Celebrations and an Addition

The past couple of weeks have felt like one celebration after another. First we celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary. On the one hand it's hard to believe we've been married that long and on the other it seems like we've been married forever. Mike surprised Lena in the morning with balloons, orchids, and presents on the table. The best item was the note in the bottle. It was a poem that Mike wrote. Incidentally, the bottle, parchment, and stylish twine were all provided by the room of requirement.
Our original plan was to go on a sunset river tour, but due to lack of participants, the cruise was canceled. Instead we went to an art gallery, went hunting for some scenic cypress trees we had heard about, and went out for dinner. It was a nice day.
Here we are at 10 years. It's hard to belive how much has happened in that time. We've had some challenges of course, but overall it has been wonderful. We are so grateful to have found each other and our love and appreciation for each other is increasing year after year. The song "Then" by Brad Paisley kind of sums it up.

A few days later we celebrated Mike's birthday. Mike chose to have apple pie instead of cake since he likes it much better. It took a few tries before he could blow out his candles since the kids kept blowing them out for him. Lena got him a new tool chest and his parents sent Mario Bothers Wii, which the kids have had a blast with over the holidays. The one unfortunate event was that we got a plug in the sewer line that prevented our toilets from flushing. Fortunately, we were able to get it fixed that morning, which was essential since we already had a couple extra families visiting us for Thanksgiving. Apparently a single wet wipe was the culprit. In the evening we went to a friend's house where he had a recording studio to sing some Christmas songs as a family. It was a lot of fun and it will be interesting to see how it turns out with the little kids. They especially liked the drum set.

We had a nice Thanksgiving with a total of 30 people at our house. The kids really enjoyed having several of their cousins here to play with. They were very sad to see them go.

Our family has been joined by the addition of a puppy. Although we hadn't really been looking to get a dog, Lena had been pondering how to help our kids be more responsible and felt that a pet would be just the thing. As we were going to the store, we spotted a man selling some puppies and stopped to take a look. Rebecca fell in love with a mini schnauzer that licked her face after she picked it up. So we decided to go ahead and get it for her. Later we discovered that it's one of the more popular breeds in the U.S. for it's temperment and size. It also sheds little to no hair, which is an added bonus. The kids are thrilled to have a dog and Rebecca is enjoying taking care of the new pet. The dog is a female. Rebecca wanted to name her Princess and Ethan wanted to name her Sally. So we've named her Princess Sally. Here are a couple pictures.

Conversations with Kids

The following conversation happened on our way home from school this week.

Rebecca: I got invited to a party today.

Me: When is it?

Rebecca: I got the invitation today.

Me: Let me see the date on it. . . Oh, we're going to _____ on that day. (This was followed by sad silence). But Aunt Deborah and Aunt Ruth are coming on that day. And Uncle Sam.

Kirsten: Uncle Sam is nice. He gives us candy.

Ethan: Is our friend Sam coming over or Uncle Sam?

Me: Uncle Sam.

Ethan: Uncle Sam is a candy man.

Kirsten: Uncle Sam is the candy man!

Ethan: No Kirsten, Uncle Sam isn't the candy man, he's the sharing man. Just like me. He shares his candy with us.

//The Next Day//
Me: Is Uncle Sam coming to our house?

Kirsten: Yes!!! He knows the way to get to our house. He gives us bubble gum.

Me: What else does he give you?

Kirsten: Umm, chocolate chips.

Me: Does he play with you?

Kirsten: Umm, yes and then he gives us more bubble gum. He go and around just like me and Ethan. Then he was running again and running again and running again. . . and then he said "Kirsten we're here. Every time we're here". And then he said, "Jon you're here." "Rebecca you're here!!!!, Ethan you're here!!!! Lena you're here!!!! Uncle Mike you're here!!!!"

Me: Is there anything else you'd like to say about Uncle Sam?

Kirsten: He likes to go fishing with us.


Uncle Sam the candy man. Uncle Sam the sharing man. Uncle Sam the caring man.

