Ramblin Back into Bloggin

So I bet you are wondering where I have been. If your snot I mean not then why not. It has been since Thanksgiving since I last visited the blog land and not one note of concern was posted. No 911 calls to police to insure that me and the fam were okay. Now I attribute that to two things:

1) Someone of you know my mom and she has kept you up to date on the happs down here in the big D. Telephone, Telegraph, Tele Carolyn

2) You feared that you would be arrested when the police found that we were well and that I was just too lazy to get a new one posted

Now what we have here is too much information to share in one blog because well we had the Christmas holiday and then New Years the sale of the house in Florida and finally the celebration of Kaitlyn's birthday and the daddy daughter dance. So I will attempt to be brief so we better dive in.

Let's start with the holidays. Much to my surprise we had a very cold christmas. But it was great. This year we decided that we would go with a theme and we did the Chevy Chase classic National Lampoons Christmas Vacation. I played the roll of Eddie and boy let me tell you trying to find V neck sweater in 3X plus the white dickie was hard(not a real big seller I found out). But after my third trip to thrift store I struck gold. The hardest part was trying to wrangle the squirrel to put in the tree but thanks to a couple lucky Texas cowboys we were able to catch a three legged one we called stubby. Now before all of you animal activists out there think we electricuted little stubby in order to burn the tree up like in the movie we did not. We actually lured him out by rubbing some peanut butter on the back of Tyler's pants and boy do squirrel's love peanut butter. Thankfully with stubby only having three legs Tyler was able to stay away until we reinacted that scene and we could get stubby back in his cage. Actually stubby as we found out was not a he but a she (didn't think to check that) and we are now the proud grandparents of 6 little squirrels(we named after all my favorite cousins we have shaved all of the hair of the one named Jason I pierced both of his ears but he scratched the tar out of me). Finally, we reinacted the meal with Snot the dog. Now we really did not want that large of a dog underneath our table so we got one of the nieghbors down the street with a really bad cold and awful gas to play the role. What a time we had!!!

But really the kids got way to many gifts and we are blessed more than we probably deserve. We actually spent Christmas day with Kristena's grandparents which was great. They are great people and make being away from my crazy family during the holidays a little easier. It almost feels like I am with them when they bust out the card games. Now should Kristena's grandpa and grandmother try to get you to play by pretending that it will be just a friendly game don't let them fool you. They are card sharks. I won the first hand we played and for the rest of the game they shut me down at every turn. That would have been fine except it was $100 a piece just to get in the game and $50 a hand. Kristena and I had to sign over Kaitlyn's first year of college tuition before they would let us leave. (i am just kidding of course they wouldn't gamble on Christmas but they did charge us $10 a head for lunch : ))

We then had what I will term the Family Christmas at Kristena's grandparents the following weekend. We had to wait until after Christmas because my sister said she was coming but she had to wait until after Christmas when Wayne would be released from jail. It seems that Wayne has been parking in handicap spaces again and this time they had had enough. So off to jail they took him the funny part is they put him in the handicap cell with the bigger bathroom and the hand rails. He kept insisting he really was handicapped but when he jumped on the unicycle and jugggled fire in nude they thought he was crazy but because he had not registered with the proper agency so off to jail he went. Well that's not true either but really who can tell anymore. Anyway the truth is that Kristena's grandparents again crowded 1,100 people into their house. But this time I saw how Kristena's grandmother made enough food for everyone. The secret is......takeout! I saw her throwing away 1.100 Wendy's wrappers in the trash. No wonder I like her family so much that is something my mom would do. "Here kids" she would say "enjoy your home cooked Thansgiving meal from the local grocery store." Or we don't think we should cook this year all we do is end up with that full feeling that you get from eating real food. Let's all got to the pole barn with the Carosel and we can arm wrestle the people who's oven broke on Thanksgiving day for the wishbone. Oh by the way we had an awesome time at my Grandparent In Laws for Christmas both times. The kids love it and can't wait for us to leave them there.

Now onto more current events. Do want to know what the best part of living in Texas is??????????????(sorry button stuck) It is the TV schedule!!!!!!! Everything here comes on an hour earlier than it did in Florida or Ohio or anywhere else that is on the silly Eastern Time thingy. So Kaitlyn and I only had to stay up until 11:00 to watch Dick Clark drop the ball down the building. And did any else think that we could feed a whole bunch of people if we used a tennis ball from Wal-Mart instead of a Billion Dollar crystal ball that has 2.00 dollar lights from CVS strung through it. Did anyone who was on TV know it was that expensive? It is dark out shoot as much weight as I put on during the holidays I am almost a circle wrap me in lights and will slide that pole at Midnight singing It's a Whole New World.

Now we are onto Kaitlyn's 8th Birthday party. For all of you that have made this far in one sitting you are truly crazy, or a glutton for punishment but either way thanks. Now each year we have had some sort of party for Kaitlyn. I say every year but last year. Last year we decided to help the Disney machine take over the world and we took her to Disney World. This year we decided that we would have her party at our house.(Cue the ominious music) So we let Kaitlyn invite all 11 girls in her class along with the cute little neighbor girl who she plays with who is only 5 to her party. Thinking that most will not come..... All but one girl RSVP'd. Have you ever had 12 eight year old in your house with a Karoke maching playing songs from High School Musical??? If you get the chance don't! The only illustration I have is it is probably like if you jammed your head into the middle of a jet engine then told the pilot to give it some gas while listening to the greatest hits from the dump truck. I mean it was unbelievable. And they are like vultures. I have never seen that much food disappear since I followed a local wieght watchers group hit the Golden Corral right after wiegh in. And they are demanding. One little girl, let's call her bossy and her friend rude asked me after eating everything that wasn't nailed down if I knew how to make a milk shake and if so would I make her one???? What you just ate pizza, chips, cake, two end tables and part of the love seat and now you want a milk shake!? I might have made it for her except she ate both the handles of the fridge and I could not get it open. The important thing is that Kaitlyn had a blast. We can buy more furniture and I am sure Tyler and Lauren will not be afraid everytime someone says pizza. The important thing is that we made a memory that she will treasure for a life time.

Finally, there was tonight. I had the priveldge to escort miss Kaitlyn to the annual Daddy/Daughter dance at her school. It was a blast! She got to go get her hair done and then we had the helicopter pick us up at the house.( not really we drove the minivan) She was beatiful and I am quite honored that she has let me be her dad. Five+ years ago she and Kristena became a part of my life. She was this tiny little girl that was quiet all the time but was full of spunk. She is slowly turning into this young lady that has her own opinons on everything from the music she likes to the things I wear. I can not imagine a day without her being a part of my life.

Anyway I am voting for me in the presidental election because I think I would do I good job. Can't you imagine me settling the problems around the budget? Boys what we need to do is just shut the oven door and throw those pans out. If you can't cleanem you can't keep'em. Enjoy the pics and remember alot of this blog is based on something that might be somewhat true.