Humphrelia

Will has been doing a great job lately of keeping his undies clean and dry; it’s been awhile since his last accident (not including when he sleeps, which is why he still wears a diaper at night). His reward for doing so well has been and continues to be the privilege of playing video games.

I’ve mentioned numerous times that Will has become completely obsessed with Star Wars. Malin and I decided to ween him from it. I was a huge fan of Star Wars, too. But his interests are obsessive and cause way more tantrums and head-aches than they should. Our approach for reducing his Lego Star Wars play was to divert his attention to other things. When the weather is nice, we play soccer outside or walk to the nearest public playground to play on slides. We’ve been trying to get him to play other video games more – like the Webkinz arcade games. We also bought a game – more for Malin and me than Will since it’s a bit complicated for him, but he enjoys watching: Crazy Machines. The demo consists of ten free levels and was fun. Whatever you do, do not purchase the game online from the site that hosts its home page. Go to Best Buy and pick it up for ten bucks instead. I’ve done both and told the online site that I’ll be disputing the charges when I get my statement because they failed to send me a serial number for the game (you download the game immediately, but can’t play until you enter a serial number). After waiting several days with absolutely no word from them (not even an order confirmation, and after I’d sent a couple of e-mails complaining), I sent them a final e-mail telling them it was too late and that I was off to buy another copy (which I did). And just this morning, they’ve sent me the serial number… I will still be disputing the charge…

Malin had a bridal shower to attend on Saturday, so it was just Will and I that day. The weather was nice, so we drive around town with the top down. He enjoyed that. We went to Best Buy to pick up the Crazy Machines game, ate pizza at Mellow Mushroom, and then returned home and walked to the playground with slides. It was a fun day.

This weekend we decided to cut Will off of “Lego Man” – cold turkey. We knew it would be difficult. We didn’t want him to think we were punishing him because we’re not. So we “disabled” the XBox. Saturday morning he discovered that it wouldn’t work, and he was so distraught. I explained to him that it appeared to have died because it won’t work, and he was very upset. He even handed me the remote control (which does not operate the XBox) and said, “Try this!”

So after a little distress, we were able to get his mind on other things. We ate breakfast at Waffle House and then went to Toys’R’Us to pick up a Wii. We figured the Wii Sports would be fun for him and would divert his obsession. To help tide him over until we got home (we also drove up to IKEA to pick up some stuff, so it was awhile before Will would play the Wii), Malin was nice enough to feed his addiction with one last high: a Boba Fett action figure. He didn’t understand at first (this would be his first action figure toy), but after awhile he started zooming him around making “sound effects” with his mouth. Note to all our family and friends, please do not purchase Star Wars action figures for Will. This one was more of a peace offering than a gift. Maybe he’ll be ready to receive more (5? we’ll see)

We finally got home and hooked up the Wii. The first game we put in was Wii Play (it is effectively only ten dollars when you buy a second controller). We were a little disappointed. Every game requires quite a bit of fine motor control in order to aim the cursor on the screen. Will was not up for this and did not seem very interested in the new toy.

Then we put in Wii Sports, the title that is included with the Wii. This was more like it. Will quickly got hooked, and we all had lots of fun. Will’s favorite is golf. He doesn’t even try to get it into the hole. “I want to hit it into the water!” “I want to hit it into the forest!” So he strikes a few out-of-bounds and into the water hazards, and then cracks up laughing upon doing so.

And now, today, is his first day back at school from Spring break. We’ll see this afternoon how everything goes – he didn’t want to go this morning. But we’re sure he’ll get right back in the swing of things quickly. And if he’s good today, we can play bowling and baseball tonight…

It seems most of my coworkers either have no Irish spirit (which is something many people have this time of year, whether they have any Irish heritage or not) or don’t own green clothing. If I were to assume one over the other, I’m not sure which one would be giving them the benefit of the doubt…

This past weekend we saw crazy storms here in Atlanta. Friday night saw a few funnel clouds that wrecked random parts of town, including (oddly enough) parts of midtown and downtown. The next day saw more bad weather with more tornado warnings and horribly-sized hailstones. Luckily, down here in Fayette county, we avoided all of the bad weather. It was wet on Saturday, but absolutely awesome yesterday. We spent most of the time on the deck under a big umbrella. Malin was apparently not completely under the umbrella since she turned red on her shoulders. Luckily for us, Will and I completely avoided oversunning.

