What I learned from Bo and Luke

For Christmas this year, Emily got me the entire DVD collection of the Dukes of Hazzard.  As a kid of the 70s and 80s, I was fortunate to enjoy some of the greatest television shows ever made - M*A*S*H, The Dukes of Hazzard, Knight Rider, Air Wolf, Cheers, and the Smurfs.  I am delighted to watch the Dukes of Hazzrd with my kids as I am pretty sure that I was Isaac’s age when I was first really drawn to the Duke boys.  

So, we got down to business watching the series from episode 1 (which, by the way, explains a lot of stuff about the series). The kids and I giggled and cackled and have been singing the DoH song at the top of our lungs.  It has been a great trip down memory lane.  I distinctly remember playing the Dukes in second grade.  Mrs. Kuhn’s desk made for a great General Lee and her yard stick was a perfect bow for me to shoot my dynamite arrows.  It was an awesome time to be a kid.  I guess it is posible that any time you are a kid, it’s an awesome time…but seriously, I had the Dukes of Hazzard to grow up on!  My best pal at  the time acquired a generic tv guide that had Daisy Duke on the cover.  You know Daisy, the prettiest woman ever (aside from my lovely wife)!  Anyhow, we knew we had something special but we also had enough information about the birds and the bees to know we couldn’t just parade around with the thing either.  Brainstorm…we found an old plastic lunch box my uncle gave me and gently laid Daisy into the box and set to work digging.  She remains buried somewhere in my parents’ yard to this day.  Anyhow, Isaac started talking about shooting a  yard stick bow and arrow and I knew we’d started a proper education for our kids.  Here are some things I learned: 

- The good guys win…sometimes it’s hard to know who the good guys are at first, and they don’t always wear a white hat (or drive a Cadillac with horns).  They almost always have a dynamite tipped arrow and a bow on hand though.

-A lady is to be respected and treated right. The extent of her lady-likeness is inversely proportional to the length of her shorts.

-A properly waxed hood is important for proper aerodynamics and fuel efficiency and is properly buffed with one size too small Wranglers.

-I married WV’s finest Duke girl.  She was cute then and is even cuter now!

So, I learned some lessons, but I am left with several questions, namely about how the human species propogated itself through the 1970s.  I think I first mentioned this question after seeing Soylent Green.  Hair styles and clothes, and goofy come-on lines should have excluded most people from spreading their DNA.  Even if folks somehow got around that problem, I cannot imagine how the men had sufficient “swimmers” to make the trip.  I saw way too much of Bo Duke, if you know what I mean.  The Duke boys wore jeans that were at least two sizes too small.  Well, I don’t want to say too much more to embarrass myself so I’ll leave the rest to you.  ”I may be crazy, but I ain’t stupid, this is crazy Warren, over and out!”

Just Playing Around

We got a bunch of new games for Christmas this year. We have been in an all out game playing marathon this week. I’ll give you a quick rundown on a few of them. Family game night has lots of options now! Anyhow, here is my impression of a few games…

Apples to Apples - holy moley, this is an awesome game! Basically, each person gets 5 cards, each with a word. Each person puts down their card that most closely describes the “target word”. It’s a lot of fun…especially with small kids. For example, once the target word was cuddly. The submissions were basketball and lobster. As the judge, I had to decide which was most cuddly. Interesting game for sure!

Guess Who? - sort of like Clue with out the murder. You get 25 people and have to eliminate faces based on characteristics like eye color, beards, etc. We’ve had a bunch of fun with this one.  Abigail is a master!

Life, Pirates of the Caribbean edition - If you know the regular game of Life, you pretty well get this edition…just add a parrot on your shoulder and say “arrrrr” a lot more.  You pay in dubloons rather than dollars!

Dominoes - this has been our big time winner. We’ve played just under one million rounds of Mexican dominoes in several different variations over the past week. The kids have a fun time playing this although I think the adults (we’ve played with everyone) have had the most fun. I had no idea dominoes was actually a cool game!

We are working hard to institute a regular family game night.  We play games a lot but I suppose as the kids get older that it will be more difficult.  I figure we’ll start a tradition now if we can and hope it sticks.  Do most people have a family-something night?

Christmas - the part without bruises

We had a great Christmas this year.  We spent lots of time with family and enjoyed tons of great food and gifts.  The kids were pretty calm on Christmas eve and went to bed before too late so Santa could come at a decent hour.  On Christmas morning, the kids even slept in until 7 or so (I was never that kind on Christmas to my parents)!  I think kids really are the most awesome at whatever age they are at.  I remember being so excited for my 2 and 6 year olds to open presents, but it was even better for my 5 and 9 year olds.  My Mom always said she liked us best at whatever age we were and I think I agree.  I am not sure that the same rule applies into adulthood though.  Of course, she can send us home now instead of just to our rooms.  Anyhow, I think I like my kids best at whatever age they are too!

Abigail had strep for Christmas but she is now mending (after 4 days on an ineffective antibiotic, she got a new type which worked).  I only mention it because we had to wake her up on Christmas morning.  Isaac was eager to open presents and we knew Abigail would be mad if he didn’t wait.  So, we woke her and the kids started opening stuff.  By the way, motrin is magic - it makes the most awful strep/sore throat/fever bearable for everyone!  Anyhow, I loved how our Christmas morning this year.  Rather than just fly through all the presents, the kids stopped and played with each gift before moving on to the next.  We didn’t prompt them to do so, but it let us know that Santa had done good research.  It took us 3 hours to open all the gifts (and there weren’t that many)!  We were exhausted by lunch time!

I’ll post some more pics tomorrow of one of the gifts that Isaac and I each got…but I need time for the bruise to properly finish developing before I show it off!

We’re still hungover…from sugar cookies

We are still goofed up from too much eggnog and sugar cookies.  I love too much icing!

Like a lightbulb

We were sitting in the car (aka our recording studio) when the kids decided to sing Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.  Abigail was going to sing it with her kindergarten class so she wanted to practice.  I just happened to have my handy dandy voice recorder with me and I recorded this…the debut of Isaac and Abigail with backup vocals by Mom.  Maybe it’s just me, but I think kids singing and having fun is about the best sound in the world.  I don’t like regular kids’ albums where they have kids singing in wishy washy, overly sweet voices (do kids ever do anything gently or softly?).  I really love to hear kids singing loud and proud!

I was just a few days ago lamenting the fact that I was not yet in the Christmas spirit.  Things still feel a little different this year, but we are making great strides towards getting us fully Christmas-ey.  I may work half a day tomorrow but hanging with the family, just playing (and singing this song a bunch more times) will bring us into full Christmas swing.  I didn’t ever get how Mom and Dad could be content getting each other underwear for Christmas, but their real present was seeing their kids have a lot of fun playing games, singing, dancing, eating too much, and crashing at the end of a hard fought day.  I am a slow learner but I think I get it now.  Getting myself in the Christmas spirit is a change in attitude…it’s not about me anymore…and that’s cool!

Gingerbread house - 2D

I really like ginger stuff.  My mom used to make gingerbread and lemon sauce (sounds iffy but it’s great!), I like gingersnaps more than just about any other cookie and I have explored medicinal uses for ginger brandy (uh…sure…medicinal uses).

When Momaw and Granddad invited us over to make gingerbread houses, I was likely more excited than the kids.  None of us has the patience to make a full-blown 3-D gingerbread house.  Patience runs so thin amongst us, in fact, that Isaac didn’t even have the patience to ice his gingerbread house.  He said he liked it as it was, though I think he really just hates crafty stuff that much.  Anyhow, Momaw found a simple recipe and a house cookie cutter so we were set to go. 

You can see that the kids used the flour with gusto and had it all over.  The very best part of this fun was that it was at Momaw and Granddad’s house!

We iced most of the cookies a little but we really were excited to get to the eating.  After only 24 hours, we have finished all of the cookies!  Yes, hibernation weight is coming along nicely!

Snowflakes!

I have mentioned before  that I love Instructables.com.  I was browsing the other evening when I came across a post about cutting intricate paper snowflakes (holy moley, sorry for all the links!)  I don’t think I was ever particularly good at cutting paper snowflakes but I thought I should pass along the frustration of cutting them to my kids.  I had barely finished describing what we needed to do when Isaac declined any further involvement…so, that leaves Abigail to drive to madness!

Typically, when I cut snowflakes, I just started in on the paper in my best Edward Scissorhands imitation.  Like most things, I had no plan or desired output.  It never occurred to me to plan ahead but the instructable changed my mind.  We decided to fold the paper as usual, but then draw a pattern ahead of time.  It made me think about what I wanted the end result to be.  Cool!

Abigail didn’t really get the excitement of “the edge”.  It’s the “mother-edge” I told her, the edge from which all snowflake life flows.  “Ok Dad, can I cut now?”  Ah, sweet…she’s feeling snowflake frustration!  Anyhow, she drew a number of shapes including some trapezoids and parallelograms to see what would happen.  As she unfolded her first snowflake, she began to understand the “edge from which all blessings flow”.

We decided to hang our snowflakes on the front door, but Mohinder, our cat, didn’t like them there…blocked his view I guess.  We had to raise them up so he couldn’t reach them. 

Anyhow, we are pretty proud of our work.  I expect that we’ll make one each night for awhile.  She loves to do arts and crafts projects and this is right up her alley!  I expect that it won’t be long until we learn to make paper-mache or 3-d origami-like ornaments or tissue paper ornaments, etc. 

Abigail is also pretty generous and wants to make enough so that we can give them to people for Christmas…I like the way she thinks!

Cinnamon applesauce ornaments

This works…you’ll never believe it, but it works.  We made cinnamon applesauce Christmas ornaments this weekend.  These ornaments are cool and they smell awesome!  We started with 1/2 cup of applesauce and added an equal amount of cinnamon.  At first, it mixed up pretty well and seemed right (whatever that is!) but we quickly found we needed more cinnamon.  We didn’t measure but I’d say we ended up with another 1/2 cup of cinnamon.  Anyhow, mix the two ingredients until they form a fairly dry, thick, clay-like consistency.  Roll them out between sheets of waxed paper until they are 1/4 inch thick.  Cut out shapes with cookie cutters and start them drying on a clean sheet of waxed paper.  We poked holes in them to run a string through for proper hanging.  Once they have dried about 24 hours, you can flip them and move them to a wire drying rack to finish.  I think ours will be dry tonight (48 hours).  Let me tell you, they smell awesome!  When I walk in the door at night, the cinnamon fills the air.  I sort of want to lick them but I know better…

Just so you know, they do not taste as good as they smell.  Isaac likes applesauce with cinnamon - a lot.  He reasoned (as I always do) that if a little is good, a lot must be awesome.  He tried some of the dough but quickly downed a bunch of water after eating a small bite (who am I to discourage a little first-hand experience?)  Before Isaac’s bite, Abigail decided she would wait on her brother’s experience before she tried the dough (who am I to push her into reckless behavior?)

As with many crafty things, Isaac was mainly in a hurry to get things done.  He did tough it out because it all smelled so good.  We discovered that appley cinnamon leaves a pretty good stain on your hands but it washes off pretty easily.  We also did a little science related to soil testing - Emily’s Dad is a civil engineer so he was able to rate the consistency of our dough compared to soil.  I think he mainly enjoyed slamming balls of dough onto the waxed paper to see how much it compacted!  It made a great cinnamon thump!

Better’n brandy

Emily is a counselor in an elementary school so she gets to hang around a lot of sick children this time of the year.  We don’t measure the seasons like most people do.  Instead, we know winter has arrived when Emily brings some sort of crud home from school.  She managed to make it until mid November before catching it this year.  I posted a couple of days ago about trying to cure the whooping cough or whatever I had, with brandy.   Now, hard as I tried, one bottle of brandy did not cure my ailment. 

We finally broke down and went to a walk-in clinic on Saturday morning.  Now, this is where the story gets interesting…  We were both put in the same room and seen by the same doctor (which was cool).  The doctor first evaluated Emily (who had only slept 3 to 4 hours at night due to the booger dam in her head).  I felt pretty crummy, but Emily had the black death longer and worse than I did…that’s important later.

So, the poor doctor walked into a room to meet me and a sick doberman-like creature - foolishly, she closed the door.  The doc took a quick superficial look at Emily and tried to convince her that her ailment was a simple cold that needed to be out-waited.  Disgusted, Emily coughed up some lung butter as evidence of her affliction.  Knowing she was being out-symptomed, the doctor next tried to convince the crazed woman by my side that her sickness was due to cat allergies.  Once again, in disgust, Emily produced a hairball.  She is part cat I think and was having nothing to do with the allergy argument. 

Fearing for her life, the doctor tried to divert by taking a look at me.  Upon peering down my throat and listening to my chest, she was immediately concerned.  As she escaped out of the room to perform the strep test - Emily looked over to me and in all seriousness said, “I just want you to know that if you get antibiotics and I don’t - I’m taking yours and you’re on your own.”  The doctor came back in the room with 3 perscriptions for me but none for Emily. 

She told Emily that she did not have the cold long enough for it to be a sinus infection.  Now, it’s been said that the foolish and the dead are the only ones who do not change their opinions.  I wasn’t sure if the doctor was foolish, but I knew for certain that if she didn’t change her opinion, she was going to be dead.  Emily dug in and refused to leave until she got an accurate diagnosis.  She finally convinced the doctor to do a head x-ray and sure enough - she had “an acute maxillary sinus infection” (or something like that).  I knew Emily’s illness was  all in her head!  Poor me though…from the brink of death I have returned - twice!  My illness is better and my wife got her antibiotics too!

Homemade fun!

The kids were helping their grandparents decorate their tree last weekend when we all noticed the old ornaments Emily and her brother had made in school.  Several were hand-painted and had pictures of them through the years.  I don’t know if all schools stopped doing that or just the ones we have been in but we don’t have any homemade ornaments and even fewer than none with pictures of the kids.  We couldn’t let that continue so we had project night at our house this weekend.  Emily’s folks found some wooden ornaments that just happened to have a space in the middle to accommodate wallet sized pictures.  We had just finished having Christmas pictures taken at a local department store and we had the disc with the copies.  I printed out a bunch of copies and we had some good old fashioned fun painting and otherwise decorating the ornaments. 

 I wear a black leather jacket typically.  I had hung it over the chair in the dining room this weekend (well, truth be told, I hang it there every day).  The kids were dancing around and painting, having fun, etc.  I didn’t notice until the paint was dry, but someone did battle with my coat using a green paintbrush.  Take a moment to find a zen place, Warren…the paint is water based and washable and came right off luckily!

So, all is well. We now have some homemade ornaments with current pictures hot-glued in place.  We had a good time messing around with family and I have a significantly scrubbed, much cleaner coat.  It was certainly good homemade fun!

We hot glued ribbono to the top to hang them on the tree.  It’s sort of funny but we decided that the kids don’t really look like either of us when we were kids.  Of course, my kids are much cuter than we were!

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