autumn decor

i am not really known as someone who decorates for the holidays. in fact, i am kind of known as quite the opposite: someone who gets really mad at other people who decorate for the holidays. now, i think my annoyance is well placed, i dont get mad at everyone who decorates, just those who decorate way way way too early! i get really annoyed with people who start putting up halloween decorations in september, and those who put up christmas stuff in october. i think that is a pretty fair gripe! with all this decorating frustration, my wife diana, bless her heart, has tried to melt mine. she insisted that we do a little decorating for the seasonal change. she is enjoying the fall season, and wanted to have some sort of decoration in honor of that change. so, being the good husband, i allowed my pregnant wife to have her way and we got a pumpkin to put on our front porch. it also helped that we found a pretty big pumpkin for about four bucks at aldi...

boat storage

going over to help out at diana's mom and david's place was quite fun recently!  with the weather changing and winter coming, david made plans to have a friend come over with his boat trailer and get their pontoon out of the water.  the two of them went to drive the truck around to the boat launch and i got the fun job of taking the boat from the dock to the launch!  it was pretty cool- the weather was perfect and i got to enjoy a nice relaxing trip around the lake all by myself.  i took full advantage of my new role as boat captain!  i even walked around the boat as it was going- unmanned!  good thing there werent any icebergs or i would have been sunk! (terrible pun intended...)  we go the boat out with only a couple scrapes, and drove it over to the rental house's garage.  the whole boat needs a bit of work over the winter, so david figured that would be the perfect place to store it so that we can work on it even while theres snow falling.  we did a bit of work on the house as well, carrying the appliances from the garage back in to the house.  one fun thing we got to do was switch the doors of the fridge!  i've always seen the bits and holes in fridges that allow you to switch the side it opens on, but i've never done it to a fridge- until now!  oh, how i take such joy in the stupid little things...
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diy mcbreakfast

every once in a while on saturday morning before diana heads off to work, she will ask me to go get some breakfast from the fast food place. its always really yummy, but i recently decided to try and make one of their breakfast sandwiches myself! we had the eggs, cheese, sausages, and english muffins, so i figured i would give it a go. diana doesnt care for this type of breakfast sandwich, so it was something just for me. turns out its harder to do that i thought it would be! the making of the different items is easy enough, the challenge comes from trying to time it all right. i was trying to coordinate the microwave for the sausage, the stove for the egg, and the toaster for the muffin to all finish at the same time. for the most part it worked and the cheese even melted just right! it was an especially delicious morning for me! diana didnt seem to be as pleased as i was by it, but maybe thats because she was heading out the door for a days work and i was starting a day of doing nothing at all!

treadmill

last summer our treadmill fizzled out on us. the motor died, leaving diana with no opportunity to work out. she was really annoyed! we gave that treadmill to my sister and brother-in-law because they said they might know someone who could look at the motor and fix it. they couldnt, so we were out of luck. well, a new pawn shop opened up in town and i went to check it out a few times (i know pawn shops can have a bit of a stigma attached to them, but this one isnt shady at all, it actually seems more like a used cd shop and its actually really nice!) everything in there is fairly new and in really good repair. i've actually found a bunch of good movies and cd's there for cheap. well, diana asked if i ever see a treadmill i should check it out to replace our old one. last time i went they had a couple on the floor so i quickly called diana and she quickly exclaimed 'buy it!' so i did. i wasnt sure which one of the two she would want so i put down a hold on one and diana and i came in the next day to take a look at them. she was really excited about one so we got it! its temporary home is now in the living room where diana uses it almost every night. once the baby comes we agreed that we will need to find a better place for it, but until then she is very pleased- and walking up a storm!

details work

while i was at mom and davids i might as well do a little bit of work, no? over the weekend we did some of the detail work around the rental house. now that all the kitchen cabinets are in and the counter top has been installed, we put in the overhead microwave. it wasnt too difficult, but we did end up with a few extra pieces- not usually a good sign... also there was some track lighting over the counter bar that i put some finishing touches on. i installed a toilet and we put some edging on the shower to make it look less like a blindfolded child installed it... all in all we did a few projects that helped make the whole place a little bit better and one step closer to finishing!

3 for the show

when we go to the teacher convention in south bend on thursday and friday, a lot of the coworkers get a hotel room for the night. not me! i just drive on over to diana's mom and david's place! they live only about 15 minutes from the convention center so it works out really well. by late afternoon all the convention stuff wrapped up for the day on thursday, so i headed up to one of my favorite places: the movie theater in niles, michigan! its called wonderland theater and it is amazing! what makes it amazing? well, movies are only 4 bucks, popcorn is $1.50, and soda is 1.50- thats what makes it so amazing! since everything was so cheap i decided to make a day of it and see more than one movie (ok, three). there is nothing in the world quite as fun as back to back to back movie going! what also helped is that the movies were really good! i know that diana would be bored to death doing that, so i'm glad i got to have this fun evening to just sit back and enjoy the darkened theater!

teachers assemble!

each year i head out to south bend for the annual teacher convention. its usually a bit of fun because i get to see some old friends i went to college with and catch up with them. its also kind of strange because i also see all the teachers that taught me in high school. now as a peer i call them by their first names. i dont think that will ever feel normal! this year's speaker was father joseph krupp. he was amazing- a very funny man (which makes sense, he was a stand-up comedian before becoming a priest) and shared some very inspiring and encouraging words. i also got to chat for a bit with my favorite teacher ever: mrs. jager! immediately after talking with her i texted my fellow junior high classmate adam and he was terribly jealous that i got to see her! there was a lot of cool stuff there this year and i look forward to next year!

more poco!

you asked for it, so you get it! (i fully realize that no one actually asked for it, but i am going to do this anyway...) here are some more cute pictures of our little bundle of gross: poco the wonder dog!

check out pictures here, here, and here.

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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