Work has been very busy for me for the past month, and it has been picking up for Malin over the past few weeks. That is the main reason I haven’t posted in over a month. That’s what I tell myself anyway. Other reasons are that there hasn’t been a lot going on lately… Will’s addiction to Lego Star Wars has not abated, so we’ve decided to cut him off from XBox for a while. We’re interested to see exactly what Will will be like after he gets through this painful period of withdrawal.

We had thought about getting a Nintendo Wii. In fact, we still are thinking about it. They are still hard to come by, however. I figured the lack of availability was limited to Christmas season, but here in March they are still hard to get. We ventured out last weekend, determined to purchase one, but the Toys’R’Us had just sold their last one. They directed us to another location in Morrow that still had two more in stock. But, alas, by the time we got to Morrow (about a 15-20 minute drive from Fayetteville), they too were sold out.

We will not be getting the Lego Star Wars game for Wii (despite the fact that it includes the original trilogy and looks really cool…). We’ll try to stick with games that are more interactive from a physical perspective. You know, swinging-the-controller-around-like-a-crazy-person kind of interactive – like sports. These should help him outgrow his addiction to Star Wars (he even dreams about it lately). I’m almost afraid to ever show him the movies – afraid that he’ll become so unhealthily engrossed in it again. We’ll see. He’s about at an age where Malin and I would be comfortable with him watching the first movie (the original from 1977, not Episode I) – were it not for his current obsession anyway.

So lately we’ve been trying to find other things to keep his interest. Luckily, he likes reading (or rather being read to – he’s not reading by himself yet). He also likes Webkinz: simple online games, completely absent of light sabers, Jedis, and Jango Fett (Will’s favorite character). Plus there are interesting ways to interact with the Webkinz pets – like helping the pets brush their teeth, build a vegetable garden, eat food, go to work, and go to school. You can even direct the pets to go to the potty (speaking of which, Will has been doing much better with regard to potty-training lately).

Another thing that Will has gotten interested in is “playing music notes”. Years ago, when I was in college, I wrote a DOS-based MIDI composition program. It is actually what I used to get most of my music into electronic form. Malin doesn’t care for the music: she can’t get past the fake instruments and distinctly video-game-like sound produced from my computer’s MIDI card. But Will likes it, and calls it “music notes”. He doesn’t mind listening to the music, but his favorite part is just changing the colors of the user interface so that everything looks hideous – from electric green to neon pink and everything in between. Then he’ll play a track to see how it looks.

Until recently, I was unable to run my program since I no longer have a sound card that works with DOS drivers (i.e. a Yamaha-OPL2/OPL3-compatible synthesizer with MPU-401-compatible MIDI device, running on default I/O ports). But my friend Scott clued me into DOSBox recently, and it works like a charm. It emulates old DOS hardware to run almost any old DOS application or video game while using your current, state-of-the-art devices and Windows drivers under-the-hood. I had to tweak the settings to get everything to run just right, but now it does.

Since installing DOSBox, I’ve used the program to write a couple of new songs. You’ve been warned – all sounds were generated from the MIDI hardware on my computer, so they’ll have a very video-game kind of sound. It doesn’t help that my expertise does not lie in orchestration. So sometimes I pick MIDI tracks that I think sound good, but they only further the “video game” quality of the music. I’ll let you decide. Here are two songs I wrote over the past week: song1 and song2. Sorry if the downloads are slow – the files are kind of big because these MP3s were encoded at a very high bitrate (nothing but the best for my original music!)

