DC Gouge: Antietam Luminaries

Hey folks, Once a year in December, the National Park Service puts luminaries out across the Antietam National Battlefield - one luminary for each of the 23,000 soldiers killed at the battle. You stay in your car and just drive the tour route through the battlefield. It's happening this Saturday, 7 December. You can find out more information at the National Park Service website: http://www.nps.gov/anti/planyourvisit/luminary.htm

Christmas in Oregon

We had a really nice Christmas in Oregon. All the family was over on Christmas Eve to open most of the presents, then Christmas morning we opened the stuff from Santa. After breakfast and the first round of playing with new toys, my dad, eldest son, and I went for a walk in Mary S. Young Park and found another couple of geocaches.


I know anybody in Oregon reading this will probably say, "You took pictures of that???" However, I enjoyed seeing things in Oregon that I don't normally see in Virginia. For example...

Moss

A fallen tree had recently been cut into sections,
revealing these beautiful rings.

Ferns

So many ferns you can hardly tell
there's a tree trunk underneath.

Fungus

Isn't it interesting how the fungus has only grown around the edges of this fallen tree?

Moss and Fungus

On Boxing Day, we went up to Portland to visit the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI). One of the big attractions at OMSI is the ex-USS BLUEBACK (SS-581).

Self-portrait with the boys in front of BLUEBACK.

Bearing, MARK!

I won't bore you here with a lot of pictures of the science museum. Suffice to say they have a lot of the usual hands-on science-experiment type fun activities to do with kids. On temporary loan to OMSI, they had Samson, one of the most complete T-Rex skeletons.

Self-portrait with Sampson.

He'll GNASH you apaht
with BIG POINTY TEETH!

There's nothing like a HUGE radiation-trifoil symbol to feed public fear of nuclear power.

Later, my brother and his partner took us all to see Beauty and the Beast in downtown Portland. It was an excellent performance. This was the first exposure the boys have had to a professional stage production like that, and my eldest son was fascinated by how the sets changed.

Playbill

The foyer inside the theater was spectacular.

With that, I bring to a close my blogging on our vacation in Oregon. We had a wonderful vacation and are very thankful for such a loving extended family and for the opportunity to spend time together this holiday season.

We left Portland just in time. As we were sitting on the plane before backing away from the terminal, it started to snow.

We made it home to the DC area just in time, too. Most of the roads are clear from the big snow storm last weekend. This morning I woke up to the sound of our neighbors shoveling fresh snow and ice out of their driveway. Time to get my boots on and get to shoveling.

Have a Happy New Year!

Boxing Day

What a busy day.

We actually got some exercise today to work off all those Christmas cookies and goodies. First, we went for a jog on the trails and did some jump-roping. Then we went roller skating. Then we went white-water kayaking. Then we went for a ride in a mine-car through mountain tunnels.

What's that? Why yes, yes it is a little cold outside for those activities. No, I'm not really that much of an outdoor stud.

Did I mention we did this all in our pajamas?

We did them all from the comfort of our home theater in the basement with this new Wii Active Life Outdoor Challenge the boys got for Christmas.

The game uses a floor-mat sort of like I've seen for sale with other game systems. This provides a much more aerobic workout than the Wii Fit. Don't get me wrong, Wii Fit is great for balance and stretching and stregth. The Wii Active Life doesn't measure your weight or balance like Wii Fit. It just senses you hitting the buttons on the mat as fast as you can with your hands or feet.

Active Life Outdoor Challenge

Trail Jogging.

You have to jog in place to make your Mii run on the screen. The faster you move your feet, the faster your character moves on the screen, and there are obstacles like rolling logs you have to jump over.

Roller Skating

In roller skating, you sort of walk in place on the mat to move your feet, and you use the handheld Wii remote to steer to avoid obstacles.

Jump Rope.

