There are going to be some incredible movies coming out this summer.
After a piss-poor showing in 2005 (okay, there were three good ones: Kong, Return of the Sith, and Narnia) there are a whole ton coming out this summer. I am a huge Michael Bay/Jerry Bruckheimer fan and so here are a few they are doing, and a couple of others that are on my list of movies to see.
Click on each picture to see the trailer!
This was Eric after we shaved his head.
Damn, he is creepy, but don't worry, it will grow back in a few days!
How did he ever end up with Jo?
I was scanning through my blog recently and I decided that I simply do not post enough pictures of the kids, or anything else for that matter. I am really into digital photography, and we just got a new camera, so you would think that I would be better at it...and I am not.
Maybe that should be my New Year's resolution for this blog. I will promise to post more pictures.
We just got took these pics of the kids recently with our new camera!
Enjoy!
This one was cute, although Jack seems to wonder what the heck is going on...
For those of you with kids that are Jack's age, you should check out what he is sitting in. It is called a 'Bumbo' chair, and you can buy them online. They are supposed to develop kids muscles, because it forces them to sit upright in the correct position. Since we got it as a gift, Jack's world has expanded significantly, and he has gotten a lot stronger!
Naomi made out like a bandit during Christmas. We had to get her back to her mother's on Christmas Eve, so we opened her presents early. As you can see, she had a blast!
The little man checking things out...
She is so cute you just want to squeeze her!
Sitting with Nana in his new sweatshirt.
Ths was one of my favorite pictures. This was Naomi saying thank you to Stephanie for her gifts. It was totally spontaneous, and un-prompted by anyone. Very cute!
He got this new teething ring for Christmas, and it lights up when he chews on it. For some reason he is infatuated with it.
This one is great because it shows how much detail our new camera can get.
I thought this was so cute that I had to post it.
It is a photo I took of one of my beautiful daughter's drawings. She has really taken an interest in crafts and drawing recently because we converted the old TV room into a craft room for Stephanie. Naomi has her own little table in there, and all her coloring pens and books are in there, too.
As for the drawing, that is her on the left, and Jack in the middle. Steph is on the right, and she gave it to me, and said, "Here dad, this is your family!". How friggin' cute is that ??!!! It was nice to see something like that come from her. 
With that said, the scale is completely off, the people look retarded, and there is no way Steph's hair is that long! Ridiculous.
Steph and I took the plunge and bought Madison (our niece) a new cell phone for Xmas, which apparently puts her on an even keel with about 60% of her 9 year old class mates!
Damn, when I was 9 they didn't even have cell phones! I wonder what the equivalent was back then? Maybe it would be your parents telling you they splashed out for seatbelts in their car!!
Boxing Day is a public holiday observed in many Commonwealth countries on 26 December. In many European countries it is also a holiday, called St Stephen's Day or the Second Day of Christmas. Depending on its origin, it may have traditionally been strictly defined as the first weekday after Christmas [1]. However over the past few decades, Boxing Day has been almost universally accepted as the 26th of December [2], although its associated public holiday may fall on a different day.
In Commonwealth countries, any fixed-date holidays falling on Saturday or Sunday are often observed on the next weekday, so if Boxing Day falls on a Saturday then Monday 28 December is a public holiday; while, if Christmas Day is a Saturday then both Monday 27 December and Tuesday 28 December will be public holidays. In the government holiday listings of the United Kingdom for 2004, the bank holiday in lieu of Boxing Day was observed on Monday 27 December, before the holiday in lieu of Christmas Day on Tuesday 28 December.
Origins
There is great dispute over the true origins of Boxing Day. The more common stories include:
Centuries ago, merchants would present their servants food and fruits as a form of Yuletide tip. Naturally, the gifts of food and fruit were packed in boxes, hence the term "Boxing Day".
In feudal times, Christmas was a reason for a gathering of extended families. All the serfs would gather their families in the manor of their lord, which makes it easier for the lord of the estate to hand out annual stipends to the serfs. After all the Christmas parties on December 25, the lord of the estate would give practical goods such as cloth, grains, and tools to the serfs who lived on his land. Each family would get a box full of such goods the day after Christmas. Under this explanation, there was nothing voluntary about this transaction; the lord of the manor was obligated to supply these goods. Because of the boxes being given out, the day was called Boxing Day.
