Sawyer in the Car

Here is the little man entertaining himself in the car.

Make me look like "FaceBait"

As many of the readers of this blog may have already discovered my parents have discovered Facebook. Actually they had previously had Facebook accounts, but they didn't know that you can actually look people up in the search feature and invite them to be your friend.

When we were sitting around the table during the Christmas break, Dad wanted to know why I had so many friends. I, stupidly, explained that you just have to look for people's name and then send them an invitation to be your friend.

Now, I know many of you are saying, I have done that with my parents it wasn't that bad because none of their friends are on Facebook. Normally, I would say that would be the case with my parents as well, but my Dad thinks that everybody he has ever met is now his friend; let me tell you, that's a lot of people. I believe that my dad now has the goal of adding every student he has ever had during all of his years in education.

Just to give you a little taste of the weirdness here is a conversation that I was lucky enough to share with my dad.

Dad: Do you think that you could take some pictures of me and your mother.

Me: Why do you want me to take pictures of you? (my sister is the one with the art degree and normally does the artsy things.)

Dad: I need a new profile picture for Facebook.

Me: Why? Yours looks fine.

Dad: I need some new FaceBait.

Me: What the hell is FaceBait?

Dad: FaceBait is when you have such a great profile picture it makes people want to be your friend.

Me: Oh...............I am not sure I have the lens that will do that for you......but I will still take your picture.

Dad: Great (strangely excited), I am going to find a shirt that looks good on me.

We did get the pictures taken. I don't really know if they really have reached the level of "FaceBait", but I was already working with the deck stacked against me. For all of you out there (and there can't be many of you) who are not yet "friends" with my father-send him an invite to be his friend on Facebook. His name is Paul Baker, it would make his day.



(Here's his "FaceBait" picture. Sorry it isn't any bigger, we deleted the pictures from our camera. Why would we need to have his "FaceBait" pictures in our pic files?)

31 going on 13!!!

Every year I labor over what to request for Christmas. On one hand I can get the gifts that you really need, but really - that is very boring. I work really hard to ensure that my life never descends into boring. As a result of this, I put as many fun things on my Christmas list as possible, unfortunately most people who get me gifts believe they know what I need, and completely disregard the list. I am not really sure why I spend so much time debating this in my mind, but I do.

Although I don't always like the random things that people get me, this year was really good.

With that in mind, I want to give you a few of the many highlights from this Christmas.

I can enjoy my morning cup of tea with this tea diffuser built right into the cup. This cup requires loose leaf tea, which seems so much more sophisticated, but in reality is just more of a pain in the ass. But, I love drinking tea out of this thing, because it isn't practical and I get to make the tea that comes in a cool little can.



I am going to party like a rock star with my new guitar to go along with the game "Guitar Hero." I can't wait to start posting clips of people looking like complete idiots, while they are jamming to a video game.



And in the surprise of all surprises, my mom got me these FREAKIN AWESOME gloves from Grenade Gloves. This was the one item that I was really hoping somebody would get for me. Sarah was going to get them, but thankfully she checked with my mom before hand, because mom had already ordered them. I can't wait to sport these puppies when we go skiing in March.



I also did get some practical gifts that will serve the family well, and those will be enjoyed for years to come.

The Best Thanksgiving Ever

That may be slightly misleading. We decided that since this was the first Thanksgiving for Sawyer, it would be fun to spend it with family rather than at home (which is our normal routine). We couldn't have been more wrong. Here is the basic run down of all the good times.

Good: Convincing your wife a weekend playing at a soccer tourney is a fair trade off for 24 hours of driving time to and from Missouri for Thanksgiving.

Bad: Bleacher Butt after 24 hours of said driving - 12 hours of which was with a sick kid.

Good: Turkey

Bad: Not getting a full night of sleep during the Thanksgiving break because of a sick child.

Good: Finding a Dr. that wasn't urgent care during the holiday weekend-who had an appointment.

Bad: Idiot pharmacist who didn't put any flavoring in medicine for a baby - that crap is hard enough to administer with flavoring - try doing it without for your own personal hell.

Good: Getting to spend time with family and friends who came from all over to enjoy each others company - and share in taking care of a sick little boy.

Bad: Waking up on the morning you are leaving to find that your car windows have been smashed in and stuff has been stolen - oh and to be the cherry on top - finding out that the windows can't be repaired until Monday morning.

Really Bad - having your dad offer to loan you his "Cargo Van" for the month and he will drive your nice car until you come back for Christmas.

Cup Drinking

Sawyer has taking to trying to drink out of an open top cup. He still isn't sure about it, but it really does provide tons of hilarity as he slams the drink back over and over again, and then sputters back up. He is very confused why we are laughing so hard, but he figures something must be funny so he just keeps doing it.

Light the Tree!

This turned into one of those nights that always sounds good, but in reality it becomes a giant pain in the butt. Sarah heard that they were going to be lighting the Macy's tree last night in Austin at the Domain. This is fairly close to our house so we figured "what the heck". Apparently lots of other people had this same idea, so just getting to the lighting ceremony meant waiting in a long line of cars, then parking about a mile away in a dirt lot. We were already "late" so we were rushing to get up to the tree. I think at this point Sawyer was wondering what the heck was going on because there were lots of people and cars around.


Here we are looking happy and excited to see the tree get lit up.


Unfortunately, this was about as close as we could get. To make this more fun, I started talking to this grandmother next to me and before I knew it she had convinced me to put her squirming grandson on my shoulders so he could see better. That really wasn't all that bad, because he was like 3 years old, but he didn't want to sit on some tall stranger's shoulders, not that I blame him. As luck may have it, he had an older sister who was a future Husky girl model. She had no problem sitting on some tall stranger's shoulders.


After about an hour of standing around, this picture pretty much sums up our feelings about the experience. We didn't even stick around to see the lighting, I heard that it happened about an hour after we left.

Traveling Dreams

Went to see Rick Steves at Bookpeople today. For those of you that don't know our obsession with Rick Steves, we arranged all of our European travel based on Rick Steves guidebooks and liberal use of the messageboards on RickSteves.com.

If you don't recognize Rick, you aren't watching enough public television. Rick has a 30 minute show that airs usually once a week highlighting area's of Europe and how to travel like a local. He is a little nerdy, but that is just fine with me.



Rick was at the BookPeople promoting his new TV special about his travels in Iran. He spoke for more than an hour about Europe and his general thoughts on the world. Here are a couple of interesting facts about Rick.

1. He thinks a good guide book is one that you rip apart and just use the parts you need.

2. He has spoken out about the legalization of the wacky tabacy.

3. He is a frequent blogger.

4. He is a Lutheran.