New Princess Palace

Here are the pictures of the new room for the to girls SM and CG. They do not know that they are getting a new room. Right after Christmas all Three kids went to Grandmas, the main reason was so that all of this work could take place in secret.

These pictures were taken on Friday morning. I will be at home working today and Ms. Clean will be working hard to complete the room. For those not familiar with what was in this room before, we had our office in this room, which was a 3x5 desk and all the computer paraphernalia on it. The desk s still in the room and can be seen in one of these pictures. We also had a sofa bed, and a full size bed in the room. The sofa bed is now down in the living room and the two other sofa's that were there are being given to a family member. The full size bed is now in the girls old room which is now our new guest room. And the office will be in the living room in a new hutch that my in-laws are giving to us that we will be getting this weekend.

We are very excited to see what the girls think of the new room that they have. We both think that they are going to love it. We feel that the space will be great for them as they grow up.

KZ may be a little jealous about it however he has his own room and does not have to share with anyone. He may like the fact however that he won't be able to hear the girls talk and talk when they go to bed now. In their old room the girls could be easily heard through the wall in KZ's room. So over all things should be good. We still have a lot to get done though.

Cub Scouts and Chirstmas

We went to KZ's Cub Scout Pack meeting this week and it was quite the show.

It was the Christmas show and each den had a little skit to do. Most of the skits were very cute, one thing we learned very early on in the show is that young Cub Scouts have no concept of how to USE A MICROPHONE!!!

Now not to completely blame the Scouts the leaders, DID NOT TURN IT DOWN!!!

So at the end of each skit there was some kid that felt that they needed to hear voice in the Space Shuttle and this would be his one shot at making that happen.

But it was fun anyway. KZ got his first awards at this meeting. KZ is the only one wearing the hat in the picture and he got lots of beads to put on the paw print on his shirt pocket.

Hopefully next time there won't be any time for the Scouts to talk in a Mic.

Next is the Pinewood Derby, and I plan on winning. Oh I mean KZ plans on winning. I bought two car kits to work on KZ and I will practice on the first car the tips that I have gotten from a Pinewood Derby speed book. Then I am going to have Zach do it all by himself on his own car, once he knows how to do the work. So in the end we should have to identical cars.

Will keep you updated on how the race goes once it is over. Race is in January.

Small Group Christmas Party

On the 17th we had our small group Christmas party at a friends house. Our friends have 20 acres of land and quite the lot of animals around. They invited us to come a little early and have some time to ride the horse.

CG was the second one to go for the ride and she was a little unsure at first but I am sure that the experience that she had at Nan and Pop's helped to make her decide that this would be fun. Plus she does not like to let her brother and sister to show her up.

SM was the first to get a ride and she was very excited about it. She got to go with our friend and also by herself with someone leading the horse for her. She could not get enough of the horse she wanted to keep riding and riding.

Mrs. Clean went third and was going to go by herself and guide the horse. Mr. Ed had other ideas however. It looked as if he could only turn right and did not want to go any direction that Mrs. Clean wanted to go. He did however want to go to the garage. Maybe he wanted to get parked in the warm house. Good thing he did not go all the way in or Mrs. Clean would have been removed from the horse by the house.

I was asked if I wanted to ride the horse and I turned it down. I prefer to ride machinery. I get to control it and it does not have a mind of its own. SM and CG wanted to go with me, and with 20 acres to explorer we had lots of fun. I opened and up and got "my horse" racing across the pasture. SM loved it CG thought I was going a tad fast and told me so. But they both had fun racing around on the 4 wheeler.

KZ was not left out. He got himself in quite a bit of trouble before going and his punishment was that he would not be able to ride the horse. I was not aware at the time of punishment that there was a 4 wheeler. I did let him go out with 2 other boys on the 4 wheeler and he couldn't get enough of it. He did still ask to ride the horse after the 4 wheeler, so I feel that the punishment did have some effect. But we all had a great time before and during the party.

Indiana Jones 4, Yippieeeeee, .......Oh Wait!

Indiana Jones 4 is in the works. It may take another 20 years before the actor will be ready to start shooting the movie however. But if they can do it with Star Wars why can't they do it with Indy.

KZ has seen, and loves the Indian Jones pics. I was not home the day that this picture was taken so not sure what prompted the dress up session. But I think KZ will fill in nicely once there is a script. The movie might not have much dialoge if it started filming today, unless it includes a lot of the words, "pig wig can hit"

The Evil Digit !

You get to see all sorts of things when you visit NYC. Take a look at the attached picture, see anything missing? I think my kids could even figure this one out. My NYC office is on the 20th floor, or is it.

Yes, by now you have probably noticed that the 13th floor is missing. Oops, the 13th floor is not missing, some doofus decided to label the 13th floor number 14. I know that some people are superstitious and all but if you were really superstitious about the number 13 do you think you would be on the 14th floor?

A comedian that I heard on XM radio one day was talking about this problem. He said that the 14th floor is the 13th floor and if you don't think so jump out the window a count the floors on the way down, you will hit the ground a floor sooner!

But then if you completed the test, being superstitious of the 13th floor will no longer be a problem. So my office is on the 19th floor, I wish people could get it right.

New York vs. Boston

New York Yankees Vs. Boston Red Sox. This is one of the most bitter revelries in baseball. The fans dislike each other, OK HATE each other. I being a Yankees fan, makes sure I watch these games. I may miss all the others but I do my best to watch all of these games. By the way the Yankees swept the Sox in 5 games last season and killed the Sox's chance at post season.

Now lets compare New York and Boston from another perspective. The perspective I am going to use is that of a business traveler (big surprise) and what I have experienced.

Let's start with the roads. In NYC the roads make sense they go north, south, east and west and they make sense to anyone that has been in the city more than once. You go uptown or downtown, and west side or east side, makes sense to me. If you can count I would feel quite confident that you would be able to get around the city. Seems a little overwhelming at first. Now side step here for a moment to a money lesson. Manhattan was purchased for 60 Guilder from the Indians. Now your saying what is a guilder? 1.5 Guilder equals a daalder. 1 daalder equals 1 dollar. Now were talking money you understand. Got all this info from Wikipedia. So Manhattan was bought for 20 Bucks, what a steal, (side thought here, did you ever wonder what the Indians needed money for, why did they think this was a good idea?) and I pay 200 for the shoe box I sleep in, I think they got a good return on their money. So the people that were smart enough to buy an Island for 20 bucks, were smart enough to make roads that people could understand.

Now Boston, for those of you familiar with Boston history, you may recall that the roads were based on old cow paths. That's right I said cow paths. Does this seem to make sense to any of you? I mean who lets a flatulence belching bovine decide where the roads are going to go. Mankind was able to build a ship, sail from England to Massachusetts, in an age without GPS, but was not smart enough to realize that letting a dumb as a rock animal that we turn into hamburgers decided where the roads would go, would be a bad idea? Now I am sure that if I stayed here long enough they would make sense to me as well. However trying to leave the airport was a mish mash of driving around following all sorts of airport exit signs. Then you go through the "big dig" which took 13 years to get to 94% complete opened on 2004, and oh by the way the roof has this neat trick falling down and killing newlyweds. They were on there way to the airport for their honeymoon, rough way to start a marriage. Maybe it's because they can't say R's in Massachusetts, (Notice no R's in state name) so the roof is really a oof. Maybe I found a major construction flaw. By the way the big dig also leaks. A tunnel that goes underwater that leaks, no wonder people drive 90 MPH they don't want to be in the tunnel when a section of the oof falls that was keeping the water out. Now I am sure that my wife will remember this the next time we are in Boston driving through, she will be telling me to drive faster.

Now I do give more kudos to the hotel that I am staying at in Boston (in the Burbs) not quite the same comparison. But I can spread my arms out. So if you were to ask me which city to visit I would probably tell you NYC, at least the oof's don't fall on newlyweds.