Weekly Update

Kurt

The beginning of the week was a Ten31 job.  The video doesnt really show the snow well(Sorry, Kurt.  I could not figure out, for the life of me,  how to post the video) ....but the girl i was working with Simara and i were birch trees in the snow....at one point we really had a "moment" slow dancing in the snow..it was very magical.

There is a woman i work with named Lois....she is the person i get along with most.  I think she is the best person there because she makes everyone who works there or is a client, feel like the most important person in the world.  She liked one of my paintings that she saw on facebook so I gave that to her for Christmas....she is a Jew....but thats ok  :)  She was very moved by it and was almost in tears.  It was the first time this season that I got in the Christmas spirit, and in a way felt the way that she probably feels when she makes someone feel so special.

Christmas was fun with the Goins...all the kids had a fun morning.  I was glad i was there, but it was an EARLY morning.  After the Goins' i went to my friend Katies families house.  they have an open house every year and i know everyone in the family...the best part was playing that game where you write a famous person or character on a sticky note and stick it to someones forehead...we played about 7 rounds of that....a very simple game, but very fun!!!!  I then drove the 2 hours home with a headache and feeling nauseous.  a TRUE Christmas tradition for me!  :)

This coming MONDAY and Tuesday i am filming the HOUSE of CACH promotional video!  so i REALLY need to get as much done around the house with cleaning and projects so that on Wednesday i can concentrate on EDITING!

Kim

We had a great time in Disney World.  The parks were not all that busy and the weather was BEAUTIFUL.  I'm glad we decided on Florida for this December trip-the weather was so much warmer than California.  And Disney really does know how to make things magical...

The trip was a huge surprise and a great way to spend our week before Christmas although we missed out on some of our usual "traditions".  We arrived home around 10pm on Christmas Eve and found new pajamas waiting for us.  Thanks, Grammy!

We made it to church for our 10am sacrament meeting and enjoyed a lovely program.  The irony of it is that much of the world ONLY attends church for Christmas but we attend every week.  When we have to attend on actual Christmas, we (especially my kids) feel like it is an imposition.  Ironic, and a little annoying.  Whatever.  We made it happen and in the end everyone agreed it was not TOO disruptive to our pajama-wearing, gift-unwrapping, laze-around day.

I'll post more on our trip later next week when the kids are back to school.  (That's not until Thursday, January 5th actually.  Can you believe it?)

Carrie

Some pictures that Kurt sent...

Weekly Updates

Rob

Monday was just school for the boys, and work for me.  I sometimes think people act like they hate Mondays just to have a good way to ignore the mundane nature of them.  They even sound the same "Mundane : Monday"... Interesting.  I really don't remember there being anything remotely interesting on Monday.  Actually, Tuesday was not any better.  I think the most interesting part of Tuesday was that McGuire told me he was getting a Saturday detention for being late to school too much.  I left a... heated ... yeah, that works, a heated message with the Jr. High Principal.  I sort of felt bad about it right away, I let my temper get the better of me, I just meant to ask him what I am supposed to do?


On Wednesday, Archer had a nice little atomic meltdown in the morning, for no good reason.  I try to get him dropped off at a friend's house so that I can get to work early on Wednesdays, but his little freak-out meant I saved almost an entire 30 seconds, and it embarrassed me in front of his friend's mother.  I was leaving work early that day anyway, to see my doctor in the afternoon.  Traffic was lighter than expected (a Massachusetts first!) and I was relaxing in the parking lot when the Jr. High Principal called my cell.  I apologized for my rude and vulgar voice mail a few times, and we came to the fact that there isn't really any concession that can be made, but that McGuire needs to be responsible for his own wake-up time.  Really helpful.  Doctor appointment was good, I have such a major crush on her, so I really don't mind going in.  She finally is starting to understand that my sleeping 5 hours a night is just what I do.  She is worried about everything I have on my plate, but I explained to her that I am dealing with it all as best as I can. So am I stressed out and sometimes overwhelmed?  You bet.  Is it bad wiring, or a chemical problem in my brain? Nope, just life...
After that, I met up with the family at The Whiz for D&D: two totally full tables, with 2 of the regulars not showing up.   I was able to play again - having other people DM Encounters is really working out well, and my pixie was as annoying as ever.  We had a new guy show up to play, father of 4, knew his way around a RPG, but not super knowledgeable on the new edition.  He was a fast learner, and didn't mind getting playing tips from a 14 year old.  He was very impressed with Archer's mastery of the game, which makes me pretty proud.  I don't consider the rules too complicated, but part of that is probably due to having two very smart kids.  If we had more physical space, I could easily see a third table as a most-week option, but there just isn't the room.


