Year: 2010

Six flavors of awesome. Because it’s true.

Credit: Alan Foreman @ poisonedminds.com

Today we went to the home of our friends the von Niederhauserns for their annual Super Bowl party. There were a dozen adults there– not to mention a gaggle of kids running around underfoot– and the funny thing is, not one of us cared who won the game. There weren’t any Saints or Colts fans, and we were all probably more interested in hanging out and eating pizza than the game.

So it was a great time, and in fact the game turned out to be pretty fun as it went back and forth. Congrats to the Saints.

Last night Zack’s Cub Scout pack had a fundraiser: their annual Blue and Gold Banquet, which is a chance to get a hundred people together to eat spaghetti or (this year) a Mexican bar, and bid on cakes made by the boys to raise money for camps and such.

So Zack and I made a chocolate cake and coated it in a generous half-inch-thick layer of caramel frosting. Yum! Then we brought it to the banquet and waited while the auctioneer went through about forty cakes.

Finally ours came up, and I screamed “fifty bucks!” and immediately won the cake. Then the kids and I sat around our table and dug in. Awesome.

If I was more cynical I’d wonder whatever would possess me to make a cake, donate it to the Cub Scouts, and then buy it back for about ten times its value. Ah well, all for a good cause.

I’ve never been much of a notebook guy. Over the years I would grab a legal pad and scribble some notes or thoughts or whatever– some for business, some for my writing and general creative ideas (such as they are). But it never seemed like I could finish a legal pad. I’d get maybe halfway through it, and I’d lose interest. Or lose the pad itself. Or, in one instance, spill water all over it and end up with smeary ink on every stuck-together page.

A few weeks ago I picked up a little pocket-sized notebook (a “memo pad” I guess it’s called) and I’ve been using it for work and some other things. So far I’ve used about ten percent of it. The big question: will I ever finish it?

My cousin Cheryl found an old photo album and scanned some of the pictures. The results are hilarious.

For example, check out the adorable kid third from the left. Yep, that’s me with my pea green pants and matching olive socks. Oh, and the blue Keds. Everyone wore Keds in those days.

One could argue that Kathy (far left) is much more hip with her multicolored pants (what are those– flowers? Smurfs?).

Sometimes it’s a good thing that fashion changes.

On the one hand, it’s awesome to have all kinds of food stored in our basement. When we run out of peanut butter or whatever, we just go downstairs and get a new one from the mini-grocery store.

On the other hand, sometimes the food down there has been around a while before we actually use it. Today I’m making a cake with Zack for the Cub Scout banquet tonight. The cake mix was a bit older than I’d like.

We mixed it up anyway, and both Zack and I agreed it still tastes fine.

Having some fun with my camera…

The tradition continues: it’s February 2 so we watched the movie Groundhog Day. What a great film– it’s funny, entertaining, and has some great messages in it.

I think this might be the fourteenth year in a row we’ve watched it.

For our continuing dinner series at home, we’re going to work on learning new languages. We’re concentrating on basic phrases like “Hello” and “How are you?” and “My name is…” and other exciting topics.

Tonight we started on French, since that’s the language Kyra is learning in school. I think next week will be German, which is Alex’s choice (and I know fragments from years past). And Spanish will inevitably be next since Laralee knows it. Eventually we’ll get to more exotic ones like Russian, Japanese, and Farsi.

As of today we officially have a teenager in the house. Alex turned 13. Woo hoo!