In Britain many years ago, it was common practice for the servants to carry boxes to their employers when they arrive for their day's work on the day after Christmas (December 26). Their employers would then put coins in the boxes as special end-of-year gifts. This can be compared with the modern day concept of Christmas bonuses. The servants carried boxes for the coins, hence the name Boxing Day.
In churches, it was tradition to open the church's donation box on Christmas day, and the money in the donation box were to be distributed to the poorer or lower class citizens on the next day. In this case, the "box" in "Boxing Day" comes from that one gigantic lockbox in which the donations were left.
In Britain because many servants had to work for their employers on Christmas day they would instead open their presents (ie. boxes) the next day, which therefore became known as boxing day.
Marxist historians find evidence for "perpetuation of class difference" theory in what superficially seems to be Boxing Day's one direction of giving--i.e. from the rich lords to the poor croppers. They are right in observing that equality and respect are only found if there is a proper exchange of gifts. Looking only at quantifiable material value, they are right in finding inequality between the lords and peasants and justified in seeing reactionary and class-repressive origins for Boxing Day.
But recent trends in historical criticism find that such theories fail to consider several non-material realities. They concede that, by definition, the rich give and the poor receive gifts of material value. But this does not mean that the poor gave nothing. Such historians insist that there are different types of poverty and note that one doesn't have to look far into the various remnants of western folk cultures to perceive a symbiotic interdependence at play between rich and poor during festivals and holidays and to observe a range of non-material goods and services which the peasantry freely gave to the lords.
The poor have always cultivated and, when so inclined, shared the wealth and talents that they do possess. They would regale their lords with humor, minstrelsy, and folk-dancing if he would but provide the wine. On the visual spectrum, although the bishops and the lords might pay for the stones and employ the masons, it is a drab church on Christmas that has no peasantry to decorate it with garlands and to fill it with the bright-eyes and ruddy-faces of children. It is they and not the lords who would decorate the public spaces and trees of the village. It is the materially poor who have the non-material creativity to find beauty in pine cones and holly-berries, strings of beads, and lighted candles.
Any observer of Christmas will grant that popular carols, woven garlands, merry dance, and childrens' choirs are indeed things of value perhaps financed by but surely not provided by lords who spent their labor in the pursuit of material wealth, their leisure in the consumption of it, escaped their ordinary time by participating in and appreciating the warmth and vigor of the lives of the peasants who enjoyed the heterotopia of festal times in such pursuits as drinking and feasting which were denied to their ferial lives.
Commonwealth Observance
Boxing Day in the UK is traditionally a day for sporting activity, originally fox hunting, but in modern times football and horseracing.
In Canada, and indeed any other country that celebrates it, Boxing Day is also observed as a public holiday, and is a day when stores sell their excess Christmas inventory at significantly reduced prices. Boxing Day has become so important for retailers that they often extend it into a "Boxing Week". This occurs similarly in Australia and New Zealand.
In Australia, the cricket Test match starting on December 26 is called the Boxing Day Test Match, and is played at the Melbourne Cricket Ground before the largest crowd of the summer. In Sydney, the annual Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race, one of the biggest and most prestigious ocean racing events in the world, begins on this day, as the yachts depart Sydney Harbour before many thousands of spectators around the harbour and in spectator boats.
In South Africa, the 26th is also observed as a public holiday. Although officially the day is known as the Day of Goodwill, it is also often referred to as Boxing Day by local English speakers. It is common for a cricket test match, played against a visiting international team, to start on this day.
The 2005 Boxing Day Test match is being played in Australia between Australia and touring South Africa.
European Observance
In Austria, Denmark, Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland and Sweden, the 26th is known as the Second day of Christmas ("der zweite Weihnachtstag" in Germany, Annandag Jul — "the day after Christmas" — in Sweden) and is also a public holiday. In Ireland, the holiday is known as St Stephen's Day, or Wren's Day; in Austria it is called Stefanita and in Finland tapaninpäivä which also mean "St. Stephen's Day"; in Wales, it is known as Gŵyl San Steffan (St. Stephen's Holiday). In Catalonia, this day is known as Sant Esteve, Catalan for St. Stephen. A practice known as Hunt the Wren is still practiced by some in the Isle of Man, where people thrash out wrens from hedgerows. Traditionally they were killed and their feathers presented to households for good luck.