Thursday was McGuire's Winter concert.  I still don't have a real working camera, and Allison forgot to bring hers, but it was a good concert.  McGuire finally got a hair cut.  It was just too much to take care of, so he is mostly buzzed now - luckily he has a really good shaped head, so he looks really good with the short haircut.  He had to leave the concert right after McGuire's sets were over, because he had gotten a lot of homework that day, and wasn't done with it.  After the kids were in bed, I was finally able to finish the story of Assassin's Creed Brotherhood (so, so good).

Friday I had a dentist appointment in the morning.  Thankfully, Archer cooperated with me so that he caught the bus, which let me get to my appointment on time.  No cavities!  I really wish I had always taken as good care of my teeth as I do now, but oh well.
Work was fine, and after work I went out to dinner with my friend Jen, who was in MA for business.  We went to an Irish restaurant near my work, since it was on her way home.  It was pretty good, but I swear I had 20 pounds of mashed potatoes with my dish.  We left around 8, so I got home in time to get the kids into bed and play Gears of War 3 with my on-line friends.  I had to end earlier than usual, so I could bring McGuire to detention in the morning.

Saturday was pretty lame.  Drop off McGuire for his punishment.  He and I were joking about getting there late, just for the irony, but they spelled out that being 10 minutes late would result in a 3 day school vacation... I mean out-of- school suspension.  I went back home, did some cleaning , took a little nap with Archer, then picked McGuire back up, and we all cleaned the house together, getting ready for Mary-Ellen to visit.  At the end of the day, I brought the garbage outside, and realized no one had checked the mail, so I went down to the mailbox and got the mail.  One totally shocking piece of mail was from the court system - I was expecting a new court date that we could have to miss.  Instead, it was a sheet that looks like a judge went over our case file and signed off on the divorce.  Allison and are officially divorced!

Sunday we woke up early enough to do some last-minute cleaning before Mel and Bediaco arrived.  They came over, and we went to "lunch" - not realizing that Puffins only serves breakfast on weekends.  It was a good, tasty breakfast anyway, so no problem, really.  We played Carcassone on the 360 (easier to let the console do the scoring), but when we finished, the kids scattered to the wind, so we didn't wind up playing a second game with the actual cards.  The rest of the day was pretty tame: watched some football, didn't even go onto the computer.

Kurt

I did a makeup test for a short film that I am creating. It's for HOUSEofCACH. HoC is a jewelry company that I work for. We are making a promotional video. A story about a relationship between a man that keeps turning into a goat and a model who keeps changing her jewelry. It is being filmed in a beat up house from the 1950s.

I've been trying to finish off as many projects as I can before I move. I've been ordering a lot of things online which I've never done before.  Metal spikes and studs, animal teeth, bodysuits. It's been very fun!  I finally had a place to wear my new mask....goth night at club hell.

Last night I went to the ZINC SALON Christmas party. We ate at ZINC restaurant in new haven and then went to a cigar bar where everyone was smoking cigars and cigarettes. It was hard to breath at first but u KINDA got used to it. My clothes REEKED the next day. It was funny to think about how that was the way it was in bars at one time. It's much more pleasant to me in the current state

This week I have two people coming to look at paintings for sale at my house. I sold one today!!  So my goal for this week is to clean the house ;). Oh. And make a replica of Marcel the Shell. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VF9-sEbqDvU&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Carrie

This week has been full of activity.  Hailey's first band concert was good.  Her grade has only been playing for two months but did really well.  She likes her saxophone very much. I had extra kids over everyday this week.  From 2 to 4 extras!!  Good kids though.  Made cookies everyday.  And got our real tree today :-).  Making cookie trays with Mom tonight. My friends took me out to celebrate my birthday, and I'm moderately decent at darts!!  It's flown by.

This week it's finish Christmas preparations.  Trent and Kayla both have parties I'm bringing baked goods in for.  I'm really in the holiday spirit!!!!!  I've been thinking back over the year and realizing how much I have to be grateful for, more and more everyday.  I'm thinking of ways to pass my good fortune along, and I don't mean moneywise!!!  I'm open to suggestions if you all have any!!!  I need a service project!!  Merry Christmas!!!!!!!!

