I've Got A Name

This morning on my way to work, after I stopped to get Starbucks Hot Cocoa from the weirdest lady ever, my van said it was 39 degrees outside. 39!!!!!!! I didn't know my van's thermal gauge went below 48. It was so cold out there that my face hurt just to be outside.

This may not seem like a big deal to some, but I ask, what happened to all that global warming talk? It's freakin' COLD!!!!

I also got a weird discussion from the toothless worker at the Starbucks about my name, which she wanted to write on the cup even though I was the only person getting anything. She asked if it was Daniel on my birth certificate, and when I responded yes, she replied that her son was named Danny on his birth certificate. She decided (in her wisdom) that since his friends would one day shorten his name for him anyway, she'd just do it at birth. So now wherever he goes, people want to call him Daniel, which is incorrect because his name starts as Danny. It can be shortened to Dan, but can't be lengthened. Which seemed weird to me, why would you start somebody out with a nickname? This has done nothing (according to her) but cause problems for him throughout his life, as bank loans, school documents and other legal papers. This also leads to another question, if we can have nicknames that are shorter, what's the name for a longer version of our names? I've decided now that since I'm not doing any research about it, I'm going to coin the word, 'Dannyname'. So now if someone is named Bob and you want to call them Bobby, you can! It's their Dannyname. Spectacular, yes?

So kid whom I've never met whose mother named him Danny on his birth certificate, have no worries, you can now be called Daniel, it's totally legal and acceptable. As I live in California, and we can make whatever laws and rules we want no matter how stupid. I decree that this is a real thing. Congratulations to my readers, you have witnessed history.

I'll Be Home For Christmas

That's right boys and girls, Christmas is coming to my house! After much discussion, my wife won. Her family and mine are going to gather under the roof that I pay for and celebrate Christmas together. It should be an interesting day, as with that many people there are more than a few presents to open. Especially her parents, who seem to lose their minds in Company D (which is the employee only Disneyland store, they don't work there, but they visit so much that they've met people who will let them shop there). This gift over-giving is fine, they're the grandparents and they have earned the right to spoil them stupid, but it takes them almost 45 minutes to open everything. Although this year may not take as long, as T has been asking me everyday if it's time to open the presents yet. I think this is the main drawback to getting the shopping done early, there's temptation under that tree, and I don't know how long he'll hold out. I think next year, we'll find small tears in the wrapping paper. Hopefully just small tears, otherwise he'll be playing with his new stuff 4 weeks early.

And yes you read that last paragraph correctly all 3 of you who read this. I am almost done shopping. Why? Because I hate shopping. I don't like wandering through aisles looking for the 'perfect gift.' I like finding cool stuff that people will like and getting it. I hate returing things also, though I'm going to be returning at least 4 things. Two are because I had to buy extra stuff, which my wife told me to do, then she decided that we didn't actually need those things and now I have to take them back.

As a guy, I don't like returning things, it's like saying that I didn't know what I was doing the first time I came in here, so I need to try again. And hopefully, this time, I won't screw up and have to wait in this special line to give it back. I had to return 2 pairs of jeans yesterday at Target. I had to return them because even though I have only two pairs of pants, and neither of them have no holes in them, I wasn't allowed to purchase more than one pair because "Christmas is coming!" ...I know, exciting presents for me this year, huh?... So I'm standing in line with about 12 other people and only one of them is a dude. And he's exchanging a broken xbox game. Which to me says that I've become a chick. This is why I normally make my wife return stuff. (Also because usually she's the one that bought it.) Guys just don't feel right in a return line. It's in our DNA, or RNA I can't remember my bio right now. Or is it chemistry class... anyway, the moral is, I don't like returning stuff. Not at all.

Thank You

So since I skipped it a bit, here's some of what went down at our family Thanksgiving. We went to Lower Lake up to my Aunt and Uncle's house. They're the ones who make the greatest salsa ever. They have at least one full acre, and as I'm not sure how to eyeball acreage, I'll even say there's a good chance that there's more than that. Maybe 2ish. Anyhoo, they have what has to be the coolest thing that Big Ty has ever driven.


Yup that's him driving the tractor. His, or at least my, uncle is helping push the pedals, but the steering and bucket controls were all 4-year-old. This was one of the first things he did there and it became impossible to top. But we tried, we went for a wandering style walk past a grove of olive trees that are apparently not supposed to be able to grow anywhere but the wonderous land of Italia. But there they were in Lower Lake, looking as lovely as ever. Little E was bundled up for the journey and posed for pictures

She's quite the little ham. Which we didn't eat, because we're Kosher. Well not really, but the turkey was delish, there were authentic beans a la mi tio. Fun was had by all and the kids did really well.

All I Want

I have discovered my son's newest, and biggest fear.

We spent yesterday putting up our Christmas decorations. We did some on Saturday, during which Ty kept asking when we were putting the Christmas Tree up. He was told we would put it up Sunday. So when Sunday morning rolled around, he hadn't forgotten this and bugged his mom to no end. But was told that he would have to wait for his dad to wake up. (It was my day to sleep in.) So I stumbled out into the living room earlier than I wanted, as my wife sometimes (always) forgets to shut the door and keep the noises out, and as soon as he saw me he informed me that it was time to put the tree up. We held him off for another hour or so, so I could eat and freshen up a bit. Then we were on.

We have what's known in some circles as an "Artifical Tree" or as I like to say, an environmentally friendly green Christmas triangular decoration. So we had to assemble this dude, and Ty helped of course, then once our sweetastic tree was assembled, he dove into the decoration box (almost literally) and started putting decorations all over one small area of the tree. We managed to start spreading them out to make it less bottom-heavy. And once it was completed, he asked if we could open presents. There were no wrapped presents in sight at this point, but apparently he's made the connection between environmentally friendly green Christmas triangular decoration, and presents.

We were out of almost all foods, which brings us to his greatest fear. He went to the grocery store with his mom and whilst he was there, his constant question was, "Daddy's not going to take the Christmas tree down, is he?" That night before he went to bed, he asked, "We're going to leave the tree up, right?" And this morning when he woke up, before he even got out of bed, "Is the tree still up?"

Ah, to have such simple concerns in life. When all you want is the Christmas Tree to stay up.

Baseball Ballet

To steal an idea from a friend of mine (you know who you are) I've decided to share the greatest video i've ever taken with my digital camera. (A Sweetastic Canon digital elp 600...or something like that). This is from Easter of this past year. We were all just hanging out in our partially destroyed backyard, playing baseball (as we are known to do) when this wonderful bit of kismet happened. Enjoy. And friend whom I stole this idea from, don't worry, it'll still look like you did it first.

Ramblin' Man

Well for my faithful few, the time has come to up the ante on this here blog. I figure that I have to commit one way or the other, and since I'm so good at saying I'll commit to something. I'm committing to this. Totally, gonna post at least 3 to 4 times a week, and if there's nothing exciting to post about, then be prepared for my rambling, which I can totally do, without difficulty. I can go on about the most inane things for hours and hours. Just ask my wife, who usually tunes out my little stories a couple minutes in. This sometimes doesn't work out so well as there will also be important information thrown in that she misses because she's no longer paying attention. But I guess, "You'll listen to every one of his boring stories" isn't in the wedding vows. (Mental Note: If we reaffirm our vows, make sure to put that in.)

I know you're all excited to hear about the new grass, the good news is that it's still alive. The other news is that we still can't really walk on it. The sprinklers have been going so much that the whole back yard is pretty soggy, and I'm afeared to waltz around on it until it's had sufficient time to solidify itself up. The grass is very perky though, and the seams are slowly going away. I'm supposed to be able to mow it next week, and as I know how enthralling that story will be, you can be sure that it's gonna be up here soon after I'm done.

In other news, little E has taken it upon herself to learn all about the world around her by asking the same two questions over and over, "Whoisit?" and "Whatzat?" These are used properly. When asking about a person on the phone, she asks repeatly, "Whoisit?" until she figures out who it is you're talking about. Which was fun when my brother called, she doesn't talk to him that much and had to be told who she was talking to consistently throughout the conversation. And that's probably enough of the 'my kid is adorable' talk for today.

Sees ya soon!!

Costume Montage

A wonderful night of adventure was had by all. We made our first rounds out in the neighborhood. The past couple of years with T and E, we went to the mall as we figured there would be good candy and lots of kids. We were not correct in our assumption. Most of the candy was gone by the time we got there, 20 minutes after it started, and the kids there were mostly older kids who could get away with trick-or-treating at places where all their friends worked.

T was ready to go at around 3o'clock last Thursday, but managed to survive until last night. We left and hit the houses on our block and were already swimming in candy. Apparently the theory on our court is that since hardly anybody takes the time to walk the courts, take whatever you want. You want more candy, here take a couple more handfuls, no really take more. Which became my philosophy when the 7 kids came by our house later. They did pretty well for themselves.

We had been training T to say "Trick or Treat" when the door was opened, but he was more comfortable with "Hello. I'm Buzz Lightyear, she's Tinkerbell and she wants candy too." Which ended up working out OK for him and he did say "Thank You" to everybody so I was satisfied with that.

This little lady got the hang of things rather quickly. About the sixth or seventh house we went to had the lights on and the pumpkins out, but nobody was home (apparently). So T rang the doorbell and we were standing there for a few seconds and nothing happened, so our little princess started whacking the door with her wand and yelling for them to open up. I'm not sure exactly what she was saying, but I believe it was "Hey!! Open up this door and drop something into my pumpkin!!! I got dressed up and I'm walking around in this cold and you have lights on and should be giving me candy!!!" But I don't know if that's what she really said. It sounded like "OOoooeenn!"

We had to cross a few streets and in order to do that, I had to take that little pumpkin and pick her up. She fought me and whined until I put her down and she got her pumpkin back. Then all was cool again, but for those 10 seconds we spent walking across the street, bad things man. But all went well. Good hauls for both kids (or for us, you know, check the candy take the 'unsafe' ones away) and they had a great time. T now is preparing for his trip to D-Land with mom, and mom's parents. He's gonna wear that costume down there also. I wonder if he'll sign autographs?

Bonus picture: This is from T's preschools Halloween party, they had a parade and little pot-luck thing, and there was one kid in T's class who dressed up as Superman, had the cape, boots, fake muscle suit. And was wearing a Batman mask. It was the greatest costume I saw. You gotta enlarge this one to see the greatness.