Kevin and Rubi have been happily married and in love for over fifteen years and have three great kids. He's a Public Safety Communications Supervisor and a "fantastic fiction" geek. She's a wonderful wife and a great mom, and writes about computer games for a living at Massively.com. Kev and Rubi enjoy spending as much time together as they can given their busy lives.
Some millionaire is suggesting NASA send a married pair of astronauts on a roundtrip flyby of Mars 5 years from now. First off... if you're going to send people that far out, you might as well land them, otherwise it's just a Sunday drive. Sure, a Sunday drive that lasts over 2 years, but still...
But what if Rubi and I were the married couple taking this trip? Five hundred days alone together in a very small space, with no sunlight for Rubi to bask in. Our youngest daughter would only be 16 years old, and we've already traumatized her enough... leaving her at that age for almost 2 years would just be awful, or maybe as a teenager she'd love it - or we would! Who knows.
Here's how I see most of the days going on the trip: I spend most of my time reading, napping, and longing for pizza. Rubi spends most of her time reading and tweeting to her fans.
So pretty much like most days around here anyway - only without our kids, cats, jobs, etc.
We'll be married for 25 years in 2018, so it could be a second honeymoon for us. A honeymars? I'm not sure how Rubi would feel about that.
Everyone should write the company in support of me and Rubi being their honeymarsers!
One interview is at incgamers and kind of focuses on her new webcast: Guildcast TV which debuted last night (Thursday December 15, 2012). The other interview is at GuildMag and was just published today, but was actually done back in May of 2012.
Check `em out to learn more about what Rubi does! (And visit Guys Lit Wire!)
Christmas draws nigh and I'm sure many people are already finished with their Christmas Shopping. I'm one of those people that tends to put it off until December every year, and usually the back-half of the month.
This year, I've done more shopping online than in previous years. I scored a free Prime membership to Amazon, so shipping is free on just about anything I buy that Amazon ships (though not from their resellers). I'm just about finished buying for my wife - I could stop now and call it good, but I might try to pick up one or two more things for her - though I don't know what those would be just yet.
She and I are close to being finished shopping for our kids. We're completely finished shopping for our youngest daughter - deals for her gifts just seemed to fall into our laps this year and when we stopped to take stock of what we'd bought, we were surprised by how much stuff we had already bought... now we have to catch up on the other two kids. We do have some stuff for each of them, but we're not finished.
We also need to buy stuff for her parents, and maybe something else for my parents. We bought a little something for my parents, but I think I'd like to add to it.
As for myself, I had a mix of fun stuff and home-improvement stuff on my own gift list, in addition to all the cool stuff on my Amazon wish list. Some of the stuff on my list includes:
A kindle or other ebook reader.
Two ceiling fans for my house (to replace aging ones).
Two storm doors for my house (to replace aging or missing ones).
A tool chest of drawers and cabinets.
Geeky T-shirts, including anything Firefly/Serenity.
USB to HDMI adapter
Wireless laptop mouse
Saw horses.
A 13’ extension ladder (or thereabouts)
Those are some of things I've asked for this year. And hey, if you want to help me out... ;-)
I finally made it to my very first Gen Con this year! I only attended on Saturday, but I had a blast and hope to be able to attend more than one day in the future.
Gen Con is a staple of table-top gaming conventions; I’d say it’s the king. It seems like there’s never been a time I haven’t known of it. It moved to Indianapolis in 2003, which is close enough to me that I could at least make a day trip for one day. But for some reason I never managed to get around to it. This year, since my wife writes about computer games and I review books, we decided to try to make the trip. I could only get one day off from my day job though, so Saturday we got up at three o’clock in the morning and drove to Indy.
Our first stop was to meet some of Rubi’s coworkers for breakfast away from the con – next time we go, we’re doing the Tracy Hickman Breakfast. I’ve been hearing for years that it’s awesome, but since we only had one day this year, we had to scant time to do much. After breakfast, we drove into Indy proper and hit the convention center. Once checked-in, we flipped through the program to decide what to do.
