Bits and Pieces

The week is rolling to a close ... yeah! I had a busy week of work, so I'll be especially glad to hit the weekend. This morning Tim had a couple of friends from church (Matthias and Lukas) over for a play date (and to give their grandparents a little break ... their parents are out of town for a few days). I had worship practice last night, and Cyndie had a Roots and Wings (like MOPS, but for mothers of elementary age kids) meeting. Tonight we're headed down to Crystal Lake to do a movie night with the local cousins. Should be fun!

On the health front, I think we're generally improved. Timmy coughed a bit after school yesterday, but I wonder if it might have been something he's allergic to there or something. He's not 100%, but is getting there. I think the cold/allergy related things (minor) that Cyndie and I had earlier in the week are pretty much history too.

We had a beautiful day yesterday (I think it was yesterday, maybe Wednesday ... am I getting old?). Weather in the 60s, light breeze. But now we've turned to cooler (40s) and rain. It's a bit dreary. Though the leaves on the maples are still beautiful!

Midweek Doings

We're meandering through the middle of the week here in Wildwood-land. We have health issues, fun stuff, academics, all kinds of stuff to talk about, so here we go, in my favorite, bulleted format:

• Emma had a little cold on Sunday (I think), and then Tim picked it up. I think his was aggrevated by some allergies. Anyway, he came home from school on Monday pretty wiped, then didn't sleep at all well on Monday night (and as a result, neither did Cyndie). He did a lot of laying low yesterday, but even by then was feeling much better, just a little tired. By today, he's feeling 100%. We still kept him home from school in honoring the school's request to keep kids home for 24 hours after they are better. I can't remember if I wrote this before, but on Monday, Timmy's class of 16 only had 5 kids. Another local school shut down for the day. I guess it is sickness time!
• Emma had her second before school spanish class today. She really enjoyed the first one and is liking the extra session. We'll see how much it helps her really pick up the language (or not).
• Cyndie and I have been pretty excited about the prospect of buying a boat. We've done quite a bit of searching online and are trying to schedule a trip to a showroom to just look around. We'll see where it all leads, but it's an exciting diversion right now at a minimum.
• We also met with our new financial planner today. We're looking forward to that, and him helping us out in saving money for the future!
  

So that's about it from the Wildwood DeVries!

TransSiberian

Watched this one on Sunday night with "the guys".

TransSiberian (3.9/5)

A good one, and the type of movie that I often enjoy. It was the story of how a couple of Americans, through their own naivete and goodness, get caught up as Mules in a drug run. It was a suspense/thriller type of movie, not a big budget one, but with some decent actors and production value. It was a bit dark, but that's right down my alley. Overall, there were several moments that were not horribly believable, but those, for me, only came up upon second thought while thinking back over the movie. During the actual viewing, I was pretty captivated, especially after a somewhat slow start. The movie at least met my expectations, making the overall experience an enjoyable one.

The overall summary: A very solid suspense, thriller with good acting, and a fairly well thought out premise.

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
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

Full Weekend

Well now, it's time to slow down from a full weekend, but I'm not sure that's going to happen!

Lots going on over the weekend ...

• Emma had a playdate with her good friend Olivia on Saturday morning. The girls did a pretty good job of including Timmy too, which was very nice.
• We helped a bit with my aunt's octoberfest part over at her apartment building ... I spent about an hour cooking brats and hot dogs while the kids played outside in the crisp fall air! The kids found all kinds of "treasures" in the woods ... including the handle of a ski rope, a bike tire, and a 6 foot long bungee cord!
• We had our small group at our place on Saturday. It was a pretty good group of folks, and was good to connect with some people.
• Auntie Jane came to visit starting Saturday evening and is still here. The kids love to play and be with her. The cumulation of that visit will be dinner tonight over at Laura and Gow's.
• Sunday we lazed about a bit in the morning, and then headed over to my folks for lunch with the fam, and then watched the Vikings/Ravens football game.
• Church was different in the evening ... a prayer/music focused time (our pastor was out of town). It was very cool, and a fun/unique way to experience worship.
• After that some friends split up between Laura and Gow's (the ladies) and our place (the guys) and watched movies ... The Proposal for the ladies, and Trans Siberia for the gents. That was fun, and was made all the better by the awesome gift of a Lou Malnati's stuffed pizza from the worship leader, Leslie, one for Gowans, and one for us. That's some good stuff!

