Category Archives: Holidays

Holidays

Independence Week 2018

Leave a comment

We had a pretty nice 4th of July week this year.  On Sunday, July 1st, Waukegan had their annual Independence Parade.  Vista always has a float in this parade, and seeks volunteers to walk and ride the float each year. This year I decided to support Vista, for the first time, and walk in the parade.  Since Kevin works for Aramark in the kitchen at the hospital, he volunteered too. It was, as Kevin put it, “Hot as balls” that day! Sandy and Connor came along to watch the parade. We parked at Vista and setup Sandy and Connor in a nice shaded spot under a tree, then Kevin and I walked South on Sheridan road to the Vista float’s staging area.  The parade route is a straight line North, up Sheridan Road, past Vista Medical Center, ending at Bowen Park – about 1.3 miles total. Not bad. But combined with the walk to the starting point, I walked a total of 2.3 miles – kind of a big deal, and rare for me. And being so hot, I must admit it was kind of a close call. I felt dizzy and light-headed by the time I got caught up to the float at the end of the parade and hopped onto it for a ride back to Vista.  After I hopped on, I was about ready to pass out! Someone handed me an ice-cold bottle of water though, I drank it quickly and felt much better. When we got back to Vista, I started the car and had Kevin wait in the car while I went to get Sandy and Kevin. As it turned out, the parade was only about half over! So I sat and watched the rest of it with Sandy and Connor.

The parade lasted longer than anyone expected this year, apparently.  Sandy really enjoyed it, and said it just may have been better than the Kenosha Parade.  Connor amassed a large collection of candy, as a lot of people in the parade pass out candy to the kids watching.  He had a good time too – no complaints.

We had originally planned to go to Bowen Park so Connor could run through the sprinklers, go on the slides and play in the park, but since the parade ran so long and Sheridan Road was still closed when we left, we decided to skip the park. Good thing too, since just as we were driving away in the car there was a huge downpour from a brief storm passing over us!  I rolled down Connor’s window and he got his sprinkler spray right there in the car! He got a kick out of that.

Yesterday, July 4th, 2018, we had a very nice dinner at Patti’s (Anna’s mom’s) house.  Hamburgers, brats, and hot dogs, along with beans, potato salad, chips, veggies and dip, as well as 4th of July cake for dessert were on the menu, and it was great!  It was nice to see everyone again. That’s about it. It’s July 5th, I’m back to work now, after only one day off that felt like a Sunday again, and it’s only Thursday.

Click here for photos from the parade.  Sandy took 99% of them.  Stephanie, from Administration at work took the Vista group photos and a few others in the album, and I took a few.

Halloween, Holidays, News

All Hallow’s Eve

Leave a comment

It’s coming up fast.  Trick-or-Treating…haunting season is upon us.  I’ve watched a few scary movies–including Stephen King’s IT–to get in the mood, and remind me of what all the creepy clown crap is about.  Silliness is all.  At least it’s a distraction from this presidential election mess… now THAT is scary!

Kevin stopped trick-or-treating a couple years ago, so we have no more kids to walk through the neighborhood begging for candy.  Kinda sad, actually.  I really enjoy seeing everyone in costumes, out walking around, having a good time.  Especially Christmas Lane in Kenosha.

These days, with no more kids to take out trick-or-treating 😦 I like to take Socks out, in-costume, and walk through Christmas Lane during trick-or-treating, just to enjoy seeing the costumes and decorations all around.  Since we live only a few blocks from there now, it’s an easy walk for us.  So that’s what Socks and I will be doing this year, on Halloween, 5pm-6pm.  Trick-or-treating is 4-6, but I get off work at 4, so I can’t get there until 5pm.  It’s sad it’s only 2 hours now.  I remember it being a much longer period of time most other years, going well into the night.  But with all of the safety concerns with kids out in the dark, they probably feel it’s much safer this way.  But I just don’t see why they can’t have it start a few hours earlier, so it’s longer, and still have it end at 6pm, when it starts getting dark… Maybe there’s not enough people home from work to hand out candy if it was earlier…?

Halloween, Photography, Thanksgiving

New photo albums added

Leave a comment

Ok, getting caught up over my 5-day weekend!  Here’s some new photo albums–including THIS Thanksgiving!

Civil War Museum – Sandy’s photos from her recent visit with a client.

Halloween 2014

Haylie’s 5th Birthday

Snow Sculpting Championships 2014 – from nearly a year ago–this year’s is coming up at the end of January!  I’ll be there.

Thanksgiving 2013

Thanksgiving 2014

That should about catch me up.  Keep in mind a few of those are pretty raw.  Since I dumped everything, very quickly, I didn’t pick and choose the best photos.  Yet.  I’ll get to it, I just need more time.  So for now, a few of those albums contain hundreds of photos.  Consider this a “behind the scenes” preview.  Many of those will disappear soon as I curate them.  Enjoy!

Entertainment, Halloween

Scary Halloween Treat Bowl

Leave a comment

Halloween Candy BowlSince Kevin is going to pass out candy this Halloween instead of trick-or-treating himself, we couldn’t resist getting a nice treat bowl for him to use–the one Jeff Dunham used in his “Minding The Monsters” Halloween Special last year!  It works great, so we had to give it a shot like Jeff did, with Socks.  It didn’t have quite the impact we expected.  Click on the thumbnail to take a look.

 

Android, Christmas, Family News, Holidays, News, Technology

Rick and Sandy made the paper…and other treats

Leave a comment

Rick and Sandy in Kenosha News - 12/22/12Wow, Christmas is getting close.  The holiday cheer is here.  Three nice things just from this morning: Rick and Sandy made the paper (see photo–click it to see it full-size in a new window), then, when I went to Flickr to upload it, Flickr presented me with a gift of 3 free months of Flickr Pro–that’s a whopping $6.00 more in my pocket… then when I went to Facebook to catch up on family and friends I found that Jelly Bean was released today for my Galaxy SIII!  I hit the trifecta today!

Holidays, Thanksgiving

Brown Thursday Weekend

Leave a comment

We had a nice Brown Thursday dinner at Mike’s house.  Mike and Emma made a big turkey dinner with all of the extras.  Unfortunately I got paged in the afternoon (for a total of 4 times during the extended weekend…so far…), but I was still able to get back in town before dinner started, so all turned out ok.  This weekend it seems like every time I decide to leave the house for my walk, I always get paged.  It’s eery, actually.  And if I just stay home watching movies I don’t get paged…that is, unless it’s a GOOD movie…  None of that Black Friday crap either.  Just stayed home, and stayed safe.  We did walk to Petco for some dog treats with Socks on Friday, and MAN, was it cold and windy!  Chihuahuas can walk sideways in that kinda wind!  Socks toughed it out though, shivering the entire walk.

Anyway, I just uploaded a few new photos.  Nothing exciting, just Socks on Duty on Thanksgiving weekend, a cool shot Kevin wanted me to take, and a little lake we found behind Kenosha Bible Church.  Our weekend in a nutshell: Eat, Walk, Watch a movie, relax, and repeat.  And I mean “repeat” in more ways than one… man, I don’t remember ever having this much gas after eating thanksgiving food!  Is it the turkey?!?!

Family News, Halloween, Health & Fitness

Confirmation & Trick or Treat 2012

Leave a comment

I have a brilliant teenager. While we were trick-or-treating my phone kept me updated on the football games. I told Kevin, when they were over, that both the Packers and the Bears won today. Kevin says “Sooooo……it was a tie???”

Walked 3.49 miles trick-or-treating.  I thought I’d be exhausted, but I’m fine.  Socks and Kevin, on the other hand, are beat.  Kevin was half frozen, with red ears and nose, and Socks was shivering pretty bad too.  Sandy picked us up at the 2-hour mark after we had a good Southbound walk, and dropped us at the house again so we could do the neighborhood North of the house.  Not too many lights on to the North though–we got our largest haul from the area South.  Shockingly, there was only one light on Christmas Lane!  I thought that block would be the busiest.  I guess when you go all-out on one particular holiday a year, the rest of them don’t mean anything to you.  Luckily, I didn’t get paged at all while we were trick-or-treating, so it all turned out pretty nice.

We also had Kevin’s confirmation today.  That was nice too, and he’s now a confirmed member of the church.  Here’s a few photos.

Family News, Halloween, Health & Fitness

Just checkin’ in

Leave a comment

I posted this on Facebook last week.  Sorry it took so long to get it over here, I need to change my habits and post everything HERE first, then share it to Facebook:  I had a 3-month checkup last week and it turns out I lost 16 lbs in 3 months. I am officially–permanently–well under 300 lbs now, and it feels great.  It’s nice to be going “backwards” for a change!  By that I mean that as I’m getting older it’s actually getting easier to do things, the pain is receding, and I’m feeling better, instead of just the opposite.  And the better I feel, the more I realize I should have done this a LOOOONG time ago, and I know I’ll never, ever, go back to weighing over 300 lbs again.  Everyone’s encouragement helps a lot too, and I really appreciate it.

So… Hurricane Sandy, huh?  That’s awesome.  Now I have a new nickname for my wife.  Seriously though, my cousin Julie seems to be right in Hurricane Sandy’s path.  This is not good.  Here’s the Facebook group for the hurricane.

Trick-or-Treat is this Sunday, October 28th.  Kevin’s going as Hawkeye from The Avengers and Socks is going as a pumpkin.  I’ll take a few pictures.  We’re also going to the pumpkin farm tonight.  Should be fun!

I promise to start posting more often… no matter how small it is, I’ll post something.  If you’ve noticed though, my daily walks are always added to my photos on Flickr and in the right sidebar all the time, so there’s that, and all of my checkins are updated regularly on FourSquare (and in the right sidebar), so don’t those count?  I know, I know, it’s just not the same…. those are automated and require little effort.  You want something more solid.  Be back soon… you AND me both…

Holidays

Father’s Day

Leave a comment

Father's Day 2012I had a nice Father’s Day today.  Sandy made an awesome breakfast of sausage, eggs, potatoes and toast.  Next we went to church, then had a nice lunch from Big Star Drive-In, which Sandy picked up for us.  We ate in a nice room at ManorCare (aka Washington Manor).  After our Big Star lunch we had an awesome ice cream cake (another demerit for my diet…that’s TWO for this weekend–yikes!) and I was about ready to pass out.  Very tired now, and a little disappointed that we completely missed out on the Father’s Day Car Show held in Baker Park just around the corner from us this year!  We drove by on the way to lunch, but it was over when we cam home 😦 Oh well, maybe next year.

This evening we’re having Chinese so Sandy can have a break from cooking, then it’s time for the season premiere of Falling Skies tonight!  I thought it would never get here.  Overall, I think it was a pretty darn good Father’s Day… I’m pooped.  I think I’m going to take the advice of the card I got from Kevin right now, and go have a nap… Here’s the photos.

Thanksgiving

Awesome Thanksgiving

Thanks to everyone for making our Thanksgiving wonderful this year!  The food was awesome, and Sandy did an amazing job for cooking her first Thanksgiving turkey!  I think it was the best I’ve ever had!  The stuffing was (I guess I should say “Is”, since I’ll be eating it all weekend) great too–Rick’s special recipe.  The company was great as well, and I hope everyone else enjoyed the day as much as I did!  Thanks again everyone!  Click here for a few photo highlights.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving 2009

Sandy had a pleasant Thanksgiving this year. Kevin and I not so much. We had a tradition of having Thanksgiving at Bear’s house every year, with him and Rick doing up a wonderful turkey and fixings. Sandy always made the pies, and we all chipped in with a side dish of some sort. Well, with Bear’s passing recently, things have changed of course. Diane, Bear’s fiancee, invited us to join her family this year, so we had planned on that. Unfortunately, Kevin got sick on Thanksgiving day with the flu, so I stayed home with him and Sandy had Thanksgiving with Diane and her family (and Rick, George, Mike and Ginger, who always attended Bear’s Thanksgiving). Sandy said it was very nice, and brought back some great food, so I had planned on having a late thanksgiving dinner the following night. Go figure–I must have picked up Kevin’s flu bug and I was sick all through Friday and Saturday! It was horrible. The terms “explosive” and “projectile” would work well in the description of events, but I won’t bother to gross you out any further. I’m much better this morning though, and Wii Fit says I lost over 10 pounds in the past week! Wow, what a diet plan. The flu sure is cleansing! I plan on having a nice Turkey dinner tonight…finally. Then it’s back to work tomorrow. So much for a long four-day weekend. Click to the thumbnail image to view Sandy’s photos.