Just for some perspective, here a couple of songs that I wrote ten years ago, while still in college: song3 and song4. I’ve got lots and lots of these laying around, so maybe I’ll post more later. I’ll definitely post links so you can download my MIDI software and the DOSBox configuration for it to run sweetly. I’ll try to do so before another month goes by…

As everyone surely knows, last Sunday was the Superbowl. The Thursday before that was my birthday.

To celebrate the birthday, Malin, Will, and I went to Taco Mac to eat burgers and a chocolate chimichanga. For my birthday last year, my sister ordered matching shirts for Will and me. The place from which she ordered them, however, had a tough time fulfilling it: they arrived about twelve months late. Luckily, she ordered a larger shirt than Will required, so, now that it arrived, it fits him perfectly:

Will and I in our matching shirts: “The Dude” from The Big Lebowski

Later that weekend, Malin took Will outside for picture-taking (a frequent occurrence here, as you have no doubt noticed). She got several shots of him holding an umbrella, but the real gem is a photo of him in his shades. His future is very bright:

Another thing to which Will has gotten hooked is the soundtrack to the Star Wars movies. I had CDs for the music from the original trilogy, and when I first played it for Will, he loved it. I figured he would enjoy it since he recognizes much of it from his favorite video game. Now, he asks to listen to it at nap-time. He will curl up in an office chair with the music playing through one of the computers, and he will fall right to sleep. When he is awake and active, he will ask to hear the music in the family room. Once it is playing, he runs around the room pretending he is in the video game – acting out as, or fighting, Jedis, Gungans, battle droids, and “bad guys.”

As you can see, he is a big fan of running around in his boots and his underwear – pantlessly defeating his evil foes.

We were originally planning to have company on Superbowl Sunday (just a few friends over, nothing like Will’s birthday party or Stephanie’s baby shower). But everyone we know got sick, so it was just the three of us. We decided that nothing would be better accompaniment to football, over-the-top halftime shows, and crazy Budweiser commercials than pigs-in-blankets and fresh, home-brewed ale:

Unfortunately, after the Superbowl, our week went downhill. We all got sick Tuesday night. I felt miserable and ended up going to bed very early. When I awoke, Malin and Will were knee-deep in a bad cold, too. Will only missed one day of school. He returned Thursday, but I stayed at home again because Malin was in such bad shape. I picked up Will from preschool that day, entertained him, and made dinner – while Malin recovered. Friday morning, I finally returned to work. Everyone was feeling better except me. But I had already missed two days (though not completely since I have the capability to work from home when I don’t feel good). So I simply armed myself with some DayQuil and a couple of handfuls of cough drops and headed into the office. We’ve been okay ever since – although Will was feeling ill at brunch this morning. Hopefully he will recover soon (I think he has a tummy ache).

We were recounting just last night to some friends all of the wonderful adventures we had last year with a sick two-year-old. Will and Malin were sick, off and on, for much of the beginning of 2007. And then in March, Will contracted a virus that ended up giving him a bad case of hives. As long as we don’t have a repeat of last year, we’ll be doing great!

And now, we’ll round out this post with a photo of a rarely-seen face around here: Malin. Actually, of course, we see her all the time. We just don’t see pictures of her that frequently since she’s always the one behind the camera. Earlier this week, she was trying to take self-portraits. Ultimately she had to ask for my assistance in the matter. Since her camera is nearly impossible to use, she had to set it up for me (i.e. flip the switches for the right shutter speed, aperture, ISO-speed, etc…). All I had to do was aim while holding the focus button and then – voila! One firm press of my right-hand index finger (click!) and out comes a photograph! It’s like magic…

The last time I posted was on Will’s third birthday. It was also my dad’s birthday that day – though he’s a little older than three now. The next day we had a party for Will. We’ve been doing a lot of entertaining lately, so I haven’t had a chance to pull together the pictures and make a post – until now. I’ll start with Will’s birthday party (including some good pics). Below the jump, I’ll go into more details about the rest of our January.