Today, Emma has a huge day. Her first Spanish class is before school for 40 minutes, then school, then girl scouts (she sold an even 100 boxes of cookies), then over to Laura and Gow's for dinner, then back home to finish off a report on several states for school tomorrow! Whew, I'm tired thinking about it!

Did a little work on the jacuzzi over the weekend ... no dice, we still have a slow leak. We still filled it up though. We're hoping we might be able to use some "fix a leak" (a solution you put in the water that can fix small leaks) to get where we need to go. If not, we'll have to dump the whole thing out, and tip it up to try to find the problem.

Cyndie and I have spent some time browsing around online looking at boats. We'd like to get something to take out on the lake next year. We'll see where that leads!

Whoa!

I guess I missed a few days ... where did the time go? It was a rather normal week thus far with not a whole lot to report, so perhaps that should be my great excuse. Some bullets to catch up ...

• The weather has continued to be cool, and a bit misty/rainy on top of that.
• Finally got out to make an attempt to patch the jacuzzi. I'm not sure if the leak is around the jet, or in the jet. I used some all temperature caulking to try to seal around, so after it cures for a few days, we'll raise the water level and see where we're at. I've been getting requests from both Cyndie and the (finally?) non-pregnant Laura regarding this, so the pressure is on!
• Emma is going to start before school spanish class two days a week starting next Monday. She's pretty excited about that.
• We're continuing to plug away with some work on the house. The focus right now is in the Dining Room and Craft Room. The painting is complete, and the baseboards are finished. Now we're moving into the "heavier" work of building some furniture (bookshelves to hold the kid's craft materials and Cyndie's desk lead the list). Here are a few pictures of the floor and each room:

The latest flick ...

Wolverine ... saw it at Dave and Amy's in BluRay over the weekend.

Wolverine (3.8/5)
I enjoyed this one ... surprisingly. I think this one was another one that just goes to confirm my theory* about watching movies. The movie didn't try to do too much, just focused on telling the story of Wolverine's origins. It wasn't a great movie, but it had enough depth to hold your attention, while having enough action to keep the popcorn movie crowed engaged. The production values were first rate, the plot decent, acting sufficient, and the special effects well done.

The overall summary: It's not going to win any academy awards, but it was two entertaining hours well spent.

*Neal's First Theory of Movie Enjoyment:
The level of enjoyment a person derives from watching a movie corresponds directly to the difference between that person's expectations of the movie and the actual quality of the movie.

A movie goer enters each movie experience with expectations regarding that movie. These expectations then serve as a baseline against which the movie is weighed. If the movie is better than expectations, the viewer will have a movie experience that is largely positive. Conversely, if the movie is worse than expectations, the viewer's experience will be poor.

For example, I went into Kung Fu Panda with high expectations (call it 4.5 out of 5 for what I expected the movie to be). The actual movie experience was more along the lines of 3.5, and since that is much lower than I expected, my movie experience was not good, even though Kung Fu Panda is actually a pretty good movie.

The FToME applies equally to all kinds of movies. An average movie (3/5 rating) which a view goes into with low expectations (2/5) is therefore an enjoyable experience while a very good movie (4/5 rating) which has very high expectations (5/5) may turn into a poor movie experience.

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
Wolverine - 3.8/5
Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist - 3.7/5
Definitely, Maybe - 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

A Monday Morning

Monday is here again ... oh Monday, you come too soon!

What did the weekend hold? Let's see ...

• Cyndie left around 1 to go to the scrap booking retreat. She had a really good time and was very productive too!
• Grandma and Grandpa D came over to share our load of Beef Stroganoff with us on Friday night.
• On Saturday, the kids and I hit the Dollar Store to buy some Halloween decorations. They each received $4 to spend, and we came back with lots of pumpkin themed decorations. Now the family room, kitchen, and front door are all Halloweened up!
• The weather continues to be ... shall we say, brisk? Lots of frost on the ground in the mornings, and some ice on the cars. Last night after the kids hit the sack I was out on the deck and there was some ice in a little pool of water! There were even a few flurries on Saturday afternoon.
• The girl scout cookie push appears to be slowing. I think Emma has depleted her reserve readily available cookie buying fodder (our neighborhood, relatives, friends), and as such, the big push is probably at an end.
• The kids and I went down to the Crystal Lake cousins' place for a short over night. Everyone did fairly well, and a good time was had by all. Emma and Sarah came up with big plans for a Thanksgiving show they want to put on when the whole fam is together for Thanksgiving. We'll see if they stick to it enough to make that a reality. There were walks in the cold, lots of playing with cars and dolls, and a couple of treasure hunts. The adults even managed to sneak a movie in after the kids hit the sack.
• Had church in the evening again (the new "normal" time). I kept greeting everyone with "good morning". I think that's ingrained in me from 34 years (minus 10 months when we lived in Torrance) of attending church in the morning!
  
• I spent some time on Friday and Saturday working on painting the dining room and putting up some trim in there. It's looking pretty good, but there is still lots of work to do!

So there's the activities of a busy weekend in eight neatly bulleted points!

Lots going on!

What's new, right? It seems like the Wildwood DeVries always have lots going on!

Well, right now we're hitting construction mode. It started with the new floors, but is accelerating now as we'd really like to get things "put away" (if there really is such a thing!). The focus now is on the craft room and dining room. I'm hopeful to spend a lot of time on those two rooms over the coming several days. That's won't finish anything, but it will get us a long ways!

On the more social side of things, Cyndie headed out today for her scrapbooking retreat. It's just over in Delavan, so not far away, but she's sharing a room with her friend and will get all weekend to be creative and have some relax time. The kids and I invited Grandma and Grandpa D over for dinner tonight to share our Beef Stroganoff, and then tomorrow we have a few outings planned, the bigger one a trip down to the cousins in Crystal Lake for an overnight.

So that's it from rainy Wisconsin where fall is definitely here, but the beautiful leaves may be knocked out of the trees prematurely due to all the rain we're getting!

The Cookie Train Rolls On!

Well, freight train Emma, the cookie queen of Wildwood Drive, continues to roll along. She's had Cyndie out every afternoon after school to canvas the neighborhood for those poor souls who do not have girl scout cookies! She's doing great (thanks to those of you who bought cookies!). She's now "earned" (won't actually earn it until she distributes and collects the $$) two patches, and may get even further depending upon the weather and her excitement level. She's even got a signup sheet with me today at work.

Tuesday, in the evening while Cyndie was working, I made a spreadsheet for her to keep track of her accounting and expenses stuff. For working far less than full time, and not even really looking for clients, she's doing pretty darn well!

Timmy is continuing to be excited to learn to read. His 4K class really doesn't focus on much more than letters, and he easily knows that stuff, so we're teaching him bit by bit some reading basics. He really gets a kick out of that. The grin on his face when he learns a new word or technique is pretty fun. We were doing some -op words yesterday (e.g. mop), and he wanted a "long" word, so we did "crop", which he read all by himself. Then he wanted a really long word, so we did "crops". 5 letters, yea Timmer!

Nice Victory!

The Vikings picked up a nice victory last night ... winning 30 - 23. Now, I believe I had predicted a 27 - 13 win for the boys in Purple, and the score was 30 - 14 before the Pack picked up a couple of garbage time scores to make the score closer than the game really was. I watched with 10 or so guys from church ... it was a good time to hang out and see the victory!

The kids had successful dentist visits yesterday morning ... I think they're beginning to come around to dentist/doctor/eye doctor visits and not have quite so much trepidation. Hopefully. Emma has to go back to get a coating put on one molar ... no cavity or anything, just a spot that is "deep" that they want to protect.