Kim

Can I just say that I feel like Wonder Woman?  Christmas shopping-check.  ALL wrapping-check.  Shipping-check.  Teacher gifts(three kids at three school-a lot of them)-check.  Neighbor gifts-check.  Gingerbread houses-check.  Band concert-check. Laundry-check.  Dog healthy and groomed-check.  Bout with stomach virus-check.  Packed and planned and executed biggest surprise to date-CHECK.

Dave and I decided to spend the first week of Christmas break and his week off doing something fun.  That took on many faces as we looked at planning it last weekend.  Finally, on Monday we committed to a week in sunny Florida.  We are enjoying Disney World and planning a trip to Cocoa Beach and Universal later this week.  We booked this trip Monday and got everything ready without the kids knowing about it.  Until we arrived at the airport's long-term parking, they thought we were doing something in Denver.  It was an epic surprise.

Holy cow.  A trip always takes a ton of work to be prepared but this last-minute, right-before-Christmas thing, as a surprise...wow.  I'm very impressed with myself.  And with Dave.  He nearly finished his "construction" project on his own and had to work like crazy at work to be able to leave Saturday.  We did it.  It was totally worth it to be able to surprise those kiddos.  Jake will always remember this trip.  He's really wanted to come here for a LONG time.  Ben and Rachel will always remember the surprise.

I've said it before, but it's worth repeating.  Jake is a much nicer teenager than I was in my family.  He's not perfect, in fact he drives me crazy all the time, but he is sooo much happier to be with his family than I was at his age.  I have pictures of me at 14 or 15 at Disney World on a family trip with a scowl on my face in every picture.  Attitude to spare.  Yikes.  Jake kind of likes us.  Not all of us all the time, but he knows how to make us all laugh and he can be found laughing more than scowling in our pictures...

I'm glad we could be spontaneous and throw together a great trip like this!  We are so blessed.  Here's to great family memories--limited scowls, please...

Weekly Update

Kim

I really got a handle on Christmas to-do projects this last week and I officially spent more time at home than in the car and out and about.  I wrapped 90% of what needed to be wrapped and helped Dave with a minor construction project...maybe it's not so minor since it's not done yet.  I made a creme brulee cheesecake to celebrate Dave's birthday and delivered our Sub-for-Santa gifts.  

This week is the kids' final week of school before a LONG winters' break.  I will get the teacher gifts wrapped up and delivered.  I will mail off packages to family.  I will likely finish wrapping.  I will get all our Christmas cards in the mail.  I will attend a Relief Society party and a middle school band concert.  Go french horns!  I will absolutely finish all my shopping.  I like giving myself a hard deadline.  Last year I had everything done by December 21 and it was lovely.

Then there will also be the usual mundane like laundry, groceries, vet, wait around for delivery of a safe, blah, blah, blah...here's to a productive week!

Rob

This past week has been the adventure of a television.
Monday I get a phone call while at work from Allison: the TV has apparently given up with the whole "displaying pictures" thing.  She tells me that the sound is still working, but the picture is gone, regardless of the input option.  While this really sucks, it drives home my hope to get an upgrade to the home theater.  Tuesday I decide on a TV to get, and put the order in with Amazon, delivery expected on Friday, between 3 and 6pm.  Since I ordered a flat-screen TV, with plans to mount it on the wall, I knew that the remainder of the week would be a lot of hard work, getting ready to change the layout of the room.

Most of the goodies that I ordered along with the TV arrived Thursday, so I had a nice pile of boxes, just missing the televsiion, so Thursday was TV moving time.  After work, I got home and started with the task of rearranging my living room.  The first step was taking the huge and heavy TV out of the entertainment unit.  See here.  That wound up being one of the easiest steps of the night.  I put the TV onto a small tabble, so I could watch some football while handling the rest of the room.  Step two was to clean out the corner where I would be putting the entertainment unit.  Sadly, I neglected to get a good picture of just how bad it was before hand, but if you have seen pictures of Stalingrad towards the end of WWII, you have a good idea.  When it was clear, I got the picture.  Next up was to move the actual entertainment unit over to the new location.  Looking at the picture of where I took the unit out of, I don't know how I managed to move it - there is a lot of stuff all over the place most of the night.  When you see where the entertainment unit ended up, you can see at the bottom of the stairs about 50% of what was in the corner where the unit ended up. 

Friday, with the room pretty much ready, I left work early so that I could be home in time to accept delivery... which never came.  I called Amazon at 6:02 (yeah, I got impatient) and they confirmed that there was a problem with the delivery - it was now scheduled for December 16th.  Naturally, this was not going to be alright with me, so I went on a bit of a customer service quest to get it fixed, or as close to fixed as I could.  After some communication, I got Amazon to try to get it sped up to a Monday delivery, along with a 45 dollar credit.  I felt somewhat better, but after thinking about it for a while, decided to go with a local delivery.  Dad offered to come up with his truck so we could get it Saturday, and I got it up that night!  While watching Back to the Future on TV, I finished getting the room organized and mostly set up.

Sunday was pretty much spent relaxing around the house, McGuire had the Sweenys over, and Archer is slowly working on his homework - still is now, actually.  He may never be done - may God have mercy on his soul.

Kurt

This week I got good news. My computer just needs more memory. And that is it. Plus it's only about $25. So it is ordered and on the way. Now I can do more creative stuff on my MAC, which is the point right?
 I went down to NYC on Thursday to see YELLE in concert. A French dance/pop group. AMAZING, very fun. I killed to faggots with one stone by doing my fitting with designer Ben Chmura. I will be walking in his Styleweek show in January. The stuff is super modern street wear. I'm VERY excited and inspired by his clothes. Lots of treated fabrics.
Then last night I was THOR with a VALKYRIE at Harvard. It was a graduate student event that took place in their cafeteria which looks like its straight out of Harry Potter. We were at the entrance....we were in the middle of the dance floor....it was great

I came up with my next concept for performance art. Under the name Kurt Fowl in the subways of  NYC I would like to be bird like characters that hand out notes to passerbys. So I've been writing little quotes to make people think or feel positive about their day. I need to work on those costumes. I ordered a body suit that I will paint.

 This week I'd like to sell some paintings. I've sent out messages to people that I am selling them dirt cheap. Other than that I have no goals. I've done much as of late. I should make a goal for myself to REST!!! (which prolly won't happen)

Carrie

 

 

NYC was awesome!!!  We stayed at the Trump Soho, corner room on the 37th floor.  I got to look out over the city all the way to the Empire State building.  Beautiful!! Soho was the perfect place for us to stay and shop and walk.  Love the cobblestone streets!!!  Except in heels.  I still suck at heels, but I shopped and walked in them for 3 hours, an all time record for me :-)  The Christmas Spectacular at Radio City Music Hall was spectacular, the backdrops alone is worth going for!  Got some Christmas shopping done but could have and should have bought more.  So many perfect finds.  If we had more time I would have gone back to a few shops.  Really wish we were filthy rich at a few swanky boutiques!!  Blissful, although I started gushing over other people's kids probably freaking them out.  I missed my babies!!

 

As for the rest of the week, it feels so long ago.  Who cares if I'm thirty!!!  Hailey had her chorus concert.  She was heard through the whole concert, and the 5th and 6th graders were really good!!  I made fudge for the PTO to sell and it was a hit.  Kayla has been on and off not feeling well so she got a little extra Mommy time last week. Chase is counting and signing ABC's a lot, as Mom can tell you.  He did it for her from 4 to 530 am!!!!!!  Lucy brought the kids to the Congregational church and they were in the Christmas Pageant.  Trent was a donkey, Kayla a sheep and Hailey an angel.  Wish I saw that!!!  Sean left his job as foreman to go back with his old crew.  He is very happy!!!  He would have been laid off till March otherwise and now he's getting 20 hours of overtime a week again.  Good timing!!   I'm such a lucky person!!

 

This week, finish cookies!!!!  Drop clothes off for donation, wrap presents and finish shopping.  Chaperone movie night, muchto Hailey's dismay, and show my babies how much I missed them by playing playing playing!!  Starting tomorrow, cause I'm exhausted!!  :-)

 

 

Weekly Update

Kurt

This week has been one with a lot of dealings with inside feelings and emotions. Ugh, haven't those been deep enough for so long that they are blackened charred coal and long forgotten. 
Going through a break up and living together situation.....listening to how I am viewed by someone who is angry at me and thinking about the effects of my actions.  We all feel that we are in the right even if we empathize.  Anyhow, lots of reflecting. That's enough for THIS medium.
 I performed at the Pierre hotel in NYC on Friday.  It's right 5ave on central park. We were four silver/winter trees at a private event.  The ballroom we were in was in a scene in Scent of a Women.
On the drive back to RI with the Ten31 group I had an amazing conversation about creativity. It's actually been an amazing week. Reflecting a lot on art. 

