Today I sent out letters to Bill Ford of the Lions and the GM or owner of every other NFL team. I informed the Lions that I have had enough of them and will no longer waste my time being a fan. I informed all other NFL teams that I was looking for a new team and wanted to know if they would be willing to have me as a fan. I’ve decided that the team giving the best response will be my new team. I kind of expect to never hear from any of them, but you never know. I might get some form letters or something.

Tonight was Father’s Night for Missy at preschool, Monday was Alex’s. Both nights were basically the same; we colored together for a while, then the teachers passed out the portraits that the kids had done and we guessed who was who (Alex was too excited...he couldn’t keep it a secret. That’s you, Daddy!), then go to the gym to watch a video of LarryBoy and the Fib From Outer Space, which scares both of the kids. Maybe they didn’t have enough time to plan a real fun night kind of thing like last year because so many days have been cancelled. Anyway, we all had fun. Missy loved having a night out with Daddy, we almost never get to do things just the two of us.

I’ve worked hard on the guest bedroom this weekend; I’m really in the home stretch now. I made yet another trip to Lowe’s Friday, this one for 2 sheets of drywall and some more insulation, and spend a few hours each day this weekend working down there. Saturday Beth and I also went to Lowe’s again to buy a new gas grill with our property tax refund, and what with all the beef in our freezer now. Later on we got Katie to babysit and went to Fort Wayne to spend our B&N gift cards we got for Christmas and get sushi for dinner. We spent a LOT of money on sushi. It was one of those bills that makes you say "waah" when you get it. Earlier in the week, Beth got to go to the dentist to have a crown. Seems she cracked a tooth somewhere along the line. She gets the permanent one in a few weeks.

We got our half of the cow today. Our freezer is PACKED.

Friday we had some people come over to look at the sectional, but what they really wanted was a mirror image of what we have. Virgil & Sherri came over later on and we pooled dinner. Tomorrow is Beth’s birthday, and we were supposed to celebrate it this weekend, but it didn’t quite work out the way it was supposed to. I had arranged for Renee to babysit from about noon on Saturday until around 9pm or so, while Beth and I went to FW to spend some Christmas gift card money at Barnes & Noble, see a movie, and have sushi for dinner. Anyway, I had a meeting Saturday morning, and when I got home Beth told me "we have a problem." Renee (and Jacob) had been sick with something like the flu all night. Sooooo, we took the kids with us. Of course, we can’t take them into a B&N, so we made an appointment from them to have pictures taken at Picture People at the mall, and we took them with us. We discovered toothpaste on Alex’s shirt after we got there so Beth ran out to find another at a store across the way, but I must say however that they were great. The seemed in to mood to have their pictures taken. They listened, did what was told to them, looked at the camera and smiled...and we got some great shots of them. We also hit the Disney Store and got some sales; Alex found a Mack the truck from "Cars" and Missy found a plush Dumbo, which she loves more than anything. After getting our pictures, we decided not to keep the kids out there until dinnertime because neither one of us would enjoy dinner if we did, and they certainly wouldn’t eat sushi. So we went home.

Today Beth and I did something we haven’t done in...maybe ever. We saw TWO movies today. We took the kids to Goshen to see "The Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything" at a matinee show, then a little later we got Katie to babysit and went out to dinner and to see "National Treasure: Book of Secrets." The Pirates movie had the exact opposite effect as desired: the kids were scared. The pirate fighting parts, the carnivorous cheese curls, the rock monsters...too much. Beth liked it but I thought it dragged and didn’t care for it much. National Treasure, however, I found very entertaining, maybe even more than the first one. I had no expectations for it, maybe that was the key.

Tomorrow I am going back to work. I’ve had the full 2 weeks off, so I can’t delay it any more. The past week we’ve kept mostly at and around home; I spent my Lowe’s Christmas gift card this week and then some, and have been working on the room downstairs. The triple-wide closet is turning into a double wide and an extra clothes closet, so I had to borrow Virgil to help me hang a door in straight yesterday and borrow a Remington from Lance today. We did nothing at all special for New Year’s, but a few days ago we took the kids bowling simply because they asked to, and we said why not? Oh, and the recall on the van that we’ve been getting notices about for a year...got that taken care of too. And we put the sectional sofa up for sale on Craig’s List.