Baby World

Tis the season for early babies, apparently.  Just before Christmas, my friend at work had her baby.  He came about a week or so earlier than expected, but he's healthy and very cute.  Congratulations to Linda and Bai on their new son, Tyler.

Festivities

I hope everyone had a good Christmas.  Mine was great.  Celia's sisters and cousin all came to town to stay with us over Christmas and we had a really good time. The kids had a great time too.  Amelia is now a pro at opening gifts and Lucas, well, he still doesn't seem to know what to do with them.  Lucas got these toy cars from my parents and he hasn't let go of them since Christmas.  He just carries one or two of them around everywhere, it's so cute.  Every time Amelia opened a gift of clothing, she would try to take off her clothes so she could wear the new stuff.

December 24:
Pick everyone up at the airport, dinner at home, up till 2am.

December 25:
Waffle breakfast, relaxing, opening presents, dinner at my parent's

December 26:
Karaoke Revolution: American Idol Encore 2, Running errands, snowball fight, kids' Christmas party

December 27:
Snowboarding!

December 28:
Late dimsum, Guitar Hero World Tour

Ahh, good times, good times…

New Additions

Today my new niece, Isla, was born.  She was just a little thing, born 2 weeks earlier than expected.  I guess it just balances out because Ava was 2 weeks late.  Congratulations to my brother and his wife.

Snow Day

The snow is a beautiful thing.  It means I'll be able to go snowboarding next week.  I can't wait.  This year, we bought the twins some snowsuits so we could take them out to play in the snow.  Lucas loved it.  He would just walk around in the snow (not too deep) and laugh at me as I shovelled the driveway.  He had a grand old time watching me work.  I should have given him a little shovel.  Amelia, however, wanted nothing to do with the snow.  We got her all bundled up and then refused to be put down once we go outside.  I put some snow on her mitten and she just cried.  We were walking into an elevator and she saw some snow on the floor and slowly backed out of the elevator until I picked her up.  Maybe next year they'll have more fun in the snow.

Yay!

The mountains opened!  I can go snowboarding now!  Cypress opens for night riding on Dec 17th.  There isn't a tonne of snow yet but enough.  It's probably pretty freaking cold up there and I haven't gone snowboarding in a couple years so I guess I should bundle up.  I can't wait to go but I'm afraid I'm going to come home so stiff and sore that picking up the kids is going to be painful.

The Christmas Light Fiasco

So this year I was determined to put up Christmas lights.  Back when I first moved out, I bought Christmas lights on my first Christmas at my house but never put them up.  For 3 years I always took them out but never hung them so now in our first Christmas at our new home, I decided to put them up no matter what.  The funny thing is that I pulled out the old ones but didn't like them so I bought brand new ones. 

Since I work in the mall, I went to Zellers and picked up a couple strings of lights thinking that 30' would be enough.  As I hung them I realized that I was nowhere near being right about that and needed another string but by the time I went back to Zellers they were all out lights that matched the ones I bought.  I went to 2 different Zellers, the Bay, Rona, Sears, Canadian Tire, and WalMart but no one had lights that would match.  Finally, I just went to Rona and bought 3 new strings of blue lights.  I took down the white ones I had already hung, and put up the new blue ones.  I ended up using the white ones on one of the trees outside the house so it wasn't a waste or anything.  Actually, I need more…  Anyway, after I finished, I went inside, got Celia and we stood outside to see the beautiful new lights on our house.  Mieh.  I don't really like how they look so next year I'm going to buy new lights again.

Are You Ready?

Every year I say I'm going to get my Christmas shopping done early.  Every year I do the exact opposite of this.  Usually, on December 24th I'm at the mall looking for the last minute presents for, like, 12 people, but not this year!  This year Celia took care of all the shopping and we were 95% done before the end of November.  I even bought Celia her present (a new snowboard and bindings - don't tell her, it's a surprise).  All I have to do is hang my Christmas lights and wrap all the presents and clean the house and finish setting up my home theater and paint the hallway and install a handrail and clean the garage and wash the cars and get family pictures done and put away the patio furniture.  I am totally ready for the holidays.

Falling in Love All Over Again

When I bought my iMac I went all out and upgraded all the things I thought I wanted.  Bigger screen, faster CPU, more memory, wireless mouse, wireless keyboard.  I love my iMac.  Not because it is that much better than a regular old PC, but because this thing is frickin beautiful.  Anyway, when I unpacked the wireless keyboard, I noticed it wasn't a full keyboard.  It was more like a laptop keyboard.  "Hmm, I don't like this,"  I thought.  I thought I would give it a try anyway.  After a few months I kinda got used to it but then after a few more months I decided I didn't like it anymore and wanted a normal keyboard.  Since I like the design of the Apple keyboards, I went to the Apple store and bought a regular, wired keyboard.  I'm loving it and my iMac is better than ever.

Stuck

Let's say you're at the mall and you decide that before you go home you're going to pick up some food from the food court and eat it at home.  So now you're on your way out and realize that the drive home in traffic will take 30 minutes and you really have to pee.  You go to the public washroom at the mall and now you have a dilemma.  What do you do with your food?  Are you going to hold it with one hand while you pee?  Put it on the wet countertop around the corner, unsupervised?  Rest it on top of the urinal?

