Happy Valentine's Day

Today we take the time to honor those loved ones in our lives. For their love, their sacrifice on our behalf, and to let them know without a doubt how much they mean to us. Apparently that means flowers, candy, and jewelry.

I have long held the belief that Valentine's Day is a Girl Holiday. What I mean by that is nothing more than this: I've never expected a present, or flowers, or candy on this day from my significant other. I grant you the following facts: First, that before I was married to Rachel, I never had a girlfriend on this holiday, so thus - I never got anything. Second, I have low expectations on for gifts on any day - besides my birthday and Christmas. Third - I always hated Valentine's Day growing up, because the kids at school always butchered the spelling of my name and I never got the "Love" valentines from the girls. So, in my own little world, Valentine's Day meant very little to me, until I was married. Even now, I'm happy with a silly card, or a picture from the kids. Low expectations is the key to happiness.

So, to all my friends, family and others who read this blog - Happy Valentine's Day from the bottom of my cynical heart. I love you all, some more than others.

p.s. If you really want to make me happy, four little words: Reese's Peanut Butter Hearts. You can even wait until the middle of next week when they are 75% off at your local drug store/grocery store.

Avenue Q - It Sucks to Be Me - Tony Awards

Allison has been watching "Johnny and the Sprites" for a little while now, it's on Playhouse Disney apparently. Well, the story goes something like this: Johnny finds out there are magical creatures are living in his backyard, and so he sings with them for the at home audience because apparently that's what you're supposed to do when you find there are magical creatures living in your backyard.

Nancy let me listen to a CD she burned of the Avenue Q Broadway musical a few years ago. She had been to see the play in New York, and loved it. It's won Tony Awards, and has since been playing not only in NY but made the trip to Las Vegas. It's a very irreverant, adult version of Sesame Street for those of you not in the know. I freakin' loved it, and laughed so much when I heard the songs Nancy played for me. It's now in iTunes, and on my and Rachel's iPods. I just love how very taboo subjects are poked fun at and sung about, with no regard to if people are offended.

To tie these two very different subjects together, I present Allison. Rachel noticed how she thought the voice of Princeton (main character in A.Q.) sounded like Johnny from the Sprites show. Well, after an assist from www.imdb.com we found that John Tartaglia was indeed the voice of not only Princeton, but also Rod from Avenue Q. He also was tapped to start his own kids TV show on Disney, and that's where "Johnny and the Sprites" was born. After reading his biography, he apparently grew up around the puppets on "Sesame Street" so it wasn't a huge stretch for him to be still working with puppets. He also was appearing as Lumiere on the Broadway "Beauty and the Beast" cast. Just a wonderful talent to watch and behold. Well, Allison also figured out that Johnny is the singer for a lot of the A.Q. songs, and sings along in her car seat after wearing Rachel and I down to listen to it again. I gotta tell you, listening to Allison sing along to "Everyone's a little bit Racist" will make you cry laughing .... trust me.

Love to all.

Okay, FINE!

Happy, Rachel? I moved you up on the list of family sites.

Sleigh Bells Rung

Well, the whirlwind associated with Christmas has come and gone for another year. Our family enjoyed the company of my best friend, Jim Jardine and his family, Jessica and Billy this year in our home. Jim and I usually try to see each other once to twice a year, with us coming over to Pittsburgh or them coming over to see us. They came out earlier this year for my birthday weekend in March, and we took the boys with our family to see them over Memorial Day weekend. We were trying to find a time where we could visit again this year, and I invited them to spend Christmas with us, since Mom was going out of town, and Nancy as well. Since we weren't sure if the boys were still going to be with us or not, we decided not to make the trip down to Virginia to spend with the remaining family down there (Sorry Thad and Andrew, et al). They agreed to spend the majority of the week with us, since I was on vacation that week from the "salt mines".

They arrived Sunday to a steaming dish of lasagna for dinner, and we spent the night just chilling out, talking and visiting with each other. Monday was spent with me in the kitchen getting the dinner ready, with Rachel, Jim and Jess, ready to help at a moments notice. It ended up working out well, except for the mashed potatoes. I freakin' started them too early, so they sat in the strainer while I got other dishes cooked, until Rachel went to make them and they were GLUE. That just blows. Thank goodness Mom sent up potato pearls, so we had to fake that part of the dinner, but it was that or serve glue. We used the Safeway 2-hour turkey recipe again, and the turkey, again turned out fabulous. We invited John and Kim Wright, from church, over for the meal since they are quickly becoming good friends of ours. Dinner went off without a hitch, and Allison helped me make cookies for Santa. Next time, I'm using less peppermint chips in the recipe, since the oil made my eyes water each time I removed a batch from the oven. With the kids in bed, and the adults soon after, we all settle down for a long winter's nap.

Christmas morning, for the first time in years, I slept until 8:30 AM. The girls were still asleep, and we didn't have older kids anxiously biting their lips in anticipation of presents. I'm sure that's coming in the next few years, though. The girls came downstairs, along with Billy, to the joy of Santa's visit in the form of presents. We exchanged gifts with the Jardine's, and just basked in the warmth of family and being together. I received a few text messages from a dear friend at work (that's you Kirsten *wink wink*) while making pancakes for breakfast, wishing me and the family well. We played with all our presents the rest of the day, until the smell of Rachel's traditional Christmas dinner of steaks and baked potatoes wafted through the evening air. It was a good day, in large part because of the company it was spent with. Throughout the day, phone calls were made and received from family, which made the day seem complete. Thank you to all who called, or wished us well through emails and text messages. Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.

