Category: family

wednesday the family and i drove down to chicago for a few days. it was wonderful. we played tourists as much as we possibly could, going to a < href="http://blackhawks.nhl.com/">blackhawks game (which was awesome), hitting the art institute, watching the musical “suessical,” etc., etc. one of the most fun things for pam and i was getting visit with some of the people we know and love who live in and around chicago. it was great. a few years back when i stayed at the simple way some of the simple wayers talked about having homes everywhere (largely because they had no home of their own to limit them). i’m not sure i’m there yet but it does feel great when pretty much anywhere pam and i go we have people there whom we love. visiting new places is cool but connecting with friends is so much better.

of course, it feels wonderful to be back home.

SIDE NOTE – running along the lake michigan chicago lakefront during a snow storm was amazing. between the sights of downtown chicago and the docks the view was absolutely gorgeous. when you add the snow to this it was truly unforgettable.

to celebrate adam’s birthday (which was monday) we presently have 6 fourteen year old boys spending the night at our house. pam and i are gluttons for punishment.

my run for the day
distance – 13 miles
time – 2:20:35
pace – 10:49/mile
weather – 39º/sunny

my wife is amazing. i could explain but words would never really do a good job of conveying how great she is. i’ll just say that she’s amazing.

my run for the day
distance – 5.0 miles
time – 49:49
pace – 9:58/mile
weather – 34º/Sunny

for some strange reason our friends and families have said that they would visit us in central wisconsin but they would not do so during the winter. this makes absolutely no sense to us because there is so much to do around here during the winter. for example, today uwsp put on a family cross country ski day at the boston school park. it was great, free cross country skiing and free hot chocolate and cookies after you were through. this happened 5 minutes away from our house. after we were through cross country skiing we decided to grab some ice cream and then hit the sledding park. we almost rented a tobaggon and went down the track but it cost $2.50 and we only had $1.70 on us. we are most definitely going back to do the tobaggon because you ride down an ice covered track. it was amazingly fast.

i can’t believe you people won’t come up here during the winter.

for those of you who are worried about such things (a.k.a. my parents) pam and i have finished painting our living room, dining room, and foyer. most of the furniture has been putting back into place and the rest will be put back tomorrow. we’ll also hang our photos, prints, tapestry, and painting tomorrow. i’m pretty excited about hanging the photos because i had 6 of my lubitel and holga photos printed and framed for our largest wall. i’ll try to take some photos tomorrow and post them. of course, i can’t promise to do this because the family is going sledding tomorrow at iverson park.

that’s right we have s sledding park in stevens point. its awesome. if you’ve ever seen the sledding scene in “CHRISTmas vacation” then you have a decent idea of what this park looks like. you go down a large hill and then have 150′ of heavily packed snow/ice to slide across. you keep going until you hit the snow berm at the other end of the park. oh yeah, this is going to be fun.

SIDE NOTE – high definition broadcasts of football games are amazing.

it’s really pretty amazing what santa can do. i mean, we travel to baton rouge and mobile for the week of CHRISTmas and santa tracks us dow3n and brings my kids gifts with him. we know it’s him because my youngest son made sure that there wee no santa gifts in the van before we left. still santa was able to track us down and there were gifts this morning. his a crafty one.

SIDE NOTE – my parents got my youngest son the air havoc battle heli set (remote controlled mini helicopters that fight each other). – i have no idea what i have done to my parents that caused them to hate me so much.

my wonderful wife turned 40 today. she is amazing.

yesterday noah came in from school and immediate went to the computer. no “hi” “what’s up” or anything. he went to the computer and went to work. this is not typical so i asked him what he was doing. he said he was typing something up for houston industries. of course, you are probably now asking yourself “what is houston industries?” noah and one of his friends decided to create a company – houston industries – houstin is the ceo and noah is the president. i asked noah what houston industries did and he told me ” we make stuff.” when i asked what kind of stuff his response was “just stuff.” that was good enough for me.

anyhow, noah was working on something for houston industries. i looked at the screen and it said:

this is a pink slip!
you’re fired!
i had to ask noah about this. he said they had “hired” another kid because they need employees to make “stuff.” unfortunately the kid they had hired had “gone mad with power” and tried to fire noah. therefore, they had to release him.

today they decided to re-hired the kid but first they made him sign a contract that said he would not “go mad with power.” they are considering making all employees sign a contract like this.