morning!

Another discovery ... there are still burrs out there. The kids and Pepper were out for about an hour and a half after school yesterday (the snow was already deep enough to play and sled in), and Pepper came in with a TON of burrs. I think there were a bunch out on the hill where the kids were sledding. Anyway, Cyndie and I worked on removing them for about an hour and a half yesterday. We still didn't get them all out! This morning when we were all out, Pep was not too excited about the deep snow, so he stuck inside for the most part.

Let it snow!

Well, if we were going to be here for Christmas, the chances are we'd have a while one. The snow is coming down pretty good right now, and has been since around 6:30 or so. It's pretty fine, however, so hasn't amounted to much. We're supposed to get around a foot of snow over the next 24 hours. That was enough to motivate me to check the snow blower for gas, and to make sure it would start (yes and yes). I also spent a half hour or so making sure there is room in the garage for the Subaru.

So now we're ready ... let it snow!

Latest Flick

This one was another $2 movies, and Gow and I watched this one over the weekend ...

Appaloosa (3.5/5)

I was thinking that this one had a lot of potential. A gritty western with Ed Harris (a "real" actor) and Viggo Mortenson. What a disappointment. It was very slow, which I can deal with if there's a payoff, but there wasn't. They developed these characters of two crusty gunfighters who will go into a town and clean it up for a price, but then didn't keep the characters true to themselves. Instead they introduced this awkward love triangle/square which was lame and which just confused the "lawman cleans up rough western town" part of the movie. I think the movie would have been much more successful as a "straight" western instead of trying to be more than it was. In the end, it was okay, but certainly not memorable.

The overall summary: Slow, overly clever. Should have stuck with being a western.

Movies I've seen recently:
Juno - 4.8/5
Slumdog Millionaire - 4.6/5
Iron Man - 4.2/5
Lars and the Real Girl - 4.1/5
Wall-E - 4.0/5
Traitor - 4.0/5
The Dark Knight - 3.9/5
Star Trek - 3.9/5
TransSiberian - 3.9/5
Wolverine - 3.8/5
Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist - 3.7/5
Definitely, Maybe - 3.7/5
Up - 3.7/5
Kung Fu Panda - 3.5/5
The Passion - 3.5/5
Valkyrie - 3.5/5
Appoloosa - 3.5/5
The Incredible Hulk - 3.4/5
New in Town - 3.2/5
He's Just Not That Into You - 3.1/5
Horton Hears a Who - 3.0/5
Inglorious Bastards - 2.9/5
Push - 2.8/5
Meet Bill - 2.1/5
Jonah, a VeggieTales Movie - 2.4/5
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - 1.9/5
Burn After Reading - 1.5/5

Weekend Happenings

It was a fairly busy weekend for the Wildwood DeVries. So, as has become somewhat the norm, you get a summary in bullet points:

• Hit the Driehaus estate for the Woods fundraiser on Friday night. That was fun. It was interesting to see the inside of this huge old mansion. I told Cyndie it didn't impress me as much as I thought it might. I think largely because, while it was decorated for Christmas, much of the furniture and rugs had been moved to make room for people and tables. So we didn't really get a full sense of what it would look like "normally". There are some pix at the end of the post.
• Saturday we slept in! Yeah, the kids are getting great at managing themselves for an hour or so to let us snooze a bit. This day they surprised us with gifts of homemade kleenix boxes that they had made!
• Ran some errands.
• Got the house cleaned up.
• In the evening we had Coffee Shop (our small group from church) over. We went to the LG Electric Light Parade (very cold) in which Emma walked with her girl scout troop. Then we all came back to our place for heavy munchies and hot beverages.
• The church youth came over after that to watch a movie in the basement.
• Sunday we celebrated my mom's birthday by having a meal with all the LG relatives.
• Then had a fairly quiet rest of the day including church.

Here's some pictures of the Driehaus event ...

