Category Archives: Family

Weekend Visit

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Michelle came to visit for the weekend. It was fun as always having her here. She did not get to spend as much time with Patty as she would typically have liked, since Patty was out helping a friend of hers babysit. Patty considers herself something of an expert since she helped take care of my sisters kids last summer.

Michelle was playing Rock Band 2, and she was doing really well, and then something terrible happened. The front USB ports on the Xbox 360 all stopped working. There was an Xplorer guitar plugged in and a controller and neither of them work now either. I called Microsoft and the Xbox 360 is under warranty, but the controller and the guitar are garbage.

Michelle went home today after spending two nights here. She teased Eddy and generally found ways to entertain herself. It was nice having her here.

Baseball Game

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Eddy got free tickets to see the Akron Aero’s play this past Saturday, because he served on Safety Patrol. Patty did the same thing when she was in the elementary school. To sum up what they do the kids get to school early, put on a bright yellow florescent strap that goes around their waist and shoulder, they also have a badge that goes on it, and they escort other kids across the street. It is a great little pick me up for the kids, but they don’t seem to have anything like it at the middle school.

Eddy’s time to retire came here in the last two weeks of school, because that is when they start to train the 4th graders who will be on Safety Patrol next year. Patty did not really finish the year out, because she had a bit of a problem with waking up on time, but Eddy did, and he does not mind getting to sleep in for the next few weeks. With the weather as nice as it has been he has even rode his bike to school.

I would have taken them to the game, but their Mom came and picked them up for the weekend, so she took them instead. What worked out great is that he got four tickets so Michelle could go too. I guess they had a good time, until about 2 hours in where the Aero’s were losing by a bunch and the kids had enough of baseball for a day. I guess their Mom took pictures, and if I ever get those I’ll go ahead and put them up here.

Amy and Ken

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My sister Becky arranged a family get together to celebrate my sister Amy getting married to Ken. Amy and Ken just got married about a week ago, and since that happened in Texas we were not there. This was our way of meeting Ken and getting together. I didn’t actually attend the event, because unfortunately I came home after the bike auction and fell asleep on the couch. I thought I was only going to take a nap, but I didn’t wake up until after 5. Lucky for me Amy and Ken were driving out this way anyway to see someone so they stopped by.

I haven’t seen Amy in over six years and I had never met Ken before, so it was cool getting a chance to catch up some. I had to get her new name, which I’ve had to try and memorize before when Becky got married. I already had their address. I promised I’d actually try and send letters on the holiday’s, which is something I had been meaning to do, but I’m absolutely horrible about this sort of thing. It was great seeing them both and I hope to see them both again.

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Easter

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The kids got dressed up and went to Easter mass. When they came home they got their baskets. They immediately starting eating the candy in the baskets, and the sugar led to a marked increase in activity, so much so that I had to get them to change and go outside to play. It’s not real warm outside, but it’s warm enough and it isn’t raining or anything.

I had to take Michelle home and the kids mother had another basket of candy for me to take home to them. Just what they needed.

14

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Michelle’s birthday was on the 8th so she really needed to come over so we could do something about that. She came over today. I took her out to the mall and let her pick out a shirt and she found one of Alice in Wonderland, the Disney version, at Hot Topic with the Cheshire Cat on it. The mall closed so we had to go to Target and I got her Guitar Hero II for PS2, because it was in the budget section of video games. I told her she could pick out another item of clothing or a toy and she decided to get something she could play with. I think that’s cool.

We went to Apple Bee’s for dinner and for a change it wasn’t really bad. I gave her the choice of three restaurants, which was Apple Bee’s, Olive Garden, and Steak & Shake. I’m really glad she didn’t pick Steak & Shake I go there too often as it is. The server was really awesome and brought extra sauce for the boneless wings and my chicken salad without me having to ask for it. Michelle got chicken penne and we learned that it is pronounced the same as “penny”. Learn something new every day.

We came home and played Rock Band 2. Patty and Eddy came downstairs to watch. They had to go to bed after midnight though, which I didn’t know how late it was, because the cable box is actually broken. It just gets stuck on boot up and the message on the screen says “APP”. They will be out Tuesday to fix that. Michelle is getting really good at guitar. She’s up to Hard, and getting 90% on all the songs we played, so she might just be ready for the expert difficulty real soon.

Tomorrow is Easter, so all the kids will be getting a basket. I have to drive Michelle home after that, so the weekend will be cut extremely short. I didn’t know she was going to have to leave so soon. I thought I would get more time.

