Holiday Recap

I hope the holiday season was as good to you as it was to us. It is not official, but I am pretty sure we are a licensed Lego distributor at this point. The boys each received a bunch of lego sets, among other things, and they were in heaven. Our family spent Christmas down in Milwaukee with Robin's family and then we headed up north over New Year's to have Christmas with my family. It was great seeing everyone!

It is amazing that it is 2009, it still has not sunk in. Nolan starts basketball tomorrow and he is in a baseball hitting camp this month and a catchers camp next month. Basketball practice on Wednesdays, games on Saturday, and baseball on Sundays......already tired.

In addition to all the sports, I have decided to get another Masters degree in Educational Leadership. When I am done, I will have a Director of Instruction license and a Principal license. I am going through Cardinal Stritch again and I should be done in about 18 months. Classess meet every Thursday for 4 hours beginning January 29. I am looking forward to starting, but let's see he how I feel 6 months from now.

Happy New Year!!!

Holiday Pictures

Back To Reality

What a crazy 24 hour period from Thursday to Friday. I woke up in California about 7:00 am our time, had a nice breakfast, cup of coffee and then headed to the airport in San Jose. My plane left sunny California about noon on the west coast (2:00 our time). I had to fly into Minneapolis and connect to my flight back to Milwaukee. After I landed in Minneapolis, I found out my flight to Milwaukee was going to be delayed an hour, due to the snow in Las Vegas. Great. Our group out in California was tracking the "big storm" that was suppose to hit Thursday, so needless to say, I just wanted to get home before it all.

I eventually made it back to Milwaukee before the big storm, which we definitely got early Friday morning. In fact, we had so much snow fall in the early parts of Friday, that my neighbor decided to snow blow at 2:30 a.m. Then, at about 5:00 a.m. I received the "call" that school has been cancelled. Most of yesterday was spent snow blowing. All told, we received a little over 11 inches of snow in about 12 hours.

Sunny California

Ok, it is not so sunny, but it is in the upper 40's, which is way better than the temps in Wisconsin. I arrived out here around 12:00 local time (2:00 CST). I am attending an Executive Briefing at Apple headquarters the next couple of days. I am staying at a little inn located in Saratoga, California. Below is the view from my window.
As you are all aware, the holiday season is upon us. It actually felt like the holiday season until Sunday evening when all the RAIN we got washed away the snow. Nolan and Evan both have had their Christmas programs. I missed Evan's, which was today, but Robin taped it for me. Here is a picture of the boys at Nolan's program from Saturday. Hope your holiday season is going well. Hope to see you all soon.

The One That Got Away

During the gun season, Steve and I were sitting in the "Outhouse" when this buck came upon us around 7:30 am. The window you see Steve looking out early in the video does not open, so he had to try and get a shot out of the front window, which means he would have had to sit in my lap. I bet next year that side window will open.

Her Side of Another Great Season

Well, as another year of deer hunting approached, I have to admit I was a little nervous, nine days is a long time for anything. However, I was prepared I had plans!

We were going to have a movie night, go see the new and improved Domes with the cool lights at night, maybe even venture downtown for a trip to the Art museum or Discovery World and lunch at our favorite restaurant the Wicked Hop. Plus there was the kitchen project.

Usually during deer season, or whenever Jim is away on a trip, I manage to get some major projects done. I've painted, caulked, wallpapered and this year wasn't going to be any different.

I had a kitchen to repaint and a oversized curtain rod to build.

Well the kids had plans too. And somehow those plans outnumbered mine. We did the usual: school, homework, work, but the weekends took on a whole new meaning. We managed to have movie night. We saw three. We even had fun at Home Depot getting PVC for the oversized curtain rod.  Nolan and Evan definitely had fun matching couplings and t's and elbows to the straight PVC while I calmly tried to explain to the Home Depot person what I needed as they wondered what I was making. In case your wondering . . .the curtain rod is for Nolan's school. They have a winter festival type of thing we call the Hop 'n Shop that has a Secret Gift Shop where the kids go and buy presents and get them wrapped, a dance, crafts, bake sale, etc. The Secret Gift Shop is in a hallway that needed to be "closed" off so no one can see what the kids are buying. I was in charge of making a curtain to cover it. The hallway is 10' wide.

The rest of my plans gave way to Super Spies, indoor camping, supper and another movie with Grandma and lots of hungarian pancakes! We were having so much fun that two of the days we didn't even bother to get out of our pjs. It was our own version of a vacation. We even got to play in the snow after school! 

Thanksgiving was very nice. Nolan, Evan, Nathan and Accadia had fun together, and I really enjoyed having a conversation with adults. The weekend after Thanksgiving was a little more normal, and we were out of creative ideas. 

As for my projects, well the curtain rod is the only thing that got done, and the best thing about it is it actually works!

Another Great Season

Well, deer hunting is officially over and we had another great season. This year we had most of the crew up for the whole week, so we got a lot of hunting in. For me, I have not hunted this much since high school. The final total was 11 deer including five legal bucks. We didn't have anything huge, but Chuck's dad Don shot a decent 10 p0inter.

One of the highlights came on Thanksgiving morning. During the first drive of the day, we pushed a small buck out and Mitchell was able to tag team his first deer of his hunting career. He was pretty excited, as were the rest of us. Marci also shot her first deer this year.

Since I was going to be up on the farm all week this year, I decided to try and video tape as much as I could. My goal is to put together a "highlight" video to show Nolan and Evan what hunting is like. I have about 60 total minutes of footage, so now comes the hard part, editing. Needless to say, I will have to get creative with editing some of the sound bites. Once I have the footage put together, I will post some clips on YouTube for you to see.

Robin and the boys went out to my Uncle Jeff's for Thanksgiving dinner. This year, Robin's mom went too and it sounds like they had a great time. I went to Myna's house for Thanksgiving for the first time in awhile, and it was great. It reminds me of all the different Thanksgiving days I has growing up.

Lastly, I will be going out to California for work in a couple of weeks. I was invited to attend an Executive Briefing at Apple's headquarters in Cupertino, California (just outside of San Jose). I am looking forward to that.