Decorating the Tree

So we spent the afternoon decorating the Christmas tree. Alison couldn't wait, so I brought up the bins with the ornaments and she started pulling them out setting everything up so when Kris got home from work we could start.




Even Sarah decided to set her ornaments up:

We ended up spending about an hour and a half doing their ornaments, I started putting on mine and Kris's. As you can see with the tree in the corner, we lose a good portion of ornament hanging area, so with all the ornaments the girls have, we (Kris and I) left off at least half of ours.




And finally, after a little more than two hours, Alison ended the decorating by hiding the pickle.


Here is the finished tree... Not bad. I think we've had better, but I'll live with it.

Maybe it'll look better with snow outside and presents underneath.

The Lights

Anyone who knows me knows I am fanatical about putting lights on my Christmas tree. Usually I put them on as I am putting the tree together, but this year due to time constraints, I had put the tree up on Thanksgiving night, Black Friday the lights went on, and now today we will be putting the ornaments on the tree.

This year, I ended up pulling the lights out of the bin and before I even started wrapping the tree, I had 6 strings that were completely out. How do lights go bad just sitting in a bin when they were working when they went in is beyond me. Sort of like wondering where your socks go when they get lost in the dryer.

So before starting I had to go out and get some new lights. I think that should be an annual thing, just buy 10 new strings every year. But once the lights were ready, the stringing began.

This is what 1000 lights looks like.


...and after 1600 lights...

...with 2000 lights...

...2400 Lights and counting....

...and finally... 2700 mini white lights.

I had to go back and look at my previous tree entries and I think that I have topped my all-time grand total for lights on the tree. I'm not sure if that is something to be proud of or not.

So the ornaments will be going on today... check back for pictures of this year's tree.

Countdown

With Thanksgiving over, it is time to get out the Christmas decorations... Let the countdown start!

Indian Invite Part 2

Since I got the other video to load, here is Sarah's other routine:

7th Grade Cheer from Dennis Hahn on Vimeo.

Sarah is in the back on the left side. She ends up being a base on the left later on.

Attempt at Videos

This is my first attempt at uploading a home video. I searched around and decided on Vimeo.com. hopefully this will work. This is Sarah's Junior Indians routine from the Indian Invite last weekend. Sarah is in the front row all the way on the right, second from the end.

Indian Invite from Dennis Hahn on Vimeo.

Sarah's Conference

We had teacher conferences with Sarah's teachers this evening. We were blocked off for ten minutes per teacher, but we were only set to see four of them. Sarah said we didn't need to see a couple of them.

We started off with her science teacher, followed by Spanish, Language Arts, and Math. We got a little behind when it was time for the language teacher, but luckily we didn't need the full time with any of her teachers. I think the worst grade she was getting was a 95, so needless to say Kris and I are very pleased with Sarah's performance.

Indian Invite

Sarah had her first Cheer competition last Saturday, the Indian Invitational. Last year she was there for the Jr. High dance team. This year it was solely cheerleaders, no poms at all. And on top of that, she did a routine for Jr. Indians cheer (which is the football cheer squads) and for North Jr. High. They weren't judged, they were listed as only an exhibition, which makes sense since The Falls was hosting it. I thought it was a little simple, but Sarah said their coach was starting them slow and they would be adding elements to their routine for future competitions.

Sarah is in the upper left corner if you can't tell.

This was her Junior Indians routine:




Ali took a couple of pictures during her North routine while I shot video.



Video to come shortly as soon as I can figure out how to upload it.

Break

We are on Thanksgiving break this week, so the girls are home and hopefully not going to kill each other. Sarah's teacher conferences are tonight, and Alison's is tomorrow. We are keeping our fingers crossed for a good report.

AT&T Blows

Saturday night Sarah came to me and told me she was typing out a text message when the display on her phone went out. It was still vibrating and could still take calls, but with it being a touch screen, it makes it sort of hard to use. I figured no problem, we'll just go to the AT&T store today (Sunday) and see about getting a replacement. We purchased insurance on it (an LG Neon) and it is only a little over a year old (about 15 months) so we should be able to just bring it in and they would give us a new one.

Well the guy looked at it and then went over to the computer, started typing in all kinds of information, then comes back and says, "Oh, sorry, you only purchased a one year insurance plan, and the warranty on the phone was only 12 months, so we're pretty much out of luck. All we can do is purchase a new phone (at full price). Fortunately, the phone that Kris and I have for her parents was able to be upgraded, so I was able to use that to upgrade Sarah's phone, I am just locked into a two year contract with their phone now.

I had Sarah look over the phones they had in the store and pick one out, one that wasn't too expensive, even with the discount. She settled on a green Pantech Pursuit. It wasn't exactly what she wanted, but it was all we really had to choose from. this time, however, I bought the insurance for twenty four months, the length of the contract. I am not going to have this sort of thing happen again.

