... but you can't take the 'Ham out of the Lewis: 12/01/2004 - 01/01/2005

... but you can't take the 'Ham out of the Lewis

What's going on up here anyhow?

Friday, December 31, 2004

Back home and ending the year

Got back from our family Christmas visit about half an hour ago. Things are getting unpacked, mail is being opened, and soon life will return to normal. But not quite yet. We are going to a New Year's Eve party in about and hour so we have to touch base here and head right out. No rest for the weary.
I took far too many pictures during our time visiting our families so I'll probably put a few up here to show what happened. Of course, it's pretty easy to figure out what we did. We stayed up late, had fun, did things, opened presents, saw friends, helped out with various things at church, ate lots and lots of food, played games, and had a great time! So, we'll finish this year strong with one more night of not sleeping in our beds (we're sleeping at our friends' house so that we don't have to be on the road with all the crazies).
This year really went by fast. When we came home last year it was a few days later and snowing like crazy. I still remember driving up I-5 from Mt. Vernon at 20 mph and still being worried that the snow/ice on the road would pull me off to the side. This year's drive back was much easier and quite pretty with clouds and the setting sun. I need to go unpack some and put on some pants! I'm wearing shorts for reasons unbeknownst to me. Happy End of Year!!!!!

Monday, December 27, 2004

Just Taking It Easy

The week after Christmas is really neat because all of the planned for and busy events have passed by and there is time to just hang out and do little trips and hang out without much time pressure. We spent yesterday morning at church from 7:30 until 1:00 helping serve breakfast (and I helped my mom with Sunday School at one service) for the three services. It was pretty busy, but it went fast and was fun.
We hung out with Sarah's family for the afternoon, watched football (if that's what you call the game the Seahawks try to play for 4 quarters), played with toys, and ate some really good soup. Then we headed down here to my parents and had Salmon pate (is that how you spell that?). Afterwards, my dad showed some old slides that he hadn't even seen for years. It was really cool to see them and hear about all the crazy trips he and his brother, and he and my mom, went on - usually on a motorcycle or with a dog (but never on a motorcycle and with a dog!).
Slept until 8:15 this morning, that's my latest so far this trip! I'm raring to go!

Saturday, December 25, 2004

Really Being Patient

I am now sitting here at the computer typing this rather than rushing over to the fireplace and devouring all that Santa has brought overnight. I was actually even awake at 5:30 or so but managed to get back to sleep and woke up about 5 minutes ago. This is a much more reasonable hour to be up even if we did only go to bed at 1:00! At this point it's really kind of pointless to wait any longer so I'm going to try and coerce Sarah into wandering over towards our stockings. It'll be interesting to see when my brothers and their friends (two international students) actually get up. It certainly won't be as early as when we were little - we would have woken each other up right around 5:30 or 6!

Oh yeah, Merry Christmas everyone! It was nice to see some old faces at church last night. It always seems to be a good time to visit, but the socializing isn't really the focus of going to church. It's just a nice side benefit. I hope everyone is able to enjoy today with their family or friends to celebrate the birthday of God's son. Sometimes I don't always remember what Christmas is all about, but I do try to find the meaning that giving gifts has within the the celebration of Jesus' birth.

Yeah! It's Christmas!

Friday, December 24, 2004

Eve doesn't mean night

However, when I was a kid I really was convinced that Christmas Eve isn't until it gets dark. I still kind of hold on to this idea, but I know that all day today is Christmas Eve. Shopping for food wasn't really that bad today considering it is the aforementioned day of the year. We went with Sarah's mom and got lots and lots of food. Now we are hanging with my momma and Sarah is finishing up some knitting for tomorrow. I still need to go buy a beef stick to accompany some gloves for my Granddad. He'll be delighted just long enough and will enjoy eating the beef stick. I feel kinda lame getting him food, but it's really the only thing he can use (along with the gloves, which my mom actually got for him).
So it's just a trip to see the grandparents, quick stop at Target, chowder at Sarah's parents', church at 9:00, waiting for Dad to get home with Danny from Seattle, possibly picking up Tyler and his friends at the ferry, opening gifts from back East, and then we can go to sleep this Christmas Eve. I still kind of have the same weird anxious and eager anticipation that I had when I was a kid. I hope I can convince myself to go to sleep so that the night will go faster just like I did when I was younger. Tomorrow will be fun and busy and great, but today has been very relaxing and slow - just right. Alright I gotta check on the fire and keep it going. However, it will be put out before tonight so that you-know-who can come down the chimney (possibly with a bound).
It's almost Christmas!!!!!!!

Thursday, December 23, 2004

I gave myself...

an early Christmas present. Or maybe my instructors did. Either way I did really well this quarter and got the grades to match. I won't disclose actual GPA statistics cause I don't want to cause a jealous revolt among the 5 and a half people who read this. Let's just say I couldn't have done any better.
Now it's the last normal day before Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. But because it's the last normal day it is far from normal. I think things like I need to (insert one of six different things I need to do) today because tomorrow will probably be kind of busy. So, I make today busy in addition to tomorrow and the day after being jam packed.
Last night was fun. We went caroling to four different houses of oldies that don't get out much. There was a huge caravan of cars driving across the South Kitsap area and singing carols. We came back here and hung out and ate too much food before finally going to sleep far too late (again).
To offset my excessive eating I helped my dad down a tree yesterday morning. He didn't have any firewood so he picked out a dead one that was still up and went to work. We ended up having to pull it down with a rope and then pulling it out of some branches it got hung up on. After he cut it up with the chainsaw I got to split the larger pieces. I haven't done that since we lived at LM and I had to help Matt (the poor guy who ended up doing almost all of Joel's unpleasant tasks) cut up some trees on Joel's property. Anyhow, it was actually kind of fun. Kind of like swinging at a baseball, only the ball doesn't move and I'm swinging a large axe with a sharp end that could really cause some damage if I don't make sure my dad moved his hand out of the way first. Also, I was much more successful at splitting the wood than I ever was at baseball. Maybe it's just age though. I was never successful with wood splitting as a kid either. Likewise, I played pretty dang well on the intramural softball team last year so maybe I've gotten better with age. Maybe I should give some MLB teams a call. It appears they're handing out money to anyone with baseball mitt this year!
Okay, that was really long, rambly, and disjointed. Time to figure out some sort of plan. I can't believe it's still not very bright out at 8 AM!

Wednesday, December 22, 2004

Will this help?

I am issuing a challenge to Nathan Bishop:
Post something (preferably something of merit) on your blog, or be kicked out of cyberspace/pulled over on the information superhighway/caught by the spider on this world wide web and banished from the internet!
C'mon man, you write good stuff, and I'm way too lame to send you an email (and/or give you a call). We all want to know what's goin' on!
Now technically this would fall under the category of the pot calling the kettle black since I have gone upwards of 3 weeks with no new material on 2 different occassions. However, I think this past week has proven my ability and consistency so I'm ready to point fingers now!

3 more days?

I can't believe Christmas is really that close. We've already been here for two days and it seems like they absolutely flew by. Speaking of flying, Sarah's Grandma flew into town yesterday. We went over with Sarah's folks to pick her up. The airport was really unnecessarily busy for a Monday. We all theorized that people were trying to avoid flying later in the week when it would be too busy, but in doing so everyone made Monday the busy day.
Sarah and I have taken to our standard procedure of going to bed pretty late and then waking up by 7:30 or 8. If we could just sleep in it would be fine, but we are so programmed to get up early we can't break the cycle. I'm pretty sure we might get to bed a little earlier tonight. However, it's the caroling party at her parents' house tonight so we might not be going to sleep as early as I thought. Alright, the coffee is brewing which means my parents will be awake in no time!

Monday, December 20, 2004

A Practical Joke

It seems like any day that we can sleep in, we don't. However, about 85% of the days we can't sleep in, we feel like we could sleep for three more hours. At least it seems that way since we were planning on getting up at 8:30 today and were both wide awake by 7:30. We were hoping to save up some sleep before our whirlwind Christmas visit with the families. I'm pretty sure by Thursday morning we'll be draggin' ourselves around on just barely enough sleep. I say that like it's a bad thing. We really like visiting our folks (and friends too) so we have a tendency to stay up quite late and usually rise relatively early as well. It'll be a fun trip of course.
Today we're going to hang out in Ballard for a while before heading to Fauntleroy to pick up Sarah's parents. Then we are all going to The Lion King at the Paramount. I've heard that it's really good, but I didn't really pay much attention when I watched the movie so I'm not sure what the story is all about (yes I know it involves lions and some type of monarchy).
Okay, time to do all the last minute packing and getting ready that we didn't want to do last night. Off to the races!

Saturday, December 18, 2004

Brought to you by... Sugar

The amount of treats and candy that students brought me is unbelievable. I'm only there two days a week. I actually teach far less frequently than the real teacher. I don't even get paid. But I guess they or their parents decided I need a large quantity of sugar laden goodies to show their appreciation for whatever it is I do in the classroom. Sure, I do stuff, but not enough to justify the treasure trove of treats I brought home yesterday.

So, today I have been running mainly on sugar with a few actual meals to supplement my diet. And now I need to go pick up Sarah. The Christmas recital was tonight (I'm going tomorrow night) and they are already done. Apparently it's only a two hour show! However, she's been there since 9 this morning for rehearsal and such... a long day for sure.

Friday, December 17, 2004

Vince in Jersey?

Well, I just read this story so I'm gonna write about it. VC is headed to the Nets. If he were headed to almost any other team I would be happy or excited. But the Nets are a shell of their former selves and really can't get me optimistic about Air Canada (or will it be Air Brooklyn once they move?) returning to slam dunk contest winning form. It might help to have JKidd running the show so Vince doesn't have to try and do everything. But the lack of KMart in the frontcourt has hurt the Nets so far and will continue to leave them weak under the hoop. I mean, c'mon, Brian Scalabrine? When one of your big men is a pasty white red head you know you're in trouble. Anyhow, good luck Vince. I just hope you stop sayin' stupid stuff in the press and work to make the playoffs in the very weak Eastern Conference.

Two Words:

Winter Break


That’s all that has mattered for the last 7 hours at school. The kids were ready to leave when they arrived. It still hasn't set in that I have the next two weeks totally off from anything having to do with school. I'll miss some things, but the past couple days have motivated me to enjoy the break!

Oh yeah, I haven't posted in almost a month again. My bad (as the kids might say). I'll do it more frequently, I hope. School has been pretty busy and really a lot of fun. I'll write more at some point.

In Mariners news.... HOLY COW! They actually signed someone who is considered by other teams to be a very good player. And no, I'm not talking about Richie Sexson who will make me nervous every morning as I search for the story about him reinjuring his shoulder and being unable to play for the next couple of years. I'm talking about Adrian Beltre and his non-Cirilloian batting average and power. I still don't think they're going to win the West, but they won't lose 99 games (I didn't think that would happen last year either).

Well, Sarah and I are babysitting some kids tonight from 8:30 to 11:00 or something. It's approximately the last thing either of us want to do, but for some reason we said we would. I'll blame it on our own stupidity (or maybe we're just nice).

Sunday, December 12, 2004

How is this faster?

I'm sending this post from my email. Somehow this is an advantage over
logging in and writing with the online form. Maybe it will come in handy
when I can log in! Which seems to only happen when I think I want to write
something... Well, let's see how this looks.