While planning, we ran into a great cosplayer dressed as Darth Vader. A costumed violin player quickly set up near him while there was a crowd around and started playing the Star Wars theme, then transitioned into the Imperial March. That was a thing of beauty – impeccable timing and great talent! I really enjoy seeing all the costumes at cons.
Our first stop was the exhibition hall. We could have spent days in the exhibition hall. Especially with unlimited funding! I found so many things I wanted to purchase for myself, and for my family. One thing for future trips: we need to demo more games while in the exhibition hall.
As we were walking through the exhibition hall, Rubi found the line to see the cast of The Guild. I think the line stretched to Gary, Indiana and back. Rubi was crazy about speaking with Felicia Day in-person since she got to interview her for Massively Speaking, and she wasn’t able to swing an in-person interview during Gen Con for some reason. She opted to catch the after-lunch line instead of the current one.
We eventually made it to the Asmadi Games booth, where we had planned on replacing our missing We Didn’t Play Test This At All card game that we bought at PAXEast. However, they had a combo-deal that was too good to pass up – we got the card game, plus all its expansion decks, and the game Win, Lose, Banana! This purchase made the entire family happy. We also demo’d WDPTTAL, so we all got Cake! (That’s a card similar to the Banana card, only with Cake featured instead.)
By this time, we needed lunch. I’m cheap, so we hit the mall food court. After foodage, we headed back to the exhibition hall to make our round-about way to the line to see Felicia Day. Our first stop though was the art show. I was so impressed by the talent on display there. I see fantasy and science fiction art frequently and I know someone has to create that, but seeing the art right there on canvas with the artist sitting in front of it really brought that home for me. I saw more than one tip jar in the various art booths as well, to feed “starving artists”. They deserve every penny.
Authors’ Row was next to the art exhibit, so of course I had to stop and see if anything interested me. (Note to self: don’t do this anymore unless you plan on taking more money with you, or blatantly asking for review copies.) I did find several interesting books and Rubi talked me into buying one that sounded interesting to all of us. I traded business cards with another author, who upon reading my card, asked if I wanted a review copy. Of course I do! But only if the author is okay with giving me one. This author had a very nice hard-back ARC of his novel that had been autographed to another fan. The book had a small ding on the spine and the fan didn’t like that. Also, that fan had a very unusual name so the author couldn’t “recycle” the book for another fan with the same name. I happily took that copy and will be reviewing it soon. A few booths away was the artist who did the cover art for that book. His signature now adorns the cover of my review copy.
As we were wandering through the art exhibit, Rubi noticed a sign declaring an artist that did concept art for her favorite MMO would be there later. Later being while she was in-line to see Felicia Day. We walked her down to the line, where she’d have to wait for an hour or more, and returned to the art and author exhibit to finish our browsing and make finalize our purchases. Then went over and chatted with the artist for a bit. Rubi’s co-worker Justin asked some great questions and the artist was nice enough to provide some great answers.
A fun part of this trip was bringing our oldest daughter, Lizzy, with us to Gen Con. She’s been itching to go to a con, loves seeing the cosplayers, and wanted to pick up some con swag if possible. While Rubi was in line, I took our daughter around and she managed to get some fun buttons and some kind of plushy manga character. Rubi’s coworker Justin, hung out with us most of day too. That was a blast. I wish we had had more time to hang out with him and his family. While taking Lizzy around, Rubi called me to let me know she was almost at the front of the line and I needed to come take pictures. I sent Lizzy off to see the costume parade and visit the manga library while I met back up with Rubi and took pictures of her with the cast of The Guild.
After that, we decided, since it’s a gaming con, we had to at least try one game. We visited the Rio Grande Games room where Justin introduced to Dominion, which we must soon purchase. We enjoyed playing Dominion. We really should do more actual gaming next time we do Gen Con. While Rubi, Justin, and I played the game, Lizzy made it back to us and hung out for a few minutes, then went back to the exhibition hall to take some video on her phone.
