Category Archives: Jennifer

Late Nights and Slumped Shoulders

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It’s been a week since my last entry and boy has it been a busy week. As predicted, last week was pretty hectic at work. It was the end of our second milestone and I ended up working late every night. The last night I was there until 5:30 a.m. It’s funny now that I’m a manager, you would think I would have nothing to do and have no reason to be up there except for moral support, but our with our new Development Director’s help we are trying to get our schedule under control. Right now, it doesn’t look like it’s going to be settling down any time soon. I think if we could just get our schedule for the rest of the year nailed down we would be in a better position to take on the day-to-day problems. As it is now we are trying to do scheduling in the midsts of handling the day-to-day problems. Very difficult.

This weekend wasn’t very fun at home because Emily had a fever and kept throwing up. It’s never fun to have one of your kids sick. You can really tell when they aren’t feeling well because they stop acting the way they normally do. In the case of Emily, she would mope around with her shoulders slumped down and a pout on her face. Once the Tylenol would take effect, she was up and bouncing around again, but those times were few and far between.

Jennifer was busy Sunday and will be busy the rest of the week working on “Hanna’s Closet”. It’s a giant consignment sale of baby clothes, toys, and furniture that she’s been helping to set up at church. She will be up at church every day this week with the final sale on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.

Today’s picture is of Abby with her baby. She actually had me go get the camera to take this picture. She’s been telling me lately that she wants to be a “mommy” when she grows up instead of a “princess”.

National Treasure

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Today Jennifer and I once again escaped from the kids and went to see the movie National Treasure. Nicolas Cage plays a character who’s family holds the secret to a treasure which was hidden back when the United States was founded. It was a pretty good movie, very exciting. Jennifer and I both recommend it.

Tonight we “celebrated” by roasting marshmallows on an open fire. We were making s’mores, but the girls didn’t want to try them. Abby said “no thank you” and they ate each of the ingredients separately.

Mongolia Found

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Today Jennifer and I swung by our favorite Mongolian Bar-B-Q place in Clear Lake and had lunch. It tasted just like it did when we were last there four years ago and the restaurant didn’t look like it had changed a bit. We did some shopping and went by Jennifer’s old Home Depot that she used to work at. There was actually someone who still worked there in her department who she got to talk to. It was amazing that she were still there considering Jennifer hasn’t worked there in five years.

When we got home, Grandma, Jennifer, and the girls made homemade ice cream. Grandma started experimenting with eBay for the first time and bought an electric ice cream maker. The ice cream was great. They doubled their recipe and it only made about a dozen scoops. This was supposed to be a “trial run” and we are going to try more ice cream tomorrow. This time quadrupling the recipe.

Escape from the Kids

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Yesterday, Jennifer and I headed off to Natchitoches to stay at a bed and breakfast. The laptop was left at my parents’ house, so no entry in Frenchville until now. Unfortunately, a cold front came through and it rained all day and the temperature dropped to around freezing. We checked into the B&B and then went shopping along the “main” street. There were a ton of antique and gift shops that we wandered through. Each shop we regretting leaving because that meant we had to go back outside into the rain and the cold. There seemed to be two themes that were present in every shop: The Red Hat Society and Steel Magnolias. The Red Hat Society seems to be some club for older women who wear red hats, which I have no chance of understanding. Steel Magnolias was filmed exclusively in Natchitoches, so you might say that it’s their “claim to fame”. After shopping we went and had a steak dinner at The Landing, a restaurant recommended by my dad.

We had a good time getting away from the girls. We just wish it was a little bit warmer outside so that we could have enjoyed the town a little bit more.

New Camera

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Another day spent in Shreveport with Nana and Poppy. My grandfather, PaPaw Wilmon, drove over with my Aunt Pat to have lunch and visit with us. He last saw the girls at the big Wilmon family reunion this past summer. It was good to see him again since I had to miss the reunion since we were finalling Madden.

Jennifer went ahead and let me open my Christmas present since “it had to charge if I was intending on using it on Christmas day”. She got me a new digital camera, a Kodak EasyShare DX7630. It’s a 6.1 mega-pixel camera, which is pretty nice. One thing that is nice is that the camera can take movies as well. If you click on today’s picture it will download and play a QuickTime movie of Emily throwing a fit. She is crying because she just woke up from her nap and she always ends up crying for about thirty minutes after she wakes up from her nap.

Tonight, Jennifer and I escaped to the casino once again to play some more roulette. This time I was the big winner with taking home $80 and I pretty much made up for all the money Jennifer lost. We still ended up ahead for our two day excursion to the casino. Jennifer says that she now has it “out of her system”.

Playing at the Duck Pond

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We had a big day in Shreveport with Nana and Poppy. First we all piled into the Sequoia and went to the duck pond where Abby and Emily played on the gym equipment. They had fun running around and playing with Nana and Poppy. At one point a group of ducks and geese swam by while Abby and Emily were watching.

Jennifer and I went out to eat by ourselves to one of my favorite restaurants in Shreveport, Monjunis. It’s an Italian restaurant with great lasagna. They also put bread and marinara sauce on the table like they do chips and salsa at a Mexican restaurant.

After Monjunis, we went to Horseshoe Casino. Jennifer ended up winning $300 playing roulette and I ended up loosing money at the dollar slot machines. It’s a good thing Jennifer made up for my loss and then then some.

While we were out on the town, Nana and Poppy took Abby and Emily to Chick Olé and then they drove around looking at Christmas lights. They had fun and then fell right to sleep when they got home.

Searching for Mongolia

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After church we went in search for a Mongolian Bar-B-Q restaurant that the Yahoo Yellow Pages said was in Maitland, a suburb on the north side of Orlando near where we go to church. The pregnancy has made Jennifer very hungry lately and we missed the Mongolian Bar-B-Q restaurant that was in Houston that we used to go to. We looked and looked, but it wasn’t where it was supposed to be. We concluded that it was closed and ended up wandering up to Jason’s Deli, another restaurant that we miss from back in Texas. Once I got home, I confirmed that the restaurant was closed by calling the phone number and got a residence. That must suck to have a phone number of an old restaurant.

Congratulations to the Texas Longhorns who were able to beat out Cal to get into the Bowl Championship Series. The Longhorns will be playing Michigan in the Rose Bowl on New Years Eve and we will be watching the game from Jennifer’s parents house in Houston, since we will be on our big Texas trip during that time.

I finished up Dan Brown’s Deception Point last weekend. It was a very good book about political games during a Presidential Election when a meteor is found that contains proof of extra terrestrial life. The data on the meteor doesn’t add up and it may lead to a government cover up. I still stick to my description of Dan Brown being “Clancy-esque”, in other words kind of like Tom Clancy. I’ve given up on The Successful Manager’s Handbook. I read about half of it and just can’t pick it up again. It’s pretty much like reading a phone book. I’ve read several technical and business books and none have been as boring as this one. For my next outing I’ve started on a pretty big quest. I’m going to read the complete Dark Tower series by Stephen King. I read the first four books about ten years ago and Stephen King just finished out the series with the last three books just recently. Since it’s been so long, I decided I would re-read the first four and then go on to the last three and so I picked up a copy of The Gunslinger today.

Emily: Independent Child

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We didn’t do much today. We didn’t even go to our usual Saturday morning breakfast, instead we opted for bagels from Einstein’s. Jennifer then took off Christmas shopping leaving me to stay with the kids. One thing I’ve noticed about Emily lately is that she’s trying to do everything herself. When it was time to go for bagels, she wanted to put her socks and shoes on herself. Well, if we had about an hour to wait for her to accomplish this, we could have waited, but we were hungry for some bagels.

She did another thing that was pretty funny today while I was watching her. She was caring around this baby doll and then she walked off to the baby’s bedroom where we still have a changing table where we change Emily’s diapers. After a while I went in there to see what she was doing and she had climbed to the top of the changing table and was using the baby wipes to wipe the butt of her baby doll. I suppose the baby doll had pooped and she was cleaning it up.

During Emily’s nap, Jennifer and Abby worked on a gingerbread house. Well, actually Jennifer worked on the house. Abby mainly tried to eat all of the candy until Jennifer banished her from the kitchen. Today’s picture is of their work of art.

The Christmas Program

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I left work early to attend Abby’s Christmas program up at church. She had learned five songs over the past few weeks and this is the first time I’ve heard her sing with a group where the audio recording wasn’t singing along with them. It was a struggle to get her up there to sing in the first place. Right before they were going to start, one of her teachers came out carrying her while she was crying. I took her and she told me that she was scared. I tried to explain to her that she was a good singer and that there wasn’t anything to worry about. She just wasn’t going to do it, so we started to leave. We retrieved Emily from the nursery and started to leave the church grounds when Jennifer asked her one last time if she wanted to sing. Jennifer even bribed her with going to “Burger Cheese” afterwards. She finally gave in. We rushed back in where the kids were assembled to sing. Too late. The program had started and all the kids were about to start singing. The teacher that brought her out earlier saw her wanting to go up and escorted her up there. Once up there, Abby just sung with all of her heart. There were several times that I even heard her over the other kids. When it was over she asked, “Can we go to ‘Burger Cheese’ now?”

Tonight was the last softball game of the season and it was against our inner-work rivals: the EA Sports team. Well, it was a tough battle, but we lost: 10-3. It was actually a very close game and we just had one inning where we flubbed a few plays. I ended up 1 for 2 with a walk and a run. On my first at bat I was hit in the hip with the ball by the third baseman while trying to reach first. I shook it off and it’s okay right now, but I will probably be feeling it in the morning. We ended the season in the cellar with a record of 1-7. Oh well, here’s to next season.

Jennifer forgot to bring the camera to Abby’s Christmas program, so today’s picture is just another one from Thanksgiving. I call this picture, “Won’t you go ahead and take the picture already?”

Searching for Deadly Squirrels

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Jennifer heard the scratching in the attic again last night so I did my husbandly duty of climbing up into the attic this morning to see if I could see where the squirrel was getting in. I grabbed a flashlight and the ladder to get into the attic. For some reason here in Florida, no one builds houses with those nifty ladders that fold up into the ceiling. The only way to get into the attic is to buy a ladder and then stand on the top step, you know, the one that says “DO NOT STAND OR SIT”. So, I climbed through the attic and reached the other side of the house where our bedroom is. There was no evidence of any squirrel or any entry point. I sat up there looking and looking, but to no avail. I even had one of those horror movie moments when my flash light winked out and I had to bang the side of it for it to come back.

Today’s picture is of Abby decorating the Christmas tree. If you look close enough you will see the hint of a fish tattoo on her hand. This was her prize from our visit to Chuck E Cheese the other day.