macs rock

the other day diana and i were running errands around town. we were both hungry, but didnt want to waste too much time eating, so we stopped in at mcdonalds for a quick dinner. little did we know what amazing scene we stumbled upon! this mcdonalds, styled as a 50's dinner, was currently the scene of an amazing concert! there was an old guy up front playing a synthesizer and covering all the oldie hits! and let me tell you, the place was packed! we were lucky to even find a seat! the place was crowded with cute elderly couples there for a 'big night out'. they were loving it- singing along, even getting up and dancing! it was really adorable. diana and i didnt participate in the dancing (though, in hindsight, we really should have!). i guess that guy comes in there and plays every week. me thinks we will have to go back one of these days and get up on that mcdonalds dance floor and really cut a rug!

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bathroom work

and it was back to mom and davids for some more work around the house! this time, though, i worked on the bathroom at their house instead of the rental. david had been busy since last i was there, putting in a new tub and surround, painting the walls, etc. we spent the day putting up bead board, getting the lighting working, and putting some finishing touches on the whole room. we brought in the vanity and sink (which looked amazing!) and cleaned up after ourselves. all in all, that room is looking pretty cool! i think one more day of work in that room and it will be ready to use. i tell ya what, it sure does give one a sense of accomplishment to finish a project. i didnt finish this one yet, but i bet i will feel that sense one of these days...

bye bye movies

now with the impending arrival of our little one, i knew it was time to bite the bullet: it was time to pack away my movies. being a collector at heart, and a huge movie geek, i am really proud of my little movie collection. i love to have it on display, but i also know we've got a kid coming and we live in a really small place! so, into the boxes they went! i went out and got some cd sleeves and boxes to put them into and began the process of taking the discs out of their cases and putting them into the sleeves. it was a long arduous task, i'm secure enough to admit there may have been tears shed... but finally i made peace with it and packed them away. one of the promises i demanded from diana was that when we moved into a real house i would be able to take them back out and display them once more. i know this will happen someday, but my fear is that when i am finally able to do that, no one will really remember what dvds were...

a picture (frame) worth a thousand words

after first finding out from diana that she was pregnant and telling her mom and david, we made plans to go up and visit my mom and papa to let them know of our good news. it worked pretty smoothly: they were planning on coming down to visit us that week but it turned out papa couldnt get the day off. we had left it at that the week before, but now we knew that we really needed to see them! so i played it off cool and called mom and said that since they couldnt come down then we would come up and visit them for the day instead! they didnt suspect a thing! we got up there at sandy pines late afternoon and it just so happened that papa got out of work early so he was there too.

diana and i had this whole plan: she had been having fun decorating picture frames lately, so we made a picture frame for mom to tell her the news. in order to play it off i also made a picture frame for tim and jill that was sandy pines themed. we sat down out on the deck with mom and papa and were talking for 15-20 minutes when i steered the conversation to diana's newest craft project. i said we had made them a frame, so i went to the car to get the frames. i showed them tim and jills frame first and they thought it was really cute. after enough time had past i asked if they wanted to see the frame diana had made them. 'sure'. i pulled it out of the bag and immediately mom was in tears! it took papa a couple seconds to realize what it said, he took a double take, and he too was grinning before long! they were so excited! then the hard part came: mom, you cant tell anyone until labor day weekend. 'what?!?' i'm sure it was two of the most difficult weeks of her life! but true to her word, she stayed tight lipped! eventually we let everyone at sandy pines know about it and mom and papa were beaming with joy!

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telling work

now that diana and i have told our families about the pregnancy, we figured it was time to tell my coworkers as well. at my job we have a tradition of making important announcements with food. when ever anyone is getting married or having a baby they bring in some baked good and put it in the lounge and leave some sort of cryptic message that the rest of the staff gets to try and decipher. i did it once when diana and i were engaged, and now it was time to do it again! back when diana and i first announced our pregnancy to my mom and papa, we immediately went out baby shopping! we wandered the baby isles and fawned over all the cute stuff we were soon going to be getting. we couldnt leave without getting something baby related, so we got these cute baby booties. we didnt know if we would have a boy or girl, so we got both! since then we have had both pair on display at the house as a reminder of what was to come. so, i grabbed the two pair of booties and got some cookies and put it on the table at school. i made sure to get to school really early so no one would see me set it up. it was really fun watching all the teachers go around whispering to each other 'do you know who it is? do you know who it is?' at one point that morning i was standing next to the math teacher and another teacher came up and asked her if it was her, she said no, and the teacher walked away- she didnt even think to ask me! ha! eventually, after about a half hour, someone finally came up to me and asked. i played dumb, but couldnt hold it for long before i began grinning ear to ear! everyone was so happy for us! what fun, huh?

