You are here: Home / Archives for holiday

Recharging the batteries

May 31, 2010 Leave a Comment

For the past 4 months I have been working from home and I haven’t really taken many days off. I usually use the weekends to work on projects that I have trouble getting to during the week when I spent most of my time answering emails or taking calls. But this weekend, I tried my best to get away from the computer and do some things other than stare at the computer screens for hours on end.

Friday we went to lunch with some friends at CPK in Town Square. At the end of the day I realized that this 2 hour break in the middle of the day caused me to be more focused in the morning and again in the afternoon. I got more done by missing 2 hours than had I been here the whole time. I think I should take advantage of that a little more often.

On Saturday we went to have breakfast with our friends Craig and Ashley and their new baby who are in town for a visit. Marcia, Brent and Michelle joined us as well and we had a great time BSing. The group came back to our place for a while to play some cards and just hang out. It was a great visit and reminded me how much I miss hanging with that entire group of friends.

Last weekend Chris and I got a really nice head start on cleaning out the garage and we wanted to get a bit more done before it starts to get too hot to work out there. We’ve been doing great at getting rid of stuff that we just don’t need. Saturday afternoon we took another truck-load of stuff to GoodWill and filling up a trashcan and a half. In the spirit of not trying to do too much all at one time, we probably still have one or two more sessions to go before we are really done, but it sure is heading in the right direction, finally.

Saturday evening I watched game 1 of the Stanley Cup playoffs. I can’t really say it was a GOOD game, but it sure was exciting to watch. After 5 goals in the first period, I expected the game to tighten up. Not even close. Another 5 goals were scored in the 2nd before it finally calmed down and only 1 was scored in the 3rd. I will say that these two teams don’t seem to like each other much. There is a LOT of hitting going on and I expect this series to get really nasty before it’s over. Before the series started I said that I’m rooting for Philly, but my gut says that Chicago will win in 6 games.

On Sunday, I spent some time at the computer while Chris and her Mom worked on cleaning upstairs. (They are doing a great job of getting our house back in order.) I spent some time trying to work on a couple projects, but really was just not feeling it. I played some online poker and did a little file cleanup that was long overdue, but not really much of anything.

In the afternoon, Chris and I headed over to the Rio to check out the World Series of Poker. Somebody we know was playing still in on day 3 of the Champion’s event and we wanted to see how he was doing. Unfortunately he was severely short-stacked and busted out about 20 minutes after we showed up. No, I don’t think the two events are related.

That brings us to today. I got up early (again!) and rearranged the poker room so we could have access to the treadmill. I set it up and walked 2 two miles. We have a TV set up in front of the treadmill, so time flies pretty well when you are walking and watching Galaxy Quest.

We took the kids to see Shrek Forever After. I’ve been wanting to see it even though I wasn’t expecting a lot from it. I’ve enjoyed the first 3, but really, the 3rd was a far cry from the first 2. I definitely can’t say this one was as good as the first 2 either, but we did enjoy it.

We stopped by the mall and I got to shoot this silly video of Paxton in the Hurricane Simulator.

Really it’s been a pretty low-key weekend. But, with trips planned for Chicago, Orange County, Reno and Lake Tahoe already for June, it feels good to get the batteries recharged now.

How about you? How was your holiday weekend?

Filed Under: Family Tagged With: , ,

Reversal of fortune

December 24, 2008

Yesterday I blogged about how rude people were while out shopping. If you read yesterday’s comments, several people pointed out that they weren’t experiencing the same. In fact, they were enjoying quite the opposite. So today when I had to go back to the mall, I was really curious as to what moods I would run in to on what has to be the most stressful shopping day of the year. Face it, you have one last shot to get that special someone that special gift. Tensions are likely going to be high.

When we got to the mall I had a pretty good idea of where we were going to look. I had the kids with me and we were shopping for mom’s gift from the kids. Don’t worry, I already had mom’s big gift taken care of, so this was just for some stocking stuffers and something small from them. The first store turned out to be a bust. Then, as we walked past the line-up for people wanting to get a picture with Santa, it made me really glad my kids are older. The line was ETERNAL! I did not envy those parents.