The Birthday Party

On Saturday the 12^th, there were a lot of kids. We invited some of our friends from the neighborhood, several of Malin’s friends (who mostly live nearby), and several of my friends (mostly from work – and mostly not nearby). All in all, I think we peaked at about seventeen kids – two of whom were just babies. The tally of adults was slightly higher: twenty-one at the party’s peak. So we had a good turn-out.

I’ve mentioned that Will is addicted to Lego Star Wars on our X-Box. Starting the week of his birthday, we instituted a new policy: he is only allowed to play as a reward for staying clean and dry all day (by this I am, of course, referring to our attempts to potty-train him). The day before his party he did good, so before everyone showed up, we allowed him to play a little. This, as it would turn out, was not a wise decision. As soon as the first guests arrived, Will was still over-enthused about his video game and insisted that all of the kids come downstairs to watch him play. The result was that all of the kids present wanted to play, and Will had to share his game with everyone else. He was not happy about this. I think he was genuinely hoping that all of the kids would be content to watch him play. Many of the kids present had also played this game (many owned a copy of it themselves) and were excited at the prospect of playing it. So Will had to learn the hard way how to share his favorite thing.

We did get some get pictures of the crowd that made it. I particularly enjoy the picture on the left; this is Eric. He was born with very limited motor skills over most of his upper-body. He also has a large indentation in the back of his head, making his cranial cavity smaller than most adults his age – thus putting a limit on the amount of brain matter that his skull can hold. The dent in his skull causes pressure on his brain that occasionally leads to sporadic fits and seizures. That is why he looks this way. Please don’t laugh. It’s a serious condition.

I’m just kidding, of course. Eric is a colleague and fellow musician. When he is not programming computers, robots, and lasers for a living, he is an avid video game enthusiast/collector, he plays rock’n’roll bass guitar, and he has tried his hand at stand-up comedy. This is a rather successful attempt at hamming it up for the camera. He and his whole family (wife and three kids – one Will’s age and two that are older) came over for the party.

Here you can see the two birthday boys: Will on the chair looking up, trying to hold a conversation with his grandpa, who is leaning over the banister to talk to him.

This is the spread of dessert stuff. We had an entire table full of non-sweet food, too, but it simply wasn’t as photogenic as were the cupcakes:

And here is the birthday boy, about to blow out the candles in his birthday cupcake:

Our thanks go out to all of our friends and family who came by (formal “thank you”s are in the mail…).
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As promised (and just in the nick of time), we now present the final installment in our three-part series on the life and times of the House of Humphries during the 2007 holiday season:

New Year’s Eve

The whole week up to this day has seen lots and lots of sleep for the whole family. This day was no exception. We slept in late. Upon awaking, we proceeded to the basement to play Lego Star Wars (to which Will is official addicted). Will calls it “Lego Man.”

Preparations for our New Year’s Eve dinner had been taking place for a whole day already. The lengthy preparations involved making duck stock from the carcass of the duckling we ate on Christmas Day. On New Year’s Eve, we further reduced the stock into a demi-glace.

Also that day, we went to an optometrist in Newnan. I’ve been without contacts for a couple of years now, and I had to have a new eye exam before I could order more contact lenses. After we returned, we opened a fancy bottle of wine (a 2003 Saint-Émilion Grand Cru – I can’t recall precisely which château), and returned to food preparations.

The duck demi-glace was to be a sauce for home-made egg noodles with mushrooms (shiitake, portabella, and oyster ‘shrooms). The main course was braised beef short ribs. Needless to say, dinner was phenomenal.

We missed all of the New Year festivities later that evening. We had bought a bottle Lindeman’s Pêche Lambic with which to celebrate (Malin and I both prefer it to sparkling wine), but we had to cancel. We watched Ocean’s Thirteen, and it was quarter past midnight by the time the movie was finished. By that time we felt like retiring for the night and saving the bottle for the following evening…

New Year’s Day

The next day, technically speaking, wasn’t part of our 2007 holidays, seeing as it was suddenly 2008. But we’ll include a brief run-down anyway.