He's Just Not That Into You

Amy and I went to Walmart at 6am on Black Friday to grab a few things. I picked up some $2 movies, and Cyndie and I watched one last night while she cut my hair ...

He's Just Not That Into You (3.1/5)

This was a strange one. I'm still not exactly sure what to think about it. At the surface level, it appeared to be, and was (I think), a romantic comedy. Looking a little longer, it was really about relationships amongst 20 and 30 somethings, both married and not. It was fairly realistic in that it showed people getting together and breaking up, as well as couples experiencing both highs and lows. I guess the thing about it was was it was too realistic. It was reality, without the absurdity of reality TV shows. There was nothing really that interesting about it.

The overall summary: Real life. That's it. You could get the same thing by talking to your friends.

Movies I've seen recently:
Juno - 4.8/5
Slumdog Millionaire - 4.6/5
Iron Man - 4.2/5
Lars and the Real Girl - 4.1/5
Wall-E - 4.0/5
Traitor - 4.0/5
The Dark Knight - 3.9/5
Star Trek - 3.9/5
TransSiberian - 3.9/5
Wolverine - 3.8/5
Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist - 3.7/5
Definitely, Maybe - 3.7/5
Up - 3.7/5
Kung Fu Panda - 3.5/5
The Passion - 3.5/5
Valkyrie - 3.5/5
The Incredible Hulk - 3.4/5
New in Town - 3.2/5
He's Just Not That Into You - 3.1/5
Horton Hears a Who - 3.0/5
Inglorious Bastards - 2.9/5
Push - 2.8/5
Meet Bill - 2.1/5
Jonah, a VeggieTales Movie - 2.4/5
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - 1.9/5
Burn After Reading - 1.5/5

A night* out on the town!

*Immediate aside here ... it's really not a night out, more of an early evening ... 5:30 - 8:30.

So Cyndie and I have a big event tonight. We're off the rub shoulders with Mr. Richard Driehaus, he of the $30 or $40 million dollar estate. Woods School (Em and Tim's school) is having a fundraiser at the Driehaus estate tonight, and we decided to pony up the cash to go. No, I doubt Mr. Driehaus will even be there, but, you know, it's fun to pretend we're part of the elite occasionally. This guy is really good for the community. He will allow almost any community, non-profit organization to use his estate for a fund raiser. He pays for his staff to run it, pays for the food and drink. All dollars raised go directly to the organization. It's very cool.

So that's the big excitement today. Cyndie and I were planning our wardrobes last night (cocktail attire), and realized that we need to hit the stores today ... shoes for Cyndie and a dress shirt for me. We'll head out immediately after Timmy goes to school to find the right attire. I'm glad we didn't wait until 4:30 tonight to do that!

We got a nice dusting of snow yesterday afternoon and evening. It made for fun play for Tim this morning. Pepper isn't sure what to think about it. I'm just happy that it's not enough to have to plow the driveway!

Celebrating Boaterhood

Yes, the long* and winding path of Wildwood DeVries boat ownership is finally, and officially** over! Celebrate with us!

*Well, maybe it wasn't really that long, just a month plus of looking, then 3 or 4 weeks of dealing with title stuff.

**According to the state of Wisconsin.

This morning on the way into work I stopped at the Waukesha DNR office and finally got the boat registered. I had gone in once about 3 weeks ago, but couldn't complete the process due to some missing paperwork. Since the boat was a repossession, the state still showed it as owned (and registered) to the previous owner. So we needed a notorized affidavit of repossession to prove that it was bank owned. That took a week or so to get, then because of Thanksgiving and sickness, I wasn't up that direction for a few weeks. But here we are, all official and such!

In other boat news, we also got a replacement stereo faceplate, so come next spring we will be ready for some tunage out on the water!

