Winter Wonderland

This past week saw some pretty low temperatures and a pretty fair amount of snowfall. Not a whole lot to report otherwise. The Rivermen have lost the last three games that we have attended. Are we bad luck or do they need to work on their defense? I think they've got to work on their defense because we'll be going to a few more games I'm sure.

They lost last night to the Milwaukee Admirals. The only highlight of the game was when D.J. King beat up someone on the other team. As I type, they are playing in Chicago and it's tied up 1-1. Hopefully they'll pull out a road win.

The Survivor season finale starts in a little bit. Who will win the million? Tuesday night will be the end of The Amazing Race. Which family will win? What will I do with my Tuesday and Thursday nights now?

She'll probably get a lump of coal

Lourdes likes characters like Chuck E. Cheese and the Rivermen mascot named The Captain. Last year she even liked Santa Claus. This year she didn't seem to like Santa so much or at least that's what her crying seemed to indicate. We had to settle for the following Polaroid of us holding her behind Santa and Mrs. Claus.

Santa Claus arrived at the base on Saturday afternoon after a long flight on his C-130. He brought presents for all the little boys and girls. Lourdes must have been a good girl because she received a baby doll and a Mary-Kate or Ashley doll. Everyone commented on how pretty Lourdes was in her dress. Some couldn't believe how big she is. Other than crying at Santa, she was a very good girl. We rewarded her by taking her to see Chicken Little. She was very interested in the movie and didn't make a peep. I have to give it two thumbs up.

So cute!!

Lourdes loves little animals. This is a dachshund puppy from my mom's dog Cindy.

Cindy actually had 6 puppies, but 2 did not live. There are 3 males and this little female. This pup is a little over 3 weeks in this picture. They've all started to open their eyes and are moving about. Lourdes was thrilled to death and did not want to put any of the puppies down. She did a pretty good job of gently handling the pups but had a problem with picking them up and putting them down.

The female pup is already spoken for, but the three males are available for purchase. There are two males that appear similiar with sort of a grayish color and black spots. The other male is a fawn or isabella color (kind of a yellow-tan). The sire and dam of the litter are both long-hair dapples so we hope the pups have long hair. Anyone interested in buying one of the males can leave a comment and I'll see what I can do. Many people have said they are interested but nobody has made a firm commitment.

Our Thanksgiving went smoothly. Mike and Marla did a fine job of hosting. The spread included deep-fried turkey, baked ham, mashed potatoes, gravy, corn, green bean caserole, pumpkin pie and cheesecake.

It will be Christmas before we know it.

Just playing with flickr

No, that's not the horse's name. Flickr is an easy-to-use, on-line photo organizer. Hey, it's free!!

Sliding down the links page....

Greg has slowly moved my blog down his list of favorite links. I'm now second to the last, just above his link to Funky Winkerbean. It's my own fault; I haven't posted since February.

I closed my Prodigy account quite some time ago, but my neglected webpage is still there. I also used it to store photos that I link to in my blog. Now I'm going to try FLICKR to store and link pictures. Let's see how it goes:

I loved this picture...

...so I thought I would share it. Raquel took this picture of Lourdes. Seems like she's in the middle of a statement or blink or something. Or maybe she's really tired. Or part Asian.

Scooby-dooby-doo, where are you?

At the hockey game of course!

We went to see the Rivermen this afternoon and Scooby Doo was there. When Lourdes saw him, she went nuts over him like she did when she saw Chuck E. Cheese. She screamed, she jumped, she completely went rigid with excitement. Scooby was kind enough to let us take a picture with him and Lourdes didn't want to let him go. We followed him a little bit and when the kids cleared out, we set Lourdes down and she ran over to him and grabbed his legs and wouldn't let him go.

The Riverman have a mascot called the Captain. One of these days we're going to have to introduce him to Lourdes. She's already crazy about him, I'm sure she'll love to meet him.

Part baby, part flying monkey

She's a daredevil!!




No fear.

How much does a Fisher-Price horse eat?

Please let us know!!

Cold water

I've been a member of the American Legion for several years. One of the benefits of being a member is to receive The American Legion Magazine. I don't always read the entire magazine. I usually thumb through it and occasionally read an article. There's always a page (most times it's the last page) of jokes. I almost always read the jokes because the majority of the time the jokes are not funny. I don't know why I enjoy reading these bad jokes but I always torture myself with them. Every so often there will be a joke that I consider funny. I've often thought that when I find a joke from this magazine, I should post it here to share with everyone. So here goes the first installment of "FUNNY JOKE FROM THE AMERICAN LEGION MAGAZINE".

This one is from the February 2005 issue and the joke is not credited to anyone.