basement bowling

over the summer diana and i would get together with tim, kat, jill & larry and watch a tv show that the girls really loved. usually we would go to tim and kats, but for the season finale jill and larry invited us over to their place. it was pretty nice, they only live about ten minutes away so we got there and were able to enjoy the whole evening with all six of us! after the show we went downstairs where, for some strange reason, they have a pinball machine and this really weird bowling game. we spend the rest of the night bowling and listening to larry's strange mixtapes- and yes, they were actually mixTAPES! larry is totally from the 80's! (i mean that in a good way...). it was a ton of fun. too bad the season is over, i guess we will have to make up another excuse to hangout together with everyone!

1 + 1 = 3!

so, um, for some reason i'm beginning to think life is about to change a little bit for us...

sandy pines pose

this is just a really cute picture of the kids, diana and i so i wanted to include it. enjoy!

theater fun

we recently met up with kat and tim one afternoon and took in a movie. we always love spending time with these two. diana works with kat, and i have such a blast with tim, i think he's a ton of fun! the movie itself wasnt anything special, but we had a great time together none the less. the best part was hanging out after the movie outside the theater. while we were chatting an old man in a golf cart drove over the landscaping, around the parking lot, around the building, and then back over the landscape berm that he first appeared out of. what?!? we had no idea what was going on with that, but had an absolutely hilarious time trying to figure it out!

afternoon with uncle

it was sunday afternoon and tim and jill were both getting sleepy. i offered to take the kids for a few hours so they could get some rest. at first jill turned it down and said that i dont need to do that, then i reminded her that she doesnt get this offer very often. upon reflection, she said 'sure!' diana needed her beauty rest as well, so it was an afternoon with the kids with just their favorite uncle! (ok, maybe i'm not their favorite, but i'm going to claim it none the less!). we all got on the golf cart and headed out! we were on our way to the mini golf course when we noticed that there were a bunch of people running their remote controlled cars on the car track! well, we werent going to let this opportunity go to waste, so we stopped and enjoyed the r.c. fun! afterward we headed to play some mini golf. the kids have a pretty strange way of playing: they seem to use 'calvinball' rules, which means they make up the rules as they go! oh what fun! we took a halftime break at the playground and messed around on the equipment for a while. we never did go back and play the rest of the holes... oh well! after we brought back the golf clubs and balls we went and got some ice cream and checked out the intricate train set out by the main road. it was a great time with the kids, and jill and tim were quite grateful!

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more fireworks

it seems like there are fireworks every weekend at sandy pines! well, at least every weekend that diana and i are there. for some reason they decided to have fireworks over labor day weekend, and diana being the lover of fireworks that she is, was certainly up for checking them out. they were actually pretty good- better even than the ones they had on the 4th of july! the kids had a great time, as always, and so did we!

after the fireworks, jill and tim invited us over for a campfire with adam and lindsay. we invited squeegee and krista to join us as well, and the 8 of us had a great time chatting it up late into the night.

labor day pines

saturday diana and i headed out to sandy pines to spend the day with the family. that night we went out to eat at sam's joint with all of my parents friends out there. we had a good time, but i was suffering from an ear infection so i couldnt hear hardly anything at all! the whole night was filled with a lot of 'huh? what?' which didnt allow too much from me by way of meaningful conversation. after we were eating diana and i shared our news with everyone- they were thrilled! not least of all my mother, she had been waiting the past three weeks, unable to talk about it with anyone! she loves to talk, especially about babies, so i'm sure this was three of the hardest weeks of her life!

the next night we had our annual sandy pines potluck with all the friends and families out at the pines. it was a great time, as always, and diana had a blast being able to talk with everyone about baby stuff! she was getting a ton of advice from all the other new mothers that were there!

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fire guys

for labor day diana and i headed up to grand rapids. friday night we got there in time to join the get together going down at jill's place. in the backyard jeffry lee was busy grillin' up some meaty goodness, and pretty soon the whole gang was there! it felt like it had been forever since we last saw all the guys, so we knew we were in for a really fun night. i had been really tight lipped about our news, so tonight was the night to finally share with all the guys what we had been excited about for the past month or so: baby news! the guys were thrilled for us, all of them were very excited. jill and allison got to spend the night asking diana all about it (which is what diana had been eagerly awaiting for weeks!) and the guys and i celebrated by making dumb jokes and being silly (so, basically what we usually do...).