Then I happened to ask about my phone, which is four years old, and in need of being replaced. However I am not about to pay full price for a cell phone. They gave me some lame excuse as for why I can't upgrade it right now (I have to wait until April) but I still think it is ridiculous. Right now I am so mad at AT&T, but I can't really do much since we are locked into contracts, so I just have to sit and take it, which really sucks.

Connection is Down

Back in August (or was it September?) we had a problem with our internet connection/TV with our AT&T U-Verse. Our gateway went out completely. The result was that we needed a whole new gateway installed. It took about a day to get a technician out here and get it taken care of.

Ever since at least once a week we had been having a problem with the TV going out. Going into the basement, the gateway was completely out. All it took was a little bit of wiggling of the cable that was plugged into the gateway and it would come back on. Well it went out last night and I couldn't get it back on. That meant no internet connection, no TV, and no phone. That just wasn't going to work.

I had to call from work on my cell phone and luckily the guy I spoke to managed to get us an appointment the next day. And being only 10-15 minutes from home, I was able to just run home when the guy called and said he would be at our house in 20-30 minutes. Well he came in and switched out the gateway again, and the battery backup. It took about 30 minutes, but everything was up and running again. good thing too. I think without TV or an internet connection we were going stir crazy (we can do without the phone).

On the plus side, it did allow me time to watch a few movies that I have on DVD that I hadn't seen yet, but had been wanting to.

Then later in the day Kris called to tell me the AT&T technician called and said they were going to be working on the lies in the area, something about squirrels chewing thru some lines and bypassing the area for now, but they would be working on it for the next day or so.

Manatees

With no Packers game this afternoon, we had some time to help Alison work on a school project. She had to pick an animal and do an informational report on it by making a poster or a diorama along with a written report describing things like what the animal eats, all about its habitat. She got the project assigned while she was out sick, so we were just working off the assignment sheet. I am not quite sure that we helped Alison exactly right with choosing her animal, but we did pick one that she thought was really cool and one that no one else would do, the manatee.

As soon as her report and poster is done, I'll post final pictures but part of her assignment was also to either draw a picture of it or make a model. Ali wanted to make a clay model, so we went to the hobby store yesterday and got a small container of clay and while watching the crummy football game today, Ali and I put together our best representation of a manatee. I think we did a pretty good job. Now we just have to wait for the clay to dry so that we can paint it and be ready to turn her project in next week.

He and Me Event

Alison had a “Me and My Guy” event for scouts yesterday, a father-daughter bowling event. It was an event for the entire service unit so Ali had the opportunity to see some of her old friends from Riverside. Actually, Sarah could have gone too, but she had a PA workshop to go to, and wouldn't have been back until after 1:00, so she opted to just skip it.

We got put on the very last lane with Ali’s new friends Emma and Paige. We got two games of bowling plus pizza and soda. Ali started off each of the games with a strike. In fact, in the first game we bowled, Ali got a strike and two spares in three of the first four frames. She ended up beating me in the first game 109-92. The second game, I ended up with a better score 119-96. I had to use a little heavier ball than I wanted because I couldn’t find a ball that would fit my hand. No excuses though. I was humbled being beat by an eight year old. But I will say, real bowling is much different than playing on the Wii.




When we were all done, I gave Ali $5 worth of token for playing skeeball in the arcade. She had a couple of pretty big games, but for the most part just got a few tickets per game. Then when it was time to cash in, all she wanted was candy, blow pops and bubble gum.

Ali had a really fun time bowling and visiting with her old friends, and her new ones. The alley gave us a couple of coupons for free games too so maybe we'll go back again.

Election Day '08

While I have learned to keep my personal thoughts about certain things out of my blog here, such as politics and personal thoughts about what is happening at work, I have to gloat about the election yesterday. I came home at lunch and Kris and I went to vote to get Russ Feingold out of office and to also get Scott Walker in as the Governor. It was nice to see that even with all the smears that Barrett and Feingold were tossing out from the Democratic spin machine, that the people of Wisconsin have finally awakened to the fact that Socialism just doesn’t work. And now hopefully Walker will start getting the state back on track by cutting the enormous amount of spending that has been going on here.

And to get rid of Feingold, the “maverick” who really isn’t, is just sweet. I am hopeful that Ron Johnson and the rest of the red tidal wave that happened yesterday will signal a taking back of America to having our officials actually doing the will of the people, and not that of a group of powerful leftists who see government as a vehicle to redistribute the wealth of the country.

Let the countdown to 2012 and BO’s ouster begin. I just hope that in the next two years the Republicans can come up with a viable candidate for President, at least someone who I don’t have to hold my nose for when I cast my vote like I did with McCain.