The Lovely Bones

Gow told me I needed to see The Lovely Bones, so while Cyndie was out, I did a viewing ...

The Lovely Bones (4.2/5)

This was the story, told from her perspective, of a 14 year old girl who is abducted and murdered. It was a serious movie, but not quite as creepy as that previous sentence may sound.

I think one of the reasons I liked the movie as much as I did is the whole expectations thing. I wasn't expecting much, and so when what I got far exceeded my expectations, it made for a very enjoyable viewing experience. It was directed (and written I believe) by Peter Jackson, the man behind the Lord of the Rings trilogy and King Kong. It was very different than those movies, and definitely a very nice surprise.

I think much of what I liked about this movie is that it took a hold of you and kept you emotionally involved through the ending, which I thought was excellent. It was very atypical, which I like. And it was satisfying. The bad guy got what was coming to him, but not in a way you'd expect. The protagonists all found their peace, but not in a typical "Hollywood" way.

In summary, I'd call this a very interesting couple of hours. I liked it because it was a) well made, b) different from the Hollywood norm, c) satisfying.

Movies I've seen recently:
Juno - 4.8/5
Slumdog Millionaire - 4.6/5
Iron Man - 4.2/5
Lovely Bones - 4.2/5
Lars and the Real Girl - 4.1/5
The Book of Eli - 4.0/5
Wall-E - 4.0/5
Traitor - 4.0/5
The Dark Knight - 3.9/5
Star Trek - 3.9/5
TransSiberian - 3.9/5
Iron Man 2 - 3.8/5
Wolverine - 3.8/5
Hurt Locker - 3.8/5
Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist - 3.7/5
Definitely, Maybe - 3.7/5
Up - 3.7/5
The Blind Side - 3.7/5
Kung Fu Panda - 3.5/5
How to Train a Dragon - 3.5/5
The Passion - 3.5/5
Valkyrie - 3.5/5
Appoloosa - 3.5/5
Sherlock Holmes - 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

The Backup Plan - 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

The start ... officially

The kids finished off their 2010 school year yesterday with some Christmas parties. That means today is officially their first day of vacation. I'm working, but with all the people gone already from work, it's pretty lonely! So I'm trying to help out a bit with the packing that's going on. Since tomorrow is Christmas Eve, and the day after Christmas (duh), we're trying to get much of our packing for the Iowa trip (for which we'll leave late morning on Sunday) done today.

Last night Laura and Gow (and the girls) and our friends Nils and Erica (and their two boys Timmy's age) were over for dinner. Nils and Erica are missionaries in Mexico, so we don't get to see them too often. Anyway, that was a lot of fun. We spent a decent amount of time outside sledding and ice skating. Big thanks to Papa Lee for clearing out so much brush on our new sledding hill. It makes for some awesome sledding. Timmy is fearless ... he's the only kid that's into going down the big chute (12 extra linear feet of hill, and 6 extra feet in height). I went down the chute a couple of times and I could easily have gone another 200 - 300 feet on level ground if there weren't bushes and a road in the way ... oh well! It's fun!! We ended up putting some "reverse" ramps up against some of the bushes at the end of the run to keep Timmy from crashing into the bushes to hard.

So that's about it. It's almost Christmas. Merry Christmas all!

Today's a strange one!

Yes, today is strange, and for a number of reasons. First, the more mundane. It's December 20th, a Monday. It really feels like Christmas break already. Almost all the normal people I deal with at work are already on vacation for the rest of the year. So it's kind of like a pretend work day. I actually am being productive though!

The real reason that today is feeling most strange is that Timmy has a full day of kindergarten today. It's a one-off thing ... the kindergartners are staying all day so that they can practice the Christmas program in the afternoon. However, this is the first time ever that we will have sent the kids off to school at 8 in the morning and won't see either of them until 3:20! Cyndie and I are going to go get a light lunch or some coffee or something to both celebrate and mourn the passing of an era. I guess this is a little preview of next fall!

I don't think there's really anything else to report today. The kids Sunday school class sang yesterday in church, so that was fun. I'm busy this week with several music practices for the Christmas Eve service. Tomorrow night is the Christmas concert at Woods School.

So there you have it!

The season is ramping up!

Wow, apparently I'm getting really bad about posting on the blog! I guess I better remedy that.

Things seem to be flying along around here. Days are going quickly, and soon it will be Christmas! We've been doing a lot of sledding around here lately. The brush that Papa Lee cleared when he was here last summer was hiding a really nice sledding hill! So now, we have a very good place to sled. The kids are both enjoying school and enjoying their Spanish classes (that meet before school). Timmy is excited because next Monday he gets to go to school all day (they will practice their Christmas program in the afternoon). Cyndie and I looked at each other when we heard that news and wondered what having an empty house for 7 or 8 hours would be like. It's crazy that that is what next year will be like all the time! Those darn kids are growing up!

So, that's about it around here. There's not a whole lot to report, other than days flying by.

The Reader

Just had to drop this out there ... this afternoon Timmy read and entire 90+ page book by himself. It was not a complicated book, but neither was it a total picture book. My mom pulled it out from our stash of books and suggested that he read her a chapter, and he proceeded to spend the rest of the afternoon reading it to Grandma while she worked on sewing a big black backdrop for Cyndie's photo shoots and Grandpa while they sat on the couch together.

Great job Timmer!

Friday ... finally!

Actually, I can't really say "finally" Friday, because this week has, in reality, seemed to go by rather quickly. This morning we had fun at breakfast trying to convince Timmy that it really was Friday.

Tim: What day is this?
Me: Friday ... you have Spanish (before school) today.
Tim: No, it's Wednesday.
Me: I'm pretty sure it's Friday. Tomorrow's the weekend and the Christmas Party (for our Coffee Shop small group at church).
Tim: No, because yesterday was Tuesday.
Me: Okay, it can be Wednesday, but Mommy is still going to drop you off at school for Spanish this morning.

So, there you have it. Maybe we should refer to today as Frinesday. Although there's not much of a ring to that.

Wednesday night (the actual Wednesday, not Frinesday) was family night, so we pulled out White Christmas and watched it for the first time this year. I anticipate we'll get at least one more viewing in over the winter ... perhaps at the DeVries Family Christmas Retreat*.

*I don't believe there is an official name for this joyous event, but this year, rather than trying to cram 17 of us into one of our houses, we're going to go to the camp we all lived at in the 80s in Iowa, and have 4 or so days of family fun. Hopefully we'll be able to toboggan, play volleyball and do the rock climbing wall. We'll definitely play a large game of (adults included) hide and seek. Anyway, it should be a good time.

Last night at the last minute, we decided to go watch a basketball game at Woods. We got there in time for the B team game (I think B team is the 7th graders and A team is the 8th graders). Woods won 32 - 14 (or there abouts). It was rather hilarious. The first stringers were, on average, around 5 - 8 inches taller than their counterparts on the other team (Traver, another K - 8 school on the south side of the lake). They were also a lot better that Traver. If the first stringers would have played the whole game, it would have been more like 50 - 6. Anyway, it was hilarious to watch them. Being in the tiny gym at Woods and watching junior highers made me reminisce about playing basketball in junior high at Pomeroy when we lived in Iowa ... though I think we were quite a bit better than the Woods team (although my memory may just be a bit foggy). Good times.