Etiquette

Is it bad form to answer the phone if you're sitting on the toilet?  When you're at home, the caller probably wouldn't know anyway but what if you're using a stall in a public washroom?  Should you be in there doing your thing and talking on the phone?

Addicted

I recently came home with Gears of War 2.  If you don't know what that is, it's like crack except it's a video game on the XBox360.  You can't get enough of it, you can't stop playing it, and nothing else seems to matter while you're playing it.  It's a good thing the kids haven't been injured while we neglect them to play this game.  Social services frowns on that, I hear.  Just kidding.  About the neglect, not the frowning.  They really do frown on that.  Anyway, Celia and I have been playing this whenever the kids are asleep regardless of the number of dishes piling up in the sink.  Seriously, this game is great.  Not for children though as it is very violent with coarse language.  I'm waiting for nudity, but I have a feeling it just won't happen in this game.

The New Age

Every year I say I'm going to start my Christmas shopping early and every year I do the exact opposite.  This year, however, we actually took care of a few gifts thus fulfilling the prophecy that the twins shall make me do things I don't usually do.  

Game Reviews

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare on XBox360

This game was so good I cried.

Fallout 3 on XBox360

I'm still playing it but it's so good I'm crying.

XBox360 review

I've had my XBox360 for a little over a year now and I am now on my third machine.  I've had to send it in for "repairs" twice.  I'm actually kinda glad that instead of just fixing mine, they sent me a new one.  I'm really not too happy that I've had to send it in twice.  That's just stupid.  Other than that, I like my console.

Fresh Blood

So I hear there's something going on with the US government today.  Just kidding, I know that there's a new president.  How do you avoid hearing about this?  Anyway, I hope this new president does something positive for his country.

Shiny and New

There's a new Wal-Mart down in South Surrey I think it's on 24th and King George-ish. This is a nice Wal-Mart - big, clean, not too busy on weekdays. But whatever you do, don't go there on a weeknight because that's when I'll be going and I don't want it to get busy.

It's Like Cheating

Usually being home alone with the kids isn't a problem anymore. I don't get all stressed out thinking about it. It's kinda fun now because I can take them out and do stuff with them now that they're a bit older. Sometimes, however, when they're really tired but can't sleep and they're all grumpy and they cry over every little thing, I take them out for a drive. Throw them in the van, drive around and blam-o! in a few kilometers they're sound asleep. I know it's not great for the environment and gas is expensive but screw all that, I need to not go crazy. Driving them around works better than anything. Then I bring them in, plop them in bed, and we're all happy.

Say What?

Today my parents officially moved out of my house. They moved into a condo not too far from here. It's kinda nice but I wouldn't buy there cuz I'm not really a fan of the layout. I'm sure they'll be happier there. It was getting a bit crowded here. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind them being here, but I think it was too crowded for them.

I can park my van in the garage for the first time. It took forever to clean the damn thing out but there's enough space to park my van comfortably. Maybe before Christmas I'll be able to park two cars in there.

I hung my TV. I bought a wall mount kit online. It doesn't do anything fancy like twist and turn but it does allow for a slight downward tilt for those people who like to hang their TV's too high. It was damn near impossible to screw the 12 foot screws into the wall stud but I'm a pretty strong guy so I persevered and found better tools. Celia didn't want to help me hang the TV so I picked it up myself. If you're thinking it's a little 28" TV, screw you. It's 47" muthafucka! Still, it was pretty light. The first TV I bought was a 32" CRT that weighed 175lbs.

Movie Reviews

Wow, I haven't done a movie review in a long time. Today, I have 3 for you.

Semi-Pro with Will Ferrell and Woody Harrelson

Meh.


Forgetting Sarah Marshall with Kristen Bell and Jason Segel and Mila Kunis

Kristen Bell is on my Top Ten list. She is hot in a bikini. Oh, I kinda liked the movie too. Mila Kunis was looking good too.


Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story with John C. Reilly and Jenna Fischer

This was funny shit.

Now We Have to Start All Over

Last month we bought a new sofa and some dining room chairs. We really liked the ones we ordered and we've been patiently waiting for them. They were supposed to come some time at the end of this month because they were being custom made. We found out last night that Yaletown Sofa went bankrupt and the owner has disappeared. Great. So now we have to call the credit card company and get our damn money back and then find a new sofa and dining room chairs. Sonuva...

Moving In

So it looks like my parents will be with us for a while. I don't really mind because they're hardly ever home. I feel bad for them though because every time they have to go to their house to get something, the restoration crew has ripped out another wall or moved out more furniture. I can tell that they are both pretty exhausted emotionally as well as physically. They haven't even fully recovered from the jet lag. One little positive thing is that today I cleaned up the garage so they could store some of their stuff in it. There's so much space I could've parked a car in there. The restoration guy said he thought it would about 4-5 months before they'll be able to move back in to their house. The insurance people said they would pay for a place to live but for now we have houseguests.