Emma had her second Brownies meeting and was hyped after that. Right when they got home they walked part of the neighborhood to sell some cookies. She's 4 boxes from getting her first patch, so if any blog readers would like to buy, let her know!

Today is the day ...

Big game tonight around these parts ... the Packers, pride and joy of many Wisconsinites, versus the hated Vikings. It's funny though, there is a lot of cross pollination around here in southern Wisconsin. Folks move out of the city (Chicago) and to the country (here), same for people leaving Minnesota to go to the city (Milwaukee). Anyway, while the local population is the majority Packers fans, there are a number of Bears fans and a good share of Vikings fans too. All of which to say, some guys from church are getting together to watch the big game tonight. It'll be a good one with MANY story lines (Favre v. his old team, first place in the NFC North v. second place, Aaron Rodgers continuing to get out of the shadow of the man whose job he took, etc, etc). Good times, and hopefully a good game. I'm going to predict a 27 - 13 score in favor of the Vikings! Check back to this space for an assessment of my prediction tomorrow (especially if I'm right!).

We had a nice weekend. Spent a couple of nights with Laura and Gow watching season 7 of 24. We have (if I remember correctly) 9 episodes left. The show is very interesting, especially having only begun to watch relatively late (season 6) in the life cycle of the program. The writers create a pretty good plotline that keep you on the edge of your seat, involved over 24 episodes, always coming back. But at the same time, there is some pretty bad acting (ol' stone face, Keifer Sutherland), and lame dialog. Very interesting. There was actually one scene that we watched on Saturday night that was supposed to be all dramatic ... Jack's mentor/friend had died, and he was "overcome with grief", and it made me laugh out loud at Sutherland's lame facial expressions! Ha, at least it's entertaining.

Sunday was full. In the morning we had brunch with my cousin who was coming through town, then all afternoon/evening was filled with church related activities. We were meeting for the first time in the new building, so that meant that there was extra setup required, extra practice for worship team, then we also had community group before church, and a fellowship time afterwards. Phew!

This morning the kids had dentist appointments (haven't heard anything from Cyndie regarind how those went).

Friday is Here!

It's Friday, though I was telling Cyndie last night that it felt like a Friday night last night ... probably because we were up a bit later than we usually are. We had a long initial setup/practice/tear down for worship team last night. I think moving to the new building will make the process quite a bit easier in the long run. Cyndie and the kids took Pepper to the pet store to get him some snacks ... wooo, excitement!

Other than that, it's a wet, cool (but not crisply so) fall day. Emma's class walks over to a local apple orchard for a field trip this afternoon, and we have a 24 night scheduled with Laura and Gow for tonight, but other than that, it should be a quiet start to the weekend ... oh, I guess I still need to get through the work day too!

Thursday Happenings

A few things going down on a Thursday for the Wildwood DeVries:

• Cyndie had a successful clothing exchange last night. I believe it was in the neighborhood of 25 ladies and LOTS of clothes. They raised around $250 (that's 1000 pieces of clothing at $.25 each!) for the Agape House girls home charity! Now she's got the big task of packing everything up!
  
• We heard from some friends in TX that their kids have the Swine flu. Also heard rumors that a family up the street may have it too. I guess this is going to be the norm for this winter! Crazy stuff.
  
• Looks like I'll be working from home a lot more in the near term. My boss is saying we'll have a lot to do, so I reminded him I'll have more hours to work if I'm not driving back and forth. Exciting!
  
• Got in the car this morning at 7:30 and the temperature said 41 degrees! It is definitely cooling off. Previously (around 7) I'd gone out with the dog in shorts ... no shirt or shoes (after working out ... I was still hot). But man did I cool off quickly, especially my feet on the cold concrete!
• Tonight is a big worship team practice. Our first at the new building. I'll be getting there early to set up the sound equipment for the first time. Hopefully we'll hit no snags!