The day was lazy with much sleeping in. I was originally intending to brew a batch of beer, but that plan was canceled due to it being too much work for my last day of vacation/holiday. I briefly thought about it, but by that point it was already 5pm and too late to start.

The duck demi-glace was all gone, but we still had noodles, mushrooms, and short ribs left. So I made a roux using some beef fat (that was rendered while braising the ribs, and had now coagulated into a solid in the fridge), a splash of heavy cream, flour, and – the magic ingredient – a touch of condensed veal demi-glace (store-bought, unlike the duck demi-glace from the night before, but still unearthly good). I used that as a sauce for the re-heated noodles, and the food was suddenly just as delicious the next day as it had been the night before.

2008, Here We Come

And that was how we spent our holiday week. I was off from work for seven business days total – which works out to eleven days away from the office when you count the weekends. It was awesome.

The next day it was back to work, and life was back to its hectic pace: supposed normalcy.

Will has been off and on with his potty skills over the past month. Some weeks he is really good, but many weeks he is really bad. He now knows exactly what is expected of him, but he chooses to urinate or defecate on himself – presumably it is easier than walking to the toilet and dealing with it in the proper manner…

We were, at one point, hoping that he would be pretty much potty-trained before starting school. He seemed to be doing better and better. And then he regressed… back and forth… two steps forward and one step back. So now we are hoping that being at school will help. His peers will be using the potty, and hopefully this environment will help motivate him to follow suit.

Will’s birthday was today. He is now officially three years old. His birthday party is tomorrow. And Monday, he starts school. So our year is off to an exciting start.

We hope everyone we know is having and continues to have a wonderful new year.

First Things First

Before we get into too much detail regarding our Christmas week, there are some details that I missed in my last post.

First, I have a couple of pictures of our evening at the Nights of Lights. Malin had her new PDA phone with her that evening, and she snapped a few shots:

Also, Will was accepted into a pre-school. It is actually a normal school that teaches students all the way through high school age. The name of the school is Counterpane, and they are a Montessori school. We took Will there, and he interacted with one of the instructors in “primary school” (the area of the school for children up to 6 years of age). The instructor indicated that he was ready to start school. While there, we saw the rest of the school, too. The environment is very different from a typical public school. But it looks like they are teaching children many valuable things with these methods – not least of which are an interest in education/exploration and a strong sense of self-discipline. The whole objective of the school is to prepare the children for continuing education, and one of the teachers stated that 100% of their students go on to college (much higher than in public school systems, obviously). His first day is this upcoming Monday, January 14^th.

Christmas

The evening of Christmas Eve, we went driving around various neighborhoods in the area to see people’s Christmas decorations and lights. We let Will stay up a little, and after he went to bed we began preparing for Santa’s big night. This mainly involved assembly of his big gift from Mr. C:

Will has really been into Thomas the Train lately, and he absolutely loves playing with the trains that are setup at the local Books a Million store and the local, family-owned toy store. So he got a train table with a bunch of tracks. The night of Christmas Eve, we assembled the table, all of the buildings and “destinations” for the train tracks, and then put all the track pieces together on the table. We did not, however, nail or glue down the tracks. I didn’t like the idea of that first design being permanent (especially since we have so many left-over track pieces that we could use to design a different track later).

Santa did not bring him any new trains (that is what grandparents are for). So the first thing Will said on Tuesday morning when he saw what Santa had brought was, “That’s not James!” (James is a friend of Thomas, he’s the only red engine on Sodor, and he’s Will’s favorite)

Malin’s mom came over on Christmas day. She told us that Will came by his ungrateful comments honestly as, apparently, Malin behaved the same way as a child. Despite his disappointment that Santa had not brought James, Will enjoyed playing with the new toys. Because we failed to secure the tracks to the table, Will has taken to playing the Godzilla of train town. He also received various other toys from Santa, Annie (that’s what he calls Malin’s mom), and his parents – including Lego Star Wars for our X-Box.