Arranging

We're trying to get on top of the house. No, not on the roof (though we need to do that too ... to make sure the gutters are clear). We're trying to straighten up. We easily fall into the "piles in every corner" mode when we're working on a room of the house, and since we have several rooms in one form or another of construction, it's even worse I think. Our piles may have piles. We had family over last weekend, so that helped move us in the right direction. Tonight Cyndie and I worked on straightening and re-arranging the basement a bit ... we cleared a bunch of stuff out, and moved things around. It was a satisfying little adventure! I'm happy to report that the house is looking pretty good, and we're actually making some progress on the construction projects too.

In other news, almost all of Emma's girl scout cookies have been handed out, and bills collected. Timmy, Cyndie, and I pulled some bushes this morning in the front yard which will open things up a bit. Tim was a big help and enjoyed being a part of some heavy machinery work (we were using the Suburban to pull the bushes up by the roots). We had a contractor come by to look at the place we're thinking about a garage. And we went over to Gowan's for dinner and then to help Laura, Sally, and Daisy do some stuff around the house (Gow had a lot of work, and so was not there). Good times, and a full day!

Up and (fortunately) Away

Watched this one on Thanksgiving night in the Caspari theater ...

Up (3.7/5)

I know I'm going to catch flak from some of my family because I'm giving this the same rating as Nick and Nora's Ultimate Playlist, but that's life! Overall, I was very disappointed in the movie. A large part of that is because it was a Pixar flick, and as a result, I expected greatness. In that regard, I'd have to (sadly) say that this was the worst Pixar movie that they have made. However, following on that theme, it was also a decent movie. It was no Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull!.

Don't read this next paragraph if you don't want to be exposed to a few spoilers ...

I thought the movie started extremely strongly. It started by hinting of some very mature themes (death of a child, death of a spouse, old age). However, from there it dipped to a grumpy main character, a supporting cast of an annoying child, a talking labrador, and a bird that completely lost me. The whole middle of the movie was the boy and the old man dragging this floating house around by a garden hose while trying to help this bizare bird. On top of that, the villian was no good, and his henchment were totally cliche.

I think I'm being a bit harsher than the movie actually deserves. And as the rating I gave it shows, it's not actually a poor film. However, it was certainly a come down from the standard that Pixar has established.

The overall summary: A average to good cartoon, poor by Pixar standards, but good for anyone else.

Movies I've seen recently:
Juno - 4.8/5
Slumdog Millionaire - 4.6/5
Iron Man - 4.2/5
Lars and the Real Girl - 4.1/5
Wall-E - 4.0/5
Traitor - 4.0/5
The Dark Knight - 3.9/5
Star Trek - 3.9/5
TransSiberian - 3.9/5
Wolverine - 3.8/5
Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist - 3.7/5
Definitely, Maybe - 3.7/5
Up - 3.7/5
Kung Fu Panda - 3.5/5
The Passion - 3.5/5
Valkyrie - 3.5/5
The Incredible Hulk - 3.4/5
New in Town - 3.2/5
Horton Hears a Who - 3.0/5
Inglorious Bastards - 2.9/5
Push - 2.8/5
Meet Bill - 2.1/5
Jonah, a VeggieTales Movie - 2.4/5
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - 1.9/5
Burn After Reading - 1.5/5

The (long) weekend that was ...

Had a "different" weekend for our extended Thanksgiving time. Different in many ways. My sister Jane was in town, so it was nice to have all of my direct sibs/family around. Different because almost everyone was sick in one fashion or another for at least a bit. Different because my brother-in-law Gow's brother (Caleb) was around for the weekend, but also sick almost the entire time. Strange things.

We did the big meal down at Dave and Amy's. Everyone brought one of their favorites and it was a great meal. By that time, Timmy was not feeling well, so that was the start of things. Cyndie ended up spending a lot of that time up with him in Sarah's bedroom. We ended up staying the night there (we weren't sure we were going to at first because of Tim), but since Laura and Gow and the fam left (they had been planning on staying, but Caleb was pretty darn sick), there was extra space to allow the sickies to stay away from the well ones.

