I Bang on that Thing �til I get Blisters on my Hands

Hello again and welcome to another edition of our little world. It was an interesting week. The weather pretty much stunk, raining nearly the entire week. On Monday, my friend and ex-boss came to visit for the week at work. He now holds the job of Regional Compliance Officer for our corporate office. It was great to visit with him and go out to lunch each day�and I am thankful for all the help I can get! Ann and Abby spent the night at the dance studio as usual. Matt received a certificate and letter at school today, during an assembly, for his GPA. I wish we could’ve attended. This is his 9th letter in 6 different areas (football x 2, basketball x 1, wrestling x 1, track x 2, band x 2 and honor roll x 1) of his Jr. High career so far! We also received our photo from the Colts game in the mail.

On Tuesday, Matt had wrestling practice, but otherwise we had a quiet night�aah� He brought home is school pictures (finally). That night, I came across this video from my fraternity brother and local celebrity, Dave Gunner (one of the coolest videos I’ve seen in a while!!):

On Wednesday, Matt had Pep Band practice early � before school. He seems very happy to be playing this year, compared to last. I think this may be the rationale for him not going out for basketball this year. He won�t admit it, but they do clash with one another. He is their only percussionist this year, so his presence is key� Luke made me a nice little picture for Grandpaw Bryan that evening.

On Thursday, Matt had wresting practice before going to the Jr. High basketball game to perform in the Pep Band. They sounded pretty good. He looked like he was really enjoying himself up there. It was difficult to get pictures of him, as they are way up in the rafters on the home side of the court. We were a little late getting there and had to sit in the front row, at court level. We sat next to our neighbor, Mr. Dodds, of all people. I ended up going up on the visitor�s side of the gymnasium, directly across from the band � and right in the heart of enemy territory! It is a dark place to take pictures and although I was able to clean them up a little, the video really suffered. I hesitated to even put it up, but I promised Grandma and Gigi� Ann came home with us and immediately took off for Columbus again. She met up with her friends from work and they all went over to catch the midnight premier of New Moon. She said it was absolutely packed. After a short stint at the Garage Pub, they were off to the movie theater. Although they arrived 2 hours before it started; they still couldn�t find any of the 8 theaters with enough seats to sit together. I can�t imagine sitting in a movie theater for two hours before the feature started�I get anxious enough when I have to sit for 10 minutes! 😛 She said it was only okay and wasn�t sure if she would do it again for the third movie.

Friday night, Ann was out again; this time she went scrapbooking at Mrs. B�s with Amy and the other usual crew. The kids and I stayed in and played Wii all night. She picked up a really nice scanner from one of the gals at scrap booking. It�s a really sweet Canon 8800F. It is a flatbed that also does negatives and slides. The one she picked up for me at Kohl�s ended up breaking and so she returned it. We received a bunch of pictures from Aunt Sharon. There was one in particular with the three generations of Smith�s in the leaves I had to share. Abby brought home her Super Sleuth card�as well as midterms. Both Bu and Matt have a little work to do� They weren�t terrible, but they were definitely not up to the standards they need to be either.

On Saturday, we put up the Christmas trees. It took us nearly all day to complete it. The kids enjoyed hearing all the stories and memories behind the majority of the ornaments. Ann & I exchanged our new ones for this year. She gets annual, dated, porcelain snowmen through Lenox from me and I get the latest Hot Wheels ones from her. We are so frustrated with that tree of ours. We spent good money to get a pre-lighted tree (to take the cussing out of Xmas!). It has been such a disappointment to watch over the last few years as one by one, section after section, the lights start to fail on the tree. Part of it is also me not getting it put back together as well, I�m sure. But this year, only 1 small strand worked on the entire tree. 🙁 But, we got it looking pretty good. There were over a hundred ornaments we didn�t put on the tree this year�and that is after filling the boys� tree as well as Abby�s. Abby was the big winner this year, as she found the ugly orange bulb and got the privilege of putting it on the tree this year! Ann made a huge amount of popcorn (which we ate every last kernel) and we watched Charlie Brown Thanksgiving for the first time this season. We were all asleep early, worn out from the day�s work.

Sunday started off like most of our Sunday�s do�quiet. Luke & I were up early and the rest joined us in due time. Matt made five videos � where he �elf-ed ourselves!??? I will share 1 each week over the next month. A couple of the videos are a little better than others, but they�re all cute. He did a good job with the heads! Ann ended up going to Columbus to do some Thanxmas shopping (you might remember that term from last year). Our Thanxmas will be next week, as Keith & Rosie are due to be in from New York in only a couple days. While the gals were gone, I received a call from work, saying that a resident had knocked off a sprinkler head and there was a huge mess. So I called my crew and we all headed in. I have to give the guys credit; they did a great job of helping me to get everything cleaned up and back in to order. It smelled awful when we got in. As they both live closer than I do, they easily beat me in to work. They already had the water stopped and the head changed over. I just helped with the cleanup and communication with the fire department (gave me an excuse to call Allen � who was on duty) and our monitoring company a couple times each. I have to hand it to the boys (Gary & JT), they did a great job�and during the Colts game of all things! I see where they and the Cowboys both squeaked out a win. As if things couldn�t get any worse, Matt forgot that he had a recording session at school for a band fund raiser as the Colts game began. Worse yet was that neither Ann nor I remembered! Worst of all, the band director actually called us and I let it go to voice mail as I was doing laundry and trying to hurry up and watch the Colts game – and didn’t bother to check the message. We all feel so awful�and we’re uncertain how it will impact his grade in that class… 🙁

Let�s go to some Waybac pictures to get rid of that sinking feeling I have in the pit of my stomach right now�
First up, we start in April of 1964 for Mom B. Looks like a hot date that night! 😉 This was taken in Grandpaw & Grandmaw’s kitchen in Lafayette.

Next we have a couple from the 70’s. The first is of me with Aunt Midge at her house in 1969. The second is Granmaw & Grandpaw Brown with my cousins Wendy, Brent and Stephen at Norma & Ralph’s home during Christmas, 1975.

Here are four from the early eighties. The first one is Rob with Grandpaw Brown in Grandmaw’s chair in his living room on January 10, 1980. The second one is Rob & I with Great Grandpa Morgan on Thanksgiving 1981 in Grandmaw & Grandpaw’s house. The third one is Dad B and I during Christmas 1981. I think this one was taken in the Kenwood home in LaPorte. The final one is Uncle Dan and Nathan about 1982-ish at their home in Kokomo.

Next we have two Christmas pictures from my college days. The first one is Rob & Dad B in our Rockwood home in 1989. The second one is Rob, Dad B, Grandpaw and I in the dining room, again in LaPorte, in 1990.

Here are two great pictures from the mid-nineties. The first one is Dad B with his buddy Terry at the condo in Florida. I love how you can see his face and the water is flowing out the bottom of his pants on to the floor! This is a great shot!! Sadly, Terry passed away a few years ago from cancer, I think. He was a prankster. I don’t have a date, but I’m guessing 1994-ish (t-shirts in other pix state “6th annual Week 19 bash”). Our final photo for this entry is Matthew at his 1st birthday party in our townhouse in Columbus on March 22, 1997