20111130 - 'I hate this'

20111130 - Up, worked, played some football catch with G, cooked brats with D, Dinner.  G hates everything we serve for dinner anymore...  J&I to city hall (wrong day), then to Blockbuster.  Home watched a movie with boys.  Boys to bed, trying to figure out Sony Google TV not working, watched Jericho till late surfing for projectors.




20111129 + LEGO winter

20111129 + worked all day, L&boys decorated tree, dinner, dark way too early, lego train put under tree and we built a Christmas scene with it.  Projector not working :-(  watched 'Change Up' w/L.

20111128 - Builders

20111128 - Up, worked, L&G put tree up, dinner, Garage ready, 10 Cob Scouts over, nails and screws, tool review, bird house build. met guys.



20111127 - UP DGJ&I picked up some friends, went to army surplus store, Lowe's & Home Depot for Cub Scout supplies.  Home tools out for scout meeting, built test birdhouse.  Gma&paW here for dinner, GmaW's bday.  Went to see our flip house, home.  watched Walking Dead, bed.

20111126 - Loss

20111126 - Up in the am and out with D&J to run some errands: Home Depot and some wreaths for D's Scouts. Home to pick up L&G then over to the Pettit's to watch a crazy OSU loss to Michigan. The first in Grant's lifetime... After the game Mr. Grossl and I joined in the backyard football game. It was quite a physical game; a couple of hard blocks and a diving catch left me wit a couple bruised ribs and grass stained pants :-) a good time.



Home and I helped J&G weave keychains while D did some homework. Down to the basement to watch 'The Halls of Montazuma' and 'Terra Nova' with the boys.

20111125 + Red Friday

20111125 + Up in the am and all the boys out with Gma&paW on high adventures. L&I headed out to brave the shopping throngs... Not bad this year, stores were not packed and we got out shopping done in good time, putting the stores in the black but us in the red... Our wait for lunch took longer than the store lines. We had an awesome lunch at Red Lobster, then back to the farm. L&I got the car packed and everyone got home with their treasures... We had a bday party for GmaW before heading home.


We got home to see the end of the Gahanna Lights parade from the back porch and Lilly was crying she was so happy to see us. Everyone cleaned up and we watched the new 'Spy Kids'.

20111124 - Thanksgiving

20111124 - Up down to the Farm house for coffee and doughnuts.  Hunters showed up and DJ&I headed out hunting, I got 2 pheasants :-o  The boys help clean the birds, taking home for next scout camp out.








Family at farm for dinner.  Dad had me read the prayer.  Louise was there but quite weak.



Rode Pug, took walk to falls, made gram cracker houses, put together a puzzle and got everything cleaned up.  Boys did fantastic today and the weather was very nice too.




All in a ll a very nice day.  Stayed up talking to GpaW about projects going on at the Farm.





20111123 - Thanksgiving Prep

20111123 - Up early and on the road to the Farm.  The traffic was thin and the trip was easy.  I worked from Farm and the work day was easy as well.  Roger and Brad showed up and we suited up and headed out to let pheasants out.  Jack did quite a few of them all by himself this year.  GmaW got home from work and GpaW got us a great Chinese dinner.  So we were pre-full before the eating day :-)

20111122 - Man Down

20111122 - Up and at desk.  Hit with a ton of bricks today.  Worked, but moving very slow between bathroom visits...   Everyone home I'm out, bed super early, heavily medicated...

20111121 - Final Feast

20111121 - Up and rolling at the desk. Quick get-a-way to see Grant's Thanksgiving Feast. This is the first one I have managed to get to for all 3 boys :-o  Good thing too; this is the last one for our boys...  :-(

Back to the desk for the rest of the day. Out to the Meet the guys at Giant Eagle. Feel beat...

20111120 - Train Them?

20111120 - Up and all to church. Home ate leftovers for lunch. L&D out on errands, JG&I hung out, listened to the radio and built the train I got for my birthday. L&D home and then D&I out on a couple errands and brought home dinner. We played with the train a bit and then watched a movie. All boys to bed and I watched my new obsession 'The Walking Dead'.

20111119 - Early Turkey

20111119 - Every up and out. We stopped to pickup J and headed to Newcomerstown for an early Thanksgiving dinner. The Cole's met us at Gma&paB's and we had a huge dinner. Out back to hide a geocache and some baseball on the ball fields. Inside to watch a miserable OSU vs Penn St game... We drove home, got the boys cleaned up and off to bed. I hit the basement for some more football.

