The world lost one of the best

On December 28, 2007, the world lost a truly lovely person. My wife's Grandma past away.

We've been married for just over 11 years. Grandma was one of the first people I met in her family. She was the cornerstone of family. My wife had the greatest of admiration for her and I quickly learned why.

Grandma was the type of person that was always giving and hated to receive anything. The first thing I learned about being around Grandma was don't ever expect to leave her house hungry. I gotta to know the woman she was by eating with her and Grandpa. She never liked to see me leave without eating something.

When we were first married, my wife was a nurse in a hospital. She worked lots of crazy shifts. We didn't live all that far from Grandma and Grandpa. Somehow Grandma always knew when my wife worked evenings...because my phone would ring and there was Grandma...she'd just made a fresh pot of chili and wanted to know if I could come over. Yep, an invitation from my Grandmother-in-law. If only you had tried the chili you'd understand why I never turned it down.

It didn't take us long to have our first child. Grandma and Grandpa couldn't have been more excited. Our first daycare provider was none other than Grandma. We had one stipulation though. Grandma had been a life long smoker and we just didn't want our daughter growing up around cigarettes. Not a problem for Grandma, to have the opportunity to spend that much time around her great-grandchild, she just quit smoking. She'd been smoking for 40 years and just quit so she could do our daycare.

Having her do daycare helped create a bond to one more generation of her family. Our oldest daughter got to know her great-grandmom. How many daycare providers do you know that would stop you from leaving because your little one had a messy diaper. Yep, that was Grandma. I couldn't leave as long as the diaper was messy and as a new Dad, I couldn't have been more grateful.

Those people that grew up as her descendants are blessed people. I'm grateful that I got to know and love this woman. She was truly one of the greats. I miss her deeply.

This week with all of its sadness provided an opportunity. Like I said, Grandma was the cornerstone of the family. Family from all over the nation converged in our hometown to pay tribute to her life. 16 of the 21 grandchildren came home. I'm not sure this much family has been in town together since our wedding and most of us just picked up where we left off.

Last night, we joined KT (my wife,s cousin), S (her husband) and Bobby (my wife's cousin) and his new fiancee out for an evening of laughter, beer, food, beer, bowling and a little more beer.

I got some pictures with my phone to share with everyone.

As far as the bowling went, Scott showed why he bowls in a league and the rest of us bowl once per decade. But I don't think that was the point. The point was we were all together and the laughs just kept coming.


All the family has gone home now. Back to the corners of the country. Life is starting to return to some kind of normalcy. But I still miss Grandma.

On the brighter side, there is a wedding in the future. Let's hope we can get there.

I took a bunch of pictures the day of the funeral. I'm hoping to share them with everyone soon. I had a problem with some of them and am having a good friend whose a genius with Photoshop...he's fixing them. I'll have them soon!

The tree is up, and for once its not snowing

We finally got the tree up and decorated. I had gotten it down from the garage 2 weeks ago, but life has been more hectic than we'd prefer.

The girls had fun decorating the tree, but B and I were not quite having as much fun. While they liked taking all the pretty ornaments out of their boxes, neither really liked to put the packing stuff back in the box. Ugg.

For the most part, the weekend was pretty nice. B didn't work, so much hometime was had by all. Grandpa J was down on Saturday. He helped me with a bunch of minor electrical problems with the house. Funny, a house that is one 3 years old would have problems.

Oh how I hate places that take advantage of the mathematically challenged. Our government can pass laws making it illegal for ANYONE to play poker because the might "bet the house" and lose it, but if you want to practice usury, that's fine.

Hopefully, we can help her get to the bottom of this mess in a way that she will actually learn her lessons. Family stuff sucks.

We have had a bit of trouble trying to figure out what to do with a relative of ours. She's found a way to really get into more trouble than anyone should be able to get into.

She's figured out how reproduction works. Which I don't think anyone is truly shocked about. But to make matters worse, she also found a way to make almost every financial mistake possible for someone that makes $10/hour.

She has some trouble with impulse control. She REALLY wanted a car. She had an opportunity to buy a decent car really cheap, but took financial advice from the wrong people. They suggested she not buy the really cheap car. So, she does what any self-disrespecting person with little to no math skills would do. She bought a car and car dealer that specializes in loans to people that can't do math or research.


On the brighter side, B has almost finished this term in graduate school. One final this week and few more things to take care of and then we get her back for a couple of weeks. I can't wait.

She tells me that this term will be the worse. I hope she's right.

Ash has learned the joys of shoveling! Too bad she's 4 and doesn't like it enough to do the whole driveway clean, but she tries and it's really cute.