Yes, that's me mii tripping over the jump rope and falling on the screen. I suck at jump-roping in video games just about as bad as I suck at it in real life. It was the only level I wasn't able to at least pass on the first try.

Kayaking.

In kayaking, you hold your Wii remote like it was your paddle and paddle with your arms and "lean" left and right with your feet on the pad.

Overall, I like the Outdoor Challenge a lot. It really got my heart and respiration rates up. I'll have to wear my heart rate monitor next time I play and see how many calories I burn.

It's really good for the kids, too. It has "kid" versus "adult" setting at the beginning. The kid settings are a lot easier. Plus, they keep the kids' attention because they rotate through the activities and don't stay on any one event for very long.

Besides playing Wii today, we did a lot of this...

Me and ES putting together a Coast Guard truck and rescue boat.

And some more of this...

LW and YB putting together a Coast Guard life raft.

Later, we put the Coast Guard helicopter together as a family. That was a cool activity to do together as a family. It just amazes me how different legos are today than they were when I was a kid. They make some really amazing stuff nowadays.

We also played a really good game of UpWords.

ES whispering to Grammy. ...Cheaters.

We ended up using all but TWO of the letter tiles!

Generally, I'm not a terribly big fan of tea, but this stuff is really good. The smell alone will put a smile on your face.


In case it wasn't already obvious, my wife and her family love me. LW, Grammy, and GG made sure I had my favorite pecan pie for Christmas - LW bought the ingredients and Grammy and GG made the pie.

Mmmmmm... pecan pie! :-9

It was only due to this pecan pie calling my name from home that I was able to turn down the chocolate creme brulee after our delicious dinner at Bonefish tonight.

Guess I better go fire up the Wii again...

Christmas after action report

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas Day. We had a very nice Christmas here in the blunoz household.

Last night, we were waiting and waiting for the boys to go to sleep. As I mentioned in my last post, YB was still awake when my wife checked on him at 10:18, but finally asleep at 10:35. That gave us the green light to do the things we needed to do as Santa's helpers.

I had something else up my sleeve though. I got my wife a sort of china hutch display cabinet for her antique tea cup collection, and I was waiting for her to go to bed so I could put it together. She finished with her stuff and said she was going to bed. I knew she'd be asleep within about 5 minutes of her head hitting the pillow, and so I got to work. It took me a little longer to put it together than I thought, and I didn't go to bed until 1:20 a.m.

That being said, would anyone like to place any wagers on what time ES woke me up this morning???

8:00???

7:30???

7:00???

6:30???

6:00???

Yep, 6:00 a.m. I was startled awake by thumping from downstairs. I went downstairs to find ES digging through all the presents that Santa left. Now, I'm not a morning person by any means, and my brain wasn't functioning well on so little sleep and so early in the morning. In the absence of coherent thought, the gremlins in my brain didn't know what to do and decided to hit one of the prerecorded sound-bite buttons. Granted, the "Merry Christmas, ES!" sound bite might have been better, but the gremlins opted for "DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT TIME IT IS???"

ES momentarily stopped his present examination. He looked up at me with one of his pensive looks and contemplated the question.

"Yes... It's 6 o'clock," he said matter-of-factly.

I told him he could sit and watch TV quietly until the rest of the people in the house woke up, then I went back upstairs to bed.

Thank goodness the next time he woke me up was when my wife sent him upstairs to poke me at 8:00. Not very surprisingly, YB was still asleep when ES came to wake me up.

For the next hour or so, we had quite the Christmas carnage going on in the family room. I got a lot of blurry photos the boys were moving so fast...

ES shakes his stocking to see if anything else is in it.

YB empties his stocking.
I guess he got over the whole "I don't want Santa to come" thing.

ES unwrapping presents.

(CENSOR NOTE: Sorry, no pictures of groggy Daddy or bed-head Mommy.)