Halloween

Pumpkin Totem 2009

We carved our Halloween pumpkins this weekend–between my installs of Windows 7. We did one for each of us–small, medium and large–but we’re still fighting over who’s is who’s. Sandy had to work, so Kevin and I worked together to do the gutting and carving. I carved the main details, then Kevin took over and cleaned up the finer details. When they were done we stacked them in a totem and added the mini pumpkin on top that Kevin got at the Vista Fall Fest (after we drew a face on it). Since the mini pumpkin wasn’t carved, Kevin held a flashlight to it as I snapped the photos in the dark. Check out the photos! (Please excuse the highly overexposed one… I was just playing). Make sure you compare them to our 2003 and our 2004 totems… Which one do you think is the best?

Halloween

Troha’s Yard…Scary as HELL! … Literally!

On Wayne’s advice, we stopped by the Troha house tonight with Kevin and took a gander. As I said in the shoutbox earliier, “Holy Crap!” It’s at 1709 32nd Avenue, and if you’re into the whole Halloween thing, this is really a treasure! I just didn’t want to leave. There’s just so much to see, such vivid detail, gore, blood & guts… Kevin was pretty nervouse about the whole thing, and never got too close to anything, afraid of what might happen. There was a guy in a cage, strapped into an electric chair with his head slumped down–obviously his sentence had already been carried out–and I’m sorry I missed it. I have a feeling this particular display has more life to it at other times. I’m going to stop by on Halloween during trick-or-treat hours just to see it all again, and hopefully see a bit more activity this time. I would so love to volunteer to be a zombie for an evening at this place! There are a lot of ways to really scare people with a setup this elaborate… I could blend in great with a good costume and makeup and “play dead” until just the right times. I fancy myself a pretty good “Boomer” from Left 4 Dead, if you’re familiar with that awesome game. Wayne took some great pictures the other day, check them out. I also took a bunch more, along with some great closeups, so take a look at those too, you’ll see what I mean.

Halloween, News

Halloween Season Begins

The Halloween festivities have begun. Last weekend we shopped for Kevin’s costume. We found a great store too–a giant pumpkin in the Regency Mall parking lot. Tons of great Halloween decorations, costumes, and goodies! It was a blast. We stayed for quite awhile just to check everything out. Kevin was set on a Halo 3 Master Chief costume that we had ordered from Amazon earlier in the month, which said “IN STOCK” when we ordered, but our order was cancelled a couple days later saying that they were out of stock. But at the giant pumpkin store we found the exact same costume–and it was the exact same size as the one we ordered–Adult Extra Small. Good thing we DIDN’T get it mail order though–the giant pumpkin store has a “no refunds” policy, but they let you try on the costumes first. So Kevin tried on the Master Chief costume… The crotch plate alone rested on the floor! It sure was HUGE for being an “extra small”. That was the only size they had, so we gave up on it. He soon found his second choice though–the same costume he wanted to wear last year, if we had been unable to get a decent soldier costume in his size–Freddy Krueger. We have everything we need except the hat at the moment, and everything fits him nicely. Looks pretty scary. As a preview, click on the Freddy thumbnail and take a look at a collection of the best and worst Freddies we found on Flickr. It’s an interesting gallery I put together. You can’t add your own photos to a gallery you create on Flickr though–since “galleries” are for showcasing your favorite photos from other people–so you won’t find Kevin in that collection, but he’ll be added to the “Kevin’s Costumes” and “Halloween 2009” sets soon though. We also visited Jerry Smith’s Pumpkin Farm last weekend. We picked out a trio of pumpkins to carve this year, and maybe I’ll even try to assemble a new pumpkin totem this year. We’ll see what happens.