Over at my poker blog, you can read about my shot at a World Poker Tour title. Well, that's reaching a bit, but I've found myself going into the final week the league champion. If I can stay in the top two, I'll go directly to state!

It's really starting to feel like Christmas around here.

My new lens will be here soon and hopefully, I'll get back into the swing of taking pictures again. I miss it, but I just can't get into the mood. All of this fresh snow is helping!

Can I get one more day this weekend?

What a busy weekend. Friday night, we took took the girls to go see "Enchanted." Here's a little review of the movie, keeping in mind that I tend to review family movies as they pertain to FAMILY movies.

The girls loved this movie! If you have a bunch of boys to take to a movie, this may not be for them. It was definitely a princess movie. Many of the jokes and gags in this move are references to other princesses. So be sure you know who they are! This movie was a musical. Giselle, played by Amy Adams, does a fantastic job of singing and embodying all of the princesses of the past. She does most of the singing in the movie. I usually can't stand musicals. Moulin Rouge! is without a doubt, the worst movie ever made. But I enjoyed this one. The music wasn't great, but the girls liked singing along, so that made me happy.

We saw this movie at the new Wehrenberg Theater on the south side of Rochester. I gotta tell ya, I was impressed. This place was nice AND they had food! We love this cause we can take the kids to the early movie and eat while we watch the movie. Granted...it's not cheap or healthy, but it's a ton of fun! This theater features a lot of digital projection...WOW, does that make a difference. We will be going back.

So we get home from the movie, everyone is singing and happy and ready for bed. Both girls fell asleep on the way home. I get everyone tucked into bed and go to fire up my laptop and start blogging all this stuff, and what's this? The Internet? We AIN'T GOT IT! I've had broadband Internet since Charter Communications started having it 7 years ago. I hate it not being there. So to the phones we go.

I connect to level 1 support and find out that...we've been suspended for abuse. Huh? What the hell does that mean? The give me another number to call. I call the next number. And they tell me the same thing. OK, but do you have any details? No. I need to call this other number (which is the same one Level 1 gave me. These other people work 8 to 5, M-F. WTF! I will have no Internet until Monday morning, and no one knows why? After working my way up the food chain, I'm finally told it's because I get too much spam. Huh? Why is that my problem? And why not just shut down my email address? Again, I'm to call these other people that don't work til Monday. I'm officially steaming now.

I try calling back to see if I got another person that might have English as a top 5 language. This time, I genuinely think they are trying to help me, but to no avail. But he's at least honest and says he really doesn't know why. I should try calling back in the morning after 8. The day people have more access to the info.

I called back right away at 8 am and man this person was right on the ball. We were disconnected because they think we have a virus on one of our computers that's attacking their servers. OK! I know how to fix that, but DAMN couldn't you just call me? They restored the Internet and all of its glory!

But now I need to run virus scanners on all of my computers...and make it to a Pamper Chef party by 10:30 with the girls. Sorry Kt, a friend of mine was having it, it was fun, but we held off ordering a lot of stuff to order from you.

By the time this gets done, the winter storm ravaging the state Minnesota is turning from snow to sleet. We hobble our way over to Home Depot and then to Target to buy supplies. for the rest of the weekend. At this moment I also had a fun idea for supper. We were definitely eating at home tonight, so I thought making homemade pizza sounded like a lot of fun! And it was. I made some pizza crusts and then we let the girls "decorate" their own sections of the pies. It was totally cool! After dinner, we shoveled some of the driveway, but the ice layer totally sucked so much of the driveway has been abandoned. We got done with that and settled in for a little family time watching Christmas specials and then all to bed. I did crank out a post for the poker blog last night...that was way over due as well.

Almost forgot to mention, this is Brenda's weekend to work. We miss mommy...it's been a long time since we had her home on the weekend.

Sunday arrives, Brenda is home, but she's almost done with the worse term of her graduate classes. It's thesis time, so today was spent researching and writing a paper. The weather sucks, the roads suck, so me and the girls are stuck at home trying to stay out of Mommy's hair long enough for her to get something done. We really can't wait for her to be past all this. It'll be worth it in the end, but we miss her, even when she is home.

We got the Christmas tree up. It's not decorated yet, but is up.

I miss my camera. I mean I still have it, but I just haven't been able to take any pictures lately. I need to find the books I bought a couple of weeks ago. One was a book of inspirational ideas. The creative kind, not the religious kind.

This about the longest post I've ever had here. And to think, it only covered the last 36 hours. I really can't wait to get back to work. Peace and quiet at last.

Night all!

How did your weekend go?

I got tell ya, this weekend was a tough one. The Mrs worked all weekend, so me and the girls were at home the whole time. Stir crazy is one good way to describe it.

Thursday, we avoided going any where because, well, it's just too friggin' busy!

We live in Rochester MN. Actually the windiest city in the world. Maybe not, but it was windy all weekend...and cold...and dreary. I couldn't keep the kids outside for more than 10 minutes. So back in the house we go. I got some of the Christmas lights up, but not many.

Did I mention the kids were stir crazy? It is actually pleasant to get back to work today. It's quiet here. Since we were home all weekend...the phrase "Dad, I'm bored." was said so many times, it lost all meaning to me. I even called Grandma to prove to Em that when Daddy was a kid, we WERE NEVER INSIDE. So the two would just fight each other and then see who could tattle first. Not Daddy's favorite game.

I can't begin to tell you how much I'm looking forward to B finishing graduate school and getting a job that doesn't require working EVERY OTHER weekend.

There...I vented. Not that the weekend was a total loss. We even had some fun this weekend between the screaming. I even had enough time to make B one home cooked meal!

Carnival Games for the Wii has been turned into a totally fun game for our family. Ash has found a couple of the mini games to be a ton of fun. She can beat everyone in the family! Finally, a game we call all play and enjoy! I know this is terrible, but it was nice for her to finally point out to Em that she didn't beat her. Em has a bad habit of pointing out the Ash is losing. Table turned.

Thank God it's Monday!

Thoughts of thankfulness

I know that Thanksgiving is only 2 days away, but I feel prepped and ready. The stomach is ready for the challenge.

I thought it might be fun to mention somethings I'm thankful for.

1. I'm thankful, most of all, for my wife and kids. They are the greatest!
2. I'm thankful for most of my inlawed extended family. I think you know who you are ;-)
3. Kt and K, I'm thankful your mom makes the best pumpkin pie, EVER
4. While we are on that side of the family...I'm also grateful that my wife's mom's side of the family has few people at all that eat sweet potatoes...YEAH! More for me!
5. I'm thankful our family is so close and yet far enough away...if you know what I mean ;-)
   Americans Enjoying Thanksgiving Tradition Of Sitting Around At Airport
6. I'm thankful for my parents. Simply wonderful people.
7. I'm thankful for my small extended family. (Our holidays are small and peaceful)

There is more, I got 2 more days to post them. Keep thinking!

Wednesday is here...is it nap time yet?

Wednesdays really suck if Tuesday goes well. Well, Tuesday went well. Now, I need to get through the day, winning a poker tournament is always fun, but the piper gets paid the next day with my complete lack of sleep.

I was thinking about my last post. G, probably the best reason to get an iPod Touch...when we are out for dinner with the kids. $2 spent on an episode of Spongebob is so worth it when the girls will just sit there quietly watching. Yep...2 kids quiet and content in a restaurant waiting for supper. It's a beautiful thing.

Our oldest daughter made raising a child seem like the easiest thing in the world. We were very lucky. Our youngest...she's been different. She's now taken to lying. She know likes to tattle on things she did but blame other people. A couple of days ago, she blamed her big sister for something, something big. We figured she was lying, but wanted to see what she would do if we punished her big sister. It didn't change her stance. Well, we changed tunes and then punished her for lying and the original offense. We really don't want to see her grow up lying, as some of you know, our extended family has enough compulsive liars. Any ideas?

Look what I found!

I found these pictures in the pile of pictures I took of the girls when we went to the Red Wing and hung out with grandpa on the ATVs.

There is a more extensive collection of pictures at my photo blog of that day.

The week that was...

I really had been trying to post more to this blog. This week has been a lot of fun and very busy.

For starters...it's been a good week for poker. I've actually been having a lot of success again. I finally went really deep at poker league again. It's been a long time. I think after this week, I will certainly be in the hunt to go to state again!

The girls have also been busy. Brenda is preparing to go on a nice vacation from work. This will be awesome! E continues on in the 3rd grade. She seems to have even more homework than ever before. That pretty much sums up her evening. Ashlea will love getting to hang out with Mom for a while.

If the weather is dry tomorrow (and I'm not exactly believing it will), we will be taking the kids to the pumpkin patch with my brother's family. These are always great photo ops and the kids have so much fun!

Today, I joined some of my friends that are photography nuts. We went to Frontenac State Park for the morning. Sunrise to about lunch. That will pretty much keep me busy tonight, sorting through the pictures, looking for the diamonds in the rough.

Now...to just get G and K reading this again. Oh well...maybe someday.