North American Observance
In the United States (where the term "Boxing Day" is not used and is in fact unfamiliar to most) and Canada, Boxing Day is the day when many retail stores sell their products at discounted rates. This results in huge lineups at retailers. Stores have these sales to clear out old inventory for the next year. Many products have a mail-in rebate to be used, a tactic used by manufacturers to clear their inventory. This trend is also increasingly occuring in the UK (despite it being a public holiday).
Well, Xmas was fantastic! We all had a raving good time and plenty of food and drinks were consumed by all!
Tom and Pat arrived on the 24th which was nice, just in time to see Naomi for a few hours before I had to take her back to her mother's. That was good timing. I was worried they were not going to get to see her.
We did Xmas on Xmas Eve for Nimmer which was fun. I am pretty much a traditionalist when it comes to when the pressies get opened, but obviously in this case it was okay to do them a day early. She made out like a bandit, which when you are a kid that is really all Christmas is about right? At her age (5), she is so into the Santa thing and everything that goes along with it. Very cute. Heartbreaking to have to take her back, but next year we will get her on Christmas Eve through until the next year.
The actual day went well with everyone enjoying themselves. It was nice because Eric and Jo came around and so we had everyone at our house again for Christmas. Steph out-did herself once again with the turkey. She cooks that thing so well that she is almost a pro at it. I was worried that the turkey wasn't going to be enough as it was only 12lbs, but we had a whole other ham aswell which I didn't notice until it was time to eat. The meal was topped off with bread sauce which Steph made from scratch, and for the first time since I have lived in the States I had a proper Christmas pudding, WITH Brandy Butter for desert! How cool is that. It bought back so many memories while I was eating. It was really cool.
Anyway, Santa also got us a new Nikon D50 digital camera. He spent some extra money and got the two lens kit and some other accessories, which mean that you will be seeing some much better quality photos on this blog from now on...starting right now!
This was a good one when they all got dressed up to go over to Tim and Misty's house! Not sure why they got all dolled up, but they looked good nonetheless.
Yikes!
Welcome to the club, sweetie! You look as great as you ever did, and I love you as much as ever ! You're just old....that's all!
We had an inpromptu party for Steph on her birthday (23rd) which was fun. Only a few people showed due to Christmas, and we wanted it to be low key anyway, so here are some pics from the party!
Santa...Big Pimpin'...
Mindy Looking Good!
Go Stephanie, It's your birthday!
Joann and Eric showed up which was great!
Mindy and her daughter, Hannah
Mike and his son, Braeden
He's dead....just like the folks he killed.
It's easy to repent when you are faced with death. What about before you were captured, and put on death row you sick bastard.
Great article by my good friend, Kenny about differing views. Freedom of speech is only okay if you agree with the noise makers I guess...
I thought this was pretty interesting. Now, I know there are a lot of people who read this who have opinions about the President, and most of them are not complimentary. Sure, he maybe not be the President with the highest IQ but he was elected. (Let's not even go into the "was he really elected" debate here!).
You probably know that I am not very 'political' at all. I mean, I think how you view politics is very simple...it is a personal choice, and that is based on how you yourself are doing. Not everything that a sitting preseident does affects people.
Example: his views on the death penalty. I mean, come on, who does that really affect? Not me. If I am ever in the situation where I need to be worried about it, then I will be, but until then I won't be.
Education affects me, but I know friends who never want kids who could give a crap about it, and that seems fair enough.
Global warming...okay...that one is important, and it affects me (or at least my two kids).
Maybe when I think about politics I tend to give the leaders of the world a secnd chance if they need it. I personally think it was the right decision to go into Iraq. Not because there were/weren't WMD, but because people were oppressed and there was a real threat to the Middle East. Saddam Hussein is on trial now for the murders of thousands (maybe hundreds of thousands) of people in his 27 year reign. Was that not reason enough to go in? So there weren't any WMDs? So what?
