politics part 2: endorsement time

my editor noted that my previous political post did not include an endorsement of a presidential candidate. so let me just say, for the record, i enthusiastically endorse:


here's something i found a while ago. somebody made it after mccain misspoke during a speech, stating that he would "veto any beer." i am strongly pro-beer, and anyone standing on an anti-beer platform will not get my vote.


Editor's Note: Despite the somewhat humorous mention of beer, you know that Mike is serious about this. Nothing else has ever prompted him to post twice in a row, particularly without any "encouragement" from me. --Holli

we interrupt this family blog to get political

yes, i know, we don't do politics here. but this is perfect:


if you don't get the reference (on multiple levels), you should look it up. c'mon, everyone, this stuff is IMPORTANT.

other thoughts: people are all atwitter about tina fey's impersonation of sarah palin on snl (the mock-up of the katie couric interview), but most don't realize that fey spoke (word for word) large sections of palin's ACTUAL INTERVIEW RESPONSES during the skit. as you may have heard, sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.

the pumpkin hunters

Hensler's, the place we go to get our Christmas trees, started a new Fall Festival this year, so we decided to check it out, along with Yami, Bethany, and Klaudia. The week before, they had held a large pumpkin contest, and the second-place winner was on display. Don't worry, we asked before we let the kids climb up on it for pictures. The structural integrity of a pumpkin that size is truly amazing.



The neat thing about this pumpkin patch was that we all bought tickets, then went on a horse-drawn wagon ride (which was quite long!) out to the pumpkin patch, where we were each allowed to pick one pumpkin to take home. The catch was that all of the pumpkins were growing in thick weeds and plants, so we did some stumbling around trying to find them. But once we did, we all headed back to the wagon and rode back to the main area. The boys got to play on the wooden train and tractor (a treat they loved last winter too), see the reindeer and wild birds, and check out all of the pumpkins. It was pretty warm, so it didn't exactly feel like it was close to Halloween, but the temperature is supposed to drop considerably this week, so maybe this weekend we'll do something else Halloweeny. Or maybe we'll just hang out around the house, like we did for the rest of this past weekend...

what it's all about

Last night, just before bed, Liam told me he had a secret (he's been very big on secrets lately). He gave me a hug and whispered in my ear, "I will love you forever."

kids weekend adventure

We dropped Liam and Max off at Aunt Bethany's house on Saturday morning. Bethany and Klaudia gave the boys a special treat to start off the weekend: a trip to the Build-a-Bear Workshop. Liam chose a cat, and dressed it in a firefighter costume. He named the cat Dino (this is at least the second, possibly the third, cat named Dino that Liam has owned). Max chose a bear and dressed it in a police costume; he did not give it a name. Both boys also got miniature cats.



But the real treat was Saturday night. The boys got to go on their very first camping trip! They didn't have to go far -- just to a tent in Bethany's field. But still, they spent the whole night outdoors. Uncle J stayed outside with them all night, and in the morning, Papaw came and made them pancakes and bacon for breakfast. All that fresh air must have really wiped Max out, because it looks like he was the last one up in the morning.



On Sunday, the boys spent the day going for go-kart rides, playing with the new kittens, and watching Yami do some quilting. Liam also had the pleasure of spending a couple of hours with Papaw, learning how to mix and pour cement. He now knows all of the steps involved, including how to wash out the wheelbarrow afterward to remove all traces of cement. (In case you were wondering, they were working on construction of a new and larger dog pen for Ben and Jerry.) By the time bedtime rolled around, the boys (and, I would venture to guess, my parents) were worn out and got a good night's sleep.


Monday morning, my mom took the boys in to daycare, and my sisters picked them up that evening. Then it was back to Bethany's house to play, then back to Yami's house for dinner and playtime with J and his friend Steve until we (finally) arrived to pick them up that night. What a happy reunion, on both sides!

grown-up weekend adventure

Last weekend, Mike and I took a little trip to celebrate our fifth anniversary. Believe it or not, this was the first vacation-type trip we've been on since our honeymoon. I guess that's what you sign up for when you plan to start having babies as soon as possible following the wedding. Anyway, Saturday morning, we bid farewell to the boys (who spent the weekend at the family "compound" -- more on that in a following post)and hit the road for scenic Canton, Ohio.

