Game Geeks II

Saturday night was Nick's Board Game Geeks Christmas party. It was quite an interesting evening, though it turned out to be pretty fun.

Carrie came along with us (she's a Game Geek at heart) and there's a reason she looks scared, other than the fact that she's not excelling at Ticket to Ride.


That guy she's sitting next to is Bart, as in Sgt. Bart. He's a supervisor in Patrol South, and Carrie and I played all night with Bart and his wife, Elizabeth.


Nick got stuck in a marathon game of Puerto Rico, though he didn't complain. At the end of the night, we learned a fun game called Werewolf. We'll teach you some time.

Christmas catch-up

It's over. We survived. Now, it's time for a recap of our last six days...

Christmas started last Friday night, when my family (mom and dad, Annie, Pete and kids and Aunt Kye plus Taylor and Katie) crowded into my house. Here are the kids opening their traditional Christmas jammies from Grammy.

You saw the firetruck picture earlier. One of Alexis' other favorite gifts was a game her daddy got her. She and Joe actually get this one, and they wanted to play it over and over. And so it begins...

Christmas dinner. I made my famous special lasagna from the Time-Life cookbook I inherited from my Granny.


My family left Sunday, and then we headed to Alva on Christmas Eve to celebrate with Nick's family. When we arrived, Katy and Tim were hard at work on a gingerbread house. Katy baked it all from scratch. Crafty, that one.

It was hard to keep Lexi from eating the roof.


During gift time in Alva, Lexi insisted on helping uncle Marc-a-moli with the unwrapping


Cousin Jack #2 and Lexi, back-to-back during the gift frenzy.


The last time we saw Sophie, she was just a baby. Now, she and Lexi are about the same size and had fun making trouble together.

We got restless on Christmas Day and made good use out of Grandma's remaining snow. These poor babies lasted about two hours in the Okla. sun.

It was a good Christmas. But we're glad it's over.

Best Blog Ever is on vacation

... but not cuz it wants to be.

Sorry for the lack of postings. This is my worst blog record in BBE history. I literally have had no time to turn on the computer in a week, between cooking and cleaning and wrapping and preparing for my houseful of family, who left yesterday. In about an hour, we leave for Alva, an Internet-free zone, but will be back on Wednesday when I'll try to catch up with this.

In the meantime, you all will be relieved to here that Santa did, indeed, bring Lexi the fire truck she's been talking about for six months. Lucky girl.

Busy weekend...

...though I was a little lazy with my camera.

My three-day weekend (took Friday off to do some Christmas shopping) started off in a massively depressing way. I spent most of the day dealing with the sad duties of saying goodbye to *&%(#@ Chris Shull.

Here's the deserter at his farewell lunch at Larkspur, which was quite well attended. Note Diane Lewis to Travis' left. Bob Curtright was across from me.


Here's the other end of the table. For details on the equally appetite-killing cake at the mailboxes, check out Lori's blog.

Saturday was better. Nick stayed home with Alexis so I could attend a couple of Christmas parties and Jaime's stage show at the Orpheum. All were fun, especially the ritzy gala at Wink Hartman's house that Carrie took me to. And yes, Rengers, I apologize for the chocolate in the pocket. You happy now?


On Sunday, I went down the street to Friends to watch "The Nutcracker" with Bon and Lori, which was great for many reasons, one of which was that Hannah Tobias had a role as a member of the Mouse King's army.

Mom and mouse after the show.

CrewTAWNS

Tonight, Lexi and I met up with Dirk and Brandon and Brandon's mom, Jeannie. Dirk and Brandon are two of about four high school friends I'm still in touch with.


Brandon, who lives in KC, and I have been friends since fourth grade. We lived on the same street and our moms were good friends. I met Dirk in high school, and now he owns the UPS store at Central and Hillside. (Bon and Jaime are regular customers.)


Our very nice waitress couldn't help but notice Lexi's affinity for croutons, which she calls crew-TONS, and brought her a plate of her own.

Girl loves her some croutons.

Welcome, new blog person

My good friend Amy, seen here with two of Lexi's best pals Harrison and Maddy, has just started blogging today. It's great. Take a look, and I'm sure you'll agree.

Have an alcoholic Christmas

As you may have read on some, ahem, competing blogs, we had our annual team party at Bonnie's today.


Slurpin' soup at the big kids' table...


And at the little kids' table, where I was stuck. That's okay. It was the party table, as you can see.

Not sure what this says about our team, but an unusually large number of party attendees recieved alcoholic beverages as gifts.


No, wait, I know exactly what that says about our team.

The store that makes me want to be a better man

...or woman, in my case.

Today, I finally made it to the big new Dillons at Central and Rock. I'm not sure what took me so long, other than that I live no where near Central and Rock. Or maybe I was just afraid it would be too good. And it was.

They had shallots just, like, SITTING in a basket. No orange mesh bag. Just SITTING there.

I would consider moving to be closer to these shallots.

Why must she?

Last night, our friends Audrey and Scott invited us and the Baumers over to their fancy Eastborough home for a little dinner, game play and Christmas cake decorating.


Lexi was a little intimidated by the four big kids, but she hung in there the best she could.


After cake decorating and eating, the big kids went to watch a movie and Lexi stuck to me like gumdrop on white icing. She wouldn't go to sleep but was snuggled on a white chair in Audrey's formal living room, watching us play games.

But because she's Lexi, the story doesn't end there. Suddenly, at the height of one of our games, lots of pink and chunky stuff started re-emerging from Lexi's mouth. All over the white chair. The evening was pretty much over at that point.

I think, though I may be wrong, that I've had to endure more of these horrifying episodes than the average mom.

Smells like it, anyway.

Kirstie

Sometimes, my job is kind of fun.

On Friday, I was assigned to write a story about an unusual Christmas display that had gone up in front of one of Kirstie Alley's houses on Douglas.

I called around, and within an hour, I was on the phone with her assistant. Did I want to come over and interview her? Could I come now?

I zoomed over to the former Inn at the Park, where Kirstie now lives. We sat in her nicely decorated living room and chatted for about a half an hour. She was very nice, didn't try to rush me at all, and answered all of my questions more or less, not that I was asking tough ones. She did, however, refuse to be in a picture.

It was surreal, but pretty fun. And just to answer the question everyone's been asking me -- she looked great. Still thin and very beautiful.

Anyway, here's the story I wrote. The message board posters are, of course, having a field day with it. But at least they're not attacking me for once.

Three days, three birthday parties

I think I know too many people born in December...

It has become a tradition that every year on Jaime's birthday, I throw her a little dinner party where we invite as many of her favorite people who will fit around my table.

This year, her guest list got smaller, and I do not mean in number...

Jaime's birthday weekend continued Friday night when, by her request, we had a pizza/Christmas cookie decorating party with Carter, his kids Colin and Catherine, Lexi and Amy's kids Maddy and Harrison.


Carter's buddy Nick and his very grown-up son Grant also stopped by for a bit. This is Jaime's not-so-outstanding effort at a timed self-portrait. Maddy? Catherine?


Maddy is a good cookie decorator, and she kept reminding us it's cuz she's done it before.


OK, so our finished products looked a little more Easter than Christmas, but they still tasted good. Note to self: Get red food coloring.


Then, this morning, we headed to McDonald's for Harrison's birthday party. He turns 3 next week. As you can see, he's money with the ladies. Don't ask me why Lexi has her hand down there. I have no idea.


The hot toy for the 3-year-old boy? Trains, and lots of them.

Full disclosure: This was Lexi's big return to the McDonald's where we had the "incident" back in September. I was hesitant, thinking they'd have her picture posted on the door, but no.

There were no incidents today, partially because she's much better in that area and partially because I put her in a pull-up. I wasn't taking any chances.

Above you will see the exact spot from which the shower originated. Look closely -- either they never quite got it cleaned up or that's a very popular spot for accidents.

Ugh.

Happy birthday, Harrison.

Happy birthday Jaime

Today, Dec. 6, is Jaime's birthday and I THINK she had a good one, even though I made her work the book sale.


I think the highlight of her day, though I can't be sure, was our gathering at Larkspur tonight. We had a good group of friends there, plus Carter... IN A SUIT!

It's Brian Corn's birthday too, and that's no small potatoes. He's Jaime's boss and a very high ranking member of the Eagle hierarchy.

If it looks like Carter Green is serenading Jaime with the help of the house piano man, that's because he was.

Happy B-day Opps!

With permission from Scruffins...

On the off, off, off chance that you haven't seen Jaime's blog posting about our Christmas tree assembly, here it is. Pay special attention to the Christmas pug.

Things are looking up

Today was much better. My cold is GONE! (Amazing how it can go from misery to vanished in one day.) And we had a little fun.

We started with an early morning visit from Kyle, who stayed with us while his mommy and daddy attended horrifically scheduled Saturday morning meetings. Play-Doh was on the agenda.

Kyle is a big Norton fan.


Both kids are Happy Meal fans. And yes, Kyle's shirt says what you think it does. I, for one, am relieved.

On the evening agenda -- poker. What else? Lori and Dale were late because they were at a shooting class. And I don't mean cameras. Turns out Lori's got skillz. Gulp.


I actually won $20 tonight, which is unusual for me. Above you will see the point in the evening when I bailed out -- the point when Dale starts betting the pot on every stinking hand.

At least he wasn't packing. I hope.

Feelin' like...

Sorry I've been absent this week. I've been feeling like, well...

It's been kind of a tough week, mainly because I've been recovering from a nasty cold that conveniently started on the first day of my Thanksgiving vacation. It delivered its grand finale more than a week later -- this morning -- when I woke up to find my right ear completely and totally 100 percent clogged. Nothing was coming in -- no sound, no nothing. It was such a miserable feeling, I scheduled an emergency trip to the doc this afternoon. Fortunately, my ear unclogged about five minutes before I was about to walk out the door to the doctor, so I canceled. Now I'm feeling sorta fine. Thanks to Drs. Tobias, Calovich and Buselt for all their guidance.

On top of that, I was Lori at work this week (you might have noticed Mizz Vacation's upswing in blog posts), and it was a strange, strange week. All sorts of odd things happening, and Bob Curtright gave me attitude. Not a good combination.

Have I mentioned I'm 35 now?

And as if all that weren't enough, I've been dealing with the sad news that one of my favorite people, Chris Shull, is moving back to Texas. Soon. I'm caught a little off guard by how sad it's making me.


Next week will be better. Right??

In their element

On Saturday, I slummed it with the sports reporters and photogs to write a fan story at the KU/MU game at Arrowhead. I have some big sporting event experience -- I worked writing fan stories on two KU basketball tournament trips several years ago.

The thing I like best about these assignments is watching my colleagues in their element. I alway see their work in the paper, but it's fun to see what they go through to get it.

Here are Travis and Bo hauling approximately 3,000 pounds of photo equipment through the Arrowhead parking lot. I offered to help...

And here are the Lutzes, Jeff and Bob, hard at work in the press box -- way cramped quarters with a way cool view.