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Spring Break

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The kids are on their spring break and wouldn’t you know it it’s been snowing for the last two days. I don’t believe it is supposed to snow tomorrow, because according to the weather widget I have on my desktop it is supposed to be 44 degrees tomorrow, but this is still a crazy way to begin a break. Not that this weather is unfamiliar for Ohio. I was just talking to the principle at a Catholic middle school and she said that it’s snowed on their Easter egg hunt for the past 3 years.

Speaking of which the kids are probably going to be going to non-public schools next year. I signed them up for this program that allows them to receive some help towards the tuition of private schools. My cost is only a few hundred dollars and at one school I believe I have to volunteer at some events to offset more of the cost, but overall that isn’t really that much to pay for the kids to be out of public schools. If they continue in this plan for the next several years they will be able to go to a Catholic high school. I’m pretty happy about this plan, even though driving the kids to school is going to be a bit of a pain.

Weekend Stuff

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The kids learned to make “flubber” and “play doh” from some recipes they were given at school. I’ve seen the “play doh” one before, it’s flour and food coloring and some other household things, but the flubber one is a new one. We needed borax, which to be completely honest I don’t remember ever using that before for anything, to make the “flubber”. I like the “flubber” better, because while it seems to be a little slimey to the touch, it doesn’t dry out near as quickly as the “play doh”.

Some bad news for this weekend. Patty’s bike was stolen. She claims she left it in someone’s driveway while she was playing over there and when she went to leave it was gone. I’m not particularly surprised. It is something we will have to work on replacing.

Televisions

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I might have mentioned this before, but my television was acting up. I called Best Buy, because I had the four year warranty through them, in order to get it fixed. A month and a half went by and I had to miss other activities to wait at home for the repairman three times. Finally though the television was deemed a “junk out”, which is Best Buy speak for “you get your money back and you can get a new TV”. This was sort of the answer that I wanted desperately so I rushed to Best Buy as soon as I got the confirmation number to see what I could do.

Derek had to help me carry the old television, which was a 46″ Toshiba CRT projection television, to the store. Customer Service gave me the gift certificate and I started looking at TV’s. I already knew what I wanted to get. I had done a fair bit of research in the past month on the topic and while I would have liked one of the new LED televisions I certainly do not have the funds for it. I ended up getting a Samsung 46″ LCD.

Derek helped me bring it inside and we set it up. It was not long before I noticed that it just did not really fit in how I had the living room setup. This television is much lower, because it lacks that obnoxious cabinet projection TV’s need for the projection. It looked beautiful and we played around with a few Xbox 360 games just to see them on an LCD screen at 1080p. There are so many details in games that I’ve spent hours and hours in that I’m just now noticing.

I went back the next day with my son and we got a TV stand and I also picked up the VGA connector for the Xbox 360, because naturally I want to play with that. They had a TV stand that was perfect for what I wanted to do. Large enough shelves so that I would only need one table in the living room to hold the Wii, cable box, receiver, and Xbox 360, a red wood look that matches the TV’s red tinge (Samsung calls this “Touch of Color”), and it was on sale. We loaded it up and brought it home. I asked the guy with the cart to hold my glasses for a second, because I wanted to try loading it into the car myself and while it made sense in my head he declined and proceeded with much more effort than it would have taken me to do so.

We spent the next 3 hours constructing the TV stand, unplugging everything, and moving everything to the new stand, and then finally plugging everything in. I think my son learned quite a few things. What an optical and coaxial cable look like, how to plug in component cables, and while helping me construct the TV stand some invaluable stuff there like how to use an Allen wrench. It was a great day. I can’t remember the last time we spent so much time together. We did the whole project and then sat around and watched cartoons. We ate chili and both ended up passing out in the living room.

Weekend

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I drove the kids up to see their Mom this weekend. They got their Christmas presents. They both got shirts which they’ve been wearing when they get home from school, since they can’t actually wear the shirts to school, because they aren’t part of their uniform. They both got several toys and other assorted things as well. I remember seeing that Eddy got some Dragon Ball Z figures, but these ones are bigger than normal. These are like 8″ figures. Usually the figures he’s gotten before were smaller than this. Patty got a clothes hamper that looks like a pig. I would have taken some pictures or something, so that I’d be able to remember everything that they got, but I thought why take pictures of toys?

I guess they all went for a walk as well and had a good time.

Science Project [Update]

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This is the car that managed to go 16 centimeters at school, because apparently the yarn that drives the whole thing got caught up in something. I told her to wind it down the middle, but it’s a little tricky, because the car isn’t exactly solidly built. You have to be pretty careful about winding it, and then you have to make sure the wheels are positioned correctly, because the axle can move to the left and right and the wheels themselves are only really wedged on the axle by a bunch of tape I wound around it.

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