If Canton seems like a random choice to you, it wasn't. It was something worse: a completely nerdy choice. We picked Canton because of its proximity to an attraction for each of us. (We picked our hotel because the room boasted a giant bathtub, but that's neither here nor there.) When we arrived, we discovered that our hotel was in the middle of a chain-restaurant paradise. All the major chains were represented; too bad we're more into one-off kinds of places. Still, we managed to enjoy a delicious dinner Saturday night at the seafood emporium (you know the one).

Mike, in the middle of telling me, "I was at this game!"

After sleeping in Sunday morning (oh, so that's what that feels like!), we headed to our first destination: The Pro Football Hall of Fame. It turned out to be smaller and less impressive than Mike thought it would be, but it did have a large, creepy hall of heads that featured busts of all HOF players. It also had a nice gift shop (of course) so we were able to get the promised souvenirs for the boys (Chicago Bears semis).

Mike channels Da Coach.

Monday morning, we got up too early and set out for Newell, West Virginia, the home of Fiestaware. The fog was low in the mountains, and we drove through lots of small, desolate towns where we got no cell phone reception. I'll admit, the whole drive sort of gave me the creeps. But then we arrived, and the trip was instantly forgotten. We took a tour of the factory and watched the Fiesta being born, which was really interesting for me. Mike was more focused on the "poor bastards" who had worked there for 30+ years, moving clay molds from place to place monotonously the whole time. Apparently, it made making tires not seem like such a bad thing to be doing.

Mecca

After the tour, we hit the Fiesta outlet store. The highlight was the second quality room. Stacks upon stacks of Fiestaware, some obviously cracked and damaged, others with just slightly "off" colors or tiny white spots. Paradise, I'm telling you. We spent a happy and dusty hour in there collecting my souvenirs, then we packed up the car and embarked on the long drive back home. It was really good to get away by ourselves, but by Sunday night/Monday morning, we were definitely missing the boys and just wanting to get back to them. Those little devils have us wrapped around their fingers.

40-16!

Not to be left out, Max decided to show off his own counting skills...

110!

stealth mission: plant a tree

Saturday was our fifth anniversary (which just so happens to be the wood anniversary), so Friday night the boys and I put our stealth plan into action. The plan was to buy an oak tree (Mike's favorite) and plant it Friday night while Mike was at work. After calling all of the nurseries and garden centers in the area only to discover that they were all sold out of oak trees, it became clear that the plan would need to be tweaked. Luckily, my parents have many acres of woods, so we went over there, and headed down the trail with J and Klaudia. Eventually, we found the tree we were looking for, and the boys helped J dig it up. Then we headed back to the house for dinner.





After dinner, J was kind enough to bring the tree to our house in his truck and plant it for us (again with some help from the boys, who this time added to the fun by making a huge mess with their chocolate ice cream cones). By this time, it was pretty late and getting dark. Happily, Mike didn't notice the tree when he came home from work later that night.




Saturday morning, in the midst of getting ready for our trip, the boys and I took Mike outside to see his anniversary gift. The boys were literally hopping with excitement, and Mike was pretty pleased too. It was a good way to kick off an adventurous weekend for all of us.

gram: house detective

We've been wondering about our house for a while now. We heard from some neighbors who have lived in their house since 1926 (!) that there used to be a pond where the oasis is now. We heard from another neighbor that her house used to be the town stable; she even showed us the stone mounting blocks that are still in place (and, yes, in case you were wondering, she actually remembers this; she didn't just hear it from someone). At the messy party, one of the parents told us that she could remember playing in our house as a kid. Then she dropped a real bombshell: our house, she said, used to be a barn. She told us that a family bought the place in the 1980s and converted it into a house.


But how can that be? we asked ourselves. Our house was built in 1915, and the way the rooms are set up, there's no way that it could have been a barn. I thought maybe my grandpa would be a good resource. He's lived here all his life, and his sister used to live just one street over from where we are now. We thought surely he would remember something about this place. Sadly, he didn't. He did tell us that the house wasn't a barn -- the barn was down the road a couple of houses, where there is a school now, so I'm not sure what the parent at the messy party was talking about.


Enter Gram. She ran into my neighbor one day (the one who has lived around the corner since 1926) and they got to talking about it. The neighbor remembered the name of the boy who lived here during her childhood in the 1930s. And, in the beautiful way of small towns, it turns out that Gram goes to exercise classes with the wife of that man.