On Saturday i was back in NYC and saw a great performance by the band HI FASHION.  The female singer in the band is also a casting agent. She was the person who cast Jon on Project Runway. She is super nice and kind of reminded me of my friend Lind-z. They are FIERCE performance art and fun music. Check them out on FB. 

Ok....so I got new contacts. Have an appointment Tuesday at APPLE to get more memory for my computer....or see if I need to buy a new one......and I MUST go to Carmax about selling my car. 

Carrie

This week.......I got my hair done!!  Love it!  Kurt is a genius.  Didn't get the girls in for their hair though.  Made three batches of two kinds of cookies :-)  Started an anti~ video game movement, since Trent doesn't seem to be focusing on anything else!! We played trains, made playdough, pizza and pretended angry birds didn't exist.  So far so good.  The boys liked making cookies, playdough and pizza so much they thought they'd get up this morning and make more all by themselves!!!  Flour everywhere!!!!!!  But it's ok, they love being in the kitchen and it was really cute!!!  The tree lighting is tonight and Kayla will serve some thumbprint cookies with Girl Scouts.

This coming week......ends my 20's.  I'm sadder then I thought I'd be about it.  I have everything I want so age is just a number, yet it sucks.  My birthday night will be spent watching Hailey's first middle school chorus concert :-)  Then Friday through Sunday, Sean and I will be in NYC alone!!!!  First time leaving the kids, so a little strange, but we're going to be super close.  I cannot wait to wear heels and dresses and makeup and explore.  We go every few months with the kids but haven't been alone since high school!!!!  Christmas Spectacular, horse drawn carriage ride, nice restaurants and shopping in Soho!!  My bathtub will overlook the city at the Trump.  I want to go pack just thinking about it!!!

Goals this week.....cookies, license renewed, record story for the kids to hear while we're gone, stick to the no video game regimen and get our real tree.  Although Chase knocked over the fake tree twice so I'm not sure why I'm pushing for torture :-D. Just kidding!!!!!!

Kim

Ben is dressed up as a banana.  He stood on the corner with a sign to drum up business.  His idea.  So cute.

I held the garage sale last week, as promised, in spite of freezing cold temperatures (like a high of 22 degrees Fahrenheit).  It was not hugely successful, due to the cold, but it was good to get it done!  We only raised $153 so I have approached a local donor (in my house, local) to make up the difference (a hundred bucks) to get ONE SMILE fixed.  Rachel was disappointed that we hadn't done enough for one smile until I told her we might know someone who could help. Nice save, Dave.  I was so grateful to have Lori's help!  Did I really let her talk me into doing it all again in June, though?! 

Dave had the week off last week so we went back to the shooting range and shot  a couple 9mm.  I'm really not bad but the indoor range is so stinking LOUD!  I used to think I hated the sound of popping balloons.  This has been like immersion therapy for that phobia.  Balloons have nothing on shotguns and colt .45s.  One of the guys there told me I should switch to decaf after seeing me jump at each shot.  If he only knew...I'm that high-strung on water only.

We also made it over to IKEA.  Dave was impressed. 

This week I have to pack away everything from the garage sale and store it.  Wrap gifts for our Secret Santa family.  Finish decorating for Christmas.  Make ceramic ornaments with the kids.  Help a friend clean after her move.  Sad.  Tackle the filing situation.  Figure out teacher gifts.   Actually a gigantic TO DO list...but a commitment to drink more water, floss, and exercise.  

 

Rob

Ascension Teacher

Sunday - I was running a D&D adventure, so of course I overslept, and got to the store 20 minutes late.  I really need to stop sleeping in until 11:30 on Sundays.  The adventure went well, no players or characters died, and quite a few of them leveled up, which made them very happy.  We had gotten a new board game (Wrath of Ashardalon), so after the game, we were looking at it, and the Sweenys

 

Monday - Standard boring Monday.  I don't think anything of value happened all day.  Certainly nothing that stands out a week later.