20111118 - Up and very busy day at the desk. J at a friends for the night. The rest of us picked up Seth and went out for dinner at Holy Smoke; not so good... Got a movie. Home and the played upstairs. L took Seth home and boys to bed. L and I watched Horrible Bosses. Unbelievable funny!

20111117 - Cake x 3 = $470

20111117 - Up and a super busy day. Took a break to pick up G, L had bday party at work. Barely finished up in time to help J ice his iCake.


Everyone loaded up for one of our favorite nights of the year, the Fellers Cake Bake and Auction. The meeting part took a bit too long... but the cakes looked great!



The bidding started off slow; D got a huge spider cake, the first one sold, for only $10. I was auctioning and once we got rolling, the bids came in. G picked his favorite and represented Jeff and I and a budding war ensued. $210 later G bought a cake. That is not the worst of it. Jack, personally attached to his cake now, would not stop bidding... and several guys were going to make sure that would be the best cake we ever ate. They stopped bidding against J at $250... I don't think L&I's wedding cake cost that much... and I could almost buy a real iPad for that price!

Not to worry, the proceeds (over $1200) all go to GRIN (Gahanna Residents In Need) and my bidding opponents helped share in the expense. We set some new records, $250 = most ever spent on a cake, 1st time with 2 cakes over $200, 1st time with 3 cakes over $100. Everyone had a good time, based on new experiences and helping a good cause. And I got to practice my new art of auction chanting ;-)

20111116 - Groceries

20111116 - Up working, Lunch with friend Roger at Chi-Thia. Home finished working and then helped J cook dinner on the grill. We all ate J's gourmet dinner of grilled hotdogs, ramen noodles and grapes :-) D&I then the Kroger where we helped a couple other Scouts buy supplies for their campout this weekend. Home and D did homework while JG&I played Carrom. Boys to bed, watched a movie.

20111115 + iCake

20111115 + Worked all day except a quick trip to pick up G. Out of the office and helped j bake a cake with. Then we all had dinner together. J&I made cake decorations, Starburst candies decorated to loom like the icons for apps, to be place on his cake to make it look like an iPad = iCake. After the boys went to bed L&I cleaned out basement.

20111114 - Chopper Scouts

20111114 - Worked. Dinner with the fam. J&I to a Scout meeting at the Columbus Police Heliport. It was SUPER COOL!!! We learned all sits of stuff about helicopters and each of the boys (and me :-) got to sit in one of them! The boys had a blast!, Home, dropped off J got Doc. Dropped off popcorn orders, to giant eagle for mens meeting.

20111113 - Pick Up Sticks

20111113 - Up in the am and L not feeling well so I took the boys for bfast to McDs. Then we headed up to the Farm. We played in the barn and G gave Nibbles a walk, then we all headed down to the bottom field, G got to drive the tractor, to pick up a pile of driftwood. Soon the Loughman clan and joined us and we checked some fences and the kids explored in the woods.
Back to the barn and the kids played, swung on the rope and fed some hay to a couple cows. The boys Gma&paW & I all headed to the Chinese Buffett for dinner. We headed home, I dropped off the boys and ran straight to a Scout Leader meeting. Home to clean boys, got them to bed and L, still sick, now with chest pains, to bed too. I headed down to the basement to watch a show and prepare for the week.

20111112 - Howdy's Hard List

20111112 - Up and D helped me finish clean up the garage. Then we headed out for his time to populate his Christmas wishlist. Our first stop was a gum show, we were looking for airsoft guns, but found some knives and survival bracelet kits. We did find airsoft, for cash and not business cards/way to contact the seller...

Our next stop was Toys R Us. This stop was not what I expected and told me a lot... As we walked through the isles that in the past would consume hours; this year took only seconds... D's interests in the last year have shifted so much... The toys he loved are not even considered and the toys he likes now are considerably more costly :-s We did find some things there though... We walked next door to Hobby Lobby where some science kits and models were scanned in.

By this Time the OSU game was in full swing. We listened to it on the radio between stores. I would have liked to see the game, but spending the day alone with Howdy is way cooler than any football game...

We were hungry by this time so we headed to 'Howdy's Deli' so Howdy and I could get some late lunch. I got the Howdy's Huge sandwich and Howdy got triple stack huge pancakes and sausage. We caught some of the game while we ate.

