Porter's Christmas Wish
Can you believe it? It's Christmas Eve and it's snowing in Houston.
Porter has been asking if it will snow for Christmas for the past month -- Of course when you see things about Christmas, you always see snow, so I can understand where he gets the idea ... but this is Houston. We don't get snow.
Katie and I have reassured him that, no, we shouldn't expect snow, but that it will still be Christmas. Well, two days ago, the TV said to expect a 40% chance of snow -- "Can't be!" I thought. Then yesterday, they backed off -- only 20% possibliity, and that's mainly for folks really close to the coast, not for us.
But as the boys and I were doing some art projects and working on some 'experiments' in the kitchen, Katie looked outside and saw it -- little white flakes. Nothing enough to stick, but real snow.
We all ran outside to see and feel the snow on our cheeks. Porter was so happy, but he was also so cold!! He didn't last long -- "I want to go back inside where it's warm."
Merry Christmas Porter -- and thank you for asking for snow!
Jackson plays Santa; Boys' first Rockets Game
What a great day!! The boys are always excited to be able to come jump in bed with me when they wake up, and this morning, Jackson came sneaking into my room with a Santa hat on. He tip-toed up to the bed, tapped me on the shoulder, crawled under the covers and said, "Merry Christmas, Daddy!!" Ho, Ho, Ho, that cracked me up -- great way to wake up, even if Christmas is still 3 days away!
While I got started with work this morning, the boys got started with crafts and made lots of great Christmas art -- cards, pictures, cut-outs. Porter brought me a heart he made, plus a picture of a Christmas tree, fully decorated. Jackson did a tree, too, and cut it out and mounted it on another colored paper -- they're getting really creative and they really have more talent that I think I did at that age... Katie really encourages them and makes sure they have the things they need to create great stuff.
Katie and the boys must have had a great day out and about. Since I was working from the house, and Katie likes to keep the boys busy on those days (to give me peace and productivity) she took them bowling, then to Chuck E. Cheese's, then to a movie with Nanna. They got home around 5, and I played some BrainQuest decks with them until it was time to ....
Head to dinner downtown in Chinatown, and then off to their very first Rockets basketball game!! I guess you can say I travel way the hell too much, since Southwest Airlines called me up a few weeks ago to offer me 4 primo tickets to tonight's Rockets game -- plus parking. So we planned a big night out with the boys. We took them to Kim Son -- the big one in Chinatown, with the goldfish pond in the entry -- and had quite a feast: egg rolls, spring rolls, pork fried rice, sweet/sour pork, and garlic chicken. When we finished up there, we headed over to the Toyota Center for the game, and I was surprised at how nice the arena is.
Our seats were great -- center court, middle of the club level, 16 rows from the action. The boys had a great view of all the action, and I think they will mark it down as one to do again. I think they still like baseball better, but basketball -- and all the entertainment between breaks -- is definately on the good list.
Put this one down as one of the good days -- very good, indeed.
Quick trip up and back
Made a quick trip to Dallas today and back -- not that it started out that way, though... I had planned to be there through tomorrow, but Jackson called me this afternoon and asked if I was coming home tonight or tomorrow. Seems he and Katie were talking and he had it in his head that I was planning on being home tonight, so he had Katie dial my number to check.
I told him that I was going to be staying in Dallas tonight, but would be home tomorrow afternoon -- but when I got off the phone, I started thinking: What do I have to do that has to be done in person? Nothing -- so I changed my flight and booked it on home --
When I got home, the boys had just tucked into bed, so I got to tell them goodnight, then dig into some chicken and wild rice soup, and a nice fresh grilled-cheese sandwich. Great way to cap a busy day.
Nice also to be able to sleep in my own bed tonight --
Weekend Recap
Friday started the weekend this time around, with all of us going to Jackson's holiday show at school -- A Seussical Holiday Musical -- Jackson's class wore snowman outfits that some of the moms helped make, and sang Frosty the Snowman, then came back later to join the rest of the school singing The 12 Days of Christmas and one last song.
Jackson did fantastic -- he wasn't much into performing last year, and we wondered if he'd be up for it, and he was! I'm very proud of how well he's developing, and how much he's learning.
Friday night the kids were sacked out, though, since after school dismissed, Katie took them to Laura's to play with their cousins. Friday night we just hung around the house.
Saturday was a nice chance for us to do a little bit of nothing -- bits of shopping, walking around the village, essentially just playing around. I put together a little race-car track that Porter had gotten from a gift exchange at school, and the boys and I raced cars for a while. We went to church that night and then out to eat at the taqueria.
Sunday we all slept late and I did some shopping in the afternoon while Katie and the boys went to a birthday party -- football in the park. I made braised beef with sundried tomatoes, with rice for dinner, and the boys actually liked it. Katie and I love it -- and it's really easy since I adapted the recipe for the crock pot. After dinner, the boys watched Robin Hood (Disney version) and I read some books to them at bed time. They went down with no problem -- big day. Katie and I watched "The Terminal" -- she went to bed just before it ended, but I stayed up through the end.
All-around good weekend. Now it's just a few more days of work before some well-needed vacation for the holidays.
Holiday Date Night
Katie and I are headed out tonight to a holiday show -- get in the spirit, just the two of us! We're going downtown to see Bruce Robison / Kelly Willis do their show with holiday songs, obscure Texas music, and have a general good time. Patty and Jack, plus Kim and Jamie are going to watch the boys for us this evening, which is nice, since Carolyn normally would do it, but she's out of town.
Not sure where we're headed beforehand, but we'll have a bite to eat before the show -- should be fun for us both! Nice little treat during the holidays, and an opportunity to celebrate our First Date Anniversiary, which was officially last week, but we'll observe tonight.
Cheers to us and 16 years of being together!!
Citizen Cope @ Gypsy Tea Room
Good show tonight at the Gypsy Tea Room, down in Deep Ellum, Dallas. Guy by the name of Citizen Cope played a show I can only describe as 'acoustic folk hip hop blues' -- pretty good stuff. I picked up a CD -- several really good songs in the show, so I hope they end up on the CD. Good stuff all around, but some repetitive songs, too -- about what I would expect.
I'm headed home tomorrow afternoon -- driving this week -- it will be nice to spend a little time on the road alone, listening to some quality tunes, getting away from it all. I'll be glad to be home too.
I got some shopping done while in Dallas this week, but still have some to do -- hopefully I can get some done Thursday, and maybe take the kids to shop for Katie. Still need to get some good things for her from them!!
Mid-week in Dallas
Got up early this morning and headed out on the 6:30 flight to Dallas. Weather is actually pretty up here, nice clear day, and slightly cool. As usual, slept on the plane and woke up right as we touched down.
Got the car with no problem -- a Mazda 6 this time -- and headed to the office. On travel days, I get hungry in the mornings, and today I popped by Jack-in-the-Box for a regular cheeseburger and Diet Coke for breakfast.
Most of the work today was organizational -- updating project plans, publishing the major focus / activities for the week in all the sub-projects, writing status reports, updating staff, etc.
I ended up staying at the office until around 5:30, then checked into the hotel. Didn't know what to do for dinner, so I drove around Los Colinas for a while for inspiration -- ended up copping out with Pei Wei. Good, but not sure it was what I was craving. I think I need some BBQ...
Rest of the night was TV and internet in the hotel room.
Letters from Santa
The boys got some special mail yesterday! Santa wrote to each of them all the way from the North Pole!!
Santa told each of them how he was getting ready for the big day: he told Porter about how the reindeer were playing snowball (like baseball, but with snowballs) and he told Jackson about the new sleigh the elves built for him (and how he's been testing it out). He also told them to be sure to tell their friends Juliette and Joe that Santa was thinking about them, too, since he couldn't write to everyone.
They were beaming that Santa had taken the time to write just to them. Porter was so happy he ran all over the house waiving his letter; and Jackson was so excited he said he was going to take his letter to school and have his teacher read it, so Joe would know what Santa had to say.
Breakfast w/ Santa, and Getting the Tree
This weekend was a superb way to get into the holiday spirit -- Saturday was Breakfast With Santa at the church and after that, we headed up north to get our tree.
The boys got up nice and early on Saturday and while Katie headed out to the festivities early to volunteer, I made sure we all got ready on time. Scratch that -- I made sure we 'tried' to get ready on time, but Jackson didn't want to wear what Katie had set out for him, so we had a bit of a tug-o-war on that, until I just decided that close enough was good enough, and we compromised.
By the time we got to the party, things were in full swing. We decorated our stash bags first, then hit the breakfast line for some chocolate muffins, pancakes and breakfast tacos. This was the first time the boys had really eaten breakfast tacos, and they loved them! Porter ate two, and Jackson ate one, plus the rest of his pancakes. The boys didn't want to actually visit with Santa, but they kept standing up and looking over where he was, pointing, and talking about what they would do later in the week when they actually do visit with him.
After that, we went to all the craft stations -- we made Reindeer food; jingle bell necklaces; angel halo hats; and got an angel ornament kit to take home to do. The stations were crowded, but we all had a blast.
When we were finished there, Katie and I decided that since it might rain on Sunday, and since it was pretty nice weather (although overcast) we should head out to the Christmas Tree Farm on Saturday, so we did. We got up there right around noon and the boys wanted to head straight to the train ride for a few trips around the farm before picking out the tree. Once they were done, we hopped on the tractor-trailer for a hay ride out to where the trees were. The boys ran all around the field looking for yellow or orange tagged trees (the size we needed) and we finally found one that looked just right. Jackson and Porter helped me cut it down, and we had it pulled around to the front while we went through the barn and saw the ponies, rabbits, chickens, turkeys and goats.
All in all, it was a great time. They had even more things to do this year -- they added a nicer concession stand (we had some sausage on a stick) and an exotic animal petting zoo with camels, a zebra, monkeys and a kangaroo!
That afternoon we put the tree up and decorated it from top to bottom -- we have so many ornaments, we didn't need to (couldn't really) put any ribbons or bows on, and the tree looks fantastic. I think it is the nicest we've had in as long as I can remember --very pretty.
We took our family photo that afternoon, too, and I ordered enough for all the cards we're sending. They should come in sometime this week, and Katie has already addressed the cards, so we're good to go.
Sunday morning, we got up and I took the boys to the SJHR Motorcycle Club Toy Ride -- even though I didn't ride, I have always thought it important to take presents out for the kids at the boys/girls ranch. We talked to the boys about why we were taking presents, and they really understood what it means to share the good things we have in our life. We also got to see TONS of motorcycles! The boys loved it, and they're all ready to get their own motorcycles when they grow up! They also are ready for Dad to get the Speed Triple fixed and rideable again...
In all, a fantastic weekend -- just the thing to put me in the mood for the season. I had a great time with Katie and the boys the past few days, and it just drives home the point of how lucky I am.
This week: in the Houston office today for a bit, then off to Dallas through Thursday. Holiday office parties on Friday.
Christmas wish list 2004
Mom and Myra asked what they could get the family for Christmas, and here's a list of suggestions:
Jackson and Porter
They both like Spider-Man, Sponge Bob and The Incredibles right now. On those items, we would suggest:
Hooded bath towels
Underwear, socks
T-shirts
They are getting Spider-Man scooters, so they would really enjoy (and need) Spider-Man helmets and pads.
Jackson likes his Leap Pad and would enjoy some more books for it; Porter would like a big Leap Pad like Jacksons and they can share the same books.
They still love bath time, and bathtub crayons / colors are good.
DVDs are always popular they would especially enjoy the new Spider-Man 2 movie.
They like the web-blasters they got over the summer, and always need the refills for the web-stuff.
As always, craft supplies are nice, along with books. For books, wed recommend any of the Caldecott book award winners (you can find a list on Amazon at: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/guides/guide-display/-/1L4LAX4SJ4B9W/ref%3Dcm%5Fbg%5Fem%5Fvg%5Fhtm%5Ftop/104-1967234-0787112)
Board games / inside games are good, too, for rainy days.
Clothing sizes:
Jackson
Pants: 3T 4T
Shirts: 6 7
Shoes: 11 wide
Porter
Pants: 2T 3T
Shirts: 5 6
Shoes: 8 wide
Katie
Katie likes things from the following sotres:
Anthropologie
Gap
Ann Taylor Loft
Nordstroms
Target
Good ideas are:
Jeans size 4P
Pull-over 3/4 length shirts that she can wear untucked
T-shirts
Workout stuff (Champion brand or similar) size small
Workout shoes: 8 1/2 medium
Regular shoes: 7 1/2 shed like a pair of slip on shoes, like mules or clogs; she also likes the Diesel brand shoes, the kind that slip on and have Velcro strap in front, instead of laces
Hooded zip-up cardigan sweater small
Nice sweat pant outfit that could be worn out around on errands, etc.
Queen size sheet set
Outdoor storage bench unit (to hold baseball bats, outdoor balls, etc. so they dont get dirty)
Ed
Music is always a good option. I like to get things from the Apple iTunes music store, so a gift card to there is a nice option. I think you can buy them at Target, or online at Apple.com
Some ideas for CDs are:
Artist Album
The Band Greatest Hits
John Lennon Acoustic
AC/DC Greatest Hits; Back in Black
Bruce Springsteen The Rising
Steve Earle The Revolution Starts Now
Jack Johnson On and On
Cross Canadian Ragweed Carney
Velvet Revolver Contraband
Lou Reed Greatest Hits
Warren Zevon The Wind
The Beatles Rubber Soul
Sgt. Peppers
Abbey Road
U2 How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb (Collector's Edition)
Jimmy Buffett has a new book out, Salty Piece of Land which Id like to read.
These and more are on my Amazon.com wishlist, which you can find at: http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/registry.html/104-1967234-0787112?%5Fencoding=UTF8&id=3175RN3B20PKC
I also like neat, unique things that you cant just get anywhere you know the type of thing.
Clothing Sizes:
Pants: 38 waist; 29 or 30 length (you usually cant find 29)
Shirts: t-shirts / pull overs XXL; Tommy Bahama XL; button-up long-sleeve XL
Shoes: 8 1/2
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