Later that day, Malin went about cooking dinner for the day: roast duckling, bacon-wrapped asparagus, and potato croquettes.

After Christmas

The day after Christmas, we packed up and drove to Greenville (where my parents reside). We celebrated Christmas again, eating dinner with my parents, my brother, my uncle Scott, and his wife Sharon. Before dinner, Will came down suddenly with a bad stomach ache. He sat in the bathroom for a bit, in a bit of pain and very upset. After that episode, he didn’t feel too good, so I hung out with him, laying in bed watching cartoons on TV until his stomach felt better. Luckily it wasn’t long before Will and I were able to join everyone else for dinner. For the meal, my mom prepared the classics: ham, turkey, stuffing, potatoes, and macaroni & cheese. All of it was delicious. After dinner, we exchanged gifts.

Will happily received numerous toy trains to go along with his new tracks – including James. He also received some cool little cars (he didn’t receive all of these, but a couple of the new ones do make an appearance in this photo):

His interest in cars is largely due to my influence. For several weeks, I would periodically pick him up a new Hot Wheels or Matchbox car while at the grocery store – hence his impressive collection of classic muscle cars. In addition to trains and cars, Will also received a few new games for his V.Smile.

While in Greenville, Malin and I visited with a few friends of ours: Audra (one of Malin’s bridesmaids), Jason (a friend of mine from high school and Audra’s older brother), and Donna (Jason’s wife). We all grew up in Greenville (except Malin), so we were all around for the holidays. We were thrilled that we got to see them all again. Unfortunately, we only had a couple of days in Greenville (we only had a dog-sitter for two days because all of the kennels were packed from the holiday week). So we didn’t get a chance to visit with other friends of ours. My old next-door neighbor from grade school, Keith Groover, and his family live in Greenville. And a college buddy of mine, Desmond Raymond, and his wife Jessica live in Charlotte (less than a 90 minute drive from Greenville). Desmond and Jessica just had their first child in November, so Malin and I were hoping to go see them and their new baby girl.

We did manage to have a good time in Greenville during the time we were there, though. On Thursday, Malin, Will, my mom, and I all went to an interesting attraction that was not too far of a drive: Hollywild Animal Park. It was open only at night because of the huge number of lights and decorations that they had put up. Much of it was reminiscent of the lights at Lanier – until you get to the animals.

There was a huge swarm of deer – old and young; bucks, does, and fawns. They also had a couple of friendly zebras. Malin managed to snag a few pictures on her PDA phone:

On Friday, we had to pack up and return home to Georgia. The weekend was uneventful. Malin, Will, and I played a lot of Lego Star Wars. Lazy, relaxed, and fun – exactly what we all needed from our vacation.

Two Weeks Before

We took Will to see the Nights of Lights at Lake Lanier a couple of weeks before Christmas. Will really enjoyed all of the lights, and he enjoyed the carnival rides at the end even more. He rode a children’s ride all by himself, and he had the most intriguing, mischievous look on his face the whole time. We rode a merry-go-round, a roller-coaster, and bumper cars, too. I was really impressed with how stoic he was in the roller-coaster. He wasn’t scared of the rickety, unsteady, high-G turns whatsoever. While riding bumper cars, we had to fight over the steering wheel – which was apparently quite funny for Malin to watch.

Also a couple of weeks before Christmas (or maybe it was more like three weeks…), Malin and I received our Christmas gifts from one another. We bought each other stuff to open on Christmas day, also, but our main gifts were wrapped up well in advance of the big day.

