The one before the holidays

This is the third time I have sat down to write this blog.  I am not a professional writer, and I am easily distracted by other things.  Also, for the last week or so I have been sick.  So I haven't had time to write, but I have been reading quite a bit.  In anticipation of the David Fincher film, I finished reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  It was a decent book, and I am about halfway through the second one.  I know a lot of people read these books a few years back, but the last couple of years have been super busy for me, and I am just now getting caught up on a few things.  We finally got around to watching the last Harry Potter film this past weekend.  Nothing super exciting is going on around here, but I will catch you up on what has happened since the last blog.  Give me a minute to go back and read it.  Maybe whistle the theme to Jeopardy or something.  OK, you can keep reading now.

We took our annual trip to the DRI pumpkin patch to take some pictures and pick up a couple of pumpkins.  Since we were there only a couple of days before Halloween, there wasn't much to choose from.  Ethan was pretty happy with the choices he made though.  As for the holiday itself, we did make a couple of stops to trick or treat.  I don't think Ethan really understood what was going on, but he was sure glad to have the candy when it was all over.  Even with the limited stops, we had enough candy for three people which worked out nicely.  I didn't mention that Ethan was dressed as Larry the Cucumber from Veggietales.  Although I have come to despise this show, Ethan cannot get enough of it.  Thank you Netflix streaming for allowing my child to have an endless source of cartoons at his disposal.  I guess there are worse things he could be watching.  I'm talking to you Spongebob.  He actually doesn't watch that much, but I will admit that using a smart phone on a two year old often has the same effect as Kirk setting his phaser to stun.  Go ahead.  Soak it all in.

Tiffany and I celebrated our 11th anniversary a couple of weeks ago.  A year ago on our anniversary, we were in the audience at Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.  This year, we settled for dinner with my grandmother here in Abilene.  Our actual anniversary trip was a few days later.  We went to Dallas to see Stephen King speak.  As longtime fans of his books, we both thought this would be fun to do.  This was a fundraising event for the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza.  The whole thing lasted a little over an hour, but in my opinion it was well worth it.  He discussed politics, conspiracy theories, and talked a little about his new book.  For those not in the loop, his new book is about a guy who goes back in time to stop the JFK assassination.  I will probably read it as soon as I am finished reading about Lisbeth Salander.

That pretty much brings us up to date.  Wait.  I just lied.  No, I said pretty much, so I guess I didn't lie.  Nevermind.  Last Tuesday night began the new season of musicals at the civic center.  The first one was Young Frankenstein.  Yes it is based on the Mel Brooks film, and yes it was just as funny.  In fact, I would say that it was probably one of the best plays we have ever seen here in Abilene.  In discussing this play with a few people, I discovered that there are actually people who haven't seen the movie.  I realize Mel Brooks may be an acquired taste to some, but this is definitely among the funniest films ever made.  Of course, I've always been a little strange.

Eternal Flame

It's funny how you can go several weeks with very little excitement, and then all of the sudden you have a million things going on.  Since we returned from the cruise, I feel like we have been going non-stop.  Now that our washing machine is fixed, I also feel like we are doing laundry non-stop.

The 14th of October was Granny's birthday.  The entire family spent the weekend at the MCM Elegante together.  For those of you not familiar with my mom's family, here are the basics.  My mom is one of four girls.  I am one of ten grandkids.  Ethan is one of seventeen great grandchildren.  By the time you add spouses into the mix, it brings our total to well over forty people.  I know that's not the largest family in the world, but with seventeen kids running around it was plenty.  Granny bought all of the little ones matching Halloween pajamas with their names on them.  Ethan has already worn his a couple of times since then.  Granny also made each of the ten grandchildren a quilt.  These are serious birthday favors.  It seems that Granny did most of the gift giving on her birthday, but we did get her something in return.  The grandkids pitched in to buy Granny her own iPad--just what every hip 84 year old needs.  You can laugh now, but she seemed to be enjoying it quite a bit before we ever left the hotel.  She has already figured out how to read her email, check Facebook, and play Words With Friends.  Do you really need it to do anything else?  It was a fun weekend all around, and it is always good to see the family.  I regret that I actually got very few pictures of the whole thing.  Hopefully someone got some good ones.  We did have a professional take pictures of the group, as well as some of the individual families.  I will post those if and when I am able to get my hands on them.

