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!