We love you Uncle Sam!!!!!

Trick or Treat

It's been a busy week at our house. The kids were naturally excited about the approach of halloween. Rebecca and Kirsten decided they wanted to be Trixie the Halloween Fairy from the Rainbow Magic series. Ethan wanted to be Peter Pan, and Jon wanted to be Sonic the Hedgehog. We used to try to coordinate our family costumes, but the kids are getting too independant in their costume ideas now. Some girls from church also came along to help the kids go around the neighborhood. They really enjoyed trick or treating and got loads of candy. Lena took out a bunch for Christmas and other holidays and they still have a lot. Pictures for your enjoyment follow.

Mike didn't have much time for a costume, but we found the Frodo Baggins costume that Lena's brother Sheldon made a couple years back. Mike was excited to put it to use. He and Sheldon are about the same size and Sheldon did a super job making it. The hardest part was making the tops of Mike's feet hairy like a hobbit's. We trimmed a little of Lena's hair and stuck it on with double sticky tape at first. Unfortunately, it was clear that hair would be shedding all day. So then Mike got some elmer's glue that did the trick for keeping it both together and on his feet. Some people thought it was really cool and others thought the feet were really gross. Despite that, he took 3rd place in the costume contest at work and first place in the adult costume contest at the church's trunk or treat.



We've had some pretty significant computer trouble this week. For some reason, Windows XP stopped booting properly and the computer would reboot before the login screen over and over. Mike had set the computer to dual boot with linux a while back and we are able to get into linux. We're currently running openSUSE 11.0. We're able to get access to our old files, but some software support is missing. Although Mike could get most of the functionallity back with similar software on linux, it would be a time consuming process. He's trying to back-up the critical files from the windows XP partitions before attempting a repair install or re-install of Windows XP. Linux has come a long way since Mike first started looking at it a few years ago. The first time it took him a few days to get it working right. This time around, he had it up and running in about an hour without having to really tweak anything. Setting up and fine tuning things like the WebCam and financial software takes more work, but it's getting a lot more user friendly. We'll probably stick with windows though due to specific software that is really only available in windows at present.

Another difficulty we ran into this weekend was that Kirsten got in the van before we were ready to go clean the church and stuck a small plastic piece in the ignition switch and it broke off inside. We didn't realize it until Mike tried to put the key in and it wouldn't fit. We tried to get it out, but to no avail. We'll have to get a locksmith to come disassemble the ignition switch to get it out, but they weren't going to be open until Monday. So Mike went to clean the church with the older kids in the car and Lena's parents came along to help. We still got done in time to go trick or treating afterwards.

Mike is starting week 3 of the P90X physical fitness program. He got interested in it when he saw an infomercial at the airport. Whe he likes about it is that he can do the workouts at home with a pull-up bar, push up bars, and some hand weights. He also picked up some exercise elastic bands for when he travels. The X is for extreme and each routine is about an hour, six days a week, for 12 weeks. The first week was pretty intense and he got so sore he could hardly move. The second week was much better though with almost no soreness.

The program consists of a mix of strength training and cardio/flexibility routines that are mixed up and rearranged during the 12 week period to utilize a method called muscle confusion that is supposed to produce results for fat loss and muscle development faster than normal. Mike's not doing the diet that comes with the program, but Lena does a good job of making sure our meals are well balanced with the various food groups. So we're fairly confident that will be adequate. It will be interesting to see how his fitness improves. If the program works out, he should be in really good shape by the new year. He's also doing the physical fitness merit badge with the Boy Scouts where they have to do the fitness tests every two weeks. His first test turned out as follows:

Sit ups: 49 (one minute)
Push ups: 63 (one minute)
Sit & Reach: 8.5 inches (1/2 inch past toes)
Pull ups: 18
1-Mile Run: 8 min 15 sec

It will be interesting to see how this improves over the 12 week period. The cario/running and flexibility are the two areas Mike needs to improve on the most. Obviously, he won't be losing much in the way of fat since he has almost none to begin with.