Merry Christmas!

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After having to look at the dog-headed picture for over a week, I thought I owed you. Merry Christmas!

HT: Chad, whose wife, btw, is having their second baby - perhaps even as I type. Congratulations, Chad!

Stuff Happens

So much has happened in October, our heads are still spinning.

Here's the latest: We got a new vehicle - a 2004 Ford Expedition. Our phat minivan was on its last leg: It smoked constantly and refused to start O so often. I had taken to calling it the Old White Dragon for all its smoking and stinking. It needed to go. We've put a couple thousand into it for the past two years just to keep it running and there was no way it was going to make it through all our traveling during the holidays - especially through the Virginias on the way to Michigan.

Now, the Expedition is sweet and I never thought I'd own one due to its price tag, but we had to have something to meet the needs of our family. I'm still unsure whether we'll be able to afford it, but I can eat ramen noodles and potatoes for a while. The minivan was packed like sardines with five kids in it - not to mention luggage and what not. The Expedition is roomy for our family and still has an extra seat just in case our gracious Lord blesses us with another child. We considered going to a 15-passenger van, but thought this would be a nice compromise until we absolutely had to go Mammoth. The gas mileage isn't great, but then it's not much different than our minivan was running and would be comparable to a 15-passenger van.

Laura suggested that it was somewhat of a status symbol, which if you knew our "status" is a knee-slapper. I said it might be a status symbol if we had only two children. Since we fill up the thing, it's a symbol only of our fecundity and not our finances.

The vehicle was not in our lava-stone driveway for 15 minutes before Will had succeeded in falling out of the back of the truck onto his head. A rock gashed him nicely and earned him an all-expenses-paid trip to the ER. He received two staples in his head. Such is life with small monkeys and curious raccoons.

He is doing quite well and seems, if possible, more rambunctious than usual - causing my heart to flutter into spasms and yet even more of my hair to shock into white.

I've considered shaving that patch of his head and making the staples visible for Halloween - then we could go in the direction of zombie or Frankenstein's monster quite nicely. But I suppose the hair does protect the wound and I probably ought to leave it alone. Man, that would be a sweet costume though. It might be worth an infection or two.

Anyway, that is my News of the past three days - October has been full with days like that. The good news is that fall temperatures have finally reached us and we even had a week of rain. I may need to mow that lawn yet.

Enjoy your Halloween celebrations. We'll be spending a good chunk of our day crafting and eating candy. I think I'll have to make up some "ghoul-ash" for supper tonight.

Oof!

Greetings from the pigpen.

More later, but for now it's enough to say that my family and I are all well. I apologize for the zero postings in the last two weeks. There was Thanksgiving, of course. Then, when we finally were able to come home (long story involving the Plague and the minivan), I plugged my Mac in and it just crackled at me darkly. It was probably pissed at being left alone for so long. Regardless, I drove down to Charlotte and picked up the repaired machine from the Apple Store tonight. The Geniuses (that's not sarcasm tonight, by the way) had to replace the logic board and the power supply. It was all covered under our Apple Protection Plan (APP), praise God. The APP is usually of no substantial help, since most of our problems with the computers are child related, but it worked in our favor this time.

I have loads of freelancing due Friday, so I won't have much of a presence posting this week either. But you'll be OK.

I'm looking forward to catching up on my blog reading, but it may take some time.

I hope your holidays were happy.

Michigan

Me and the Crue are heading to Michigan in a week, braving the cold and the gray, braving two holidays being pressed into one.

We'll be celebrating Christmas with my side of the family after Thanksgiving (I imagine it will be on Saturday, though Who knows?).

We're driving through the night, we've decided. It usually works out well: Kids sleep, wife sleeps (if only fitfully), Dad sleeps (if constantly interrupted by those annoying rumble strips). We get to Michigan the next morning, and, for the most part, it's as if the trip never happened. Then I collapse on the couch and nap until it's time to drive home again. All around, Good Times.

Maybe I'll pick up a DVD player so I can watch movies while I drive. Or maybe get some movies on CD at the very least. Or do they just do books?

I suppose coffee is always a good option, or a 2-liter bottle of diet Mountain Dew with loads of chips and candy. ("Ew," he shudders.) That just doesn't sound as appealing to me as it did when I was in college. But I'll make it work - suggestions are welcome.