This past weekend, we decided to make a quick trip to the State Fair.  If I were to write a book about things you shouldn't do with a two year old who hasn't had a nap, this would probably fill a whole chapter.  I'm not going to say I didn't have fun, but it sure seemed like a lot more work than usual.  Fortunately, the weather was agreeable.  It took us about fifteen minutes to find something fried to eat.  We started with Fried Buffalo Chicken in a Flapjack and some Deep Fried Queso.  Both of these things were excellent, and probably our favorites from the trip.  I attempted to try fried Frito Pie, only to be told that they were out.  Really?  Buy some more Fritos.  We aren't in the middle of nowhere.  Let me run across the street and just get some for you.  Then you can fry them.  Everyone's happy.  I'm just sayin'.  That seems like a poor way to run your junk food stand.  Over the course of the afternoon, we also ate fried biscuits and gravy, fried pepperoni pizza, fried pineapple upside down cake, and fried Autumn pumpkin pie.  I didn't care for the pizza, but everything else was pretty good.  We also got a barbecue wrap with some fries, and I had a bratwurst for a late night snack.  They seriously ought to hand out Nexium and Lipitor when you walk through the gate.

We did manage to do a few things that didn't involve food.  We endured the Amazing Dobermans, which weren't that amazing.  We wandered through all of the craft booths with people selling all kinds of things that so far I have managed to live without.  We did get Ethan a wooden puzzle of his name.  We walked through the Auto Show, which is always one of my favorite parts.  Once it was dark, we watched the parade.  Ethan really enjoyed it, and probably would have even more had some jackass with a camera not come and stood right in front of him.  Dude, you are too old for parades.  Move over and let the little kids have their fun.  We capped off the evening with a concert on the main stage by The Bangles.  Susanna Hoffs is 52 years old, but she still looks and sounds as good as she did when I was 9.  They played all of the songs that everyone knows, as well as a few that nobody seemed to know.  I thought they were pretty good, and if Ethan hadn't slept through most of it, he would have liked it as well.  He was awake for the encore of Walk Like an Egyptian.  I made the mistake of calling this his first concert.  Tiffany corrected me and said that when he was just a few weeks old we saw local band The Penny Jar.  Now that I think about it, he has seen them at least twice.  My bad.

Bonus Trivia:  The Bangles' hit Manic Monday was actually written by Prince under the pseudonym Christopher.

Serenade

A couple of weeks ago, I posted our vacation pictures on Facebook.  My Aunt Vicki was quick to point out that I didn't include a picture of my feet.  She couldn't believe that I didn't take one, and she was right.  I took one.  I don't know why I have all of these feet pictures, but for some reason I find them interesting.  I was saving this particular picture for this blog, which I intended to post about a day or two after the pictures.  Now that some time has passed, I will probably have to give you the short version.  It goes like this.

The last week of September, we took a cruise.  Specifically, we took a Southern Carribean cruise on the Serenade of the Seas.  In addition to myself, Tiffany, and Ethan, were my sister, her husband, and their baby, and my grandmother and her best friend Patsy.  We all flew to San Juan, Puerto Rico and spent the night before getting on the big ship the next day.  I would have liked to have spent a little more time there, but I guess we will have to do that another time.  Fun fact:  We took a cruise in 2008 that was supposed to stop in San Juan, but we didn't make that particular port of call due to a hurricane.  Including my planned trip to New Orleans in 2005, that brings the total number of times hurricanes have screwed up my vacation to two.  This was our fourth time on a cruise ship, and also the fourth time with Royal Carribean.  It was the first time that we had to take a two year old with us.  This presents a whole new set of experiences.  The ship itself was gorgeous.  It wasn't the biggest ship we have been on, nor was it the smallest.  They layout was great, and getting around the ship required minimal effort.  The staff was extremely tolerant of the children.  While many people thought Ethan was cute, his cousin Murray practically had a fan club.  I thought eating in the dining room was going to be a disaster, but overall Ethan did extremely well.  He got to test out his tastebuds on things like lobster, prime rib, and leg of lamb.  Kids menus are for girls.  He ate extremely well the entire trip.  If memory serves, the itinerary was something like this: sea day, Barbados, St. Lucia, Antigua, St. Maarten, St. Croix USVI.  As we were somewhat limited on what we could do with the kids, we spent a lot of time at the beach.  Although I don't generally consider myself a beach person, we did have a pretty good time.  Ethan loved being in the water.  We took the kids to the zoo while we were in St. Maarten.  I think they used the term zoo a little freely.  It was a few chain link fences with some Carribean wildlife.  It was kind of fun though, and it was a nice break from the beach.  We also got to eat some pretty interesting island food in a few places, including something called fish wings.  I just did a quick google search on fish wings and came up with nothing, but I swear I didn't make it up.  They were delicious.  I know it has something to do with a fish that is native to that island.  I also bought a bottle of banana ketchup, which I intend to try soon.  I'll let you know.  At the end of the week, we were all exhausted.  It was a fun time, but it is always good to be home for a few days.  Tiffany was home for about 12 hours before she had to get up and get ready for work again.  I took two extra days off just for good measure.  I will also note that we had a ton of laundry after this trip, and after two loads the washing machine stopped working.  We had to order a new pump, so we lived around our piles of laundry for about a week.  We are now having trouble with the ice maker, and the fan in the wine fridge.  Apparently appliances are only made to last three and a half years.  Thanks to the washing machine incident, I now know a good appliance guy.  This past weekend was Granny's birthday.  I will discuss that in a future blog (probably).

Back to School

If these photos look similar to those on the last blog, it's because they were taken at the exact same place, for the exact same reason, but on a different day.  Apparently when you have a child, you are expected to attend the birthday parties of every kid whose parents might have had some contact with you at some point in your life.  I have also learned that there are very few places to have a birthday party for a toddler in this town.  I actually feel a little cheap that we just had Ethan's party at the house.  All things considered, I can never get enough pizza and cake.  Ethan was more interested in the jumping castle and playing basketball than the food.  Those are Sesame Street stickers on his face and legs.  I don't know why they are there.

I started writing this a couple of days ago.  I got sidetracked, and now I have completely forgotten what I was going to write about.  It looks like I covered the birthday party already.  Based on the title, I may have had some commentary on going back to school.  I don't know if there was something specific there, or what.  I guess I will just wing it.  Here's what I can tell you about this time of year.  My drive to work in the morning becomes exponentially longer.  I guess that everyone that lives between my house and the school is either a teacher or driving their kid to school.  None of these cars are on the road in the summer.  There are a few kids hanging out on the corner in the morning waiting for the bus.  I guess their parents have jobs.  Another thing I had to hear about all week is how people are sad that their kids are grown up and going to school.  I personally cannot wait for my kid to go to school.  I will feel like I am getting a fat raise.  Daycare pricing is ridiculous.  Actually, for the number of hours they watch my child every week, it's a bargain.  School is essentially free, except for the taxes which I am already paying.  I have been told by everyone I know that I will be sad when my kid starts school, but I just don't see it.  Since he has gone to daycare since he was about four months old, I don't really see much difference.  We actually refer to the daycare as school anyway.  Ask me about all of this again in three years and I will let you know how I feel then.  As for now, school is just another step toward getting him out of my house.  And yes, I do love my child.

I know these pictures are almost the same.  I liked them because it actually looks like he is playing something resembling real basketball.  I have purposefully left out the other 100 pictures I took.  There is one or two more on Facebook for those so inclined.

Chasing Amy

Starting off, these are some pictures I took at a birthday party a couple of weeks ago.  They aren't great for two reasons.  First, I was still trying to figure out how to use a new camera.  The other reason is that two year olds can move faster than the speed of light--unless it's early in the morning and I'm late for work.  The party was for another two year old.  Apparently when you have a child, you get the privilege of attending these things all the time.  I'm just glad that this one was inside.  We are still in the middle of what seems like an endless summer.  I am beginning to feel like the heat is never going to let up.  It's sad that I now consider any temperature below 105 a cool day.  Basically, I never want to go outside anymore.  Currently I am typing this from my air-conditioned living room while watching the latest episode of Food Network Star.  I don't know why I even like this show, but I have spent a lot of time watching this channel lately.  Ethan is also a fan, and he can correctly identify Bobby Flay.  Watching Food Network just makes me hungry, which is fine because I love to eat.  I have also been watching a great deal of Man Vs. Food, which is actually on the Travel Channel.  Weird.  In other entertainment options, I am now hooked on the podcast The Tobolowsky Files.  If you have any interest in the entertainment industry, or just good storytelling, you should definitely check it out.  In non couch potato news, I went out on Sunday night to see Filter and Saliva.  Neither of these bands are huge, but they are huge for Abilene.  The first time we saw Saliva, they opened for Kiss and Aerosmith.  I thought they were fun then, and we have seen them a few times since then, including a club show in Las Vegas.  Filter is a band that I have been a fan of since I was in high school.  I had tickets to see them in 1996 when they opened for White Zombie.  I no longer remember the reason we were late, but we got there in time to see them walking off of the stage.  A few years ago, Tiffany and I went to Edgefest in Dallas.  Unfortunately, they played early in the day, and I missed them again.  I did hear them from the parking lot, but I really can't count that one.  I was thrilled when I heard they were coming to Abilene, and I am glad that I was finally able to check this band off my list.  They didn't disappoint, and actually I think it was better this way.  I don't remember much about the White Zombie show, but I do remember being so hot that our clothes were drenched in sweat.  It was nice to see the show in a small little bar, with a couple hundred of Abilene's weirdest people.  As a side note, the band stayed around after playing and talked, took pictures, and shook hands with anyone who wanted to.  I always love a band that is good to their fans.

2

I will do my best to catch everybody up, but my memory is not great as it used to be.  I can barely remember what I had for breakfast this morning.  It is pretty rare these days for me to have much to do on the weekend anymore, other than chores around the house.  The last three weeks have been an exception.  Some might even say they were exceptional.  The first of our exciting weekends began with a Saturday night trip to the Taylor County Expo Center to see Jeff Dunham.  He was absolutely hilarious, and we had a wonderful time, despite the fact that it was warm enough in there to cook a turkey.  Ethan had a great time that night as well.  He stayed with Vicki and Carl, and when we went to pick him up he didn't want to leave.

On June 29, Ethan turned 2 years old.  It's funny how time flies, and yet somehow it seems like he has been here forever.  I guess we are getting into the Terrible Twos, although most of my friends assure me that the 3s are worse.  That's comforting.  We had a small party with extended family here at the house on the weekend following his birthday.  It's nice at this age when they have no concept of actual dates and you can hold the party when it is convenient for everyone.  Ethan wasn't big on presents again this year.  The first package he opened had stickers in it, and he pretty much didn't care about anything after that.  What is so fun about stickers anyway?  He did get a trampoline from my parents, which has already gotten quite a bit of use.

This past weekend, we were graced with the company of our good friends Matt and Lisa.  They brought their kids as well, and we all had a great time just visiting and lounging around the house.  Lilah and Ethan had so much fun that they hardly seemed to notice the rest of us were even there.  Monday we had Ethan's yearly check-up with the doctor.  There were no shots this time, which was nice.  I guess he is doing fine.  They didn't tell us we were bad parents or anything.  Here is what I can tell you.  He weighs 28 pounds, is 36 1/4 inches tall, head circumference of 19 1/4 inches, and a BMI of 15.  If you are looking to compare, here are the percentile numbers respectively: 50, 90, 50, 10.  In layman's terms--average weight, super tall, normal head, skinny.

As far as I know, the next couple of months should be pretty calm around here.  I still have a million things to do today though, so this is all you're getting right now.  My mom took a bunch of pictures from the birthday party.  I will try to weed through them this weekend and get some of them posted.

Easy Rider

I realize I have been off the grid for a little bit.  What can I say?  Life is happening everyday.  It could be that I just didn't have anything to say.  Possibly it could be that the heat has fried my brain.  I would like to know what has happened to Spring.  We have had some days here where it was 110 degrees!  I am thinking about hibernating for the summer.  Ultimately I am going to blame sleep deprivation.  For the last few weeks, Ethan has decided that he doesn't want to sleep.  It is strange to us, because he has always been good as far as bedtime goes.  Now, not only does he not want to go to bed (which I am blaming on Daylight Savings Time), but he has decided that 1:30 AM is a good time to get out of bed and wake everyone else up.  Seriously, if he wants to get up in the middle of the night and do something quietly in his room, I'm all for it.  The fact that he feels the need to crawl up onto our bed and keep us up is another thing entirely.  Last night he did stay in his room all night.  I'm hoping that wasn't a fluke and that he has finally decided to just stay in there.  I have been told that it is illegal to handcuff your kid to the bed.  I will point out that when he wakes up in the middle of the night, he isn't screaming or crying.  I think he is just waking up and wants to see what's going on.  Tiffany thinks that the reason he doesn't want to go to bed on time is because he finally figured out that we weren't going to bed at the same time.  He's afraid he might miss something exciting I guess.  All things considered, we are doing fine.  Ethan will be two years old in less than three weeks.  I am most looking forward to being able to state his age in years like a normal person.  I will admit that I have been referring to him as "almost two" for quite a while though.  Twenty-three months sounds stupid.  This past weekend we made a trip to the big city.  Saturday night we saw Bowling For Soup in Fort Worth.  Although I have seen this band probably a dozen times, they are always fun.  Sarah and Josh took care of Ethan, and they even said he was good.  I'm not sure if I believe them or not, but they seemed like they didn't mind.  Sunday we had planned to stick around for a while, but after breakfast we decided we needed to get home.  Apparently we are too old to be hanging out at bars all night.  No, mom, we were not hungover--just exhausted.  We did make a planned stop in Arlington, which I will now just refer to as the Babies R Us incident.  I could probably fill up another ten pages on that, but that is a story for another day.  The pictures of Ethan that I have included are the most recent ones we have.  I know, because I took them about an hour ago.  The tricycle was a gift (I think at Christmas) that has just been sitting in the box.  I finally got it put together a couple of weeks ago, and Ethan loves it.  He was using the word bicycle before I even got it put together.  I don't even know how he knows that word.  He is not great at riding it by himself, but he loves me pushing him up and down the driveway.  I will probably enjoy this more when it isn't 110 outside.

By the way, for you people on the go, this blog (if you are reading on Blogger) is now optimized for mobile devices.  Don't read it while you are driving. Otherwise you might not make it to the end, which is where all the good jokes are.  http://brianjasonmurray.blogspot.com/