A Great Beginning to a New Year

After ringing in the new year with a rousing game of Killer Bunnies with our fabulous in-laws (minus one, who was home with a back injury), we set off on a family vacation.

We drove to San Diego, took a cruise to Cabo San Lucas and Ensenada, and then returned to spend one more day in San Diego.

Last Christmas we took a vote as a family and decided that instead of the traditional gift-a-palooza Christmas, we would go on one last big family vacation together. I mean "last" in the sense that Big Brother is now a freshman in college and seems to have other interests that don't include hanging out with his family. His time is consumed with friends, school, work and fishing, not necessarily in that order. So, this was our one last intricately orchestrated attempt to create family memories.

The vacation itself zoomed by in a nano-second, after almost a year of saving and planning... and it was worth every penny.

And we are offering to share it with you here....

Stay Tuned...

The Holdaways will be returning to the Land of Blogz shortly.

Beans-oh-beans

^This is the dog 4 Years ago.... Grotesque


^But, this is the dog today.... Beautiful!

This is Hobbes, my dog. She is also known as Beans, Beese, Binks, Mupper star pupper star SUPER star, Loodle McNoodle and Wussy-lion. She was born on March 23, 2003 (My birthday). She wasn't wanted by my mom or dad until I just thought it would be cool to bring her home and as soon as I did she was accepted. Lately, she has put on like 30 pounds and is lazy as ever... I think she may be "Mentally Deficient", as told to me by my friend and she kinda is. Definitely not the brightest dog, or most active, or fun, or skinny, but loving all the same.

When a Good Man Makes Bad Dinner

It started innocently enough with a phone call.

J: You called?
D: Yes, where are you at?
J: Just getting off the freeway.
D: Do me a favor?
J: Sure, what is it?
D: Can you stop and grab a pizza?
J: I thought you were making dinner?
D: I did, but I tried to throw something together, and well… it pretty much tastes like ass.

So I get home after grabbing the pizza (oh-so-thankful for the new Little Caesar’s that just opened nearby) and inspect D’s attempts at dinner. Normally he is an inventive, creative chef and some of the most “interesting” looking dishes are quite amazing.

This was sitting on the stovetop when I got home.




It doesn’t LOOK like it tastes like ass. I mean, you can’t really ruin pasta dishes. Can you? Little Brother and I both decide it can’t be THAT bad, and grab a forkful. At first taste, its actually not terrible, but OH. MY.GAH. The aftertaste! I couldn’t quite place it… until I noticed the contents of the trash can.

Seriously? Cream-of-fecking-celery? With diced tomatoes and parmesan cheese? Really? REALLY?

But here’s the kicker. D says it’s not the celery. He asks do I detect a hint of vanilla? Apparently he was attempting to make Alfredo sauce and we didn’t have any heavy cream, so he substituted a little of this instead.

Bon Appetit! Dinner is served!

P.S. This is not the only food-related anecdote in our family. The "Great Minestrone Soup Incident" will be a point of disagreement in our family for years to come. Some day when there is the time and energy to spend, that story can be retold in it's full glory.

Who Rocks the House?

Little Sister would like to share this cheer for her Big Sister.

Who rocks the house?
My sister rocks the house.
And when my sister rocks the house
She rocks it all the way around.
Unh!

http://uysa.affinitysoccer.com/tour/public/info/scoring_leaders.asp?sessionguid=&flightguid={06B9F14B-136B-4E07-A09F-88192E3120F5}&tournamentguid={3AB6FCBE-B141-426C-A2ED-D36765DE0EBC}

Yesterday Big Sister scored three, count ‘em three goals. This brings her to at total of 6 goals scored in 6 games.

The sad part of this… I have missed seeing 5 of them! But luckily D was there to see her in her moment(s) of glory! (BTW: I only missed two games. She scored 2 in one game and 3 last night, so I am not THAT much of a slacker mom!)

Way to go Lou Who!

FIXED!!!

Call off the alarms.... all is well.

Note to self: Do not attempt layout changes in the late evening hours. You know, after say... 8:00PM.

BROKEN!

I broke the blog.

In an attempt to make it more appealing, I RUINED IT!!!
I lost all the links, pictures and text on the side bar.
I can't update the layout anymore... I am stuck in the uninspired world of nondescript blogger default templates.
Dear Lord, what have I done???