 

Tuesday - Tuesday, my old nemesis.  Most people dread Monday, but I am telling you, Tuesdays are the really dangerous ones.  They are the serial killer of the week - Wednesday always said Tuesday seemed like a nice, quiet day, kept to himself, never seemed dangerous.  But one day... *snap!* and Tuesday is on a rampage!  We always suspect Monday, but Tuesday sits there waiting for our guard to be down and then it pounces.  This Tuesday was boring, though.  For now... Actually, Sons of Anarchy had part one of the season 4 finale, so that was good.

 

Wednesday - Dad was going to come up to bring the boys to D&D.  In an odd way, it was really good that he couldn't, if he hadn't spotted the oil tank leaking in the house, it would have been a major disaster for him.  As it was, he was able to take care of the near-calamity, and I was mildly inconvenienced with having to leave work an hour early to bring the kids to Encounters.  I guess we could have skipped it, but it was Ellie's birthday (sixteen) so we had to go.  She got permission from her parents to join us at our weekly Friendly's outing, but then she wanted to eat at the 99, so we did that instead.  The best part was that her parents paid for us!  As usual, McGuire's meal cost about 50% more than mine, the kid is really starting to scare me.

Thursday - it was a day.  Named after Thor, if you were wondering.  Most of the days of the week are based on Norse Gods.  Tuesday is Tyr's day, Wednesday is Odin's day (hence that odd 'd' at the beginning), Friday is Freya's Day... I think Monday and the weekend days have Norse origins too, but looking that up would make this update even later, so I will skip it.

Friday - sort of accidentally started celebrating McGuire's birthday early.  The one thing that I remember happening on Thor's day was a letter in the mail stating that McGuire had been late to school enough to get a detention.  So when we woke up 15 minutes before he would be late (like we had no chance of getting him there on time), I decided to have him "be sick".  Of course, then Archer oversleeps, and begs and begs so that he can "be sick" too.  I figure "why not?".  I am already way out of the running for father of the year or perfect attendance, and my kids are smart enough to miss a Friday.  I went into work late, and left early to make up for it.  I'm such a bad influence sometimes, honestly.

 

Saturday - I gave McGuire his second birthday gift from me (third if you count the Friday illness) - his own copy of Battlefield 3!  Ironically he played some on my account Friday, but he loves the game, so now we can play together, which I love.  We mostly played different games Saturday and cleaned up some of the recycling for the rest of the day.

 

 

Sunday - McGuire's Birthday!  We went to The Whiz so that McGuire and Archer could play in D&D Adventure.  While they were battling a sentient lake (?) I learned how to play the new Penny-Arcade board game - it plays a lot like Ascension  which is cool.  I was taught how to play that by this Ascension Teacher at GenCon last summer.  After we had our gaming time, we went home and I had a chance to look up a Mexican restaurant in the area.  McGuire really wanted Mexican food, but he suggested a Qboda, which is like Americano Burrito-ville.  Fairly tasty, but really just a fast-food place that serves what Japanese comics would draw as American Burritos.  I found a place called Plaza Azteca in Worcester, about 15 minutes away.   Allison came over to join us, and McGuire got his first of his presents from her - Total War: Shogun 2.  He started the download and then we went to get our meal.  Really good Mexican food, and McGuire got a small sombrero and free flan for desert.  After that, we went home, and he had Key Lime Cake and got two books from his mom.  He had a chance to even play his newest game before bed, so he was happy.  Pictures of McGuire in a sombrero, or pretending to eat his cake whole are attached.

Weekly Update

Rob

Thanksgiving week!  Finally a short work week, and a short school week, and a week where I know at least one meal ahead of time.  Allison and I decided early in the week that she would take the kids to her parents' house, since her sister would be in the States from England for the holiday.  My feeling was that since Allison will not put up with her father being a jerk to the kids, it would work out fine.  I went down to Groton for dinner, but only stayed a little while after that, because I wanted to see Carrie and Kurt, too, in Lebanon.

At Dad's, the Kindle Fire was the hit of the day.  People oooo'ed and aaaaah'ed over it, remarking how cool it was, especially at the price!  Ben and Tyler, Joanne's grandkids brought their 360 over, so rather than watch football, I got to relive the joy that is Beavis and Butthead.  Those 20 minutes felt like hours of listening to morons chuckle - I was never really a big fan of that show, and it has not aged well.  The food was good, though, and it was nice to see Dad, but I left the house too late to go to Carrie's ahead of time, so I went afterwards.