Friday, everyone was feeling quite a bit better, so we did somethings around the house like putting up some Christmas stuff, moving the boat to it's final resting spot, at least for the winter), etc. Saturday was another extended family day with sourdoughs at my folks, then a big meal at our house for dinner. Then Sunday was brunch and Gowans followed by making snip candy, a DeVries family Christmas tradition, at our friends the Holtes and watching the Vikes crush the Bears. We only watched the first half, but given they were up 24-7 at halftime, and the Bears only had 2 yards of offense in the second half, I think we got the gist.

I think everyone in our family is now back to at least 90% functional. The kids are fine, and Cyndie is pretty much there. I was dragging still last night, but feel pretty much better today. So hopefully we're fully charged for the Christmas charge that I'm sure we'll be hit with before we head to CA for a Christmas vacation!

The long weekend has started!

It's Wednesday. I'm sitting here in bed browsing around on the web for a few minutes before bedtime. Cyndie and I just returned in from the fully functioning jacuzzi! It was nice out there ... nice and wet! The first snow of the year is descending upon us. Emma and I went out for a date tonight around 6 (went to Caribou Coffee ... Emma got a hot chocolate with whip cream and Andes Candies sprinkled on top and we played card games and did a puzzle ... it was a really fun date) and it was raining. On the way back home around 7 it was starting to turn to snow. By the time the kids were going to bed around 7:30 it was BIG, white flakes. I don't think it will last through the day tomorrow, it's really wet snow, but it's nice. Poor Pepper didn't know what to think about it. He just went out on the deck and kind of stood there until I went out with him and brought him out to the yard.

Tomorrow we're off to my sister Amy's for the big meal. We'll stay overnight and then come back Friday morning to work on Christmas decorations and such!

Short week Monday morning

Yeah baby! Here at Wildwood DeVries blog headquarters, we are celebrating a short work week which means ... a long weekend! I'm in the office today, then two days at home for work, then a four day weekend filled with family and relaxation. I'm looking forward to it!

Last weekend went quickly for us. After the cousins left on Saturday, we had Coffee Shop (our church small group) at our place. That was a good time of connection and building relationships. Sunday we got a few projects done around the house in the morning, then Gowans came over and Cyndie took some family pictures of them (with help from her number one assistant, Ms. Emma DeVries). We all enjoyed a light lunch together before quiet time. Then there was church and the weekend was effectively over!

We're hoping that we have the jacuzzi leak fixed. I found what I think caused the problem on Friday, got the replacement pipe/patch stuff on Saturday, fixed part 1 on Sunday, and the second part this morning before work. Now it has to cure for a day, then we'll try it! The leak was right at a pressure/stress point in some flexible tubing, so I think over the years it just got stressed more and more until the point that it just broke. That also made it difficult to patch. I guess we'll see! We're hoping to test it tomorrow, and then fill it so that when the family crew is around over the weekend, we'll have the jacuzzi as a useful thing!

Random Pix

Here's some pictures from recently ...

This weekend (Friday/Saturday) the Caspari cousins stayed over. We had a bonfire and cooked hotdogs and made S'mores!
We also played at the Williams Bay park ... I thought this was a really cute picture of Kristi

On Thursday was Fancy Day for the Woods School Spirit Week ... so here are our fancy kids striking a pose.

Last week the kids had a couple of half days of school, so one day Cyndie took them for a picnic at the nearby nature preserve.

Here's Tim and I reading a book while we wait for his bus to arrive.

Boating Pictures

Here's some pictures from that last (first, and only as well!) outing on the boat last Sunday!

The kids spent a lot of the time in the cockpit on the floor because it was a lot warmer there (hidden down behind the windshield and the little gate thing that blocks the wind)

We picked up my folks and Gowans at the Lake Geneva Pier.
Daisy looked like the kids from "A Christmas Story".

It was plenty cold ... hot drinks were a must!

Friday in southern Wisconsin

Friday is here ... yea! Recent and coming things in bullet form:

• We went to the Pilgrim meal for lunch at Woods School yesterday ... my dad and I went with Timmy and his class, and Cyndie and my mom went with Emma. Good stuff.
• We're working to get the boat all ready in all ways ... some things that we're still working on: boat registration (we needed an affidavit of repossession from the bank we bought the boat from ... that's now in the mail), trailer registration, winterization of the engine/outdrive (done now), prep the interior for winter (we'll likely take the cushions out, and put some mothballs in the boat to help keep mice away), plus all the prep for next summer (lines, buoys, toys, etc).
• We're ready for a "cousin weekend". The cousins from Crystal Lake are coming up to spend the night tonight ... should be fun!
• Helped a bit with setting up for the art show for our art class that will be this weekend. We continue to have a really fun time with that!
  

Midweek is coming

Last night I went to the Bucks game up in Milwaukee with Laura, Gow, and Dave. Gow got four free tickets and $50 worth of free food from his work, yeah baby! We have a great time. It was fun to go downtown and realize that Milwaukee is a "real" city. The riverwalk area looks pretty cool. We'll have to explore that some more sometime.

The game was good. They played the Mavs. The Mavs went up by quite a bit early, and then in the late third quarter, the Bucks came back and they actually went ahead with a couple of minutes left. The game went to overtime, where they lost ... boo. It was fun action ... I haven't been to a basketball game of any kind for a LONG time!

Today Cyndie took the boat in to be winterized. Thus brings the end of our fun for a while! I guess we'll have to content ourselves with dreaming and planning!

To fill the rest of today's blog, I pose this question ... separated at birth?

Team Mullet
Minnesota Vikings Defensive End Jared Allen	Sally Gowan	Gow

First day on the water!

So we got up, had some breakfast, and then got right to the boat. I spent the morning going over the boat with water, a rag, and a towel. There was lots of dust from sitting in the marina on a trailer. Timmy was a huge help cleaning the swim deck which was really dirty. He was really diligent and helpful and did a really good job with the scrub brush. Cyndie helped when she could, but was busy baking for and event in the afternoon at church. Emma was drying where I washed, but she got cold kind of fast. We headed to the lake around 10. It was around 40/45 degrees ... if only it were yesterday when it was up in the 60s!

We have literally never done the launch before, even really as observers. It was nice to have a cool November in WI to do the first one. We had the kids in the truck with a movie playing, so we had plenty of time and space to take our time launching. It went fairly smoothly, and then we were on the lake.*

*In the interest of full disclosure, I do have to mention the problem where I went floating out into the middle of Williams Bay with no power. I misunderstood how to use the throttle ... there's a button at the base of the throttle arm, and I understood that you had to push that in to shift into gear. Not so much, you just push the button in on the top of the arm (with your thumb) and then go forward or back to get into forward and reverse. So I'm floating away (Cyndie said that Emma joked about "can we pick daddy up on the other side of the lake!) and then Cyndie gets some fishermen to rescue me, and one of them showed me what was up. Then we were golden!

It was great! The boat ran really well. Really smooth. Nice when cruising along the shore looking at the mansions (Lake Geneva, WI, the Newport of the west ... man, tons of huge houses to gaze at). Nice and stable and much warmer than at higher speeds! I'm already glad we got the wrap around windshield, because when we went up to full speed the 45 - 50 degree temps went south quickly with the wind. Cyndie and kids shut the wind door, and closed up the windshield, and it was pretty still in the cockpit.

We motored down to Lake Geneva to pick up my folks, Laura, Gow, and their kids*. Then we cruised around a bit, and went fast a bit, and hung out in the mid 40s degrees, laughing at ourselves. Sally really liked to go fast, but then kind of got bored/tired/cold so we ended that part of the trip, and dropped the crew, and our kids, back at Lake Geneva (my folks drove the kids back to Williams Bay for us).

*I should mention here that the boat came with no flotation equipment, so we borrowed some from Jack, the guy that Cyndie sails with.

Trailering the boat went as well as could be expected, with a few helpful hints from other folks pulling their boats out, and then it was back home ... a fun, cold, exhilarating day.

Cyndie and I were just talking ... it was a perfect first day on the lake in November in that we had a great time, but we were easily cold enough to not be eager for much more time out there until spring!

Now to winterize the boat and get it put away for the winter ...

An Addition to Our Family

Got up this morning pretty early for a Saturday. Grandpa D was over by 7 to hang with the kids while they woke up ... Cyndie and I had an appointment to attend to. While the kids were having a great time with cousins and grandparents, Cyndie and I drove down to just south of Chicago and spent the morning with two very nice gentlemen whom we had just met. And that's where the story get's fun. But for old times sake (a week + ago is old times, right?) ...

There is an addition to the Wildwood DeVries family to announce.








We had been waiting to share this until we were certain.








We're excited, but a little nervous too since we haven't really experienced this ever.








The kids were soooo excited when they got the news ...









Announcing a new addition to our family ...









There it is, and it's real this time ... though there's a bit of a story for that, we'll get to it in a bit. For now suffice it to say that we have a new girl in the family, a 22' (24' with the swim deck ... 6' 10" with the afro ... throwing a little Fletch in there for you Chevy Chase fans) Chaparral Sunesta 223.


We're all pretty excited! This is the front of the boat. It has filler cushions so that the whole front turns into a layout/deck. I see Emma and Cyndie spending a lot of time up there (probably Auntie Laura too). There's also what they call a "shower" though it's really a spray thing like most kitchen sinks have. The anchor hatch is there too, and a hidden 3 step ladder. We really wanted the wrap around windshield ... not all deck boats have them, but it can get pretty windy around here, so we thought it would be nice. There's also a little fold away door between the cockpit and the bow that, when you close it, blocks all the wind.

This is the back of the cockpit. There is L shaped seating as you can see. The Bimini top is in really great shape and will provide nice shade to the driver (ME) and his equally temperature sensitive son! There's TONS of storage, which is great. On the right you can see the little sink.

Here's the front of the cockpit. The bulbous looking thing in the middle is the door to the head (or bathroom to you land lubbers).

Here's the back end or transom ... there's a door into the cockpit, control for the trim (lifting the outdrive up and down), stereo controls, a trunk (ha, I think that's a funny thing to have in a boat), and the swim deck. There's also a "shower" here, and a ladder that folds away into the swim deck.

Here's another shot of the cockpit, looking back. You can see the door out. Under the back seat (see the handle) is the large engine compartment.

Here's the helm.

An, of course, the feature that Cyndie almost always mentions first, the head, complete with porta potty.

So there you have it! It's real this time. We found the boat on some random web site that we really hadn't been looking on much. It was a repo'd boat, and the marina was acting as a broker for the bank. We got a GREAT deal. When we told the surveyor what we were going to pay for it, he said he'd buy it if we decided not to. We had been feeling pretty good about it before he said that, and great afterward.

The little back story in dealing with this marina is that it's in kind of a seedy part of town, and, because it was a repo, they'd only take cash (or wired money), and this that and the other thing. That, plus the price we were getting made us a little leary give our experience a week or so ago. I was 98% certain everything was good, but we still hid the cash with the jack in the suburban until we were sure! It turns out that the broker was a really helpful and friendly guy, and the surveyor was too. It was a really good experience in the end (other than me dislocating my ring finger for 30 or 40 seconds ... but that's another story).

So we're hoping to take her out tomorrow for a late morning spin (the weather was beautiful today). Then we'll put her away for the winter. Exciting stuff!