On to 'Army Surplus World' for some serious airsoft shopping... Then on to 'Dick's' for camping, airsoft and skiing shopping. We were shopped out and headed home, listening to the overtime loss of OSU on our journey home.

Home and LJ&G had been busy cleaning. I continued the trend and finished cleaning out the Rodeo while the boys had a peanut fight... In and my buddy Ed showed up 3 hours early for a 9pm meeting. His phone calendar was set for Pacific time :-o About this time L got nauseous...??? Ed hung out while I fed the boys and and we chatted. D made his survival bracelet and J made his collection display for Scouts and G played my iPad. Ed left and ScottH showed up for the 9pm meeting, on time... But he was the only one, so we sat and chatted and watched college football while the boys got to stay up late.



A nice day, but a bit sad as Howdy is getting too big for most toys :-(

20111111 - Nice Day

20111111 - Up and Gma&paB here.  J walked off to school and L headed in to school for parent teacher conferences.  DG, Gma&paB & I then headed to D's school where we had a really nice Veterans' Day program.  A young man played the bagpipes as the Veterans walked in each kid got to introduce the poerson that had come with them.  There was singing and the band performed a few numbers.  D got to introduce his Gpa, but didn't tell everyone all the stuff he did while he was in service.  It was a very emotional ceremony. We headed home and took D with us because he had a bad cough and L was going to try and get him into the Dr. later today...

Home and we had some time to kill before heading back to J's school so GpaB and I used a repair kit on the windshield of the GMC to see if it would fix a crack while GmaB tried to stay warm, G play the iPad and D watched TV and messed with his iTouch.  It worked pretty well.  Soon we headed back to through the backyard.  D stayed behind to wait on L, but Penn a buddy with a son in second grade joined us on the walk back to the school.  We got checked in and headed to J's class where we hung out for a bit before heading down to a yummy turkey dinner.  The boys hardly ate a thing, but that was ok, it meant more for me ;-)  After our lunch we headed back to J's class where we hung out for a while until the kids had to go to art.  We couldn't go to art so we went and hung out n the gym and watched the kids play with a parachute and G&I played hot-hands and thumb wrestled until the kids started pouring in for their Veterans' Day assembly.  L joined us and the kids sang, the Veterans introduced themselves and more singing.  It was a very emotional Afternoon...

LG & Gma&paB headed home and I went back to J's class to finish the day.  I had some fun conversations with the kids and it was fun to see J in action.  He is very popular at school...  J&I home and J drew some pictures for Gma&pa and everyone else relaxed while L took D to the Dr.  When they got home from the Dr. the diagnosis was 'a bad cough'.  Well DUH!  but no meds...  We hung out a bit ore and then all headed to one of our new favorite Italian places for dinner where we ate ourselves out of our seats...

Back home and Gma&paB headed home.   The boys got cleaned up and we met in the basement to watch a movie and start cleaning out the basement.  All boys to bed and I am siting up reading the responses to the letters I sent out last night.  They make me very emotional...

What a great day with great people.

Thanks for the bonus 12 years Big Guy!

20111110 - Swimming

20111110 - Up, took G to Terry's. At desk, got call, walked mile while on the call. Back at desk and finished off the day. Had a nice dinner. Then played some Carrom with D(for a min)J&G. Then met Gma&paB and the Coles for some November swimming.

Up late sending out my 'Happy November 11th!' emails.

20111109 - G's Wishes

20111109 - Up at the desk for literally 10hrs straight.. except for the one call I had come in on the cell so I took my 1 mile walk while talking.  I had a Go-Live with Mexico today. that went amazingly well...  Out of the office and grabbed a sandwich on the way out the door to the Gahanna Aquatic Board meeting.  Pretty good meeting this month.  After I ran to the movie store and then back home to get G.  G&I headed to Toy R Us to scan in his annual wishlist items; all 2 billion items... We got home pretty late so he had to go straight to bed.  I stayed up late and talked to GpaW about all the stuff he is working on up at the Farm.

20111108 + 2n Singing

20111108 + Up and at the desk.  Got things stable so ran to the Dr. for a checkup.  then to another Dr. to get my records transferred...  A quick stop to vote and then I picked up G and we went to McD's to grab lunch.  I had a ton more work to do so we had to eat at home.  Worked some more.  Dinner with the fam and then back to the school for J's 2nd grade singing event.  They had some cute songs about Thanksgiving and turkeys and J had a speaking part about one of the patriotic songs.  It was really cute.   Home and played Carrom with the boys.  After we got them to bed L&I watched 'Crazy Stupid Love', very funny.