I got there just before Kevin and Lucy left, which is too bad, cause I like them.  Chase and Trent were already mostly ready for bed, too.  Chase still acts like I have spikes growing out of my face, but Trent is warmed up to me by now.  They were just getting the Rock Band going on the Wii - kind of a specialty of mine.  I had to calibrate the system, it was making it impossible to play well, and I missed my huge song collection on the 360 so much that I bought a 20 dollar points card and hooked the Goinses up with some new tunes.  Seeing Carrie's girls and boys made me miss my kids both a little more and a little less.  I will just call that a net gain.

I got to work on Friday - sometimes being a contractor SUCKS, and the kids came back on Saturday to a mostly cleaned house and a mostly rested father.  We then went to play D&D at the local game store, and they went over to the Sweeny house afterwards for pizza and board games.

"Its like the only picture I took this week, showing Archer how much his hair goes out in the tub.  I don't know why he looked so horrified, bu we were all laughing about it." -Rob

Carrie

 On Friday Carrie wrote:  Since we're going north to no mans land tomorrow, I thought I'd update early.  This week I went and saw Kayla with her friends all pilgrimed up.  Some of these parents really outdid themselves with costumes!!!!  Thanksgiving was nice!!!  I cooked for us 6 plus Kurt.  Kurt took family pictures for us.  We played Twister, I almost puked on Kurt!!!!  Then Rob stopped over for some Rockband!!! Wish you were here for that Kim.  We all should be banned forever from a microphone :-)  Sean is playing a reunion show with his old punk band tonight.  Then Vermont for a thanksgiving meal with Mom.  Hopefully some cookies and playing in the snow.  My goals for next week.....to get my hair done, girls hair done and cookies!!!  Always cookies this time of the year :-) 

Kurt

Thanksgiving was a lot of fun this year. Being with just carries family was really nice for me. I made bracelets with Hailey and Kayla and played Angry Birds with Trent. We played rock band together but had the most fun with a full on game of TWISTER. What a classic. I don't even REMEMBER playing when I was young although I'm sure I did.

Last night I was given a ticket to see SLEEP NO MORE in NYC. It is based on Shakespeare's stories. The play is interactive and takes place in a five floor building. The audience all wear white masks and are not aloud to speak. You are encouraged to be curious and explore all five floors how ever u see fit.  Unmasked actors make their way through the vignettes and if u want to see AMAZING performances then u follow.   I spent the full three hours exploring the different places. It is a combination of performance art, dance, choose your own adventure, disguise, voyeurism, and reading emotions in people just by watching their face and reactions. It was to this date the most special thing that I have experienced.

I plan to have Carmax give me an estimate on my car this week. I would really like to save more money

Kim

I wrote my post on Sunday and can not find where it was saved.  Great.  As Jake would say, I'm technologically impaired.  He's fifteen and also says I'm "ancient".  Just wait, Jake.  You'll get yours someday. 
Last week Mertz and Bertha came for a visit and to celebrate Thanksgiving.  We had a fun time together and great weather.  On Thanksgiving we went bowling in the morning (a family tradition) and after a low-key, delicious dinner, Jake and I hit some pre-Black Friday sales.  We left just after 10pm and arrived home around 3am.  It was insane out there but Jake calculated our savings for me at around 43 percent so I can't complain.  Plus he is great company.  In addition to teasing me, he is just plain funny and smart.  I'd give up a little sleep anytime to spend some time with Jake.
I got my hair done on Friday.  It's a bit too dark.
On Saturday, Rachel and I took Grandma Bertha with us to see the Nutcracker.  Another tradition for Rachel and me.

On Sunday, I taught Relief Society for the last time.  I got released and called to be the Relief Society Publicity Specialist.  Sounds like a made-up job, right?  Whatever.  I'm sure I'll be awesome.  I do have a degree in advertising....
Next week:   hold the freaking garage sale.  Get everything ready for it.  Promote the RS Christmas party.  Make neighbor gifts and teacher gifts.  Wrap.  Go to the temple with Dave.  Get a pedicure.  Make Ethiopian Chicken.

Until next week...