Things, Stuff & Such

The holiday season seems to go by so fast. There is all this build up, starting around Thanksgiving, and then woosh… it’s over. Before i knew it I was taking down the decorations I had just put up over Thanksgiving weekend. I usually enjoy the Christmas season. Once I get our lights up I start thinking about buying presents and listening to holiday music. Not so much this year. I don’t know exactly why but I just wasn’t all that into it this season.

Once I picked up the boys from the airport everything got better.

I had to work Thursday and Friday after picking up the boys. It wasn’t to bad because I got off early each day. The people I work with are really great – they almost insisted I leave early because they new I had the boys with me. That did a lot for my Christmas spirit.

On Saturday I took Aaron to the Sports Authority to buy him a pair of Heely shoes. They are sneakers with a wheel in each heel. Aaron has wanted them for a while now and I figured that since he was so into skateboarding that he’d do well with them. Once we got home his old shoes came off and the Heelys were on. I took a minute to read the little instruction card attached to the shoes looking for pointers and safety tips. Aaron couldn’t care less about instructions and we headed outside.

According to the instructions you are supposed to place one foot in front of the other while rolling. This is not a natural position for your feet so they suggested you start out next to a wall or someone you can hold on to until you learn to balance. I suggested to Aaron that he try short runs between the two cars in the garage. The floor was smooth compared to our paver driveway and he could put one hand on each car for balance. After about a dozen passes he was really getting it and wanted to try the street.

Here is a video of Aaron practicing on the street:

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Christmas morning we all opened our presents. The boys and I were up late the night before watching movies (actually, Scott wished me a merry christmas at 12:01 that moring). You can see that Scott looks a little tired but ready to open presents.
You can see more pictures of Christmas morning on my flickr.com page.

Molly had the most fun with one of the gift bags.

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First of all…

Merry Christmas!!

It is 1:47am on Christmas morning and I am still up.  The boys are still up also but, I think they are running out of steam.  We had a great Christmas Eve.  The boys and I went walking around the neighborhood after the sun went down looking at all the lights.  We were watching “Aliens” on TV when Scott said to me, “Hey, Dad.  Merry Christmas.”  I looked at the clock and it was 12:01 a.m. I thought that was sweet.

I wish everyone a very happy holiday.

I have to get sleep now.

I picked the boys up from the airport Wednesday afternoon. They were both pretty hungary so we picked up some Wendy’s on the way home. After they were all settled Aaron wanted to go to the pool. I told him it was probably to cold but he insisted it wasn’t. I agreed, fully expecting that once they stuck a foot in the water they would abandon the idea.

I was wrong. The water was freezing to me but they both got in. They wanted me to come in also but there was no way… to cold.

I took this video with my treo phone… not the best quality. It may look like Scott is picking on Aaron but I promise you, Aaron was loving it.

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I have had to work the past two days (but not full days) so we have not done a whole lot yet. We’ve been to the pool twice, Wal-mart, and Blockbuster. Tomorrow starts my week off work so we have a lot of time together now. I would like to get up to St. Pete to visit my brother and his family but I’m not sure if it will happen before or after Christmas.

Aaron has been playing with the R/C Helicopter a little bit. It requires a bit of practice to get it right so he only messes with it for a few minutes at a time. He seems to like it though. Scott doesn’t seem too interested in it. I thought he’d be the one all over it.
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Merry Christmas and a happy New Year!

Scott and Aaron will be here Wednesday!!  Thier mother called me last night and asked me to pay for the tickets and she would pay me back later today.  I’m glad it is finally set.  I was getting a little nervious as it was only one week from Christmas.  They will be here for a full week, which is great.  I am set with all next week off so after Friday I will have all my time for them.  We are planning to see my brother for a day.  I’m not sure if it will be before or after Christmas but I did promise everyone we would get up there.