Say it Ain't So, Santa .... Say it Ain't So

Rachel's Dad and his wife, Becky, stopped by our home on Wednesday night for a holiday visit with our family. They had spent some time with Wes' family (his mom, and brother) in upstate New York and were returning to North Carolina to spend a few more days with Becky, Zach and Daniel before flying home on Christmas Eve. They originally planned to stay with us only a night, but decided to stay and hang out with the girls for a whole day before leaving on Friday morning. We decided to go to the mall, and have the girls visit Santa, so that the grandparents could see the magic of Christmas through the girls eyes. I waited in line with Allison and Ryleigh, and Rachel gave Lindsay to Santa when it was our turn. Wes had his camera to snap a few pictures, as apparently even Santa Claus at the mall has turned evil.

The trend of charging out the whazoo for pictures of kids with Santa now is annoying. It used to be a service that the mall would provide for the customers of the particular mall, with parents being able to take pictures at will for FREE !!??!! Now, they have people and stuff blocking Santa with signs telling you to be respectful and not take pictures of your kids with Santa (see green sign in foreground). What does that mean? Be respectful? I think that loosely translates into "Please don't take pictures of your kids with Santa, but you can pay 15 bucks for one 5x7 photo from our camera". They also claim that "Visits with Santa are always welcome" on the sign, but don't tell you that it also comes with a high-pressure, guilt laden sales pitch. I almost expected the freakin' lady to tell me about the cost savings of a Time Share in the Napa Valley, in addition to the photo. They were awful, especially since they knew that Wes snapped a couple of pics of the girls. I almost don't ever want to go to the Mall again during Christmas with the girls, because Santa is now a sell out. Just another childhood memory ground to dust, sacrificed at the altar of the Holy Dollar.

Survivor Ends - Todd Herzog victorious

Okay - in a previous post, I spoke about my love for reality (or not so reality) TV. Sunday was no different, as we were looking forward to seeing how the season ended. Rachel and I run hot and cold with Survivor sometimes, but it's always fun to see how the drama plays out. We were both rooting for Todd or Amanda to emerge as the winner, as they both backstabbed their competitors to get where they ended up. Glad to see that Todd was unapologetic for his actions, and basically said, "I started playing as soon as I got to China" as opposed to Amanda, who was counting on her doe-like eyes, and pushing the "I was following Todd, so I'm not that mean" card on the jury. So, in the end, Todd took everything like a man, and turned at least two votes his way to take the million dollar prize. It was nice to see that James took home the most popular survivor cash, and that multi-billionaire producer Mark Burnett decided to "tip" poor Denise fifty grand to "make your life the way you want it." I'm guessing she'll spend it on Cheez Whiz and scratcher lotto tickets, maybe upgrade to the 1990 Ford Tempo 4-door model. Come on Burnett, fifty grand? I hope that's coming out of your overflowing pockets, and not being charged to the production budget that CBS is footing the bill for.

Now for my annoyance part of the post. What is it about Survivor and making sure that everyone knows that so and so is a Gay Mormon? This is now the second Gay Mormon contestant (that we know of) to compete, and third overall. Raef from Survivor: Guatemala was a Gay Mormon river guide, Neleh was a Mormon student, and now Todd the Gay Mormon flight attendant. All of them did very well in their respective seasons, with two of them making it to the final vote. I mean, what's the deal with bringing that out and sticking it front and center on their nameplate when they do their "aside" interviews? Does it matter? You would think that in the day and age in which we live, that being gay is a non-issue anymore, let along on a freakin' reality game show. I guess they just love to do that kind of thing as a thumb of the nose to a known conservative religious sect for some reason. Just annoying that they don't match a Gay Catholic or Gay Baptist tag on the other contestants who happen to be gay along with holding a job. Just annoys me to a degree, but that's me.

Way to Go, 'Skins

In a windswept Meadowlands Stadium, the Redskins pulled out a solid victory over the division rival New York Giants, 22-10, on Sunday night. Rachel and I were watching the Survivor finale on CBS, so I was completely unaware of the score, or even how things were going in the game. After we had caught up with the DVR (which I love), I switched over to the game to get a score while we were watching the after show of Survivor (more on Survivor in my next post.) First thing I saw was WAS 22 and NYG 3, first thing that Rachel saw was Jeremy Shockey being carted off the field. I started laughing, as I thought the Skins had no shot of winning this game. Well, as I kept swapping between channels, I saw the Giants go down to score a TD to pull within 12 points, and I thought "Here we go again" as the Skins were stomping the Giants into the fourth quarter in the game at FedEx earlier in the year that ended in a loss. Well, this time, the defense held - in addition to the Giants continued trouble hanging onto passes from Eli Manning. There was no more scoring the rest of the game, and a very happy Aaron celebrated by doing two loads of laundry.