Let's see, what's going on with the kids these days? Emma is really enjoying reading a lot. We are letting her read for a little bit after we tuck her into bed, so I left her reading last night, and when Cyndie went to get her up this morning, she was reading too. Note, that she did not read through the night. When we checked on her when we went to bed, she was asleep! Timmy is also enjoying reading. Right now we read with him and help him sound out stuff as he needs it. He decided to make a Christmas list the other day (for Santa) and one of the things he put on it were books that he can read all by himself. That's pretty fun!

So there you have it! It's nearly the weekend and we're supposed to get 3 - 5 inches of snow today and overnight. It's certainly cold enough, so we'll see where we get!

Winter Wonderland

It's not quite all the way to "Winter Wonderland" status, but there are some really fun flakes falling as I type this. They are big ones that are just kind of taking it easy as they slowly float to the ground, with small, intermittent swirls thrown in for effect. The driveway is covered, and I really can't see too much of the grass either. Is it really winter? A quick check of the 10 day forecast on weather.com shows that it could be ... there don't appear to be many days that exceed 34 or 35 degrees in temperature. I guess winter is here to stay, and on the first of December too!

There's not a whole lot to report today. We had a fun Thanksgiving weekend ... spending time with family and friends. We're at a nice, leisurely spot with the kids in that they are not really committed to much right now, so we're not running around like crazy trying to get them somewhere. They have really enjoyed getting the Christmas stuff up and are enjoying the Christmas season in general. A couple of weeks ago they pooled their money and made lists of what they wanted to get Cyndie and I for Christmas. The kids and I went shopping for Cyndie the other day and they did a great job of staying in their budget, but also getting some stuff that I think Cyndie will really enjoy.

On the house front, we are looking at a problem with our mound system. It appears to be failing, so we may have a rather large bill with that. Our neighbor, who knows about these things, was over last night to take a look. We're going to have a pro take a look in the next day or two. I guess we'll know more then.

Have a great Wednesday all!

Midweek today!

Yes, it's hump day even though it's only Tuesday. That's a relief since it already feels like vacation. Mostly it's that way because my cousin and her kids are visiting from Minneapolis for a few days. They were over for dinner and hanging out last night, and since our kids were up late, it felt like vacation ... or at least like a weekend!

It has been (again!) a while since I posted. So, no catchup, just a few random things that occur to me as I write:

• Last thursday was the kids' Pilgrim Dinner at school. That was fun. Grandma and Grandpa D were able to attend. Both kids dressed up really nicely.
  
• Over the weekend I constructed the skating rink for this year. I remembered that I have some materials left over from when the house was built that work great to make the sides of the rink. So, due to nice 8 foot sections of that, we have a 32x16 foot skating rink with nice 16 inch sides! After all the rain we got yesterday, it's probably 40% full! I also built the platform for the sled run. Since Papa Lee cleared out so much of the underbrush down the hill from the mound, we'll have a great area to sled.
  
• Yesterday Cyndie and I worked on putting in the steel pole for the basketball hoop. Timmy was a really big help too. He was in charge of getting the water (3/4 of a gallon ... he got it right every time!). We put 320 pounds of concrete on the bottom of the pole, so I think it will hold okay. The weather was great yesterday (or I should say the temperature). It was a near record high of 67 degrees. However, just as we were putting the concrete in the hole, it started to sprinkle. By the time we had all 4 bags in, it was pouring. So part of our effort was to build dams around the hole so that the water running down the driveway toward the concrete would be diverted! Then the weather changed so that I needed to cover the concrete with blankets since the temps are now in the low 30s!
  
• After a really fun and informative Coffee Shop (our church small group) at Laura and Gows, we spent the night. It was really fun and relaxing to hang out and do nothing! We watched Date Night, which was a really good and fun combination of the reality of married life with kids, and comedy.
• On Saturday morning Cyndie did her first 5k. It was at the local state park and many of her friends from the ladies group she's in also ran. She really enjoyed it, and I think will definitely do it again.
  
• On Saturday afternoon Cyndie had her first paid photo shoot. I think it went pretty well. She's learning a lot, that's for sure!
  
• Please pray for Jane Fraser, her kids, and Covenant Point Bible Camp up in the UP (upper pennisula). Covenant Point is a sister camp to Covenant Harbor here in Lake Geneva. Chuck Fraser, the director up at Point died suddenly of a heart attack last week. He was only 59 years old. He was loved by many, and impacted a huge number of people both directly and indirectly. He will be missed by his family, the staff at Point, and the many campers that go through Point. Here's a link to some thoughts on Chuck and his impact for those who may be interested. I went to Point 4 times (3 men's retreats, and for a week of family camp last summer). At the first men's retreat my dad introduced me to Chuck, who my dad has known for many years. As a result of that connection, the following times I'd visit Point, I'd usually have a 5 or so minute conversation with Chuck. Nothing deep, just being friendly. I didn't know Chuck well, but even in the few times I talked to him, I was impressed by his humble demeanor and servant's heart. Covenant Point will be very different without him.
  

In an effort to not get too behind ...

It's (again) been a while, so I'll try to get caught up a bit. I'll just throw some bullet points out there ... probably in random order:

• Work on the tree house progresses. Between my dad and I, we have the tree house 95% roofed (need to finish off the peak). After that it will just be little things like plugging some holes in the (used) siding.
• Last night I had some guys over to play Halo on the big screen. Since I'd never played before, I sucked! It was fun though. We were kind of doing a last hurrah for a friend who is moving to the UP in a few weeks.
• Cyndie has been working very hard to get ready for a "vendor fair" for the MOPS (mothers of pre-schoolers) group in the community. She's hoping to make some contacts/get some work for her photography business*.
• We went down to my sisters for some cousin time (Laura and Gow and the girls went too) on Friday/Saturday. Fun times. We watched Killers after the kids went to bed**.
• We're trying to get back in the swing of things with the kids doing their chores and getting their allowance. I'm not sure how we got so out of the practice of that! Having that responsibility is good for them, and they enjoy it I think.
• The kids have been playing outside with one of the neighbor kids quite a bit. It's nice that it's still decent enough weather to do that without having to totally gear up for the cold.
• Big news (I almost forgot), we sold the Suburban. We got a price we were pretty happy with. Emma was sad watching the folks drive away, but she cracked us up with her comment, "Hey, they have a big dent on their door" (alluding to the rather big dent that happened when Suburban met tree a year or so ago). So now we have only two cars in the driveway ... Suburban and boat appropriately disposed of for now (the boat is being stored in a friend's barn). We may even get to no cars in the driveway if we put the Subaru in the garage and the Excursion is parked off the drive.
  

*Did I ever mention that on here? She's doing a great job laying the ground work for her business. Now we'll see where it goes! Check out her web site: Cyndie Lee Photography. ** We'll see if I end up with time to write a review on this Romantic Comedy. I'm sure Fred will be waiting on the edge of his seat for that!

Thanks to all who prayed for Cyndie's Grandma Weaver. She's improving, but is certainly not out of the woods yet (Cathy thinks that something may not have gone completely right with the surgery grandma had).

Well, that's all I can think of for now. Until next time, I'll leave you with a few pix ...

