We went and picked up Griffin the Wonder Dog from the Animal Rescue League today. He is supposedly black lab/pointer mix, and supposedly about 18 months old. I’ll be taking him to the vet soon to see how good they are at naming his breed and guessing his age.

He’s a sweetie (so far) and is good with the kids (so far) and doesn’t beg for food (so far). He sits, lays down, and goes in his kennel very well.

Our dear Mr. Guinea died of a respiratory infection Sunday night.

It amazed me how much we grew to love him over the past year and a half, as well as how each guinea pig has its own “personality”, just like any of us.

He will be greatly missed.

At 10:17 this morning Matt moved out of his single-digit years. It’s hard to believe that little booger has been around for that long.

In honor of his big day, I uploaded a boatload of pictures of him to the Matt Flickr set, dating back to 2002. Before that I’d have to figure out how to use my scanner.

Here’s the oldest one we have on the computer currently, ignore the fact that he is wearing pink and lavender pj’s.

He was being particularly obnoxious yesterday evening, and in what I thought was a threat to not receive any presents I said, “Matt do you want me to wrap your presents?”
He answered matter-of-fact, “Nah, you can just bring ‘em up here unwrapped.”
I guess he didn’t take it the way I intended it.

So leave a comment wishing the little dude a happy birthday, and go check out his new pics, and notice how frequently he is goofing off in them.

Fresh produce from our very own garden.

We’ve been in a rut here. Nothing new to report, we still get together with homeschool friends once or twice a week, we still aren’t doing school work, we’re still working on remodeling projects around the house, we still haven’t moved our RV out of the driveway, we still haven’t made vacation plans, we still spend most evenings taking kids to activities. The garden seems to be the only thing around here that’s changing.

I took quite a few pictures over the past month, and finally got around to uploading a bunch to our flickr account tonight. We’ve been busy the whole month. Overall it has been a good type of busy, but now I can breathe a sigh of relief that it’s over.

The kids seemed pleased with their gifts, some of their favorites were a digital camera (Sony Cybershot S700) for Jessica, a horse book and (toy) horse for Allison, a voice changer for Matt, a Countdown to Bush leaving office calendar for Don (chock-full of Bushisms) and a Netflix membership for me. The kids now have enough money to buy themselves a Wii, if they ever become available at the regular price again.

Here’s the picture I came up with this month to send out in our Christmas cards:

I’m sure it’s obvious why we didn’t send them out.

Anyway, I hope your holiday was wonderful and Santa brought you just what you wanted.

Awhile back we went to a used book sale put on by a local homeschooling group. Among other things we picked up some used paperback copies of a few books by the beloved children’s author Beverly Cleary. Christine and I both read books by Ms. Cleary when we were young and look back on them in fond regard. Actually, I don’t remember that much about them, but we thought they might keep the kids entertained for a couple hours, and that’s worth the dime or quarter apiece isn’t it?

Anyway, that’s not important. Just trying to set the stage though. After the books had taken up their spot on our bookshelves and gathered dust for awhile, someone finally pulled one down one day and we were surprised to find an autographed picture of Beverly Cleary inside. Our first thought was that we may have just struck it rich. Could we sell this one-of-a-kind celebrity item on eBay and retire early with the proceeds? We did a little research on teh internets and it turns out the picture is only worth a few dollars. Can you believe that? Beloved children’s author Beverly Cleary only worth a couple lousy dollars? Why, she’s beloved I tell you!

Anyway, that’s beside the point. The real story here is that careful scientific analysis of the one-of-a-kind autographed picture has revealed that Beverly Cleary is actually The Church Lady! I know this may be hard for some of you to believe, so I will present the evidence here, for all to see. Witness the truth and believe:

Again.

I think he was just trying to get out of doing the dishes.

I finally got around to switching our flickr account over to a pro account. Tonight I uploaded a ton of pictures from our Colorado trip and put them in a set for your viewing pleasure. I must say, I am a damn good photographer. Enjoy!

About a week ago we went to the pumpkin patch. We’ve been going to the same one for 10 years now. The kids like it because they always have a bunch of fun stuff in addition to actually picking pumpkins:

Like this swing made from a tree trunk.

And the maze made out of haybales. Here’s Matt and Allison running to the entrance.

And this little shed-like building called “The Box” that is actually a two-level maze inside (you have to crawl through it in the dark).

And then there’s picking out pumpkins:

Then a couple days ago, we carved them up:

Here are the final products and the artists, totem pole style:

Then tonight, the trick-or-treating took place. (Yeah, Des Moines is weird - we do it a day early here. Probably so the evil spirits won’t get the kids or something.)

Here are the pumpkins all lit up (like I should be):

And the kids in costume. Jess and her friend Carlee were pirates; Matt was Count Dooku; Allison, an angel.