20111106 - The Grantorcist

20111106 - Up, LD&G to church. J&I waited for his buddy to show up, then I took the boys to a bday party at a trampoline place. I dropped the boys off and then went to the Direct Buy next door and looked at countertops and sinks. Then ran to the AT&T store and Great Clips for a hair cut. I grabbed a sub at Quiznos and then picked the boys up from the party.

The boys and I returned some stuff to OfficeMax and Best Buy. We then stopped to get gas and candy. Onward to ToysRus to scan in J's Christmas list (see 'Jack's Wishlist' top right). We headed home and traded cars with L&D and picked up G. We took J's friends home and took a tour of their nice new house and the boys found a park. Then the car wouldn't start...

JG&I then took Rich's projector back and saw Samer & Leaner for a sec. On to AutoZone to get the suddenly needed car battery... Across the street to Chi Thai for a good Oriental dinner where we saw Captain America, and I got to shake his hand! We ran the video box back to WOW, tried to get gas but the station had their drive resurfaced... on to Jeff's to give his TV back and finally to the gas station. Home and finished watching a show with everyone and they were all yawning in pitch black of the time change (YUK!!!). L and I down to watch a movie, 'Bad Teacher'.

About 3/4s of the way through Grant was yelling 'MOMMY!!! MOMMY! L ran up the steps, and me, being the kind husband, paused the movie: just in time to hear L yelling... I dropped the remote quick as lightning and dashed up the steps to witness the second stream of projectile vomit streaming out of our possessed son spewing down the full length of the steps with precision coverage of ever surface in a 600 square foot corridor... It took us about an hour to get everything/one cleaned up and G parked on the couch. Back down to finish the movie and hopefully a restful rest of the night...

Scratch that...  

...L just came down from checking on J, who was coughing, with a blood soaked pillow...  J was dead asleep with a bloody nose...  I'm now on the couch with G, 'monitoring the boys'...  So much for a restful night...

20111105 - 6th Annual OSU Football @ Winger's

20111105 - Up to a PERFECT DAY! We started setting things up, cooking, and the friends started rolling in...
There were kids everywhere, and friends old and new showed up; old connections were made and stories told. It is amazing how small this world is...

There was a HUGE spread of food to satisfy any appetite and plenty of TVs and beer.

The boys had their own football game,

and all 94 of us had an absolutely wonderful day. 

The Buckeyes actually WON which made it even better!


After the game some friends stayed to help clean up, and some who were lucky enough to go to the game stopped by. L&I sat down after final clean up and watched more football. I even caught a replay of the OSU game which I missed running around doing this and that during the day. It sure is fun, but we wish we had more time to talk to folks. It seemed every time we got in a conversation we were pulled off to this or that. No matter, we enjoy the friends and family all getting together, reuniting and forming stronger relationships.


Thank the Lord for such a great group of people we are surrounded by!

OSU Fight Song (Remix) by DJ SyFr

20111104 + Lots Done

20111104 + Got TV from Jeff, D home with a good grade card!  Whole family ran to Rich's to get his projector and then had dinner at Panda Express.  We went to Target shopping for last minute party supplies, then home setting up for the party, bed good time.

20111103 - Work, more UAT  L took all 3 took all 3 boys to the dentist, J cavity, D gingivitis and bad plaque build up...  Removed fire pit, boys helped.  L&J back to his school for open house.  DG&I to Home Depot for some supplies.  All back home watched our first blue ray movie, Cars 2.  L&I up watching 'Season of the witch'.

20111102 - Feeling better, long day of UAT with my friends down South.  Ed stopped by to get paid.  Dinner with the fam.  Rough game of flag football.  J&I out on errands, library, gas station, grocery for party supplies, video store, home and relaxing a bit.

20111101 - November Already?

20111101 -Up still feel exhausted, even with enough hours sleep...  At desk getting things done.  L had meeting after work.    L&G home, lunch, then they took a walk/scooter ride.  J mowed and D&G played football a bit before dinner, then DJ&I headed to J's Den meeting where we got a bunch of fun things done.  On the way home D even said it was a good meeting :-)  I met Scott S at Giant Eagle and then we headed home early and off to bed.