Here's the inside of the tree house ... Grandpa and Grandma D brought over some goodies for a "it's nearly done, let's have a tree house warming" party.

Grandpa D with Emma and cousin Sally on the hay ride at Covenant Harbor's fall party for their staff.

Me and Tim on the hay ride.

Carving pumpkins. We did so late (after Halloween), but the kids still enjoyed it!

Yes, well, no good excuse!

That's right, I certainly have no good excuse for not blogging lately. I got out of the habit during the tail end of vacation, and then never got back to it here. My apologies to my loyal (do I have any of those) readers!

The end of vacation was more great times. The weather was beautiful, we had a number of outings to the beach, the park, restaurants, trick or treating*, the hospital.

*Okay, trick or treating in downtown Punta Gorda was CRAZY. There had to have been more than 1000 people (possibly much more) in about a one by four block area. The sidewalks were crammed! Interesting times. I'm not sure I'd go back there!

Yes, you read that correctly, the hospital. Literally five minutes before we were going to pack up and leave, Cyndie got stung by a sting ray. It was very painful. She and Cathy ended up going to the ER to get it treated. According to Cyndie ... make sure you do the sting ray shuffle, the alternative is not fun!

We spent a bit more time with Grandma Weaver too. Please pray for her ... she had her surgery and it went okay, but she's still having lots of pain. For a few days she was really confused and the medical team discovered that her kidneys had at least partially shut down, but they have fixed that now and are detoxing her body from the corresponding ammonia build up, but she's still experiencing a lot of pain.

So now were back in the swing of things. We have hundreds of boxes of girl scout cookies on our deck right now, though they are slowly being picked up by the troop members. Emma will probably spend much of the next week delivering hers. The kids' tree house is nearing completion thanks, in large part, to Grandpa D spending a lot of time on it. Cyndie and I's art class is nearing completion for this year. Here are the latest paintings:

Cyndie's painting "Beach Umbrella"

My painting "Keith Exploded"

So there you have it. I hope you feel as if you have caught up with things with the Wildwood DeVries.

80 degrees and headed to 89!

Yes, another beautiful day in southwest Florida. The day started with a jog for Cyndie and I. We went out at around 7:30a. I was expecting it to be cool and nice, but it was already pretty warm and very humid. I'm very glad there was a nice breeze or it would have been much worse for me! I was surprised to see, as I jogged around a golf course near Fred and Cathy's house, that so many lots were vacant. I assumed that this meant that the developer had hit a rough spot of some kind when building the golf course/development, but Cathy told me that that was the result of hurricane Charlie (which was 5 or so years ago). Apparently lots of homes were damaged so much, that they could not be repaired, and insurance, in many cases, didn't cover rebuilding. Crazy. She said that much of the damage was not just from the hurricane itself, but from mold and moisture damage after the fact. There was no power for 3 or 4 weeks, and those homeowners who were not physically present could often not get to their homes to clean up water, etc. leading to the mold and water damage.

Yesterday we headed back from a wonderful couple of days on Sanibel back up to Punta Gorda. We stopped along the way at Grandma Weaver's for dinner. She lives in a retirement community and has a very nice 2 bedroom (plus study), 2 bath apartment. We had dinner at a private dining room off the main restaurant there. It was very nice, and nice to be able to hang out a bit with Grandma Weaver. She's such a pleasant lady, very fun to be with.

This morning the kids are practicing trick or treating. They have on their Halloween costumes, supplemented by some jewelery and accessories that Grandma Cathy supplied, and are going from frog to frog (Cathy has 2 or 3 decorative frog "statues" that have little trays on which she has individually wrapped candies) trick or treating. Hilarious. Grandpa Fred is working this morning, as am I ... Grandma Cathy, Cyndie, and the kids are headed out soon for some activity or another.

Another beautiful day in Florida!

86 degrees with a nice breeze!

Yep, that title is redundant, but it's REALLY nice again today.

The day started (for me) with a jog on the beach ... nice. Cyndie and the kids ran over to the beach with Grandma Cathy for some low tide shelling. They found some fun stuff, but Cyndie found some even better stuff when she went for a jog at the beach.

We've been staying at the house of some friends of Fred and Cathy these first several nights (dog sitting) out on Sanibel Island (where Fred and Cathy had lived for 6 or 8 years). This afternoon we're cleaning up some and then heading back to their house up the coast in Punta Gorda. On the way, we'll stop to visit Grandma Weaver (and have dinner at a dress up only ... no shorts) restaurant in her complex ... very fancy!

While we've been here, the kids have had an absolutely great time in the pool at the house. They've spent a lot of time in there. Obviously, they enjoy the beach greatly too, but when we've been at the house with a spare moment, they've been in the pool. Good times.

In the midst of all the comings and goings, I've been working. Since I've used up almost all of my vacation time for this year, I'm trying to work a full schedule this week. It's actually worked great so far today.

So, vacation is ongoing and great!

86 degrees with a nice breeze!

Yes, we spent much of the morning through early afternoon sitting on the beach. As the title of the blog states, it was 86 degrees with a beautiful breeze! We're currently relaxing at a really nice home where Grandpa Fred and Grandma Cathy are dog sitting (complete with awesome swimming pool and large, friendly golden retriever). We'll head back to the beach later this afternoon.

The flight out was uneventful. It was smack dab in the middle of the day, so we didn't have to get up early, and we got back to the house early enough that the kids could hit the pool (in addition to stopping to see Cyndie's Grandma Weaver).

Vacation ... good times!

T-minus one day ...

Yes, there is only one day left until vacation. Today is filled with packing, cleaning, straightening and haircuts (me, maybe Tim, and definitely the dog). Oh, and some errands. Cyndie is taking the boat to be cleaned while we're gone (we're handling all the interior cleaning, but the hull really needs a scrubbing after having been in the lake all summer*). She's also dropping the dog off for a grooming and doing some clothing exchange related errands as well. We should be well occupied today!

*An interesting development on the boat front. A friend of ours is going to be the new volunteer coordinator (amongst other duties) at the camp. He asked us if we'd be interested in letting the camp use the boat for a couple of hours a morning for up to four weeks. In exchange, the camp would give us a lift on which to put our boat. The funny thing is that this is something we had proposed to camp last year! Anyway, we're going to do that. So, since next summer the boat won't be sitting in the water all summer growing algae, we decided to really get the hull cleaned up nicely so that it looks good as new! We're excited to save the money AND have a really great location for the boat.

The tree house continues to progress. The latest progress is starting to put siding on. The kids were playing out there yesterday. That was their "house" and they went to the guest room as their hotel/vacation house.

The next post will likely be from Florida, land of 80+ degree weather (as opposed to the frost on the roof and breath you can see while waiting for the bus to come)!

Getting there ...

Yes, it's almost vacation time. We're progressing in that direction at least. The house is starting to empty out after all the clothes, toys, shoes, etc of the clothing exchange. This morning Cyndie and I helped a neighbor load a good portion of the clothes in to his truck to take to a local homeless shelter. Cyndie is returning 10 borrowed folding tables this morning. The house is getting a little less overwhelmed! Laundry is being done (so we'll have clean clothes to take with us on vacation). Arrangements for pets are being made. We're almost there! We're looking forward to some warm weather ... it was very cool this morning here!