It was basically a rainny crapy weekend.  I had plans for Saturday moring that got canceled at the last minute by rain.  Bummer ’cause I was actually up around 6a.m and showered and dressed by 6:30 – which is unusuall for me on a Saturday.  One of the projects was finally getting a 4 gage cable run thru my firewall.  A friend who is a handy man offered to help me with that part but because we didn’t have a covered work area it was called on account of rain.  No biggie now that I know I can get it done eventually.  Probably after the first of the year.

I did get more Christmas shopping done over the weekend.  I really have to start shopping earlier in the year.  This ‘last minute’ shopping gets frustraighting.  Normally, I don’t really care for shopping in huge crowds but I can put up with it for Christmas.  What stinks is that, in a couple of instances, I am not finding the exact item that I want to get for the boys.

Last night my brother came down with Ethan and spent the night so we could watch Ethan while Kevin spent today helping with the opening of a California Pizza Kitchen in Estero.  It was great to have him for the day.  He was a lot of fun and full of energy.  One of the biggest hits of the day was a $10 plastic train set Mom bought from Walgreens early in the day.  Ethan spend hours playing with it.

Mom made a tunnel out of a Diet Coke 12 box.  Ethan loved watching it pass thu from the handle opening.

For some reason Ethan really enjoyed watching the train from under the table.

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I heard thru the grapevine (Read: The boys’ mother) that Scott was mad because his mother made him wear a jacket to school.  Apparently he didn’t think he needed a jacket.  It was eleven degrees outside (with a wind chill of five degrees)!  I know that Scott doesn’t like to wear multiple layers of clothes and that having to carry a jacket around school in addition to books can be a pain but… ELEVEN DEGREES!  Geeze.

I called him tonight to see how things were going.  He wasn’t all that interested in talking but I did bring up the jacket.  He said it is not that cold, “…to me.”  I let him know that we, as parents, don’t make them wear jackets to get them angry (there are pleanty of more fun ways to make our children angry) we do it to keep them from getting sick.  As I explained this to him I could almost hear my words going in one ear and out the other.

t’s not that he didn’t care about what I was saying, it was more like he didn’t think I was right.  It wasn’t cold to him and who knows better than he does how cold something feels to him, right?  Well, the simple answer is that I do.  Eleven degrees is cold.  Very cold.  Even if you are aclimated to the weather and it doesn’t feel to bad the first few seconds you are standing in it you will be cold long before you complete your walk to school.

I wonder if he thinks his parents are out of touch with his reality?

I remember thinking that about my parents.  I remember thinking they just didn’t understand me.  I remember believeing that as strongly when I was a kid as I now believe Scott needed a jacket today.  Same conviction then as now.  180 degree different situation. This is about more than just a jacket.  As a parent it is never just about the jacket.
The shuttle is supposed to launch around 9p.m. tonight.  The first night launch since the accident.  It is kind of cloudy tonight so I am affraid I may not get to see it outside.  It’s always cool when you can step outside and see the shuttle race into space but night launches are even cooler.  On a clear night you get a very good view of the flames and trail.  I’m going to try to get a picture again.  I got one of the last launch but you could hardly see it in the photo.  Right now I am streaming NASA TV on my pc.  You get nice shots of the shuttle on the pad but my favorite is hearing the astronauts communicating with Kennedy Space Center and Houston.  You get to hear them go thru check lists and do ‘com checks’.  It really helps you get a truer feeling for how much has to go in to each flight.  There is nothing routine about it.

Got these pictures from the boys’ mother last night. This is the first snow of the season and it was about a foot total. The boys got to miss two days of school already. You can see some more snow pictures on my flickr page.

The boys had Thursday and Friday off of school due to snow.  I’ve seen on the news that their part of the country had a pretty bad winter storm.  The current temperature at their house is about 21 degrees according to Weather.com.  Brrrr.  Scott was supposed to spend the night at a friend’s house but it was canceled.  Maybe because of the snow, but he was home alone because he stayed behind waiting for a phone call from his friend while the others went to the dog track.  I can’t imagine dogs racing in 21 degree weather – maybe i’m just to used to tropical weather.