And Mom and Dad can Hardly Wait for School to Start Again�

�sigh�what a nice, relaxing week we�ve had here at home. It�s a pity we have to go back to work on Monday. It has been very cold this week, causing the kids to be stuck in the house the entire week. I think we are ready to go back to work / school actually. We can only take so much! 😉 On Monday, we continued to get a healthy amount of snow and the temperatures cooperated long enough to allow us to go out to the sled hill for the last sled day of 2009. Abby�s friend Megan had spent the night with us, so there were 5 of us (Ann pooped out on us) that braved the hill on that cold Monday afternoon. We had a blast, staying out for about two hours. Matt (who, of course, knows everything at age 13�much like I did�) wouldn�t listen to me when I told him to wear two pairs of long socks. Needless to say, after about 10 minutes, his feet were cold, so he had to return to the van for about half an hour to defrost his lower appendages! 🙁 We wore the thin layer of snow down to mud ruts and discovered a couple new routes out of necessity. Abby and I had the longest straight distance, having to actually put on the brakes when we got to within a foot of the creek! Matt & I had the longest total distance, taking the red rocket for a 30 second trip. Of course, there were many wipeouts; but thankfully no injuries�not even any tears! 😛 When we got home, we were all cold and wet. But by the time we got on warm clothes to heat up the outsides of our bodies, Ann was ready with hot chocolate to help warm our insides�thanks honey! Looking back at these photos now and seeing the sheer joy in Luke’s face in every one of these pictures makes me wish I could take him sledding every day of his life.

On Tuesday, Ann had to go back to work. That night, we broke out a few of our new family games from Christmas. We enjoyed a few games of Sorry Sliders, a new take on an old favorite of ours. Lucas was the big winner of the night. After Lukey went to bed, we also played a rather long game of scrabble. It was fun to play with this updated version of the old standard. We upgraded from a very old (seventies?) version. Some of the new features include a swiveling game board (now no one has to be upside down!) and walled grids for the tiles to sit upon (so they don�t slide around). Although Ann was winning for most of the game, Matt came up with a last minute word that more than doubled his total and won him the game. We had Molly spayed last week. Although we�ve not seen her have any troubles, we did notice she had developed a lump at the incision � but we were told that could happen. She hasn�t slowed down a bit. We were actually hoping it would help to mellow her out a little, but she is still 100% puppy! Don�t get me wrong; she is a pretty laid back dog for the most part�but she loves to play.

On Wednesday, Ann again had to work. It�s amazing that if we had wanted the kids to get up to go to school, they would�ve wanted to sleep in�but, as it was; we were able to sleep in as late as we wanted�but wouldn�t you know that they�d want to get up at the butt-crack of dawn with their mother! After lunch, we started a game of Monopoly that lasted so long…we were still playing when Ann got home from work that night! Matt was the winner in that game as well. Luke has said the funniest things this week. It started with us sitting at the table, playing games when he commented that one of his toots was �spicy.??? We laughed so hard, it brought us to tears! A few days later, I noticed he had made his bed. I commented on how nice it was and asked if he was going to try and keep it nice. He nonchalantly commented, �Yeah; that way my wife and I won�t have to make it again.??? 😛 Due to the frigid weather this week (our average highs have been in the lower teens), the Xbox and Wii have gotten a lot of playing time this week as well. Mom and I got our new webcams working and got Skype installed, so we have enjoyed a couple �Jetson � style??? video phone calls. This is just the coolest darn thing�

On Thursday, it was New Year�s Eve. Ann spent the entire day cleaning and cooking. She made all kinds of yummy snacky-type foods. She had a new variation of her polish mistakes, putting the innards in a dough wrap. She had some new kind of ham and cheese tarts, spinach & artichoke dip, veggies and her Shallo�s dip, as well as sloppy Joe, antipasto and taquitoes�among other stuff I can�t remember now. :0) Suffice it to say there was plenty of food for days to come! Mom & Sandy came over early in the evening. We played a few hands of euchre. They beat Ann & I in 2 out of 3 games and then bailed on us when Mike, Natalie and the kids arrived. It was a quiet evening, as we were good boys and girls. We only had a couple of beverages the whole night. We played boys vs. girls euchre and the boys were dominant (as usual)�did the girls even win a game that night??? 😛 I guess they may have won a couple� Brayton and Matt disappeared in to the play room and didn�t budge off the Xbox the entire evening. Abby had Megan over again, but she left before midnight. They enjoyed putting on makeup and harassing the boys. Luke & Brody played good all night, only getting grumpy at the very end of the evening. Everyone saw the New Year roll in and we celebrated it with Dick Clark again. He still sounds awful�and I noticed that although it�s called his �Rockin� Eve,??? there wasn�t any rocking at all�a few rap songs, but that was it. Daughtry helped count down the ball-drop; but it was only a tease, as they didn�t play � only some rap guys. We also noticed that only 3 channels had any kind of live coverage and they were all lame�and were only on the air for about an hour. I remember that all the major channels used to have something and Dick used to be on for three hours or more. Ever the party host, Ann provided some very hip hats and glasses to help usher in the New Year as well.

Gigi woke us up early the next day, making a food run for her and Maryann. We had so many leftovers that it fed us the rest of the week! Brayton stayed the night with Matt on both New Year�s Eve and New Year�s Day. The boys enjoyed staying up late, sleeping in, watching football, eating and playing Xbox�oh, and tormenting Luke & Abby! 😛 I especially liked watching football with the boys since they are now of the age now where we can talk about it and enjoy each other�s company. On New Year�s Day, Ann made our traditional Rebel Dog lunch to ensure luck and prosperity. The bowl games were really fun to watch, for the most part. However, one thing we noticed the officiating was consistently sub-par. We loved watching the #4 nationally ranked Boilers crush the #6 West Virginia team. They really looked impressive! On Saturday, Brayton went home. We continued to take it easy, hang out and watch bowl games. That night, we got out the Hot Wheels track and held a tournament. This time, Dad came away with the title! 🙂 We looked forward to rooting on the Cowboys (who won and wrapped up the #3 seed in the NFC) and Colts (who again rested their starters and lost…honestly, it felt like a preseason game) on Sunday and enjoying our last day off before reality settles back in upon us. I love the hats the Cowboy players were wearing after the big win (NFC Champions)!! Luke’s kindergarten teacher called him to wish him a Happy New Year (how cool is that?) and later he went over to Christy’s house to visit with his best friend Alex. Here is a montage of video clips from this week:

Now its time for some Waybac photos… Leading off this week is an old one of Mom O. I bet this one is from the 40s. I think she said this was her and one of her cousins.

Here are five from the sixties. The first is a family portrait of the Brown family in their living room in 1963. The next three are from 1965. There�s Great-Grandma & Great-Grandpa Morgan in the spring; Great-Grandma Morgan w/ Aunts Inez & Jo during the summer; and then a classic one from Christmas at Aunt Norma�s: Mom B, Brenda, Cathy and perhaps Aunt Sharon and her two kids. The final one of the sixties is Keith from about 1969 in his class picture.

Next up are the seventies. The first one is Ann, Dee & Keith at their home by the high school. The second is of Ann from about �78 in a class picture. Then there are two from Christmas in 1979. We were in California for this one. The first is Mom B. and the second is me proudly displaying my new Ace Frehley shirt!

Next stop is the �totally tubular� 80�s (that’s for you, Matt!). We start with Rob and Schnappsie at Grandmaw & Grandpaw Brown�s house. Then there’s Nathan & Katie with myself in our Kenwood St. kitchen at Christmas in ’81. Here�s Ann with a couple of her dolls in approx. 1981 also. As Abby just pointed out; she is now the proud owner of those dolls. The next one is late December of 1987, after Christmas. Rob & I are breaking in the Mario game on his new Nintendo. The next one is Dee Dee�s school picture around 1987. The last one is Grandpaw Brown in his jammies at our house on Christmas morning, 1988.

Finally, we have three from the 90�s. The first one is Mo & Poppy from around 1990. The next one is approximately 1992 with Grandpaw playing euchre with Uncle Kenny at one of their fish fries. The last one is another one of Matt with his Uncle Rob in September of �96 at our old apartment in Columbus.

Thanks as always for keeping up with us this past year and starting off the new one with us as well. We�ll catch up with you again next time. Until then, have a good one.
Later, Scheu