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too much light

after dinner, we went with everyone to see a show. its a pretty strange show called 'too much light makes the baby go blind' by the neo-futurists. ive seen the show before (and actually was in a version of it called 'nobody move and nobody gets hurt' in my college days...), but the fun thing is that the show is constantly changing, so it wasnt really the same show i saw before, only the same structure. (its really quite interesting, read more about it here). nobody else in the group had seen it before, so it was a really fun experience for all of us! the show was crazy and a ton of fun!

after the show, everyone else went out to the bar, but diana and i called it a night. there wasnt really any reason for us to go to the bar, with diana pregnant and both of us quite tired by the time the show got out at 12:30 am, we figured it would be ok if we passed on it this time...

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the big easy

one of my friends, tim, had a birthday recently. in order to celebrate, we went out in style- we headed downtown chicago! we met up at a restaurant just north of the city that had a new orleans feel to it, which is one of tim's favorite cities ever. it was tim, his wife kat, jill and larry, and a couple of tim's friends. we had a great time just hanging out and chatting it up! it has been forever since diana and i were last in the city- going there for the evening made me wish we did it more often! (and then i realize just how expensive it is...)

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brother surprise

my mom got quite a surprise recently: she got back from the grocery store and was about to start unloading the vehicle when she heard a familiar voice behind her say 'hi!'- it was my brother! he came all the way from japan, where he's stationed, and surprised my mom! i'm sure she immediately was filled with tears of excitement (well, after she got over her initial 'whos this creepy guy watching me empty the groceries?' shock)! that brother of mine pulled a fast one on all of us and came for the week without letting any of us know! well played, sir, well played...

since school had already began, diana and i werent able to spend a ton of time up there to see him, but we did manage to drive up there for an evening after i got out of work. we all met, tim & jill included, for dinner and got to spend a couple hours with him. he hadnt been home for over a year and a half, so it was really cool to see him! the night was cut too short because i needed to work the next day and we had a two hour trip back home. shoot! next time bro, come when i have some days off!

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gate con guests

here's a good general rule for attending any sort of event where people may have to sit behind you: dont wear a cowboy hat!!! this is the amazing view i had to suffer through for one of the guests! it took everything i had to restrain myself from taking it off his head and throwing it across the room! argh! thankfully we got different seats for the next speaker so i didnt have to put up with a strained neck for the entire day.

the guests this year were pretty fun, the main guest was christopher judge, he plays teal'c on stargate sg-1. there were also a couple other guys from stargate sg-1 and stargate atlantis: kavan smith, ben browder, paul mcgillion, and alex zahara. they were all quite interesting to hear from, some shared where they got their start, who were their influences growing up, and others, like ben browder, proved that he is just as big a fan of the show as the rest of us!

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stargate quiz

along with the guests who come up and share stories and stuff, they also have a stargate auction and a stargate trivia challange quiz! they pick three people from the audience to go up and try to correctly answer any questions that the audience members can think up to try and stump them. brains and i were about to leave the hall and check out the vendors room again when brains asked me 'hey, why dont you do it? youve got nothing to lose!' so when the host asked for any volunteers i raised my hand- low and behold i was called up to the stage! now, i would not consider myself very knowledgeable in stargate stuff. i like to watch it, but i dont really get obsessive enough to memorize all the intricate details that one would need to know to do well on a challenge like this. fortunately though, the girl on the right did not have a life and instead invested all her time in memorizing useless stargate information for just such an event as this! the challenge was for us to answer five questions in a row correctly, if we did each of the three of us would win a 100 dollar gift certificate for the vendors room. the other guy on stage was in the same position i was in- he just thought it would be fun to come up on stage! obsessed girl though was in it to win it! someone would ask the question and she would get all persnickety about it and throw a fit if she couldnt hear the question perfectly or if the person asking it had bad grammar. yikes! we did pretty well (and by 'we' i mean the other guy and i didnt answer a single question!) getting seven out of 9 questions right, unfortunately we didnt get them all right in a row so we did not win. oh well, i did get a couple cool parting gifts though!

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stargate convention

the big day is finally here and brains and i drive up to rosemont to enjoy the convention! the place isnt that big, there are maybe 500 people there total. its set up in one main hall where guests come up on stage and regale us with anecdotes about life on the stargate set or what they have been up to since the show ended or just anything thats con their mind. most of the time the guests are up there they take questions from the audience. microphones are set up at each side of the stage and anyone can line up to ask a question. surprisingly, the questions are not nearly as nerdy as one might think, there were no questions at all that started 'so, on episode 43 when you were in a triangulated phase lock...' everyone were pretty good about asking interesting questions. well, almost everyone, there were some people who were obsessed with pranks on set and farting for some reason...

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