Jim went to visit his 90-year-old grandfather. The next morning, his grandfather prepared a breakfast of eggs and bacon. Jim noticed a filmy substance on his plate and asked, "Are these plates clean?" His grandfather replied, "Those plates are as clean as cold water can get them, so go on and finish your meal."

That afternoon, while eating hamburgers his grandfather made for lunch, Jim noticed tiny specks around the edge of his plate and what appeared to be dried egg yolk. He asked again, "Are you sure these plates are clean?" Without looking up from his hamburger, his grandfather answered, "I told you, those dishes are as clean as cold water can get them. Don't ask me about it no more!"

Later that afternoon, Jim left to get dinner in a nearby town. As he was leaving, his grandfather's dog started to growl and wouldn't let him pass. Jim yelled, "Grandpa, your dog won't let me out."

Without diverting his attention from the football game on TV, his grandfather shouted, "Coldwater, go lie down!"

This has been the first installment of "FUNNY JOKE FROM THE AMERICAN LEGION MAGAZINE".

Part baby, part monkey

Okay, Lourdes has grown a lot in the last few weeks, but check this out: SHE'S TRYING TO CLIMB THINGS!!

Now for something completely different: I noticed that in one of my many, many postings last year, I talked about our new arrival Pancho. I said that he's a cutie and maybe I'll post pics later. Well I guess it's later cause here's finally a picture of him. Just a quick reminder, Pancho is a wiener dog (miniature dachshund) and in Paraguay they say Pancho for hot dog, so that's how he got his name.

Chuck E., The Sequel

Angela brought in some pictures of our Chuck E. Cheese adventure. Thank you for sharing, Angela!

As I was scanning a picture into the computer and then manipulating the size, Lourdes went bananas. She pointed and screamed at the following picture.

So I had to print out her own copy to put in her little photo album!

Who knew my daughter could love a rat?

Saturday was a busy day. We got up and moving fairly early. Fairly early for us that is. Usually a day off is spent sleeping in or lounging around most of the morning. But we things to do, people to see, places to be.


We first packed up our laundry and went to the laundromat. We left directly from there to go to Chuck E. Cheese's to meet some friends. Our friend has a little boy who is just a few months older than Lourdes and he apparently had a terrific time at Chuck E. Cheese's not too long ago.


Lourdes seemed to enjoy the little toddler rides - as long as they weren't moving. When the ride started moving, she had a look of not-quite-terror-but-close-enough on her face. But she definitely like looking at everything. The funny part was when we went to see Chuck E. while he was admiring all the patrons who were adding to his 401k. Lourdes saw Chuck E. and went absolutely bananas! Her face turned red, she stiffened her body and started shaking and screaming! She LOVED Chuck E.! All her commotion was like someone winning Publisher's Clearinghouse. We thought she would be scared of him, but she was completely drawn to him. She touched his face and grabbed his hand. A little later we watched Chuck E. with a bunch of children gathered around him dancing. Lourdes was still going nuts, screaming and kicking. On the way out, we bought her a Chuck E. doll which she immediately hugged and would not let out of her hands.



From Chuck E.'s, we went home to relax for a while before heading out to a Riverman game. We've been to several hockey games this season and the Riverman are turning things around a bit. They got off to a slow start, but have won a high percentage of their games lately. Saturday night they were playing Toledo. The Rivs had moments where they looked really good and more where they looked bad. Toledo would score, then the Rivs would score. In the third period, it was tied at three and the Rivs looked like they might salvage a win. Suddenly, a defender fell down and it was a breakaway, two on our goalie. Toledo handled the puck well and snuck one in to take the lead. Peoria had about a minute to try and answer so they pulled the goalie to have an extra man trying to score. Unfortunately, there was a faceoff near center ice and Toledo managed to put the puck in the open net out of the faceoff! That was it for the Rivermen. Less than a minute left, there was no real chance of a comeback so people started to leave the arena. I wanted to wait until the bitter end in case there was a fight. I wasn't disappointed (well I was disappointed about the loss) because with about 15 seconds left a couple of guys started duking it out. I don't think a hockey game is complete without a couple of fights. If we don't win the game, we should at least make them pay for it.

Later!

Everybody was kung-fu fighting

I know it's been a while since I posted so you don't have to remind me.

Guess what?! Lourdes is walking!! She pretty much started right around Christmas with a couple of awkward steps followed by a fall. In no time at all it turned in to trips across the room. Now she's completely mobile and pretty smooth at it as well. I think she'll be running by February!

Latest word on our upcoming trip to Paraguay is...it's on hold until we get some paperwork from Immigration. We're hoping that in March or April we'll be able to go. Cross our fingers! The family is very eager to see their little grandbaby.