We went in several stores and purchased items in a few of them. We didn’t run in to any long lines, which had to be a Christmas Miracle. Also, we didn’t run in to a single person with any sort of attitude. People in the mall were downright cheery. What an incredible turnaround from my previous day’s experience.

After returning from the mall we had some friends over for dinner and some games. They just left and we are wrapping the last few gifts for morning. We had a great day and I’m looking forward to watching my kids open their gifts in the morning.

I hope your Christmas is filled with family, friends and good cheer.

Filed Under: General Tagged With: ,

Getting ready for the holidays

December 7, 2008
christmas_lights

Going in to it, I knew this was going to be a busy weekend. It started right after work on Friday when we went to the First Friday event. Saturday I woke up late, spent a few hours helping a friend with his website and then took a nap before we headed out to my company holiday party. Since we didn’t get in until late, and we had a few cocktails at the party, I was expecting to sleep in on Sunday. Oh how wrong I was.

Our day started around 6:45 this morning with our dogs waking us up to be let outside. Neither of us were able to go back to sleep, so we got up and headed out to pick up the boxes of Christmas decorations from storage. We also brought home a 9 foot artificial Christmas tree that somebody gave us. When we got it home we realized that it was going to be too big to place in the spot where we normally put our Christmas tree. So we started working on alternate locations. The process was not going well, to say the least. Ultimately we decided not to use the new tree and went back to our old standby. An artificial tree that belongs to my Mother-in-Law. We’ve used it at our house for the past 5 years and it’s served us pretty well, I must say. Once we put the tree together and strung it with lights, we let the kids decorate it with ornaments. This is a lengthy process as we have amassed quite a collection of them over the years.

With the tree taken care of it was time to head outside to hang the Christmas lights outside. This is one of my leasts favorite things to do. It’s nerve wracking! We have a 2 story house and the Little Giant ladder we have gets us close, but with the unlevel ground and lava rock in our front yard, it makes for an interesting experience. I’m a bit of a thrill seeker, but get sorta freaked out being 2 stories up standing on the 2nd to last rung on a ladder.

When it’s all said and done, the house does look pretty nice.

As an amusing side-note, while we were using the ladder to hang the lights out front, a neighbor came over and made a comment about how nice the ladder was. He then carried on for a few minutes about a lightbulb that is burnt out on his front porch. Somehow, after we were done with the lights, my brother-in-law and I ended up dragging my ladder over to the neighbor’s house and changing the bulb for him. Call it my good deed for the day, I guess.

So the lights are hung, the tree is trimmed and the neighbor’s porch light is a-glow with holiday cheer. Yep, the holidays are here.

Filed Under: Family, Ranting Tagged With: ,

Creating new holiday traditions

November 27, 2008

Growing up was all about holiday traditions. It was a given that every Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve were going to be spent at my grandparent’s house. I’ll bet for the first 25 years of my life, this is how it went every year. But, time has gone by, much of that has changed. My grandfather passed away, my grandmother moved out of the house, most of us grandkids have families of our own now and several of us have moved out of state. Getting the family together in one place for one holiday would be difficult, for both would be nearly impossible.

When we first moved to Las Vegas, just my brother-in-law was living out here. Since that time he’s gotten married, my wife’s other brother has moved out here with his wife and two kids and my mother-in-law has moved out here as well. Since moving here 7 years ago, we’ve cooked Thanksgiving dinner at hour house every year. We’ve had family drive in from California just about every year to spend the holiday with us. This year was no exception as my Sister and her boyfriend joined us for the holiday.

So it seems that the new tradition is going to be to spend Thanksgiving at our house with family from near and far. This suits me just fine. For next year I would like to see about getting my parents out to Vegas for Thanksgiving along with a few nieces, nephews and cousins.

Christmas is a whole other story. For the past couple years we’ve spent Christmas morning together at our house with my in-laws and their families. This year we are tossing around the idea of traveling to California to visit family. That’s still up in the air, though. I guess we’ll play that one by ear.

This Thanksgiving was our first time trying a turducken. At first it sounded weird. But, I have to admit that I absolutely loved it. I’m going to lobby for the turducken to become a staple in our Thanksgiving tradition.

Happy Holidays my friends. I hope you are able to spend them surrounded by friends and family.

Cheers.

Filed Under: Family, General Tagged With: , , ,