Here's a link to the brochure for the boat from when it was new. Ours is the 223 Sunesta and it has some options on it:
http://forum.chaparralboats.com/publications/brochures/2003/sunesta_deckboats.pdf

Home Schoolin' It

Well, with a half day of school at Woods (which means Tim has no school), and Emma home with her eye issue, Cyndie decided that we'd do home school for the kids today. We had picked up Emma's missed work during our parent/teacher conference time yesterday evening. So she and the kids drew up a schedule for the day and now we're midway through. For "health" class, the kids took baths. I saw Emma and Cyndie in Emma's room after that working on something. Timmy and Cyndie did a kitchen related experiment while Emma and I worked on her homework from school ... drawing a map of an island with lots of different elements (rivers, cities, mountains, etc). The map included a key, and, of course, a compass rose.

Now the kids and Cyndie are headed out for a hike, and later on we're going to take a bike ride over to the orchard for one last visit before they close for the year. It's a bit nippy out today, but still very nice.

And, how could I forget, it's Friday! The weekend cometh!

It's all ... pink!

So, this morning Ems came down for breakfast and a morning TV show and she looks up at me and both of her eyes are an even pink. Strange I think ... what's up with that. Cyndie saw here and said, let's go get you a shower. So she showered and she's not rubbing her eyes or anything, so it's off to school for her!

Except she got sent home from school. The school nurse is worried that it's pink eye. Both Cyndie and I didn't think it was that (not that we knew what it was) because we thought pink eye was more splotchy and uneven, Emma's eyes were a uniform pink. Oh well, apparently the nurse knows best, and we'd rather be safe than sorry! Emma was pretty upset because she loves school, and hates for the routine to be unexpectedly interrupted. Sorry Ems. So Cyndie went and got some medicine that the nurse suggested (for allergies) and we'll see if the eyes settle down. If so, it's not pink eye. Otherwise, I guess it's off to the doctor for some pink eye meds!

Here is what pink eye looks like:
Splotchy looking, right?

Emma's wasn't like that ... whatever. So now Cyndie and the kids have an afternoon off (it was a short day anyway). Timmy was going to have a play date, but that was canceled do to health concerns!

Midweek

We're cruising along here in the middle of the week. Today is the last full day of school for the kids, then Thursday and Friday Emma has half days (and Tim has no school, since the half of the day that he normally goes to school is the half of the day that Emma has off!). Tomorrow is parent teacher conferences.

Not a whole lot out of the ordinary to report. Cyndie's been feeling a little under the weather, but appears to be perking up a bit. Today was crisp, but lovely out. We went up to the kids school in the morning to watch the Veteran's Day assembly during which Emma's class read a fairly long story about how the Vietnam Memorial came to be. She did a great job!

Road Rally Results

I've had some loyal readers ask how our team did in the road rally. Well, I am happy to report that Cyndie and I, and our friends Rico and Julie, together known as the Blue Crew (a salute to the suburban), won the road rally! Now some of you (anonymous commenters perhaps) might be confused by this. The overall standings for the rally were calculated upon the time you took, with bonuses and penalties for the number of locations you found and the number of clues required to get there. When the calculations were complete, we won with a time of 78 minutes. The next closest times where two other teams with 95 minutes and 96 minutes. Now, here's the caveat. Those teams BOUGHT time off. They each paid to have 20 minutes subtracted from their times. So in the end, they passed us in the standings. Ah, but we retain the satisfaction of knowing that in terms of pure talent, mental dexterity, and driving ability, the Blue Crew was the best!

A ripoff!?!

Well, it turns out our great deal on a boat was too good to be true! We'd been praying that if this wasn't the right boat, that if would become obvious. Well, it's obvious, and it wasn't even a real boat!!