So it comes to this...I read this article and thought it was intersting. Thought I would share it.
-------------
What if Bush is right about Iraq?
What if the Middle East changed forever and no one noticed? It may have already happened. Early indications from Thursday's parliamentary elections in Iraq suggest that huge numbers of Iraqi citizens went to the polls, possibly as many as 11 million. If these numbers are accurate, turnout levels in Iraq reached more than 70 percent, at least ten percent higher than American voting levels in the 2004 presidential election. In other words, the overwhelming majority of Iraqi citizens came out to vote despite the threat of getting killed while doing so.
All of which raises an interesting question: What if George W. Bush's rhetoric about democracy -- about how all people, innately, yearn for freedom and representative government -- turns out to be true? What if Bush is right about Iraq?
It's a possibility few in the press have even considered. There's a consensus among the media that the war was a mistake from the beginning and that Bush's handling of it has been inept. I share that view. As a result -- and also because Iraq stories get terrible ratings - Thursday's elections were all but ignored in cable news and under-covered in print. It will take months to know if this was a good editorial decision. If the elections turn out to represent a peaceful lull between outbreaks of violence and chaos, the scant coverage will be justified. But if this turns out to be the point at which Iraq begins to get its act together, we'll have underplayed a huge story.
Which is true? I'm not sure, though I had a long e-mail exchange about it today with a reporter friend of mine. He's a conservative who, partly based on what he saw first-hand in Iraq, has become violently disenchanted with the Bush administration's handling of the war. Here's how he concluded his last e-mail: "If Bush ends up being right about Iraq, it will be through luck and accident and God's grace, not through any skillful calculation of his own. Success there will make him a great president the way Powerball makes crackheads rich: they have the money to show for it, but they're not fooling anyone."
I tend to think my friend is right. But it almost doesn't matter. A disaster in Iraq would be a disaster for the United States. Pray for success, no matter who's responsible for it.
We had a great weekend. Just basically enjoyed each other's company. We watched Dukes of Hazzard on DVD (it was cute, but I am glad I didn't pay to watch it in the theater) and then we also watched Bewitched, which was another movie I thought i would hate, but it turned out okay.
I can't wait until Wednesday, when KING KONG comes out. It is going to be an awesome movie! We watched a little thing on the Animal Planet called "Animal Icons: King Kong" and how he has been portrayed throughout the movie industry. It was amazing to see how many times the movie theme has been done. Peter Jackson's version though is going to be phenomenal....
Click here to watch the trailer!
The World Cup Draw was made today...and England got lucky.
The US did not!
Click
here for the full table!
My dad wasn't a soccer fan at all. He was very big on the rugby, and I kind of fell into soccer by default. I went to boarding school at age 11 and they didn't offer rugby, so I got into 'football'.
Most of my friends at that time grew up hearing stories from their soccer-fan fathers telling them about this wizard who used to play for Manchester United during the 60's called George best.
Well, I never got a chance to see him obviously, but over the years of me playing the game, I got to see highlights on TV of him, and what he could do with a ball. He is widely regarded as the best player ever to come out of Great Britain, and is often touted as one of the top 5 players to ever play the game, being mentioned with greats like Pele, Maradona, Cryuff, and Eusebio.
Well, George liked to live it up a little, which led to his early retirement (age 28) and his ultimate death at age 59 from liver failure, after battling the bottle for many, many years. He was wildly known as the Fifth Beatle for his long locks and flowing style.
He was famously quoted as saying, "I spent a lot of money on booze, women, and fast cars...and the rest I just squandered". Well that was George. My sister, Emma, got me his book 'Blessed' for Christmas a while ago and it was a great read, but I came away feeling sorry for a man that had wasted soooo much talent. Oh well.
Anyway, there are thousands of tributes all over the web and I don't want to get lost in the shuffle, but I would ask that you take a moment and click here to see the soccer highlights of one of the greatest of all time.
For a detailed description of his life, and demise, click here.
Okay, so as with most folks that we know, Christmas is all about the kids this year. Totally!! This is how it should be, too !! We have Naomi from the 16th to the 24th, and so we are going to have plenty of time to really chill out and enjoy everyone's company.
Presents for the kdis will be overflowing as usual, and we'll make sure we have everyone else covered also. Isn't it funny, how Christmas becomes so much about what you get everyone else! I don't mean that in a money sense, or a 'keeping up with the Jones' sense, but rather making sure that you have really expressed to everyone else what they meant o you by getting them something thoughtful that means a lot to them. That is the fun of gift giving.
The downside of making sure you have everyone else covered is that you sometimes forget, figuratively, the person you care about more than anything in this world...your spouse. Obviously Steph and I haven't forgotten each other this year, but we decided that rather than 'surprise' each other with something, we would come up with ONE gift that we both want, that we could just share! Well, this weekend, while at the mall, we found that gift !
We are getting a Nikon D50 digital camera for each other.
We currently have 3 (yes, count them....THREE!) digital cameras at home. Why the hell would we need another? Well, none of our cameras actually give us what we truly want. We have one that does great video, one that takes great quick pics that is small and compact, and a third that we don't really use, but it will take average pics also. What we are really lacking is the ability to take fantastic photos of the kids growing up, the dogs, the sporting events, each other, and everything else that we want to, with the capabilities of getting it done right.
We went into Shutterbug in the mall and shopped around, and the Nikon rep happened to be there. Obviously they were biased towards their own product, but the D50 is phenomenal. It is being offered right now as part of a package deal where you get lenses and extra stuff for free.
It comes with a 18-55mm zoom lens...
...as well as the bigger better lens (55 - 200mm) for things further away like at sporting events etc!
Don't get me wrong...it isn't cheap, but we think it is an investment that is comepletely worth whatever we would spend on it. We have been taking pictures of Jack and naomi like crazy with our existing cameras, but realistically we need something that can kick some ass when we want it to. They rep was explaining it to Steph also which is important to me. Not being funny, but I would say 95% of all our photos of the kids do not have me in them!! Why? Because I am the one taking the pictures. Steph obviously gets the camera thing, but if we have something more point-and-shoot, versus having to mess with everything before the shot, she is more likely to take photos. She was actually more excited than I was I think!
Without sounding too nerdy, you can read all about the camera here.
Anyway, as soon as I get it I will take smoe pictures and let you all see what fantastic photgraphers we have become.
So this weekend was a good weekend!
We took the kids (I love the way that sounds!!) to the mall to go and do the annual Christmas photogrpahs. It was really cool. Naomi is getting such a big girl, and she looked beautiful in her dress that we buoght her for the pics. We got Jack a santa outfit which he looked so adorable in! I would post pics here, but they are for our Christmas cards so I don’t want to spoil the surprise for anyone yet!
We went to the Picture People which was nice. Our photographer was pretty cool, but she wasn't the most animated of people. She was just getting on her shift too, so she couldn't blame it on tiredness. The trick was obviously to get Jack to look at the camera and crack a smile, which he did, but poor old Naomi had to sit there with a perm-a-grin on, so that when Jack did smile for half a second, we would have her ready too, and could take the picture. They came out beautifully though. It was a great time but, without being a downer, it did make me realize once again, how much I miss having Naomi around all the time. I wish we could go with the "kids" all the time. It is a lesson any parent who gets 'tired of their kids' should go through. Try not being able to have them.
So anyway, after the pictures we wandered around the mall for a few hours while they were being developed, and of course, we ran into Santa's Grotto! He closed at 5pm, and it was 4:45pm, so with Naomi grinning from ear to ear, we got in line and waited. The line went pretty quickly, and when we got to the red ropes, and were allowed in, Naomi took off on a full sprint to get to Snata. She dove up on his lap and began reeling off a list of what she wanted for Christmas!! It was soooo cute. Of course, we decided we had to get a photo of them sitting on his lap (yes, Jack, too) and so I will post that one also for you to see. They were both in their outfits for Christmas and it was really cute!
Malls are crazy, but there is something about the crowds, the insanity, and the whole Christmas spirit that just made them, on this day, so much fun!