I honestly don’t remember exactly what we did next. But eventually we ended up sitting on the floor near a pillar and playing We Didn’t Play Test This At All until Justin had to leave to meet back up with his family for their trip home.
After a quick dinner, in the mall again (next time, we must feast at the Red Dragon Inn), we got in line for our final event of the evening: The Guild panel. That was very fun, and Lizzy decided she needed to start watching The Guild. After the panel, we made our three hour drive back home and were in bed by midnight.
Long day, but well worth it. We all had a blast and now we’re jonesing for the next con we can go to as a family. Rubi’s heading out to PAX in September, but I won’t be able to go with her this time. I’m look for some inexpensive, closer to home, smaller cons that maybe we can do. We’ve already missed InConJunction this year, but there’s ConGlomeration a ways off around Easter next year.
Thanks to Gen Con for providing Sporadic Reviews with a media pass. I’ll get my reviews of the books I acquired at the con posted as soon as I can.
Yes, my wife took that picture. We walked by, and I said "Hey, I should get my picture taken with them!" in a wink-wink-nudge-nudge voice. Rubi answered "Don't think I won't take that picture, get over there!"
This is weird. My wife is almost a better geek than I am.
I'm proud to be a geek but I've never really been an active geek - participating in the culture, attending cons, etc. Mostly due to time constraints. When Rubi and I got married, she was so not a geek, and I suppressed my own inner geek a bit in order to focus more on growing a marriage and eventually a family. I still had a Star Wars poster hanging in our home, but that was about it (I still have that poster hanging in our home). Now that the kids are old enough to, well, be real people and not just crying pooping machines, I can let my geek hang out a little more.
What's cool is that apparently, over the years my inner geek has slowly influenced Rubi and turned her into an almost full-fledged geek. She's still learning some of the more esoteric aspects, but has embraced the life; playing computer games, hanging out in forums, attending cons, and writing about it for a living.
She may argue the point about whether or not she was a geek before meeting me. She played Mario Bros on the NES when she a kid, watched Blazing Saddles with her parents (and quoted from it). Perhaps she was just repressing her own inner geek until marriage and family made her comfortable enough to embrace geekdom. Her arguing that point is kind of like arguing if Star Wars is better that Star Trek.
We need to work on her a bit more though. There are times when the kids and I are just a bit too geeky for her. The other day at Target, Alexander and I got into a mock fight with a toy sword and battle axe. When I later told Lizzy about it she was offended we did that without her. Had Rubi been there, depending on her geek level that day, she might have grabbed a sword and participated or she might have pretended she didn't know us and walked away. I think sometimes it's better for all of us if she pretends she doesn't know us. Someone has to be respectable in this family!
Then there are times when she'll find something on the internet that is so incredibly funny and geeky that she'll call me into the room to share it with me and we'll both just about pee ourselves from laughing so hard. And no one else on the planet would find it anywhere near as funny as we did. Or she'll walk into a room full of quiet kids each going about their own tasks and say "Hey! You just lost the game!"
Ah, that's the life. Of geeks! And I'm glad it's my life.
Been quite awhile since we've blogged here. Our Facebook and Twitterstatusestell the story. To sum up: we've been busy, and micro-status updates are easier and more convenient to post than a lengthy, friendly blog update.
Back in September of 2009, Rubi got a job she'd been wanting for quite some time. She's now a writer for Massively - blogging about massive multi-player online games (MMORPGs). With the kids' schedules, the holidays, my crazy work schedule the last few months of last year, and the kids' winter break, it took Rubi quite awhile to settle in to a routine with her new job. She did, though, and is doing an amazing job - and even got her own column writing about Guild Wars, one of her favorite games.
Along with Rubi's new job comes new opportunities - we'll be traveling to Boston at the end of March to attend PAX East, a convention for computer games, board games, role playing games, dice games, card games, console games - basically any and all kinds of games are represented at this convention. Rubi will be working practically all of the time, interviewing people from the different PC gaming companies about their games. I'll be attending as her gopher, and also to have some fun of my own while she's busy (and to go to all the cool parties with her). We're also planning on attending the West Coast version of this convention over the Labor Day weekend.
At the start of the new year, I moved from my normal second shift hours of 3pm-11pm to a much more family friendly dayshift hours of 7am-3pm - which also has taken the family some getting used to.
Then mid-February (about 10 days ago), I slipped on the ice on the walk in front of our house, apparently did a mid-air flip to avoid my head or back hitting the concrete steps and concrete molding near me, heard a loud pop from my right ankle and was in quite some pain as I writhed on the snowy ground. Rubi called my coworkers (lucky me, "working at" 9-1-1) to ask for an ambulance for me. I griped at her during the call and made her hang up. I did not want to be the guy who took an ambulance to the ER for a sprained ankle (I had sprained the same ankle in high school, resulting in the need for crutches and a then cane and then a severe limp for several weeks). Shortly after I got her to hang up, I asked her to call back and go ahead and get me an ambulance. I figured I'd get seen, in and out of the ER, much quicker if I came in by ambulance than if I drove in and went through standard triage. While she was on the phone with the ambulance, they asked her their standard questions, including "Is he conscious and breathing?" to which she replied, "Oh yeah, he's awake and crabby!".
I did get right in to a room at the ER, saw a nurse (or three) pretty quickly and got to X-ray. Shortly after getting my ankle x-rayed three times, one nurse (who recognized me from high school) came in and told me I had broken my ankle and would probable need surgery to get screws put in, but she wasn't sure about the surgery part and the doctor would have to confirm that.
She came back a little later and confirmed I would need surgery and told me to go see the orthopedic surgeon the next day and would probably have surgery the day after that.
Sure enough, after seeing the orthodoc, he scheduled me for surgery the next day. I broke my ankle Monday afternoon, saw the doc Tuesday morning, and was in the hospital for surgery at 8am Wednesday. Getting into the hospital and prepped for the surgery took probably a couple three hours, the surgery was scheduled for 10:30am. The surgery lasted maybe 10-15 minutes - had 2 5mm screws put in to reattach my inner ankle bone pieces together - and I was in recovery until, I think, almost 5pm. Lortabs and an empty stomach didn't agree with me; I got a bit queasy. They put something in my IV (not phenergan, which is what I expected) to stop the nausea and it worked. By the time it had taken affect, I was ready to get up and walk out there I had been there so long. But they eventually wheeled me out in a wheelchair to my darling bride waiting with the van at the curb.
I've got a follow up appointment next week, where I hope to get this over-large, overly heavy splint off my leg and something smaller and more compact put on in place of it that's easier to dress around and easier to wrap so I can take a shower more easily. I asked the doc about the con in Boston, and he said I should be using a cane by then.
I ended up taking 3 sick days off of work, and a personal day to try and get used to having a broken ankle and dealing with it. I actually had 6 days off before I had to be back (those 4 days, plus two normal days for my weekend). My first day back, I only worked half a day - went home early. Worked the next day, when my boss brought me a nice wooden can wrapped in gold-colored ribbon and bow as a gift (the cane had been hers). Took another sick day to deal with continuing pain in my ankle, lack of sleep, and an upset stomach from taking pain killers on an empty stomach (when will I learn?!). And I'm back today working 12 hours overnight from 7pm to 7am.
In additon to my and Rubi's craziness, Alexander has had wrestling practice twice a week and/or wrestling matches, and Lizzy has art club and speech team; all after school, keeping us jumping all afternoon/evening some days picking up kids from school at different times, because none of those events ever end at the same time as each other.
And I think Lizzy has given up blogging here in favor of blogging at her Stuck in 7th Grade blog.
I've been writing book reviews sporadically over on my book review blog, and as mentioned earlier, Rubi and I have been facebooking and tweeting more often, and she and I started our own podcast. We have two episodes posted and hope to find the time to record more soon.
I did a decade in review first... then thought I might as well do a year in review as well.
January: Snowpocalypse! An ice storm forces us to spend a week with at Rubi's parents' house because ours was without power.
February: We got to come home!
March: uh... Daylight Saving Time began?
April: can't think of anything.
May: Duh, 15th wedding anniversary!
June: Massive remodeling project on the kids' rooms.
July: The kids spent a week with Rubi's parents. Awesome!
August: Rubi begins occasionally guest co-hosting Massively Speaking, the podcast from the website she will later become employed at.
September: Rubi gets hired on at Massively.com!
October: Rubi stresses over working two jobs, and her secratary job finally succumbs to the pressure. Kevin and Rubi start a podcast. Rubi's sister moves to Texas.
November: I have to work Thanksgiving. Again. The first episode of our podcast hits the feed.
December: We welcome Miss Kitty Fantastico into our home.
The first decade of the 21st Century: the naughts, the aughts, the naughties, the ohs?
Let's see what has transpired for The Bayer Family over the past decade.
2000: Alexander, our second child, is born. Yay! (Lizzy was born last century!)
2001: Catherine, our third child and second daughter, is born. Yay! (How'd that happen?)
2002: Lizzy started Kindergarten at the same private school I attended.
2003: I registered this blog... then waited a year to begin posting
2004: Rubi and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary on our first family trip to Walt Disney World! Thanks to Rubi's parents.
2005: I started reviewing books on this blog, and elsewhere, occasionally.
2006: Rubi and I became fans of Firefly via the DVDs.
2007: Our second family trip to Walt Disney World! Thanks Rubi's parents!
2008: Rubi and I took up in-line skating for the spring.
2009: Rubi and I celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary!
I am thankful for so much; God has blessed me in so many ways I could write a book of thankfullness. Instead, I'll summarize some of the high points.
I'm thankful for my bride Rubi, for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish for all eternity.
I'm thankful for our kids Lizzy, Alex, and Catherine: three very different but equally loveable, smart, and just plain cool.
I'm thankful for our families, hers and mine. We both have great parents and extended families and they are a true blessing to us both.
I'm thankful for my job, stressful as it is. At least I'm employed and have some semblance of job security - not everyone can say that.
I could go on and on, but I'll end with this quote that one of my bosses emailed the staff yesterday:
"Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion into clarity. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow."
-Melody Beattie
Thanks to an idea from my mother-in-law, I've added another CafePress Store with items themed around kids inadvertently seeing inappropriate words around them.
Buying from this store helps support The Bayer Family.
Here are some things I've learned about remodeling rooms:
-It's a pain in the neck - literally. I've had a kink in my neck for over a week and my shoulders are sore. I fell the other day and still hurt; and I also stepped on a nail.
-Let your kiddos help knock out walls and stuff. They're also good at carrying things to the trash and bringing you things when you need them, or finding tools you've misplaced.
-You might be surprised what you find behind the walls in an old house. When we first moved in and did some work on the home, we found a giant hand-drawn R2D2 on one of the walls in the Master Bedroom. This time around, we found an old Bingo ball behind one of the walls in the closet. We also found really nice, though poorly maintained, hardwood floors under all the carpeting.
-It's a good idea to wear sunscreen while standing outside on a hot summer day painting doors and trim.
-It's a bad idea to wear your only really good pair of jeans to paint.
-Cheap face masks should have an integral place in every tool box, and are a must when sanding or installing blown-in installation.
-Paint rollers never EVER rinse clean.
-When you purchase carpet to install in two rooms at separate times, it's a good idea to get the carpet cut into two separate rolls. It's much easier to carry that way.
-Apparently, previous owners that did all the additions and remodeling before us believed in the addage "you can never use enough nails".
-They also had problems with straight lines, squared corners, and keeping everything level. (Maybe they subscribed to my remodeling ethic: "GAH! Let's just get it done! Who cares if it's perfect!"
-And for some reason, they really liked pink: Pink on the walls in the bathroom, in a closet; I actually think they used pink as a primer... And this really nasty shade of green in places inside and on the shutters outside.
-They also wired the house so that just about whatever breaker you throw, something in each room turns off.
-During remodeling, someone will inevitable curse in front of the children. Cursing during remodeling is, in itself, inevitable.