Friday I received an email invoice from the seller with instructions on how to use Google Checkout to complete the transaction. Google Checkout is totally legit, and is kind of like Paypal, a third party that you can use to complete a transaction without giving them your financial data. Except that this email said I should wire money to Google Checkout to complete the transaction. I was pretty suspicious! So I did a little looking and digging, tried calling the seller ... nothing. Google Checkout doesn't use anything but credit cards to finance deals. The so-called seller never returned calls or emails. Bummer! I guess the guy must have been a scam artist. We're very thankful that we didn't put any money, only a little time, into the process.

So we're back to square one looking for a boat. The process continues.

We had a nice, full weekend. On Friday night, the kids stayed with my sister Amy and her family, while Cyndie and I had a day of couple-ness (we'll take their kids in a couple of weeks). We went out to Indian food down near Amy and Dave's house and then rented a movie to watch at home. Cyndie wasn't feeling 100%, so we kind of layed low on Saturday, but did make it out of take a walk by the lake and a nice fall drive. Saturday evening was a road rally at church. It was a lot of fun ... driving all over Walworth county following clues.

Sunday was low-key, with church in the evening.

So now it's back to Monday. It's a short-ish week of school for the kids. They have two half-days (which means that Timmy only has 3 days of school). Last week was the end of the first quarter, so we have parent-teacher conferences on Thursday.

An Announcement to our Family ...

It's been awhile, again. I'm slackin!

So, as per the norm, I'm not going to attempt to catch up on all the ins and outs of the past week and a half. There was Halloween in there, a party at Covenant Harbor for families with ties there (games and candy for the kids), school, church, I worked quite a bit more than normal. Nothing too out of the ordinary, but apparently it was enough to throw me out of my normal blogging rhythm!

I don't have any good pictures to offer up. Now that Cyndie has her new computer, she's been taking the pix off the camera and putting them on her computer, so I'm a bit out of the loop. You're going to have to complain to her, or look at her facebook page (I think she put some up there).

The one thing that I will take the time to update on, however, is a pending addition to the Wildwood DeVries family.








We had been waiting to share this until we were more sure.









We're excited, but a little nervous too since we haven't really experienced this for a while.








Announcing a new addition to our family ...











You can call her Sea Ray! We are not official as of yet ... won't be until our money is gone, and the boat is in our driveway, but I'd say we're 80% of the way there. As of right now, the boat (whose home is in Jackson, TN), will arrive sometime next week (still working that detail), and, pending a thorough investigation by a marine surveyor (kind of like a home inspector for boats), we'll complete the deal. We found it on the internet. It's at the high end of our price range, but is literally half the price of other similar boats. So, as boats go, we think this is a great investment, both in the boat, and in the time that we'll gain as a family together on it! This type of boat is called a deck boat, which could be compared to a pontoon boat layout on a ski boat hull. Here are a few more pictures ...

This is inside in the bow seating area (it's under a canvas cover when the picture is taken, so is a little dark. There's bench seating for four adults (probably eight kids) comfortably. You can put a table in there, and can also make it so the whole area is one big, level padded seating area. There's a built in cooler up between the seats, and you can walk off the front easily for swimming.

This is the bathroom ... yes, our boat has a bathroom complete with pump out toilet (like and RV), fresh, running water, vanity, and porthole!

This is the back (called cockpit) seating area. There's TONS of storage under the deck, L-shaped seating. There's a gate out to the rear swim platform (a 2 1/2 foot wide platform from which to jump/swim), a sink with running water, and place to put in a table.

This is the wetbar (or so they call it), with a sink, built in cooler, and room under for a trash can and carry off cooler.
Here's the helm area with wrap around windshield (not all deck boats have that, but we felt in the windy upper midwest that it would be nice to have). There are two captain's chairs. The door to the left is access to the bathroom.

So, there's the exciting news ... we'll take a few more pix when it comes, and share more as it happens! We're going to have to be patient in operations. We'll take a sea test before we complete the purchase, but other than that, we'll likely just get it ready for winter, and then have to wait until next spring!