Amazing, right? But it gets better. Gram's exercise buddy brought her a surprise last week: pictures of our house from the 1930s! We're so excited to have these, and to be able to trace some of the history of the place. There were even pictures of the pond (conveniently, all of the pictures had been marked a very long time ago with the name of the man and with the address). It turns out that one of the neighbor kids may or may not have nearly drowned in the pond; regardless, the neighbor kid's father threatened to sue the family who lived here if they didn't fill in the pond, so the pond was filled in. Somewhere along the line, the rock wall disappeared too, although Mike keeps finding remnants of it every time he digs a hole. We like the oasis as it is now, but maybe someday we'll have our own stone wall.

soggy jeffirspalooza

Liam has been obsessed with "hurrmicames" for the past few weeks. He sits with Mike and watches the Weather Channel obsessively, gauging the size and intensity of each one, and giving us little tidbits about which storm is bigger or scarier. Mike told him that all of the rain we got last weekend was a remnant of Hurricane Ike, so Liam kept an eye to the sky with great interest all weekend long.

He's been so fascinated that he hardly even noticed that we couldn't swim at the end-of-the-summer pool party at Kent and Popi's house on Sunday. To be more precise, we could have taken a swim -- to get to their house. We're lucky we got there at all. High water was everywhere, and the cell lines were aflame as family members called and texted to update each other on the conditions for various routes. My grandparents kindly discovered a completely flooded intersection along the highway, so we all knew to avoid that...well, except for Kent, who had to go out and rescue them after their car stalled out (apparently the car is pretty much toast at this point). As for us, we got out into the middle of one patch of water before we realized that it was too deep, but it was too late to turn back. Luckily, we made it through without stalling, which was amazing considering that there was at least one other car stalled out right there.

Anyway, the clan eventually made it to the party, and we all had some nice indoor fun. Liam and Max had a wonderful time exploring Maria's princess-themed playroom and trying out toys they just wouldn't find at home. After dinner, the Grim Reaper (my mother; who else would it be?) appeared to corner my uncle Mike, who turned 50 last month and thought he could escape without notice because he lives in Indianapolis. Guess who got the last laugh on that one?

max likes hardy mums

While Liam was busy trying to corral the kittens in their box, Max decided that his Yami really needed some "help" planting fall flowers. He was really interested in the whole process, which is funny, because usually Liam is the one following Mike around to learn about gardening. But we won't complain if they both develop an appreciation for it.

kittehs!

There are new kittens at my parents' house, and Liam and Max love to go see them. We visited the kittehs last weekend, and saw them again tonight, when we stopped by after a trip to Bethany's house to wish her a happy birthday. The pictures are from last weekend. The idea is the same, although this time Liam wasn't wearing his superhero cape (I'm not specifying Superman here because I'm pretty sure that the black cape belonged at one time to a Batman costume, so I'll just stick with the generic "superhero"). So far the kittens have no fear of the boys, although I'm sure that they'll learn with time (or maybe Greta and Dora are just anomalies). The first time we saw them, Liam begged and pleaded to be allowed to take one of them home. My response: "Ask your father." So far, Liam hasn't gathered up the courage to ask, and I won't complain if it stays that way. Two is enough. Besides, I'm supposed to have a big allergy patch test this winter (Why wait? Because you can't sweat for the whole 48 hours, apparently) because the doctor suspects that I might have some allergies (other than the normal seasonal ones). We'll cross that bridge when we come to it, I guess, but in the meantime, it's probably best not to introduce any more pets to the luxurious indoor conditions here.

the survivalists

Liam and Max built a fort tonight with my dining room chairs, the cushion from a chair in the living room, and some blankets. They've filled their "house" with a variety of plastic foodstuffs that were newly acquired from the Greig Collection (thanks, Chris!) so that they can survive in there for weeks, should it become necessary. On the plus side, you'll notice that Max's eye looks much better today (thanks, Benadryl!). On the minus side, it's my sad duty to report that Loni made them tear the fort down and put away the pieces before they went up to bed (thanks, Loni!).




OT: Take a look at my new dining room chairs! I've been meaning to post about the newly refinished table-and-chairs set, but this will do nicely instead. I literally went to seven different fabric stores before I found that fabric, which not only goes perfectly with the modern style of the furniture, but also with the dusky rose paint in the dining room. Yeah, I know, listen to Mrs. Ooh-la-la Suddenly-a-decorator Woman.