Friday, December 30, 2011

Bowling

Twelve bowlers and five spectators showed up at a local bowling alley on Tuesday to help Jacob observe his 15th birthday. Despite a few, um, fairly low scores, everyone had a fab time. (And some people actually did quite well.) I just love the automatic scorekeepers that are now standard at all bowling establishments. I only wish they would have had those back when I was on a league!

Steve, Jacob, and Muffin prepared to roll a frame.


There was a lot of smart-alecky hugging going on - especially between Jacob and Adam.


Soon others joined in on the hugging thing and numerous group hugs ensued.

Monday, December 26, 2011

On the Go

We have been as busy as bees this past week preparing for, and then celebrating, Christmas. All of our hard work paid off handsomely, as our holiday ended up being tons of fun. Jim has been in Michigan for ten days now, and Adam showed up at our doorstep on Friday morning just as we were all waking up to get Jacob off to his last day of school in 2011. Adam's solo drive from Colorado was filled with one obstacle after another, including some inevitable snow squalls and a stop by an over-ambitious Iowa state trooper, who asked him to unzip his snowboard bag to prove that it did not contain a gun. Adam was let go by the officer with a "warning" for going 3 miles per hour over the speed limit. Whoa - slow down, Speed Racer!

Tomorrow is Jacob's 15th birthday and the plan is to meet up with a group of family & friends at a local bowling alley for some fun on the lanes. The rest of the week will be filled with more parties, get-togethers, and general end-of-the-year hoopla. Then it will be on to Texas for some southern-style delight before returning to the old grind in January. Giddyup!

Sunday, December 18, 2011

More Birthdays and Such

This afternoon we gathered at Richie's house to celebrate the birthdays of Richie and Jacob. Jake does not officially turn 15 until the 27th, but seeing as the next few weekends are both kind of busy, we had his party today. Everyone ate KFC, cake, & ice cream, and had a grand time. Jake received a few of his presents, but Jim & I saved most of them to give him on his actual birthday. It is certainly a gift-filled time of year for him. He opened a few packages at the bash, will get more loot on both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, then will get the rest of his birthday presents next week. For Jacob, it really is the most wonderful time of the year!


The almost-birthday boy.


Richie holding a gift card and some empty candy wrappers.


Last, but not least, a shot of Adam at his party two weeks ago.

Monday, December 12, 2011

Chicago

For the past couple of weeks, Nancy's son, Steve, has been working in Texas and Arkansas. He is employed by a land surveying company that is based in Michigan, but has contracts all over the U.S. When he flew off to Dallas, he brought clothes with him appropriate for working outdoors in southern weather. To his surprise, Steve was informed last Thursday that he was needed at a job site in Wisconsin on Sunday. Yes, Wisconsin. Land of cheese and cold.

Since Steve would be driving a company vehicle from Texas to Wisconsin, he would be passing through Illinois. Nancy and I came up with the idea to rendezvous with Steve west of Chicago to pass on his much-needed winter surveying clothing to him. How nice of us, right? Our ulterior motive, however, was to spend the weekend shopping and playing tourist in the Windy City. We did just that.

When we arrived in town, Jacob, Nancy, and I stopped at the Willis Tower (formerly the Sears Tower) and spent an hour or so at the Skydeck on the 103rd floor. The weather could not have been more cooperative and we could see for what seemed like forever. We ate lunch there, then headed to the "Magnificent Mile" to shop. I cannot remember ever seeing so many pedestrians out and about in freezing cold temperatures happily walking around their city. The downtown Christmas decorations were beautiful and the atmosphere was indeed festive. By the time we were done shopping, it was evening so Jacob, Nancy, and I jumped back into the car to drive to our suburban hotel. Apparently, many of those other holiday shoppers decided to depart the city at the same time because the freeways were at a total standstill. Armed with a map of Chicagoland (that is what the locals call the area, I did not just make that up), the three of us successfully maneuvered our way 30 miles from Lake Michigan to the western suburb of Shaumburg via city streets. After checking into our hotel, we ventured out to purchase a carry-out pizza from the world-famous Uno. We completely stuffed ourselves, watched some TV, and fell asleep.

On Sunday morning, we were all up bright and early, and grabbed a quick breakfast from the hotel lobby. We had arranged to meet Steve in Rockford at 9:00 a.m. for the clothing hand-off and everything went well with that. Later, Jacob, Nancy, and I swung by the largest mall in Illinois - Woodfield Mall - and did a little more shopping. We were on the road again by 2:00 p.m. and back at the condo Sunday evening. What a great, impromptu weekend trip!

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Birthdays and Such

Adam showed up in Michigan on his birthday after spending most of the day in the air, plus a few unexpected hours on the ground in Tokyo when the baggage-compartment-loading-contraption on his 747 malfunctioned. He was supposed to arrive from Singapore last Wednesday in time to go to dinner with a group of us, including the other birthday person, Nancy, but his flight was delayed too long. He finally winged into town around 9:00 p.m. - sans one of his suitcases, which was later found in Chicago - and I whipped him up some birthday macaroni and cheese. We did enjoy dinner out on Friday, and Nancy was able to join us for her second restaurant celebration of the week. On Sunday, we had the family birthday party at the condo and everyone had a merry, ol' time.

Adam is now back in Colorado, where it dipped to a bone chilling -4 degrees the other night, and Jim is back in Texas, where the low temperature is predicted to drop into the upper 20s. Adam says while he was on Diego Garcia and in Singapore that he never felt a temperature lower than 74. In fact, the temps usually hovered in the 80s and 90s. I suppose it was a good thing that he spent a few days in Michigan's 30 & 40 degree weather, as that served as a nice buffer between hot Asia and cold Colorado. A 90+ degree temperature change? Nice if you are heading to the warmer climate, but icky to be going from tropical-hot to below-zero conditions. Brrrr!