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!