Now I’m gettin’ all sophisticated on your ass by posting about art and shit. Some people think Leonardo DaVinci was like this really great painter or something, so they went and took digital photos of “The Last Supper” and now you can see it on teh internets. It’s one big-ass 16-million-pixel image though, so don’t use Windows or your computer will hack up its RAM and die. Not really, they have it in a viewer thingy that you can use to zoom in and navigate and stuff without hosing your system. Watch out though, the viewer also plays obnoxious, Italian, religious-y music too.

I still don’t know about DaVinci though; I’m kinda’ partial to dogs playing poker.

We got home yesterday after a loooong night of driving. We came all the way from Pueblo when we decided that the hotel we went to was just too dirty to stay in. Don’t we have the worst hotel luck? We did stay in a good one in Salida, the Days Inn. It was clean, well kept, and the manager was very friendly and helpful. The beds were extra firm, but after the mushy saggy one at the Marriott it was just what my back needed - I woke up feeling much better.

So besides the sucky hotels, we had a great time, saw some awesome scenery, and took hundreds of pictures, which we will subject you to shortly.

About a year and a half ago, Christine posted a picture of a house that was for sale in Atlantic, Iowa for $8800. We lamented that it was a good deal, but it would require me to drive an hour and a half each way to get to work.

Then tonight the person who actually bought the house came across that picture on our blog and left us a comment. Seems she bought it for $6500, and is making that commute every day.

All I can say is best wishes to you, Miss Page. You are a braver soul than I. But now I wish I’d bought that house…

We made it back from Vegas yesterday, but we’re still recuperating. We’re not hungover (drinks are too expensive, and the casinos don’t really comp you drinks unless you’re in the high roller areas). But three days of staying up way too late, overeating, getting up way to early to catch our flight, and walking miles along the strip has taken its toll.

At first, I hated Vegas. It’s hot, it’s dirty, it’s crowded, and everything there is fake. All I could think was that it was like a combination of three of my least favorite places: Walmart, the Iowa State Fair, and Prairie Meadows (the casino that’s like a mile from our house). It’s like Disneyland in hell.

But I did end up having fun and I have a better appreciation for the place now. You just have to embrace the cheesiness of it all. From all the flashing lights, to the billboards advertising Carrot Top or the Producers starring Tony Danza, to the guys promising free stuff just for going to see the new condos they’re building. And I like the fact that you can walk down the street, going in and out of shops, while enjoying a beer the entire time. So, essentially my take on Vegas is that it’s a fun place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there.

Here’s a few highlights in pictures. There are more in our flickr account too.

Our hotel (the Riviera):

This is at Canonita, the restaurant we went to after the wedding. It’s inside the Venetian Hotel. The ceiling is sort of dome-shaped and has very realistic clouds painted on it. You can take a gondola ride through the canal the runs both inside and outside of the hotel. Very cool. And Canonita has great food. If you go to Vegas, I highly recommend it.

The happy couple. Christine’s brother, Anthony and his bride Jeana:

The Bellagio Hotel:

Ceaser’s Palace:

The Eiffel Tower at the Paris Hotel and Casino:

The Luxor:

New York, New York Hotel and Casino:

Don playing a giant slot machine (C’mon big money!):

Christine and her sister, Sarah, on the Coke Bear at the Coca-Cola store:

Checking out of our room using the automated system. It makes it look like I shared a room with Christ. It’s a completely platonic relationship, I swear.

We’ve been using a Kodak point-n-shoot digital for about five years. It sucks. You can’t even measure its speed in frames per second, it’s more like seconds per frame. If I had a nickel for every good picture we’ve missed because that camera is so slow…

So we bought a new camera about a week and a half ago. I used to be somewhat of a photography buff when I was a young man, so I wanted an SLR. We went with the Canon Digital Rebel XT. Eight megapixels, Three frames per second. Shoots a 14-frame burst. It’s not top-of-the-line, but compared to what we were using, it’s light-years ahead. The thing has got so many settings and options that I’m going to be reading the manual for weeks.

We’ve taken several hundred shots already. Here are a few samples (click the thumbnail for a larger image):

Allie under the mistletoe.

Me, doing my best Deano-like smirk.

Close-up of Matt.

Jessica doing her best annoyed-teenager look.

The kids working on their gingerbread house.

Christine made this Xmas cookie that looks like Jessica doing Tae Kwon Do.

My honey.

Close-up of the tree.

Allison looking cute.

Allie close-up.

We got the kids away from the GameCube long enough to get out and enjoy the awesome weather we’ve been having this week. They raked up most of the leaves in our front yard into one big pile and did what all kids like to do: jump into it repeatedly. We tried to get some action shots but our camera is too slow. Still, here are a few pics that turned out nice:

Allison in the pile:

Matt in the pile:

Jessica after jumping in: