My parents are getting rid of our old boat. It’s not really ours anymore, seeing as I’ve been out of the house for many years now. But, it is the boat I learned to water ski on, the boat that went to many fishing derbies, the boat that caused my parents to buy a cottage on the lake. It holds SO many memories. I just hope their new one brings as much fun.

Friday we spent a glorious evening at Chuck E Cheese. It’s the first time I’ve been there since I worked there at the tender age of 16. Come to find out, they “improved” the shows fom the old animatronic days. Bummer. I have fond memories of these characters. At least the guy in the Chuck E suit didn’t have his head fall off and freak out my kids. I’ve got a whole new perspective on that fateful incident that ended my Chuck E career.

Jesus Stories– After being profoundly affected by The Passion of the Christ, I decided to begin my journey down the path of Jesus movies. I watched Martin Scorcese’s The Last Temptation of Christ last night. It was a really weird experience. I recognized the elements in it that were controversial in 1988 when it was released, but I also found myself using it to fill in the holes in the story within Mel’s Passion. See the Last Temptation spends a lot more time on Christ’s life, breezes through the suffering parts that Gibson focused on, and then takes us down a hallucinatory path of Christ actually not dying on the cross, but instead marrying and having kids. In the beginning I was so irritated at William Defoe and Harvey Keitel with their cheesy English-speaking dialog, that I nearly gave up. But, suddenly I became so riveted in the film-making and the internal battle going on in Jesus’s mind, I completely forgave them. In the end, both movies are honestly great films. My quest continues to see more depictions of Christ’s life in film. I’ll have to spread out my viewings though ’cause it is the SAME story. The next ones to see:

The Greatest Story Ever Told
The Gospel According to St. Matthew

We took a week-long vacation to San Diego for some much needed decompression after the stress of leaving my job. Here’s a few things we did:

-Got up at 3:45 AM and took a limo to that airport. (Tricia was very excited).
-Dealt with a Mason explosion of the worst kind on the plane to Phoenix. The rookie parents didn’t pack extra kid clothes in carry-on so the world’s best flight attendant rescued our bags from the plane’s cargo hold to get us some clothes.
-Stepped into 65 degree and sunny weather, rented our car and headed straight for the beach.
-Mason loved the ocean and the sand. So much so he HAD to roll around in it.
-Anna had her first bikini experience.

–Legoland is an amazing amusement park with some of the most incredible lego sculptures and little kid rides.
-The San Diego Zoo is enormous with the highlights being a toss up between the Pandas and the Polar bears (yeah, in San Diego)
–Sea World is equally amazing with its dolphins and whales.
-The trolley tour is a great way to get to all the touristy stuff in a hurry.
–Gringos has some HUGE margaritas, and yummy food.

Check out our pictures.

I had fun finding a clue about what we did when the clock struck 12.

This year we had a relaxing Christmas at home in Chicago. Christmas Eve we spent with friends drinking, and whooping it up. At one point we were playing ‘Fact or Crap’ followed by Trivial Pursuit DVD Edition. Christmas morning we spent at home just the four of us. It was so exciting to see Mason come down the stairs in his own house to see that Santa left him a tricycle and helmet. He loved it. This is also the year of the Little People. Our entire playroom is overrun with the cute little plastic figures and associated playsets. After Christmas we managed to get the house back in order in anticipation of Anna’s baptism that’s only a week away. Now we’re looking forward to some New Year’s frivolity. Bring on 2004!

Two little elves.

I had no idea how William Shatner became the spokesperson for Priceline until I saw this 1978 Rendition of Rocketman in spoken word. WOW!

It’s the big 2-9. We went to the Melting Pot on Saturday for an awesome fondue-fest. I had no idea that I could actually spend 3 hours eating dinner. Every bite was yummy, the atmosphere – romantic, and all without the kids for the first time since Anna was born. Tonight we’re doing presents and ice cream cake to top off the birthday extravaganza festival weekend as Tricia reminds me it should be. Happy Birthday!

Dear Tricia,
You are the goddess of the childrearing world. Your tireless energy and devotion to the needs of me and my two never-resting children is the stuff of Oprah Winfrey couch talks. You are the smartest, funniest, hottest, bestest wife a boy could ever have.

Humbly yours,
Kris

This after I spent 15 hours on Saturday with the 2 kids learning what it’s like to football-hold the little one while making lunch for the other. My muscles hurt, my head hurts, and my patience is shot. Guess what? Tricia has been doing this gig for the last 2 months. She must be so ready to go back to work.

Ahh the blissful ease of use of iTunes. It has graced the desktop of my Windows XP machine at home. Once installed, I simply turned on sharing on my OSX box, then bing! up popped my entire library of songs that are on my Mac, available for playback on my PC. I’m SO HAPPY! Let’s forget the negative press from the Windows community. Apple has made networking and ease of use a reality in my household. Sometime maybe I’ll bite off poking a hole into my firewall so I can listen to my MacTunes at work.