Malin’s early gifts were a fancy new lens for her camera – a Nikkor AF 85mm f1.8D – and a new PDA phone – an AT&T 8525 Pocket PC Phone (with Windows Mobile). Unfortunately, I don’t know how to use her camera (the D200 is not for casual, point-and-shoot photographers), so I can’t show you a picture taken with the new lens. I can post, however, a picture of her new phone. It’s fancy (and was less than a 100 bucks, refurbished):

Malin’s gift to me was allowing me to buy new wheels for my Camaro. It was in desperate need of a full set of tires anyway, so what better time to buy new wheels, too? I didn’t actually take a “before” picture, but I found this picture online of a car that looks just like mine. So here is the car’s old wheels:

Here’s a shot of the new wheels. Will is there, pointing out a train going by (there are train tracks not too far from our house that, because we live on top of a hill, can be seen from our yard):

The difference may be subtle in appearance (though they stand out to me…), but the biggest difference is their size. The old wheels were 16×8 with 245-series tires (meaning the tire’s contact patch with the road is 245 millimeters wide). The new wheels are 18×9.5 with 275-series tires. That means the sidewall is one inch narrower, and the width of the contact patch is over one inch bigger. Both of those facts add up to one thing: better handling. They aren’t quite as good for fuel economy unfortunately because the total weight of the bigger tire and wheel is greater than before, but I haven’t really noticed a difference so far (and I’ve gone through three tanks of gas with ’em).

To make sure you get a good look at the new shoes, here are a couple more shots:

The Weekend Before Christmas

The Saturday before Christmas, we went to dinner with my mother-in-law. This was our main Christmas gift to her: a fancy-schmancy dinner.

We ate dinner at the Dining Room at the Buckhead Ritz-Carlton. Our friends Scott and Karyn watched Will for us that evening. Dinner was awesome. We had a very nice bottle of wine (a Pinot Noir from the Russian River Valley in California – I can’t remember anything else about it right now, I’m afraid), and a fantastic eight-course dinner. The menu indicates only five courses, but that doesn’t include the amuse bousch or pre-dessert. It also didn’t include an impromptu course that was described by the server as a “gift from the chef.”

Dinner was phenomenal. Highlights follow:

• Butternut Squash Soup with Maine Diver Scallop, Date Cream, and Apple Shavings.
• Beef Tenderloin with Duck Fat Potatoes, Robiola (a type of goat cheese) Gnocchi, Osso Bucco Carrots, and a Confit Shallot
• Peppered Goat Cheese (lots of black pepper) with a Celery and Arugula Salad with Piquillo (sweet red pepper) Jam

The next night, Malin and I went out with several friends of ours. Scott and Karyn (our babysitters from the evening before), Bob and Christine (newly-weds whose wedding we attended in July), Jake (my brother), and a few other friends of friends. Christine and Karyn are both pregnant, so Malin coached the two of them through much of the night, assuaging their fears and anxieties, no doubt.

We took this large group to one of our favorite places in town: the Brick Store Pub in downtown Decatur.

A good time was had by all, and the next day was Christmas Eve… (you’ll have to wait until part 2 to hear about that)

“Preview?” you say. Yes, preview. Even though this holiday season has now come and gone, this post is but a preview. I’ll gather pictures and fail to come up with clever ways to describe our holidays in coming posts. This post is just to say “Sorry it’s been so long since we’ve added anything here. We are doing well, and we hope all our friends and family are, too.”

So be on the look-out in the next few posts for tantalizing tales of the House of Humphries. In particular, our aim is to catch you up on the following hot topics:

• Will. The number one subject around these parts. He’s still struggling with potty training, he had a fun Christmas and a not-so-fun New Year’s, and he starts school in less than two weeks. Also, he has a birthday and a corresponding party in less than two weeks, too.
• Before Christmas. Find out what we did the weekend before Christmas.
• Christmas. Find out what Santa brought the whole clan. You’ll also hear all about our fun but unfortunately brief visit with the original House of Humphries (Grandpa, Frannie, and Uncle Jake – unfortunately Auntie K’s presence was limited to a conference call, for proximity reasons).
• New Year’s. We’ll catch you up on all of the details of our New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day happenings and celebrations (or lack thereof).

I know this post is a lame filler. But we don’t yet have the materials ready to do justice to the above topics right now, so we’ll be aiming to wrap up 2007 before Will’s (and Grandpa Humphries’) birthday – Friday, 1/11.

