Kid Elves

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=9605990093

Thanks Wayne, for showing me the scoop.

Turkey Day Wrap-up

So we had a great weekend with the family around. My parents and my brother and his family. We ate our brined turkey (moistest bird in Oregon), ate our 10 pounds of mashed potatoes (seriously, we had to throw half of them away, we made so many), at our sweet potatoes (better warmed up), ate everything that was thrown at us then ate some more.

In between eating we played the Wii. Everybody loved it, the whole family was up and about playing Wii Sports. Tennis, golf, bowling, pool. The grandparents were squaring off against the grandkids, brother versus brother, husband vs. wife--if the Wii had been around the past couple hundred years we wouldn't have had any wars, we'd just be playing video games. That's how much it brings people together.

I bought a little gadget the other day called the Skip Doctor, or something like that. It fixes your cds, dvds, games, whatever's round and shiny--if it's scratched and doesn't play correctly, the skip doctor fixes it. This is especially useful around our house since both kids know how to bypass the child guard on the dvd player and get the dvds out. They then throw them around the room, rub sandpaper on them, skate across the rough sidewalk on them, do whatever it takes to scratch them up nice and good. Seriously, it takes about 2 hours from the time the new dvd is opened to look as if we'd had it for 10 years.

I even tried it out on an 18 year old cd I had, the best of the Velvet Underground. This was one of the first cds I ever bought when I was in high school. The case has been missing for the past 8 years I'm sure, so it's been run through the washer. Half the songs skipped half the time. Ran it through the skip doctor, and voila!, good as new. I heartily recommend it.

One thing I can't recommend is the Safeway store in Tigard on Highway 99 near King City. I was in there the other day with my Dad, buying a couple stuff. This little old lady was ahead of us in line, and the guy that was ringing her up started scanning our items as well. I wasn't paying much attention, so I assumed that her own transaction was finished. The lady tells him she hasn't paid yet and then I tell him he's scanning our stuff. The guy doesn't apologize to the her, doesn't even acknowledge he did anything wrong, just starts re-scanning our stuff to remove it from her transaction. She says something about wanting to look at the receipt because she wants to make sure he got the right stuff, and he says, "It's fine, I removed that stuff", in an assholish tone. Then as he hands her the receipt he says, "Thank you Mrs. Grawarshkisoundslikethat". She doesn't notice this because she's asking him a question about the receipt, but what a total prick. That's when I look at his nametag and read that he's the assistant manager.

Working in retail myself, I recognize that everybody can make a mistake. This wasn't a very big mistake either, but I also know that you apologize when you make a mistake, and you don't make fun of the customer and blow them off to downplay that you messed up. That's the kind of thing that loses customer. It's like they say, if you have a great experience at a store you might tell 1-2 people, but when you have a bad experience you tell at least 10 people.

Hey, assistant manager at Safeway, Stop Being an Asshat!

Giving Thanks

Went shopping this morning for the thanksgiving meal. First we dropped the kids off at daycare, then the two of us went to the grocery store. It's very rare that we are off on the same day without kids, so it was kind of a nice break. Where'd we go next? Back to Crate & Barrel, because we just don't have enough stuff from there, and there's nowhere we'd rather be on our one day off.

We're brining our turkey this year. Seems to be the 'in' thing to do. Everybody's talking about it. I hope it works. The turkey was still a little frozen in the middle, so the Missus had to reach her hand inside and scrape out the gibblets and pull out the gross neck while getting frostbite and scratches on her fingers from the frozen icicles.

She made a small batch of mashed potatoes to check out the recipe, and they were good. I made a light lunch of turkey and gouda on a baguette and toasted in the oven.

Now just waiting for the parents to arrive, whereupon we'll go pick up the kids and try to relax while still fretting about all the preparations for tomorrow.

Woohoo.

To keep you from being disappointed

Sorry for lack of updates (I feel guilty about this almost every day). Busy with Noah's first birthday party planning, Thanksgiving planning, excuse for not updating planning. Lots of planning, very little execution.

So here's a little video of Noah walking.

Beck as a 2 1/2 year old girl

Sonny & Cher

You've kind of got to squint to see the resemblance. You might as well just call them hippies, but you get the general idea.

Noah kind of looked like a version of Sonny/Hitler/Jimi Hendrix. Of course, neither of them even had any idea what they were doing, and no, we didn't teach them to sing, "I've Got You, Babe". Maybe next year.

I kind of wanted to catch Cher in the "Half-Breed" phase, but we were somewhat limited in the costume choices as we waited until the last minute due to our San Diego trip.

Enjoy.