Tuesday night Cyndie picked the Woods girls up from girl scouts and returned them home. Then She and Emma met Timmy, Sally, Daisy, and I at Culvers for dollar butter burger night ... $12 for the six of us to eat (including a family size order of french fries). Grandpa and Grandma D joined us. Yesterday was a field trip for Tim that Cyndie chaperoned ... they went to a local hospital. I had art class (Cyndie is going this morning instead due to the field trip) and finished my painting of Emma in a beanie ... it turned out fairly well. I forgot to take a picture though!.

So now we're left with cleaning up the house, packing, and generally getting ready. I can tell you that I'm already ready!

More Tree House Pix

Okay, so here are some more pictures of the tree house ... trying to give some folks who don't live here an idea of where on the property the tree house actually is.

From the top of the mound with the house behind me and the dragon's lair to my right ... the roof is on (plywood part). After I took this (on Sunday), my dad put up some of the railing, so there's been more progress made.

From inside the tree house back toward the house. You can see some smoke going from the pile of brush we burned on Sunday.

Standing on the deck of the tree house back toward the house ... you can see the new deck on the house!

In other news, Cyndie's clothing exchange went really well. She had over 40 ladies here with tons more clothes left over to donate to various charities around the community. She hasn't counted up the money yet, but I'm sure they made at least $300 - $500 dollars ... a lot considering the clothes were going for 25 cents a piece.

Guys Night

I guess I neglected to mention that on Friday night we had a surprise birthday party for Gow. The pretense was that Laura, Gow, and girls were coming over to have some dinner prior to a group of friends having a "Guys Night". Instead, we got a bunch of friends over, they parked around the corner so no cars were visible, and we surprised the heck out of Uncle Gow*. I think this is one of the first surprise parties I've been involved with where the surprisee was actually surprised.

*Mostly surprised. Emma got a little excited and yelled out "surprise" prior to our group cue. Oh well ;)

So the families all left at about 7p, and then the guys did our thing including watching a movie ... The Book of Eli.

The Book of Eli (4.0/5)
So the setting is watching this flick with four other guys ... this is definitely a guy kind of movie. It had quite a bit of violence (though it wasn't totally over the top), was very bleak in its worldview, and was not a happy movie.

Denzel Washington played the title character, a road hardened traveler on a mission. Mila Kunis was the foil. Gary Oldman played the delightfully vile antagonist. All of these parts of the movie were satisfying and well acted/cast, but were not what set this movie apart. What made this movie work for me were the not so subtle spiritual tones which the movie had and the nice little twists that finished the movie.

The overall summary: A well made post-apocalyptic movie with several satisfying turns at the end.

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
The Book of Eli - 4.0/5
Wall-E - 4.0/5
Traitor - 4.0/5
The Dark Knight - 3.9/5
Star Trek - 3.9/5
TransSiberian - 3.9/5
Iron Man 2 - 3.8/5
Wolverine - 3.8/5
Hurt Locker - 3.8/5
Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist - 3.7/5
Definitely, Maybe - 3.7/5
Up - 3.7/5
The Blind Side - 3.7/5
Kung Fu Panda - 3.5/5
How to Train a Dragon - 3.5/5
The Passion - 3.5/5
Valkyrie - 3.5/5
Appoloosa - 3.5/5
Sherlock Holmes - 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

The Backup Plan - 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

Pre-vacation week

Well, this week is what we'll call pre-vacation week. On Saturday we're headed to Florida to see Grandpa Fred and Grandma Cathy and spend some time soaking up our last bit of warmth before we take the plunge into winter. That means we're making arrangements to get to and from the airport, farming out the various pets (those seem to be increasing in number and in the amount of care required), packing, getting homework assignments, etc, etc. The extended forecast for Punta Gorda, where Fred and Cathy live, shows highs in the mid 80s and lows in the 60s ... yeah, that's right about ideal for me! It should be a great trip ... we're definitely looking forward to it!

In the mean time, we do have a few things happening this week as well. Cyndie has her big clothing exchange for charity tonight, so there will be 30+ ladies at the house tonight. It'll take a few days to get the house back into shape after that! Currently there are extra tables set up all over the basement, dining room, craft room, and on the deck. I'm sure by the time I get home from work today there will already be a large amount of clothes out and Emma (and Tim too, but Ems will be the ring leader) will be going over the toys table looking for promising items. I guess I need to figure out what I'm going to do with my evening. I mean beside hiding in the bedroom.

We had a nice weekend ... took one last boat ride with Grandma and Grandpa D and then pulled the boat out for the year. We may take another ride if the day is nice enough, but we needed to have the boat off the buoy before we left for vacation, and we also wanted to have some time to clean it, so there you go. Cyndie spent quite a bit of the weekend working on cleaning the boat, while I spent my time on the tree house. It's rounding into shape. The house is all framed up, the plywood is on the roof. The major remaining tasks are roofing, siding, and putting up railing on the exterior deck. We also spent a bit of time burning leaves, and even burned one pile of debris from when Papa Lee cleared out the space in the woods. The pile was nice and dry and easy to burn ... I think we only have 5 or 6 more of those piles left!

Tree fort progress ... oh, and it's Friday!

Today's topic ... progress on the tree fort. I've been trying to put in an hour or or two between right after the kids leave (7:45), over lunch, and before dinner in addition to working some on the framing after the kids hit the sack. I'm hoping to have the framing up and maybe the roof done by the end of the weekend. The tree fort/house* is going to have an 8'x8' house part with walls that are 4 feet tall and a peak in the roof at around 7 feet. There will be a 3' wide deck on two sides and probably a ladder or two to climb up (complete with trap door)!

*What's the difference between a tree fort and a tree house? Is one open and one enclosed? If that's the case, I guess this is both a tree fort and a tree house since there will be both inside and outside spaces in this version!

The platform is done ... down in the area Papa Lee cleared.

Framing for one end (where a window will be) ...

Framing for two sides ...

The door to the deck area ($2.50 at an auction Cyndie went to yesterday) ...

Extra wood (Cyndie got all of this for free) ...

So this auction ... Cyndie went with our friend Alissa (the new pastor's wife and neighbor of mine during jr high/early high school). It was auctioning off the entire contents of a house about to be torn down (including many pieces of the actual house like carpet, siding, flooring, etc). Anyway, she got the door you saw, a nice basketball hoop (that'll take a little work to get out of the ground and to our house), and a bunch of glasses/pitchers. It was right down Cyndie's alley!

After that Cyndie did her first paid (I think) photo shoot ... a junior high football game. She was pretty happy with the pictures she got, and learned a lot too.

While Cyndie was at the football game, Emma went with her friend Amya to two different dance classes and had a really fun time. Timmy worked with Grandpa on the tree fort a bit, and then Grandpa and Grandma D joined us for dinner and pie (thanks Alissa). So it was a full day!

This morning as we were setting the table for breakfast, we were surprised by Auntie Laura, Daisy and Sally. They joined us for "Surprise Friday", donuts and fun creamer for the coffee. They hung out with us until Emma left on the bus (Timmy went earlier to go to before school Spanish). Sally really wanted to go on the bus, but she had to be satisfied with a ride on the "big white bus" (the Excursion). She was fine with that once she discovered it had a video screen in it! We drove around the Wildwood loop and then they hit the road and I hit the work thing!

Today's Recipe

I haven't given all of my adoring fans a new recipe for a while, so try this one this weekend ...

Donut French Toast

This one takes a brain surgeon to figure out, so make sure you have your morning coffee before you attempt this ...

Ingredients:
powdered donuts - the bigger the better
eggs
vanilla
milk
nutmeg
cinnamon

Slice the donuts in half. Crack the eggs into a bowl, splash in milk and vanilla (I'd say to taste, but you probably shouldn't be tasting raw eggs, and they wouldn't taste that great anyway!). For the four of us, I usually do a 1/4 cup or so milk and a teaspoon of vanilla. Stir that up. Get your fry pan hot over medium heat. I like to use olive oil since it's healthier than some other oils/butter (you know, because this is such a healthy meal). Dip both sides of the sliced donuts into the egg mixture and put into the pan. Sprinkle cinnamon and nutmeg onto the cooking halves. I like to do the cinnamon and nutmeg after the dipping (many people add them to their egg mixture) to assure even coverage. If you're feeling really decadent, add some sugar and/or brown sugar to the mixture. Cook until browned, flip and repeat ... voila, Donut French Toast!

Donut French Toast ... in process

So there's you're recipe for the day.

On the family front, Emma's now well over 100 boxes of girl scout cookies sold (thanks to a big help from Auntie Karen at her apartment building). Timmy's been a big help with the tree fort lately. Emma had an eye doctor appointment. And we all watched the first part of Swiss Family Robinson last night ... good times!

Fall, yeah it's beautiful!

We've been driving around a bit on different errands, etc. Man, is it a great time of year to be driving the back roads of southern Wisconsin. It is beautiful. There are several roads that we travel quite a bit which have just wonderful displays of color these days. There's a stretch of McDonald Road (the bigger, back road we take toward town) which has a bunch of really bright orange maples on it. It's also really cool to drive by the lake and see the trees against the blue of the lake and then see all the small patches of color across the lake on the far shore. Really fun.

Cyndie and I had art class this morning ... we're working on portraits for this project. I'm doing one of Emma, and Cyndie is doing one of cousin Kristi. We both agreed today when we left that we wish we could have stayed and finished our paintings today, we were having such a good time with them. Oh well, I guess we'll just have to delay that gratification! Here are the paintings we just finished (taken with my cell phone camera, so my painting is really blurry) ...

My painting of a country schoolhouse ...

Cyndie's painting of the barn at the fa

Routine is here

It looks like today will be a pretty routine day. The weather is nice, the kids are at school, Cyndie's helping a friend with some painting, I'm working. Normal all the way around. Today after school, Emma has Brownies. Cyndie has arranged some carpooling with other parents from Woods whose girls are participating, so that will lighten her driving load. After that we'll have date night! We're trying to save some extra money after the earlier than expected purchase of the new vehicle, so we'll probably eat some where cheaper and then maybe take a walk by the lake.

So there you have it. Normalcy, whatever that is!?

Monday Morning

It's Monday morning ... the week is starting ... life moves along.

The weekend was good. Cyndie did her scrapbooking thing. It was the biggest one her friend has ever hosted ... 32 ladies ... so Cyndie didn't get quite as much scrapbooking done as she sometimes does as she was pretty busy helping out. I think she enjoyed herself though. The kids and I worked on the treehouse some, did a little visiting, swam at the pool at Cyndie's hotel, ate at McDonalds, and drove around in the new truck (which the kids both love). At one point Timmy kept saying over and over "this is the most awesome truck ever". I think they just like the TV in it. It's nice that it has a step up into in (the Suburban didn't have that so it was quite a high step for the kids to get into).

This weekend should be a bit slower, though I think Cyndie will be pretty busy with several meetings in the evenings earlier in the week. The kids' soccer is done, so that makes the early evenings a bit less scheduled. I'm guessing there may be some girls scout cookie selling happening too. But that should be it. Overall we're just really enjoying the beautiful end to summer ... it's been in the 70s and 80s for the last 4 or 5 days, which make it a real delight to be outside ... perfect for working on the treefort!

Gerbils

Here they are, the new additions to the family. As Timmy points out, now we all have pets (Tim's goldfish, Pepper for Cyndie and I*, and now the gerbils). Emma has named them Cookie, Sweettart, and Digger. Digger is (surprise) a big digger in the bedding. He also likes to nibble on whoever holds him. Cookie is the most docile one, and Sweettart is ... I don't know, the remaining one?

*I'm not sure why one dog for the both of us qualifies as all of us having a pet. I'm going to have to complain to whoever is in charge about that slight.

Here they are ... the three of them like to pile up in a corner to sleep. For the short term, the aquarium is located on top of Emma's dress up box.


They weren't very cooperative with the picture taking. They just wanted to sleep.

The gerbils woke Emma up during the night the first night, but I think that was as much excitement on her part as anything. No problems have happened the rest of the week. She's a pretty heavy sleeper anyway. They largely sleep at night and are awake during the day.

This blog is turning ...

700

No, not years old, 700 posts. Yes, this is kind of a boring celebration of the fact, but I don't really have anything horribly interesting to say or commemorate, so this is what you're stuck with. Happy 700th blogday to the Life and Times of the Wildwood DeVries.

In other news, it's Friday. Yea! It seems like this was a long week. I'm not exactly sure why. Maybe the on again, off again nature of the truck thing. On that topic, I got it registered this morning, and just sent our insurance guy an email to get started with that portion of vehicle ownership. We also figured out (via a phone call to the previous owner) how to turn off the aftermarket, really sensitive security system which went off multiple times. Hurray! Marking the unofficial start to the weekend, Cyndie just left for her scrappin' *.

*Does scrapping mean that she and Sherri are going to get in a brawl with a rival gang of scrapbooking gals? I'm thinking this could be epic on the scale of the sharks and the jets. Whoohoo, look out. Which makes me wonder, are Sherri, Cyndie and their crew the sharks or the jets?


The kids had their last soccer last night. A friend whose kids also played asked if we were going to do wrestling next. Uh, no. We're both ready for a little break in the weekly commitments. I'm guessing that the next thing will probably be swimming. For now, I want the kids to be free to enjoy the beautiful weather we've been having ... it's supposed to be in the low 80s today, tomorrow, and Sunday ... awesome. Does anyone that lives near Lake Geneva want to go water skiing over the weekend. I'm thinking one more good run would be great!

So, happy birthday blog, you don't look a post over 300.

Excitement!

Well then, we just returned from buying a new vehicle ... introducing Big Whitey, our "new" 2003 Excursion.

Here's a picture of Cyndie with her new ride.

It's not going to get great gas mileage, but we really felt like we needed a vehicle with a heavier frame (this is a 3/4 ton versus the 1/2 ton chassis of the Suburban) and a bigger engine (this has a 6.8L V10) in order to really be able to pull the boat and not put too much stress on the transmission. Here are a few more pictures from the Craigslist listing:

Beginning the Weekend

Cyndie has a scrapbooking retreat this weekend that she's helping her friend Sherri out with. She'll be gone from Friday morning through Sunday afternoon. So, she's getting ready for that ... baking some muffins, getting all her scrapbooking* stuff together, ordering photos, etc.

*I'm seriously considering starting to use the term scrapping rather than scrapbooking. After typing scrapbooking several times ... that's a long word. Man, but still, scrapping just sounds so dumb, and really isn't that much shorter.

My preparation is going to get some movies to watch. My sister is taking a Friday/Saturday trip, so Gow and I are going to get together to be single dads, and that means after the kids go to bed Friday night, we're queuing up a couple of guy movies. The theme for the evening is cops, so we're going to watch Brooklyn's Finest and Pride and Glory. My part is to go get the movies*

*How lame is this ... we have to head over to Delavan to get anything besides Redbox. The last movie rental store in Lake Geneva closed a couple of months ago!

Tonight is the last soccer practice/game of the year. The kids have done great and really enjoyed it (especially Timmy).

Midweek Bullets ...

How about some midweek bullets (for lack of any "big" things to write about) ...

• Some sports stuff ... the Vikings have re-acquired star receiver (and sometime pain in the butt) Randy Moss. Exciting times for the Vikes who need to get their season rolling.
• Liverpool has been bought (pending approval from the league and some legal details). This is very good. Their current owners are, to put it succinctly, lame.
• The kids had soccer last night and had a great time there.
• We babysat the local cousins last night while Laura and Gow had a date ... both girls were really interested in the gerbils, but didn't quite know what to do with them. Sally wanted to hold them, but everytime one touched here, she'd jump back and be pretty timid. Daisy was very excited by the gerbils, but lacked any finesse, so was restricted to just looking!
• The Excursion is still on hold while we get the DVD situation straightened out. The seller is getting it repaired, and then we'll (I think) go through with the sale.
• Cyndie and I had art class this morning and really enjoyed that. We were both very happy with the paintings that we came up with.
• Tonight is Cyndie's last sailing event of the year. She's really enjoyed that.
• We worked on our budget last night. We're going to try very hard over the winter to really curtail our expenses so that we can pay cash for the new truck (assuming that happens) and still do some of the projects around the house that we want to do.
• The jacuzzi has sprung another leak. We're really getting tired of that. We'll see where we decide to go with that little gem.
  
• It's a beautiful fall day ... I think the temperature readout in the car on the way home from art class said 73. Awesome!
  

So there you have it, some midweek fun.

Monday ... completed

Monday ... finished. I guess the development to report is that we did NOT go to pick up the Excursion we're in talks over. I'm not sure if I mentioned that yesterday, but the plan was to go get it at 5p in Janesville. When I had seen it, the DVD player was not working. Cyndie and I discussed it and decided that we didn't want to deal with stuff not working. The guy said he'd knock $200 off the price. I called the local Ford dealer and they said that it would most likely cost $665 to fix/replace, with a small chance that it would be less if it was just a loose connection or something. So, we (me and the seller) decided that he'd take it into his shop and they'd get the DVD working. So I should hear from him today regarding that. If the DVD works, the deal is on. If not, then we'll have to see if he's willing to lower the price by $655. If so, the deals is on, if not, we'll probably walk away. More on this breaking story as it develops!

On the gerbil front ... they are here and installed in Emma's room. She's really excited to have them. The kids both played with them and held them. We made a little hut/play thing out of a used cottage cheese container and some wood. I don't think it will last, however, as by this morning the gerbils had chewed it up pretty good. I guess we'll have to go with wood toys and stuff bought from the store made out of harder plastic. Pepper is fascinated by the gerbils. The aquarium that they're in is right at his eye level (currently on top of Emma's dress up box). He just stands there staring at them. We'll see where that goes. This morning when I went in to wake up Emma for her shower, she was up already and rearranging the "furniture" in the aquarium. Funny!

Today Timmy's home from school with a bit of a sore throat. He and Cyndie ran some errands this morning and also got the Suburban back from the shop. Cyndie reports that it is running well, so that's a nice thing. It definitely gives us plenty of time to find the right replacement vehicle.

Crazy Week

Well now, that week didn't go exactly as anticipated. As you may recall, we started the week with a strange Monday where we spent much of the day getting us and the boat back from the weekend up at Green Lake. Well, we've been without the Suburban now for 10 days or so. The shop where we had the transmission warranty is fixing it, though they outsource that work to a different shop, a transmission specialist, down in Illinois. So the Suburban was supposed to be fixed that Friday and being brought back up to Lake Geneva, where we could pick it up on Saturday. That didn't happen. Cyndie talked to "our" (the LG shop) this morning and apparently the "other" shop started driving the truck back up here and something when wrong. I'm not sure what, I'm not sure if Cyndie was told any details, but we're still waiting on that front. A good thing is that we're going to get a loaner car in the interim. It's going to be a Ford Taurus with no power steering ... so Cyndie should get a good workout from that!

Aside from the car dealings, midway through the week my laptop crapped out, so I spent a good portion of Thursday working with the tech guy at work to try to get it moving again, then most of Friday getting my files transferred from the old, non-working machine to a new laptop. Then the rest of the day getting the new one configured and putting software on it, etc. So now I'm up and running again, with a spiffy new laptop. It's got a new operating system on it, Windows 7, so that's both fun, and challenging! So, that's the biggest reason behind not doing any blog posts, my apologies.

The rest of the week was normal ... soccer for the kids, Emma started Girl Scouts (Brownies) for the year. They're already selling girl scout cookies. If you want to buy any, please let me (or Emma) know. If you're at a distance and don't anticipate seeing us soon after the November 8 (I think) receive date for the cookies, you can also participate by buying boxes of cookies that will be donated to a local food pantry. Timmy is very much enjoying practicing soccer at home. We have a goal set up that we gave him for Christmas last year. He digs doing drills and shooting into the net. Lately he's been very into being a goalie. He loves to dive after the ball.

Over the weekend my Auntie Diane and Uncle John (whose cabin near Kansas City we've gone to multiple times) stopped through. It was fun to see them and head out on the lake with them for a late afternoon. Uncle John is a "car guy", so he went with us to look at a Ford Excursion we were interested in. Which leads us too ...

We started looking for a Suburban replacement. Before the transmission went out, we were thinking we'd have a year or two before we'd have to replace it. However, this event got us thinking that we should start looking around to at least see what's out there. We have, we think pending a final, successful return of the Suburban, some time to shop and get a good deal. We're looking for a truck that can easily pull the boat (we think the Suburban may be a bit underpowered to handle the boat) and something that we can, at least, fit our family into, but preferably a 7 or 8 seater. So we went to see this Excursion that was for sale by a private party near the kids' school. It was a good deal in theory, but the truck was not in good shape. It had been in an accident (replaced headlight and fenders, chassis welds, etc), had some rust that had been painted over, the transmission didn't feel right (lots of hesitation in shifting, really high revving), and the oil was REALLY dirty. So we didn't jump at that. Obviously. But yesterday I drove over to Janesville to look at another Excursion. As bad as that first one was, this one was great. The Excursion is built on a Ford F250 chassis, so it's got a good starting basis to tow the boat. This one has a 6.8 liter V10, plenty to pull the boat. It also has a Banks Power system which is an exhaust system add-on which increases the power of the engine. It rides really nice, has been well taken care of, has some nice add-ons (like a DVD player), and, most importantly, is a pretty nice deal. it's around $3000 less and blue book (for a private party seller). So we made an offer, and it was accepted. Now we're dealing with the bank and getting enough cash to make the deal. Right now, maybe because it's early in the week, the local bank doesn't have enough cash for us. I may need to end up getting a bank check or something like that to pay the guy (and asking him if he'll accept that). Fun times.

Oh, and another new toy is coming today. Emma has been saving her money and doing extra chores all summer in order to get a gerbil. I'm not sure what got that into her head, but she's been very persistent. She's managed to save $42.16. So starting around a month and a half ago, she and Cyndie started checking Craigslist and ebay and the newspapers, for cages/aquariums and accessories. Well, yesterday they found someone up in Milwaukee (not too far from my office) who is selling 3 gerbils and all the accessories. She was asking $80, but Emma emailed and told her about herself and that she'd been saving all summer and got a reply along the lines of "awwwww, of course I'll take that =)".* So needless to say, Emma is VERY excited for those gerbils to arrive and become a part of her room.

*Those extra w's and the smiley face where part of the e-mail, I didn't even have to add them for emphasis.

So, there you go, our week begins with some new excitement!

Well, that didn't go exactly as planned!

We're back from our weekend in Green Lake. This was the second half of a home exchange that was non-similtaneous ... they were at our house over the 4th of July weekend while we were at a family reunion. This house is right on a big lake in central Wisconsin. It was a beautiful house! But more on that later ...

The weekend started normally. We picked up the kids at school at around noontime and started the drive. Yes, I said started the drive. We didn't actually finish it, though we did complete around 98% of the needed 131 or so miles. We stopped to get gas for the boat a few minutes before we were to arrive. When we left the gas station, we went up a fairly steep grade. Smoke started coming out from under the hood. We stopped (duh), and investigate. There was some smoke coming from a small reservoir that had popped open on one side. So we closed that up and kept going. We missed a turn off (no street sign ... thanks Google Maps), and after we turned around, the truck seemed to be starting to lack power. So we tried a little more and then stopped as it became obvious we were not going to be able to pull the boat up the grade in front of us. Enter AAA. We got towed (suburban AND boat) to the lake house. The tow truck left us and the boat there and towed the suburban to a shop. We later found out that the transmission was shot. Now the "Yeah Cyndie" part. When we had the transmission replaced a year and a half ago, she shopped around a bunch to find a place with a good price and a long warrantee. The place we used offered a 3 year/36k miles warrantee. It's been about a year and a half and something like 15k miles! So, it's under warrantee. We had the truck towed down to Lake Geneva on Sunday, and now we're dealing with that shop. We think they'll try to wiggle their way out from under the full repair, but that's not going to happen. It's clearly under warrantee, Cyndie had just checked all the fluid levels before we left on the trip, and we checked again after the "smoking" incident, and the shop that took a look up in Green Lake said that the transmission was not done well. Soooo, hopefully this is just a bump in the road and we'll be back and working sooner rather than later.

On the vacation side, it was a lot of fun. Our friends, the Goreckis, came up with us. The house was a 6 bedroom, 6 1/2 bath house with a media room, foosball (Timmy's favorite) and pool, a spa, and beautiful views. We cruised on the boat (thanks to Cyndie going over to the neighbors and asking if we could use their truck!), including driving into town on the boat to have dinner Sunday night. The neighbor boy was the same age as Kahlib (7th grade), so they played a lot and did a pretty good job of including Timmy. They played a lot of football, and Timmy loved to tackle! Emma enjoyed the spa, though she wasn't feeling 100% the whole weekend.

Monday morning Cyndie left with the Goreckis to drive home and then borrow another friend's truck, drove back, and then back home with us and the boat. I worked in the morning and early afternoon. We got back home around 6:30, and went straight to the Williams Bay boat launch to put the boat back out on the buoy. Then home to unload our junk, then over to the drop the truck at the friend's house ... whew, it was a long day!!!

All in all, it was an adventurous weekend, and a memorable one. Hopefully we'll end up with very little out of pocket on this, and have a good transmission in a week or so.

Low key, but busy too!

Well, yesterday was a bit low key. The usual stuff ... school, Tim and Emma went to the local corn maze and haw fort with our friend Monica and her boys, Cyndie had sailing. When Emma got home from the excursion, she had a bit of a headache and was pretty listless. So we had some dinner and hit the sack pretty early last night ... Cyndie and I too.

Today, however, seems a bit busier. Cyndie has a couple of appointments, we're taking the boat out (to bring with up to Green Lake this weekend), we're packing for the trip, the kids have soccer, and Cyndie is helping serve at a restaurant in town that is donating $7 of every $9 charged to a local charity that she helps out with (Side by Side). The kids and I will head on over there after soccer. So, it should be a busy afternoon and evening.

On the kid front ... Emma is enjoying third grade. She's made a new friend who lives just off Schoefield named Julia. Cyndie met Julia's mom during the apple orchard trip a couple of days ago, so it sounds like a play date will be happening soon.

Timmy totally loves soccer. He's always wanting to play out in the yard, and looks forward to going to what he calls soccer "class".

So that's it on the Wildwood DeVries front!

Well, that was impressive, kind of.

Yesterday we're all out at the soccer fields for Emma and Timmy's soccer practice/games. They're usually 4:30 - 4:5o or so of practice, then the rest of the time until 5:30 is a game/scrimmage against another team. The skies were getting pretty dark and forbidding, so the guy in charge of the leagues tells the coaches to start the games immediately. They're playing and having a great time, but the skies are getting darker and darker and the wind is picking up. There starts to be some lightning and around 5p the games are called. So we pack it up and head back to the car. The wind is really picking up now, and as we're driving away, we're getting hit through open windows (it was pretty warm, in the mid 80's with a lot of humidity) by wind driven leaves and dirt and dust. It looks like at anytime, the sky is going to open up and just dump on us. We drop Cyndie off at Laura and Gow's (to pick up Daisy and Sally who we're babysitting during a Gowan date), and get hit by a slight barrage of rain, but nothing crazy. Over the next half hour, it rained some and was a bit windy, but nothing of the sort promised by the dark, crazy sky nor that which the weather reports carried (hail, 60 mile per hour winds) ever materialized. We ended up eating on the deck and enjoying the sound of the rain and laughing that it couldn't get us!

A Movie Review

There's not a whole lot to write about today, so I'll take this opportunity to post a review of the movie we watched down at Dave and Amy's, The Backup Plan.

The Backup Plan (3.1/5)
So, at first glance (i.e. from the cover of the movie and the preview or two I'd seen), this is a standard romantic comedy ... Jennifer Lopez, right? That's all the movies she makes anymore.

So, that wasn't totally right. It was a romantic comedy. And like almost all romantic comedies, they try to spin it differently so it's not exactly like every other romantic comedy ever made. Well this one was spun by having Lopez's character be pregnant the whole movie. So, we were blessed with the standard throwing up at inopportune times gags and gynecologist visit gags, etc.

I'm sitting here thinking about what else to write, but there was nothing remotely good or memorable to take away. I maybe am being a little over generous dropping a 3.1 on this movie, but it seemed to slot in well next to a similar romantic comedy He's Just Not That Into You, so there you go.

The overall summary: A very generic RomCom with pregnancy bits added in (which made it worse).

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
Iron Man 2 - 3.8/5
Wolverine - 3.8/5
Hurt Locker - 3.8/5
Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist - 3.7/5
Definitely, Maybe - 3.7/5
Up - 3.7/5
The Blind Side - 3.7/5
Kung Fu Panda - 3.5/5
How to Train a Dragon - 3.5/5
The Passion - 3.5/5
Valkyrie - 3.5/5
Appoloosa - 3.5/5
Sherlock Holmes - 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

The Backup Plan - 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

Here we go again!

I guess the title of the blog could really apply to a lot of things ... the Vikings sucking this year (0 - 2), Liverpool going down the drain (4 points from 5 games in the EPL), fall really getting started. But really, all I meant when I wrote it was that it's Monday, and we're starting a new week.

Today marks the "real" start of the school schedule in that it is the first day that Emma has before school Spanish class. She'll do that on Mondays and Wednesdays at 7:50 (until 8:20 or so). Timmy will do before school Spanish on Fridays. So, for now, we're locked in with Spanish MWF, school, then soccer after school on T/TH. That seems like a lot, especially when you factor in the various evening things that Cyndie and I have.

We had a nice weekend. It was fairly kick back. Saturday morning we spent some time (in the intermittent rain) cleaning up the garage. We did a fairly good job of it, but there's still some stuff to be done before winter in order to put the car in there. In the early afternoon, we headed down to Amy and Dave's for some cousin time. It was a nice visit. We hung out, grilled burgers, the kids played some outside and in, and we watched a movie. Good times. We left by about 9:30 the next morning when the cousins went to church. The rest of the weekend was pretty standard Sunday (complete with losses by both the Vikings and Liverpool), with a church meeting (regarding kids programs) at our place after church in the evening.

So there you have it. We're back and raring to go!

Better Blog ...

Yeah, I don't have a ton to say today. Nothing hugely exciting or unusual happened in the last 24 hours or so. But in order to stay consistent, and not get behind, I better throw something out there!

Yesterday was overcast with a nice thunderstorm and downpour in the morning. I spent 15 or 20 minutes working out on the deck enjoying the sound of rain, thunder and lightning. Actually, it was raining so hard, it really wasn't the "normal" sound of rain I was hearing, but really more of a constant roar! It was a bit strange because I went for a run in the very early morning (5:45 is when the alarm goes off, and, when it's my turn for the outside exercise, I'm usually on the road by 5:55), it was actually quite warm. I was definitely not at all cold in shorts and a t-shirt, something I can't say about other runs in the last week or so. So the rain lowered the temperature by something like 10 or 15 degrees, making the rest of the day pretty darn cool. It did clear up enough to be decent weather for soccer in the afternoon. Both of the kids enjoyed their games, but wearing sweatshirts under their jerseys. Tim was in the goal for a lot of his game and spent much of his time (when the ball was at the other end of the field), diving around on the ground making pretend saves and generally not paying a whole lot of attention to what was going on on the field. Anyway, it was good times.

So there's life. We're hoping to work more on the tree fort and to clean out the garage tomorrow, but a lot of that will depend upon the weather (it's supposed to rain).

Tree Fort Baby

Yesterday was the start of the tree fort building effort at our place. I went to get the wood I need for the deck part early. Then my dad came over in the afternoon to help me get the "square" (the main beams) up. It was quite an effort. Included in that was cutting down a tree that was dead so that I can use it for one of the main vertical supports on the tree fort. It was a little trial and error getting the stuff up. In the end we got up two beams. And, due to a number of reasons, they are a bit higher than I originally intended. The plan now is to take those two back down and lower the base to a bit safer level (8 or 9 feet instead of 11 or 12). I think, based upon what we learned in the couple of hours we spent yesterday, it will go MUCH quicker this time. Hopefully we'll have quite a bit of time to work on that on Saturday ... at least getting the main platform up. Fun times.

In the evening, Em and Tim went over to the cousins house to have dinner/play while Cyndie and I went out for dinner with our friends Al and Sherri. This was our victory dinner for winning the biggest loser competition with (against) them. We hit Paisanos, our favorite area restaurant. I was absolutely stuffed after that!

So now we're nearing the end of the week. The kids have soccer tonight ... Cyndie's running errands today ... work, work, work for me!

Art Class!

Well, we've started art class again. Fun times! We're working on a fall painting. To me, fall is about football, so mine is composed of a football theme. Cyndie is working on a still life of leaves. Should be fun! It's nice to be back in there and being creative in a different way.

Yesterday was soccer for the kids. It was a warm afternoon. Timmy was sweating up a storm! Grandma and Grandpa D came to watch the games and then we went over there for dinner.

This morning I got up early to run over to Home Depot to get the materials for starting a tree house in the newly cleared area of the yard (past the mound). I'm looking forward to getting started on that, and the kids are anxious to have a new toy!

Weekend in Bullets

Yes, I missed yesterday ... my apologies. I was not feeling at all well. In fact, I only worked a couple of hours. Strange times. Anyway, I'm feeling much better now, so the blog is back and active! So bullet points for the weekend:

• My cousins Christa and Kyle were here for the weekend from Minnesota. It was totally fun to reconnect with them and lament over the 15 years that we didn't see each other as "lost" time.
• Jane was out too. That's twice in three weeks ... keep it up Auntie Jane!
• We spent much of the weekend together as a large, extended family group. Meals, hanging out, etc.
• We managed to get everyone out on the boat on Sunday morning in some surprisingly nice, temperate weather. Good times.
• We mixed in some church meetings that various people had to be at on Saturday.
• Timmy turned 6 on Saturday*.
• We helped break in the "Big House"** a bit. Some of the first extended hang out at Laura and Gow's new house!
• We did a bit of an "Alpine Reunion" at our pastor's house. Alpine is the camp my folks worked at (and I lived at) during junior high/high school. It's funny that there are now, 1500 or so miles away from there, a group of staff/staff families living within 10 miles of each other ... Dale and Jeannine Holte, me, my folks, Ray and Janette Warren, Alissa (Rounke) Bruns and her family, and Tim Rounke was out visiting. Good times.
  

*I think Timmy's birthday is worth a full paragraph rather than limiting it to a bullet point. He really enjoyed himself. All of my direct family was here. We played some games (the bounce house was definitely the biggest hit), ate burgers, opened presents, ate cake. Good times. Timmy got a lot of legos. He's been building all the stuff a set at a time. He's really good at reading the directions and putting the rather complex (age 7 - 12 for most of the stuff) together without much, if any, help. Thanks to those of you who were here for making it a fun party for Tim!

**The "Big House" is the name that 2 year old Sally gave the new house since it is so much bigger than the duplex that they lived in before. Every time I hear that, I think about prisons and Johnny Cash for some reason!

So now we're into the week. The kids had a fun run through school yesterday and enjoyed that. Then we had a quick dinner and went to back to school night. I was very impressed with Mrs. Crowell, Emma's 3rd grade teacher. Looks like it will be a good year ahead for both kids!