The family room looked like a bomb went off afterwards. Oh, who am I kidding - it still looks like a bomb went off! :-)

My wife really likes the display cabinet for her teacups. I was just a little frustrated that this morning with the lights on I discovered I installed the doors upside down. Luckily the fix wasn't too hard. I just undid the screws for the top piece and lifted it up far enough for the doors to fall out (the left door landed on top of my foot OUCH).

LW's new display case (some assembly required).

Note: Those curved parts in the tops of the doors look MUCH better this way than they did on the BOTTOM of the doors when the doors were upside down.

We spent a lazy day around the house reading, playing video games, playing ES's new Stratego board game, playing with legos, watching movies, doing puzzles, etc.

Kudos and high praises again to my wonderful wife for another awesome dinner she cooked today. She made prime rib, mashed potatoes, spinach, and garlic bread, and it was all really good. Sorry, I didn't take my camera with me to the dinner table this time, so you'll just have to believe me when I say it looked and tasted really good.

As predicted, YB ran out of steam tonight and started getting a little grumpy, but not nearly as bad as I expected. He fell asleep pretty quick.

Speaking of running out of steam, so am I. It's time to hit the rack.

Special thanks to President Bush for declaring tomorrow a federal holiday!

Merry Christmas!

We had a nice Christmas Eve here in our house. Kudos to my LW for the awesome dinner she made for us. It was REALLY good.

The table set for dinner.

Salmon with dill sauce, honey-glazed carrots, dinner rolls.

After dinner we had a very nice Christmas Eve service at Christ Community Church.

Earlier in the day, when we were trying to get YB to get dressed and tried using Santa as motivation (as in, "Santa won't come if you don't..."). YB floored us with a blasphemous statement in response. He said, "I don't want Santa to come. We don't need him. We have enough presents." Never in a million years did I think I would hear those words come from any child much less a child of mine.

When we got home from church, both boys were bouncing off the walls with excitement and refused to get ready for bed. We told them Santa wouldn't come unless they went to bed. Then YB declared he didn't want Santa to come, so he wasn't going to bed. We got him in his PJs and put him in bed anyway. He was still awake at 10:18 and really starting to get on my nerves. He finally fell asleep somewhere before 10:35.

Based on past performance, I expect the boys will get up at the crack of dawn and then be tired and cranky and fighting tomorrow. I sure hope I'm wrong.

I wish you all a very Merry Christmas! My thoughts and prayers go out to those who are serving our country on the pointy-end of the spear tonight and their families waiting for them at home. We know what it's like not to be home for Christmas, and we're both grateful for this time together as a family this year and for those who are standing the watch while we're at home.

Posting Sentries

My LW's mom (a.k.a. MIL a.k.a. "Grammy") and grandparents (a.k.a. GG & Papa) all arrived here yesterday after the long drive down from New York.

Grammy really had the car packed tight. I couldn't believe how many presents she brought in the trunk. Needless to say, the boys are very excited. They put the presents out under the tree, and then they posted guards to protect the presents.


I'm not exactly sure from who the guards are protecting the presents. Having the boys' stuffed animal minions guard the boys' presents is kind of like the fox guarding the chicken coup if you ask me. I thought a revision of the 11 General Orders of a Sentry were in order.

1. To take charge of this post Christmas tree and all government property presents in view.
2. To walk sit my post in a military soft cuddly manner, keeping always on the alert and observing everything which takes place within sight or hearing.
3. To report keep quiet about all any violations of orders I am instructed given by the parental units to enforce, such as no handling, shaking, weighing, spinning, rolling, tossing, tipping, poking, bouncing, punching, flipping, gripping, peeking, or unwrapping of the presents.
4. To repeat ignore all calls of chaos throughout the house from posts more distant from the guard house Christmas tree than my own.
5. To quit my post only when properly relieved put away in the boys' rooms (because you know the boys won't put them away).
6. To receive, obey, and pass on to the sentry who relieves me, all orders from the Commanding Officer, the Officer of the Day, and all officers and non-commissioned officers little boys of the guard house only.
7. To talk to no one except in the line of duty (this gives new meaning to the phrase "silent service").
8. To give the alarm in case of fire or disorder, unless such disorder is caused by the little boys in the house as a distraction for the execution of rule 3 above.
9. To call the Corporal of the Guard Eldest Son in any case not covered by instructions.
10. To salute give a blank stare to all officers and all colors and standards not cased.
11. To be especially watchful at night and during the time for challenging, to challenge all persons parents on or near my post Christmas tree, and to allow no one to pass without proper authority (such as putting more presents under the tree or retrieving a present for a little boy to open).

Last night, you'd have thunk our kids had been possessed or kidnapped by aliens and brainwashed. At dinner, they were perfect little angels. They willingly ate their dinners without any fuss whatsoever. There were no exclamations of "ewww!" or "yucky!" YB actually declared dinner was "yummy" (will wonders never cease) and asked for more (he NEVER does this).

GG and Papa are VERY impressed. They commented on what good boys we have. While I am truly very grateful for our boys, they aren't normally THIS well behaved.

GG and YB reading Cat in the Hat

Then again, the presents under the tree might have something to do with it. Oh, and all the other goodies they brought with them from New York like...

SPEEDIES!!!

COOKIES!!!

COFFEE CAKE!!!

APPLE PIE!!!

Oh, and I meant to show you this picture earlier. I made it home on Friday in time to taste test the fudge (peanut butter fudge, caramel fudge, and heath bar fudge) that LW made to give as a present to each of the boys' teachers.

Mmmm, fuuuuuudge.

Man, I really need to go the gym.

I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve Invitation

This is for anyone reading my blog in the NoVA area.

Not sure where to go on Christmas Eve? I cordially invite you to please join me and my family for the Christmas Eve service at Christ Community Church in Ashburn. It's at 6:30 p.m. and kids are welcome.

If you do come, I hope you'll find me and say hello.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Tree

Thursday I got out of work early enough to meet my family for dinner at Pei Wei and then go pick out a Christmas tree. Of course, right as we left dinner, it started to rain. The boys were excited about going to get the tree though, so we went in spite of the rain.

We lucked out in finding our tree. It was the very first tree we walked up to in the lot.

ES took this photo of me, YB, and LW holding our tree.

Happy ES in the car with his tree.

Since it was all wet when we got home Thursday night, we just put it in a bucket of water in the garage for the time being. Then Friday, we set up the tree stand in the family room, put the tree in it, and cut the mesh netting off it to let the branches fall.

Saturday we put the lights on and hung the ornaments while watching the Army-Navy football game.

The location we chose for the Christmas tree in our new house allowed the boys to get some ornaments around the BACK side of the tree this year.


I discovered there were FOUR ornaments hanging from the branch right there directly in front of YB standing on the chair. The branch was bent WAAAAAY down. As I approached it, I had a quick-flash daydream of the ornament farthest out slipping off the branch and the branch flipping up like a catapult, flinging the other three ornaments off in an arc across the kitchen and into the crock pot where our pot roast is simmering for dinner. Luckily, I got there in time, relieved the strain on the branch, and dispersed the ornaments to other branches.

It was ES's turn to put the star on top this year.

Ta Da!

This is a momentous occasion:
ES is smiling and posting for the camera.

And now, I shall once again entertain you with my not-so-poetic prose.

Ode to Decorating the Christmas Tree

Deeeeep deeeep sleeeeeep...
DADDY DADDY WAKE UP IT'S TIME TO PUT DECORATE THE CHRISTMAS TREE!
Ngh. Head hurts. Sinuses blocked.
Shuffle shuffle shuffle, DayQuil.
Shuffle shuffle shuffle, coffee.
Can we start now Daddy?

Unpacking new LED lights from boxes.
Plastic bags. Tape. Wire ties. UL tag. Obligatory cautionary inserts to prevent people from doing stupid stuff and filing frivolous lawsuits.
Aw man, I can't sue them if I plus them into a 220V outlet and wrap them around my lawnmower blades. Shucks.
Cut cut cut annoying tags and legal disclaimers off cord.
Daddy, is it ready yet?

Spin spin spin lights around the tree.
Ngh. Head hurts.
Open another box of lights.
More plastic bags, more tape, more wire ties, more UL tags and legal disclaimers.
Cut cut cut.
Flashback: National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation - nibble nibble kitty, FOOSH! Hee hee.
Daddy, is it ready yet?

Spin spin spin lights around the tree.
Ngh. Head still hurts.
Open another box of lights.
More bags, tape, wire ties, UL tag, disclaimers.
Cut cut cut.
Daddy, is it ready yet?

Spin spin spin lights around the tree.

Doh.

Ran out of lights, not quite all the way to the bottom of the tree yet.
Self, that's okay, plug it in and see how it looks first.
Reach for end of lights.

Doh.

Female end of Christmas light strand hangs at the bottom of the tree.

Daddy is it ready yet?

Bite tongue.

Unspin unspin unspin.
Unspin unspin unspin.
Unspin unspin unspin.

Rest. Arms sore. Head still hurts.

Spin spin spin.
(A little farther apart this time to make sure they cover the whole tree)
Spin spin spin.
Spin spin spin.

Plug it in, lights look good.

Mommy says, "Who wants to put the ornaments on the tree?"

Silence.

Crickets chirp.

Mommy says, "Who wants to put the ornaments on the tree?"

Crickets chirp.

Mommy says, "MOMMY'S PUTTING THE ORNAMENTS ON THE TREE!!!"

Pitter patter, pitter patter, pitter patter.
Thump thump thump thump coming up the stairs from down cellar.

Mine.
No mine!
Mine.
No mine!
Spread them out boys.
YB says, "This one's my favorite."
Mommy, look at Santa disco dancing.
Put some around the back boys.
YB says, "This one's my favorite."
Don't hang them from the beads boys.

DayQuil finally kicks in, head starts to clear.

Deploying step stool.
Lifting seven year old on shoulders. Oof. How'd he get so big?
Standing on step stool, leaning forward for seven year old to reach the top...
Wondering if this will end up in Naval Safety Center weekly message of personnel injuries.
Turn head toward Mommy, smile for camera.
Ta Da!
Mission accomplished.

I am thankful for those of you who are serving our country and separated from your families over the holidays. Wherever you are, I hope you are all enjoying the festivities of the Christmas season.

Letters to Santa

We had the boys write their letters to Santa. Like last year, I thought it was a cool snapshot of what our boys' interests are. Note last year we just had ONE letter to Santa, but this year we have TWO!

Just in case Santa is reading my blog (nudge nudge wink wink), I thought this might be a quicker way for Santa to see the boys' wish lists.

Here's 7 year old ES's letter:


He wrote it all on his own. In case you can't decipher it, it says:

"Dear Santa, For Chirsmas this year I would like.... a..... remot control boat, playmob-il, Indiana Jones legos, a wedk-ins, cost gard legos boat, police comad center and headqauters, lego city coast gaurd truck with speed boat, Thank You! Sincerely [ES]."

Here's 4 year old YB's letter:


YB asked me how to spell each item. I would write it down on a sheet of paper, and then he copied it onto his list. I thought he did a pretty good job. In case you can't decipher it, it says:

• Pokemon on DS
• Ninja Turtles
• Play Mobil
• Star Wars Legos
• dinosaur [Blunoz comment: he wants some mechanized remote control dinosaur he saw on TV, but I don't know which one. Actually, since I asked, my lovely wife is now watching one of YB's TV shows on the DVR in fast fwarward, watching for an ad for a dinosaur. :-)]

Oh, and Santa, as long as I've got your attention, I would like:

• A carne asada burrito
• Mole Poblano
• Sopa pillas
• Pecan pie
• Orange sticks
• A bottle of Stag's Leap Merlot or Syrah
• A beautiful winter geocaching hike with my family
• A week at Lake Winnipesaukee
• A trip to Paris to see our friends LS & CC

Another successful Black Friday

Hooray! Once again, I have successfully avoided going anywhere near any shopping plazas on Black Friday.

What did I do instead?

Finally hooked up the Wii (my wife's been asking me to do that for a while now, and it just hadn't percolated to the top of my to-do list yet), played video games with the boys, hung some pictures, aaaaand...

Ta-da!

...hung up Christmas lights. I'm not sure if I'm done yet though. We might need to put some lights around the living room bump-out. In case you can't tell in the picture, those two lit-up blobs in the foreground are penguins. They didn't come out so well in the photo.

How was your day off?

Wii're Addicted

Like a few other bloggers I enjoy reading, we have joined the masses of Wii addicts. We got the boys a Wii for Christmas, and it's been a lot of fun playing Wii Sports. My two step-brothers here visiting have played before, so they've been showing us all sorts of fancy tricks in Wii Bowling.

It's had an impact on our vocabulary, too. Uncle Dave got us started with, "That's wiidiculous!" when he wasn't satisfied with the way his bowling ball had spun or which pins didn't go down.

The Wii fitness test is pretty cool. We're all a bunch of old fogies. The Wii Fitness test tells you your "Wii Age" at the end of the test. LW and I both had Wii ages in the ballpark of 70 years old.

The boys and I have really enjoyed playing Wii Boxing. ES came very close to beating me at boxing last night - the referee called it a "tie."

YS and ES Duke it out in Wii Boxing

Playing the Wii is quite a good workout, too. Especially after a game of boxing, I find my heart rate and respiration are up. Plus, LW and I have been suffering from cases of Wii-elbow the past couple of days, too. I wonder if anyone has any statistics on Wii injuries or if any of them have gone to the ER yet?

No Free Parking

Okay, I guess you can chalk this one up as a "Stupid Kevin Trick." I was a total fool last night. I went to the Honolulu airport to pick up my parents, step-brothers and their significant others. I drove up to the parking garage entrance, and the gate was already open. Even so, I stopped at the ticket dispenser and pushed the green button to get a parking ticket, and it flashed a message at me: "GATE OPEN." Um... Okay... I pushed the green button again, "GATE OPEN."

So I said to myself, "Self, I guess since it's Christmas Day, parking is FREE!" I just figured they didn't want to pay the parking lot cashiers.

All the relatives arrived safe and sound (although delayed by a few hours), we loaded up the car and headed out. As we approached the exit to the parking lot, I developed one of those horrible sinking feelings in my stomach as I observed the lines of cars at the cashier stands... handing in their tickets to the cashiers... and handing money to the cashiers... "Self, you... are... an... IDIOT." What a FOOL I was to think that parking would be FREE.

I pulled up to the cashier, and she held out her hand for me to give her my ticket. I proceeded to tell her my sob story, and I'm sure in her mind she was saying to HERself, "Self, here we go again. I've heard THIS story before!" She had to call on her radio for some supervisor to come because of a "lost ticket". She had to walk around the front of the car and write down my license plate number and fill out some form. Then I had to fork out the payment for the ENTIRE DAY. Yep, I paid TEN BUCK$ for 30 minutes of parking.

Meanwhile, the line of ten cars piled up behind me are wondering to themselves, "Self, is that dude purchasing stock options up there or what?" I think they were all probably having one of those Office Space moments wishing they had gotten in the other lane.

Okay, we're off to the swap meet.

Oh, before I go. I wanted to share this awesome "compass" that ES drew on the back of a coaster at dinner the other night. I thought it was pretty good for a 6 year old.