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!