Our current project, Alexander's room, isn't finished yet. I may have more tidbits once that's finished.
While Elizabeth was off at camp this week, Rubi's parents offered to help us remodel the room she and Catherine share. We planned it as a surprise for Elizabeth. She didn't know anything about it.
I've included some pictures taken during the past week.
First off - you can see why we decided to remodel:
We found some sticks in our driveway and thought they might be useful.
Rubi decided to nail them to the floor.
So I locked her in a closet, but she tore her way out.
The little kids helped her escape.
And they put me to work.
But I tried to escape through the ceiling.
They found me though.
And put both me and Rubi to work.
Rubi's dad tried to get away too, but Alexander stopped him.
Rubi didn't want to help, so they punished her.
Finally! The room was finished!
At least, I think that's how the week went.
It has been a long but industrious week. Rubi and I both are sore and tired, as are her parents. And the kids are finally settling back in after having the house in a major mess for a week.
When Lizzy got home yesterday afternoon from camp, the family surprised her with a sideways video!
(I was at work though).
A couple of months ago, my mom had hip replacement surgery on one hip. They thought it was going really well and that her recovery wouldn't take too long at all (her knee replacement surgery several years ago saw her recover in record time). But just a few days into her rehab, the replacement hip came loose. They went in and re-screwed it on with longer and more screws. During that rehab - it went bad and she got a bad infection. They had to take that hip out and put in a temporary place-holder made out of glue and antibiotics, that would stay in for 6 weeks (she's about half-way through that now and needs lots of prayer). During all this, my dad became very distraught. He just doesn't know what to do with himself without my mom home. He's afraid to drive without her there. My oldest sister is taking him out most days to visit my mom (because she works at the place where my mom is staying for her rehab) and she has her kids take him home sometimes. I run him out there sometimes too. I've taken him food, and arranged for Meals on Wheels to deliver him food. My mom's brother has also taken him some food. He needs prayer too.
After my mom is finished with this rehab period - they'll try to put in another hip - but not a normal hip because the bones wont support that. Then she'll have more rehab. And eventually she'll need the other hip replaced and hopefully that won't be as bad.
A few weeks ago one weekend we decided to remodel the bathroom and Alexander made an trip to the emergency room with pneumonia. He had been complaining off and on for about a week about his chest hurting. But it was kinda like "my chest hurts" and off he goes bouncing off the walls again. Then Friday of that weekend he said it was really bad, so we took him to his doctor. They couldn't find anything but ordered chest x-rays just in case. Those didn't show anything either so they attributed it to gas or acid reflux. Then that Sunday while we were remodeling our bathroom he was really complaining of chest pains. They were so bad that if even he tried to laugh, he'd cry. Needless to say, Rubi took him to the ER. And was there for about 6 hours where he was diagnosed with pneumonia. It wasn't bad, but it was in a spot where it rubbed right up against the pain nerves on his heart. They caught it soon enough because of the pain that it wasn't really bad and cleared up after about three days of antibiotics and breathing treatments (but he still had to finish out the treatments).
The bathroom remodeling we'd hoped would only take a few hours. It ended up taking several hours the first day and most of a 2nd day. And we still have to finish up the painting, but there's no real hurry on that bcause at least it's usuable now. Rubi's dad did most of the work ('cause he's good at that kind of thing) and I just kind of assisted ('cause I'm not good a that kind of thing). Since the project lasted more than a day, we ended up staying at Rubi's parents' house overnight because her parents are cool that way.
After that, Rubi's mom came over one day and they spent the day doing a massive spring-cleaning project, mostly on the girls' room. Then a few days after that, last Friday, Rubi's mom came over again and did a massive spring cleaning on our nasty detached garage - which has never been finished and is just used for storage. She made it usable for more storage. It's nice! I can't believe she put all that effort into it.
Plus, I've been focusing more on posting at my Book Review Blog and wasting time on Facebook.
I finally got to do something I've been wanting to do for years!
For some reason this morning, when my alarm went off - I turned it off instead of hitting snooze button a gazillion times like I usually do. As a result, I got up ...a little later than I expected. And oddly, my kids slept in too. Which is okay, because usually they get up way too early anyway - but now it was definitely time to get up and they were all still asleep. So...
I threw open the doors to their rooms, turned on their lights and started loudly singing:
Rise and Shine And give God the glory glory! Rise and Shine And give God the glory glory! Rise! And! Shine! And! Give God the glory glory! Children... time to get up!
I was so happy!! My kids were all "daaaaaad... zzzzzzz". I've been wanting to loudly sing them awake with that for years!
Friday afternoon Rubi and I took the kiddos to the annual Fall Festival, the "second largest street fair in America."
Several block of food booths, two midways with rides and games, and Evansville's finest citizens out in all their fat glory, eating everything in sight, and often fighting amongst themselves and ending up in jail.
One of the draws of the festival, besides the endless sea of artery-clogging yummies, is new types of artery-clogging yummies (or disgustings as the case may be): such as scorpion suckers or kangaroo-meat burritos.
We usually stay away from the really nasty sounding stuff (bug candy). This year we gave a couple of new things a try though. The first one was Pig Lickers - bacon dipped in chocolate. Lizzy liked it, the rest of us thought it was nasty. The same booth also had deep fried green beans: green beans breaded and deep fried, served with ranch sauce- those weren't too bad. Rubi liked them.
Everyone (but me) shared the deep fried cookie dough with ice cream and chocolate sauce (that's nasty!!). They like it though.
Rubi and her sister got to ride the FREAKOUT!, which Rubi also rode later with Lizzy. Lizzy hated it. And the kiddos got to ride several other rides too.
Sometimes this comic-strip hits the family-life nail dead on the head:
Actually, Rubi has been doing a bang-up job with getting the kids to stay on-top of cleaning up after themselves. She has a system where we all get together and work on specific rooms. And in-between, she makes sure the kids know not to leave a trail of toys and whatnot behind them as they go from room to room to play.
I'm just glad she hasn't set her eyes on cleaning off my dresser.
Answer the following questions in the comments: Who, What, Where, When, Why, and Seven Things You Will Never Grow Tired Of:
Here's mine:
Who: Christian, Husband, Father, Geek. What: too much to do. Where: With my wife. When: As soon as possible. Why: Why not? Seven Things I Will Never Grow Tired Of: God's Peace, God's blessings, my wife's voice, my wife, Pizza, Cake, dozing off on the couch.
Drove down Sunday, spent the night about an hour outside of WDW. Monday morning we drove into WDW and checked into the hotel. As Rubi mentioned, we were granted an upgrade to the "Concierge Level" (which translates from the French to mean "here's free food and people to do your bidding"). After our early check-in, we went to a character breakfast - I don't remember where. Much food was had by all.
After breakfast, we went to the Magic Kingdom. The first thing we did was go to see Mickey's Philharmagic - which is a must see. In fact, we saw it twice that day. We also rode many of the kids rides: Peter Pan, Winnie the Pooh, Dumbo, It's a Small World (those dolls are freaky!). The families split up for a bit after a the kiddie rides. My family had lunch at the restaurant just across from the Peter Pan ride - I don't recall the name of the place, but we also ate there last time we went to WDW in 2004. Rubi and I both ordered a Philly Cheesesteak sandwich meal. We should have split one; neither of us finished it. After lunch was when we did Philharmagic again. We came out of the restaurant and saw there was no line, so we walked right in.
It had rained a bit while we were inside, and started to sprinkle again as we were deciding what to do next, so we ducked into Tinkerbell's Treasures just as the rain started to pour. Luckily, the shower didn't last too long, and afterwards we decided to head back to the hotel and get in some swimming at the fantastic pool.
After swimming, we went to the beach and roasted marshmellows and made s'mores - a nightly activity the hotel puts on at the beach, in addition to movies on the beach. After the kids gorged on s'mores, we went back to our room and got cleaned up and went back to the Magic Kingdom for a few more hours. I don't recall what we did for dinner Monday.
Tuesday, we had breakfast in the Concierge Lounge (continental-style: donuts, juice, cereal, fruit, etc.) Then we went to Epcot, which was a 5-minute walk from the back door of our hotel. Epcot seemed much more crowded than the Magic Kingdom had been. Rubi and I took the kids to the Finding Nemo ride, then met up with the rest of our crew for Test Track (which I could never remember the correct name: always calling it Fast Track for some reason) and Soarin' (which was great!). We had lunch at some place right in the middle of the park, the Electric Umbrella or something like that. Tuesday is blur after that - I don't recall what we did after lunch, or where we had dinner. I think that might have been the night we had dinner at Cape May, the restaurant at our hotel. Prime Rib and Seafood buffet. Much food was had by all.
Tuesday night was Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party at the Magic Kingdom. This was an additional ticket purchase, allowing us into the park after-hours for this special event that included a special parade and shows, "snow" on Main Street, and cookies and cocoa - plus access to all the rides. I was surprised that the park was jam-packed for this event: literally shoulder-to-shoulder at times. I thought it would be much less crowded than usual.
Wednesday we had a Character Breakfast at Chef Mickey. Chef Mickey is the "good" character breakfast with singing and interaction and a huge buffet. After breakfast, we went to Animal Kingdom or whatever it's called. Everyone but me and my daughters rode the Everest rollercoaster. My family rode the Kali River Rapids ride, and only Rubi got really soaked! Elizabeth and I stayed mostly dry. The look on Rubi's face when she got drenched was hilarious - but the poor thing was freezing for most of the day after that.
We watched the holiday version of the Animal Kingdom parade. For lunch that day, Rubi and the kids and I had lunch at one of the chinese restaurants there. Again, I don't recall what we did for dinner this day.
Thursday was our trip to MGM after a Conceirge-Breakfast. Alexander and I were really looking forward to this park, as it has a Star Wars-themed area, ride, and show. None of the kids got picked to particpate in the Jedi Training Academy show, but they enjoyed watching it. We rode the Star Tours ride twice.
We also went to see the Muppets 3D show, and have the little kids pictures taken with Kim Possible and Ron Stoppable (or... the sad WDW approximation of those characters). The rollercoaster riders in the family also did the Rockin' RollerCoaster and the Tower of Terror. My family had lunch at one of the many restaurants there, and caught the last half of a parade than right outside that restaurant.
Dinner was at the Rainforest Cafe in Downtown Disney, followed by much shopping. Much food was had by all; including a crazy desert where the waitress yelled "VOLCANO!!" as she brought out the desert - chocolate cake, ice cream, whipped cream, caramel sauce (supposedly), etc.
Friday we had a character breakfast at Cape May, then went back to Epcot to do Test Track and Soarin' again. Well, everyone else did Test Track - I sat that one out this time. We also got in some more swimming at the hotel, and another campfire with s'mores, and this time with campfire songs too! Dinner Friday was begrudgingly partaken of at Big River Steakhouse on the Boardwalk, a short walk from the back door of our hotel. I saw begrudgingly, because by that time much food had been by all - and frequently - and none of us were really very hungry. But we were using the Dining Plan, and had a table service meal left on our cards to use up - and we were leaving the next day; so we had to use it up.
Saturday, we drove back home. But before leaving, we had several snacks left on our Dining Plan - so I stopped by the store at the hotel and got some snacks for the drive home.
As for, souvenirs: Rubi got a nice white zip-up hooded sweatshirt with a subtle Mickey logo on the chest, I got a "Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back" baseball cap from MGM and a Beach Club Resort baseball hat, and the kids each got a Pin Lanyard and a bunch of pins and spent the trip trading pins with Disney Cast Members, as well as light-up Mickey ears (Catherine got a princess hat with Mickey ears instead of the light-up hat), and assorted other trinkets.
Hmm... on reading this over, I might have Tuesday and Wednesday confused, and some of the dining details out of order... all I remember for sure is: Much food was had by all.
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