I’ll give you a hint about what Santa brought us: it has something to do with trains.

Au revoir.

Sorry for the long period of inactivity. We’ve been rather busy lately with Thanksgiving, holiday preparations, and the like.

My parents and my brother visited us for Thanksgiving. Thanks to our executive chef (Malin), Thanksgiving dinner was very good and – as always – very filling. We had cornish hens instead of turkey this year: they’re easier to cook without getting dry.

The night before Thanksgiving my brother and I went out for a late dinner to meet some of his friends from school (he lives in Boston now, working at Harvard Medical, but he went to UGA for his undergrad). When we returned, we stayed up way too late, playing pool, having one or two many bottles o’ homebrew, catching up, and whatnot. I had to sleep in late on Thanksgiving day to recover.

The morning after, my father and I woke up early to go Black Friday shopping. We made it to the local Staples right when they opened (6am), and I managed to snag a 400gb hard drive for $60 – one of the few that were available. Around 7am, we arrived at the Toys’R’Us. This store was insane. The lines had to be at least an hour or two long. There were sleeping bags and fold-up tailgating chairs outside – the signs of crazy parents that were far more hardcore about getting their kids’ toys than I was. We did the only reasonable thing in the face of such a crowd: find what we were looking for and hide it so we could come back later to get it when the lines were shorter.

Later that day Malin, Will, and I returned to the Toys’R’Us. The store employees had found our hidden merchandise and returned it. Luckily, there were plenty left, and the lines had in fact shortened immensely.

In other news, the speedometer in my Camaro is finally fixed. I ended up buying another used Hypertech Power Programmer on eBay – this one worked. Now I just need to order new tires for it… I found a nice set, with new 18 inch wheels, on eBay that I am strongly considering.

We were originally planning on getting a tree this past Sunday, but we decided to go Christmas shopping instead – the weather was fantastic. So we’ll be heading out this upcoming weekend to cut down a fresh, green, Christmas tree.

That about covers what’s been happening here. Hopefully everyone out there had a pleasant Thanksgiving. I’ll try to post more frequently.

Ever since Will caught a glimpse of my friend Scott and I playing Halo 3, Will has been obsessed with “fighting bad guys”.

Lately, he uses a hammer from his xylophone as if it were a magic wand. He waves it around talking about fighting bad guys. Sometimes he proclaims, “I’m a bad guy!”. And then he makes funny noises with his mouth as he waves around his “bad guy stick”, as if casting some sort of spell.

It is thoroughly amusing.

Saturday, Will and I hung out most of the day. Malin had a photo shoot in the morning, so we played couch potato, watched cartoons, and then I started to make some food. Malin was going to a “girl’s night out” party later that evening and was taking a casserole. Will and I got bored, so we started cooking on her behalf: Macaroni and Cheese with Gorgonzola and Prosciutto.

The dish was almost halfway finished by the time Malin returned home. Later that evening, Malin went to her party, so Will and I played bachelors for the evening.

He has really gotten into playing Webkinz – it’s an online site to which you get a one-year subscription when you buy a Webkinz stuffed animal. Will’s Franny (my mom) gave him a black cat Webkinz, and Will has been addicted ever since. His favorite part is the arcade, wherein there are many simple Flash video games that are reminiscent of some of the offerings of PopCap Games. He is starting to get the hang of using a mouse. His latest maneuvers include click-and-dragging and using the touch-pad on the laptop. His coordination still needs some improvement, but he is learning. He even gets indignant when you try to help him with it.
So Will and I played Webkinz for a little bit. And then Will started playing “the bad guy”, prancing around the room with his “bad guy stick”. He’s wearing a diaper in the photos because he had just recently arisen from a nap (he often has accidents in his sleep, so we usually put him in a diaper to keep from washing sheets everyday – we’re trying to conserver water in our time of drought).

More pics of Will, casting spells against evildoers: