We had a fairly good, laid back weekend. It started Friday with a great day of skiing for Emma. She's progressed very well. This, the first ski day of the year for her school, had her graduating from the Bunny hill and taking her first ride on the chair lift. She stayed on the easy hills, but did very well and really enjoyed herself. The only accident being when she forgot to lift her tips (of her skis, for you non-skiers) when she got on the chair lift and lost one of her skis. Fortunately her friend, Hannah, was next in line and brought the ski up to her. Given Emma's enjoyment of the skiing, as well as Tim's good experiences last year, we decided that we'd use the money Grandma Cathy, Grandpa Fred, and G & G Weaver gave us to take a couple of family ski days on several of the next Woods School ski days. We are able to get greatly reduced ski prices those days ... should be fun. Though the next ski day (Friday) is supposed to be very cold!!
Saturday we had some friends from the neighborhood over for breakfast ... sourdough pancakes. It was a lot of fun. The kids are all basically old enough to play together with little supervision, so it was fun to just hang out and get to know our neighbors a bit. We were all really lazy after that ... just sat around much of the day! We had some leftover pancake mix (you have to use it up in about 24 hours), so headed over to Grandma and Grandpa D's to share that with them for dinner.
Sunday was church and more relaxing ... whew, I'm tired from relaxing so much! And now we're back in the swing of things for a new week.
We got quite a bit of snow Friday/Saturday, with more to come today. There are huge piles of snow everywhere. It's amazing to think how big the piles would be if we hadn't had the big thaw/melt several weeks ago!
Monday, January 12, 2009
Friday, January 9, 2009
Nearing Week-end
It's Friday, and the snow is coming down. I've heard we're supposed to get 6 - 8 inches. I think we've gotten at least 4 or 5 by now, and it's really coming down fast, with large flakes! That should make for good skiing for Emma and the Friday Ski Day crew from Woods School.
The snow means that I didn't have to drive up to Waukesha today like I was planning. I went up yesterday and had a productive set of face to faces and got over some hurdles. Today was to be a meeting with the team leads to talk about new work, but since the main guy lives in Toronto and is (supposed to be) flying out today at 1:30, we canceled the meetings.
No big plans for the weekend other than having 4 or 5 families in the neighborhood over for pancakes tomorrow morning. That should be fun. Hopefully we'll get the house straightened up in time!
The snow means that I didn't have to drive up to Waukesha today like I was planning. I went up yesterday and had a productive set of face to faces and got over some hurdles. Today was to be a meeting with the team leads to talk about new work, but since the main guy lives in Toronto and is (supposed to be) flying out today at 1:30, we canceled the meetings.
No big plans for the weekend other than having 4 or 5 families in the neighborhood over for pancakes tomorrow morning. That should be fun. Hopefully we'll get the house straightened up in time!
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Midweek, first week back, is reached
Today marks hump day ... we've made it!
Tim and Cyndie are headed to Hebron, WI today to pick up a table that we bought off Craig's List. We're going to use it as a craft table in our new art room that we're going to be creating. This will be the first step.
We got about 2 inches of snow last night, but it's been cold so I was able to mostly just sweep the snow off the sidewalks. The cold weather's been good for the skating rink I'm attempting for this year. The location is over by the driveway kind of in a low spot that becomes a pond when it rains. It should be much less in the way than the deck rink, and melt less too since it's not elevated. We'll see!
Tim and Cyndie are headed to Hebron, WI today to pick up a table that we bought off Craig's List. We're going to use it as a craft table in our new art room that we're going to be creating. This will be the first step.
We got about 2 inches of snow last night, but it's been cold so I was able to mostly just sweep the snow off the sidewalks. The cold weather's been good for the skating rink I'm attempting for this year. The location is over by the driveway kind of in a low spot that becomes a pond when it rains. It should be much less in the way than the deck rink, and melt less too since it's not elevated. We'll see!
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Routines
I think we're back to a normal routine now. This morning Emma woke up at a more normal time ... I think she was not as excited for school as she was yesterday. We did homework last night and hit the library, a normal Monday evening activity. Today Tim had school again (the letter 'O'). Tonight is the start of swim lessons for this session. We're trying a "family" lesson which just means that they have the same time period (4:45 - 5:30). They'll still have different class levels.
Emma's excitement is that her Christmas party was rescheduled for Thursday, so she's looking forward to that. She was also excited to receive a small portable, purple framed whiteboard from her class secret santa, so she was carrying that around much of yesterday afternoon.
After dinner (we hit the library before dinner), we watched part of Attack of the Clones. It was somewhat excruciating, and nut just because the movie is so bad. The whole time Emma's going is that person going to get killed, and Timmy's talking about who is good and bad. I'm not sure about Emma's fixation ... probably because at the end of the previous movie Kwai Gon dies ... whatever. She definitely gets emotionally involved with the movies!
Emma's excitement is that her Christmas party was rescheduled for Thursday, so she's looking forward to that. She was also excited to receive a small portable, purple framed whiteboard from her class secret santa, so she was carrying that around much of yesterday afternoon.
After dinner (we hit the library before dinner), we watched part of Attack of the Clones. It was somewhat excruciating, and nut just because the movie is so bad. The whole time Emma's going is that person going to get killed, and Timmy's talking about who is good and bad. I'm not sure about Emma's fixation ... probably because at the end of the previous movie Kwai Gon dies ... whatever. She definitely gets emotionally involved with the movies!
Monday, January 5, 2009
Back Swinging
So I'm back to work ... sitting at my desk in front of my computer, which means you can expect to hear a lot more on the blog that you experienced the last two weeks.
I'm not going to go over the past couple of weeks, but it was a very fun, and largely relaxing time. Lots of family, and a few days of just us at the end to wind down before getting back into the routine.
Emma is very excited to be going back to school. I think she likes to be at home and stay in her PJs for a while and watch extra cartoons in the morning. But she's definitely a routine girl, and the routine that school provides is good for her. She's particularly excited to have the Christmas party that got postponed when the last day before vacation was canceled as well as to go skiing on Friday ... the first Woods School Ski Day of 2009.
Timmy is much more go with the flow, and as a result, is kind of "whatever" when it comes to school! Today for Cyndie and Tim will mark getting caught up on dishes, laundry, and grocery shopping ... fun stuff.
As for me, I have to remember what I was working on 2+ weeks ago!
I'm not going to go over the past couple of weeks, but it was a very fun, and largely relaxing time. Lots of family, and a few days of just us at the end to wind down before getting back into the routine.
Emma is very excited to be going back to school. I think she likes to be at home and stay in her PJs for a while and watch extra cartoons in the morning. But she's definitely a routine girl, and the routine that school provides is good for her. She's particularly excited to have the Christmas party that got postponed when the last day before vacation was canceled as well as to go skiing on Friday ... the first Woods School Ski Day of 2009.
Timmy is much more go with the flow, and as a result, is kind of "whatever" when it comes to school! Today for Cyndie and Tim will mark getting caught up on dishes, laundry, and grocery shopping ... fun stuff.
As for me, I have to remember what I was working on 2+ weeks ago!
Friday, January 2, 2009
Vacation means Movies
Saw some movies over the extended Christmas break ... there are a few I'd recommend, and one total clunker!
Valkyrie (3.5/5)
A decent movie. It was interesting, well made, decently acted. However, it failed to grab me and really make me "into" the movie.
Burn After Reading (1/5)
This movie was a steaming pile of self indulgent crappola ... is that too strong for a family blog? This was a Coen brothers movie, the follow up to their excellent No Country for Old Men from last year. Since I really like that movie, I had high expectations for this one. I was disappointed on all counts. The characters were basically lame, there was no plot. I happened upon an extra which was the Coens saying effectively "we made this movie because we had some characters that we thought would be fun for certain actors to portray". Meaning, "we can make any movie we want, so we threw this together because we thought it would be fun to work with these guys". I was very disappointed. I was totally surprised when I found out afterward that the movie had made $140 million at the box office.
Traitor (4/5)
This was a very relevant and current subject matter which makes the film very engaging. The topic was terrorism and Islam and the ubiquitous good versus evil theme. Don Cheadle was really good in the lead role. The movie definitely made me think about terrorism and who exactly terrorists might be and what we can do about them. I never was bored with the movie, though the plot was not very far off the "normal" order of things.
Iron Man - This one still holds up after I've seen it now three times. Just a fun, engaging, thrilling story which never loses me. They develop the character of Tony Stark well, there are top notch actors and technical production is first rate. A very good movie.
The Incredible Hulk (3.4/5) - A fun watch, but not horribly deep. The CGI Hulk was a little cheesy. William Hurt as the antagonist was a little over acted.
Movies I've seen this year (in the theater/a few video):
Iron Man - 4.2/5
Wall-E - 4.0/5
Traitor - 4.0/5
The Dark Knight - 3.9/5
Kung Fu Panda - 3.5/5
Valkyrie - 3.5/5
The Incredible Hulk - 3.4/5
Horton Hears a Who - 3.0/5
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
Valkyrie (3.5/5)
A decent movie. It was interesting, well made, decently acted. However, it failed to grab me and really make me "into" the movie.
Burn After Reading (1/5)
This movie was a steaming pile of self indulgent crappola ... is that too strong for a family blog? This was a Coen brothers movie, the follow up to their excellent No Country for Old Men from last year. Since I really like that movie, I had high expectations for this one. I was disappointed on all counts. The characters were basically lame, there was no plot. I happened upon an extra which was the Coens saying effectively "we made this movie because we had some characters that we thought would be fun for certain actors to portray". Meaning, "we can make any movie we want, so we threw this together because we thought it would be fun to work with these guys". I was very disappointed. I was totally surprised when I found out afterward that the movie had made $140 million at the box office.
Traitor (4/5)
This was a very relevant and current subject matter which makes the film very engaging. The topic was terrorism and Islam and the ubiquitous good versus evil theme. Don Cheadle was really good in the lead role. The movie definitely made me think about terrorism and who exactly terrorists might be and what we can do about them. I never was bored with the movie, though the plot was not very far off the "normal" order of things.
Iron Man - This one still holds up after I've seen it now three times. Just a fun, engaging, thrilling story which never loses me. They develop the character of Tony Stark well, there are top notch actors and technical production is first rate. A very good movie.
The Incredible Hulk (3.4/5) - A fun watch, but not horribly deep. The CGI Hulk was a little cheesy. William Hurt as the antagonist was a little over acted.
Movies I've seen this year (in the theater/a few video):
Iron Man - 4.2/5
Wall-E - 4.0/5
Traitor - 4.0/5
The Dark Knight - 3.9/5
Kung Fu Panda - 3.5/5
Valkyrie - 3.5/5
The Incredible Hulk - 3.4/5
Horton Hears a Who - 3.0/5
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
Monday, December 29, 2008
And we lost her ...
I'm not going to try to catch up on my lack of posting ... too much time hanging out with family and not enough time sitting in front of the computer ... that's a good thing.
Anyway, I happen to be sitting here in front of the fire reading a couple of articles about the Vikings qualifying for the playoffs, and I just realized that we won't actually talk to Cyndie for the next several days. She received a package in the mail from her dad today ... a new camera. The battery just finished charging about 5 minutes ago. And now all she wants to do is play with the camera. I think she will actually interact with us, but only to get us to pose for pictures, not because she's actually interested in us!
Needless to say, she's very excited!
Anyway, I happen to be sitting here in front of the fire reading a couple of articles about the Vikings qualifying for the playoffs, and I just realized that we won't actually talk to Cyndie for the next several days. She received a package in the mail from her dad today ... a new camera. The battery just finished charging about 5 minutes ago. And now all she wants to do is play with the camera. I think she will actually interact with us, but only to get us to pose for pictures, not because she's actually interested in us!
Needless to say, she's very excited!
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