Day 69: The Goodbye's Begin

Posted by: Cris

Today we started saying goodbyes in preparation for returning home to Hawaii. The day started off with lots of excitement when Grandma Saccenti showed up at Aunt Coral's front door for some hardcore Grandma spoiling. Juneau was especially super excited. Grandma took the girls and headed out for a fun day of playing at the Imagination Station (formerly COSI Toledo). The girls came back tired but with lots of reports of the fun they'd had with Grandma. It was super awesome she was able to get the day off to come play with Juneau and Nova one more time before we left. This evening was time for one more round of what have become the nightly activities with the cousins. Playing in the basement, eating ice cream - the only one we skipped tonight was a dip in the hot tub.

Alex was incredibly hungry for ice cream tonight...fueling up for tomorrow's basketball game.

Lyndsey's signature "crazy eye" look

Somehow, the night developed into a few rounds of a "baby in a box" game...don't ask...I have no idea.

The night couldn't be complete without actually partaking in the Rice Krispie treats that Juneau & Nova helped Aunt Coral make last night. The goal was to make them and send some to Mommy. You can see that my girls still need some work on spreading the red sprinkles evenly across the pan.

When Aunt Coral cut the treats, the conversation when kind of like this:

Juneau: (pointing to the dark red area with the high-density sprinkles) "I want that piece"

Coral: "I thought you said you were going to send that piece to mommy"

Juneau: "No, I just want to eat it and then I'll tell mommy about it when she comes home."

Sitting in a box with a Rice Krispie treat, your blue blanket and a baby doll - Nova's idea of a perfect evening.

Since the girls will probably be asleep when everyone heads off to school and work in the morning, tonight was time to say goodbye to the cousins they've spent the large majority of the last 3 weeks with.

Finally settled down for one last night of cousins camp-out.
It was actually a little heartbreaking because there was a visible sadness from all 5 kids that their time together was coming to an end for now. Juneau and Nova will have a hard time getting used to not having the Matus cousins and Aunt Coral there to play with constantly. My girls are truly blessed to have such awesome cousins who so evidently love them so much and the feeling from my girls is clearly mutual. I am especially thankful that my girls have such good role models to look up to in Alex & Lyndsey in the years to come. I've watched you grow from my girls age into awesome young ladies - I'll be a happy dad if my girls turn out like you when they hit 12 years old (I'll also be very old by then).

Day 68: Our Honor Defend...We Will Fight To The End For...OHIO!!

Posted by: Cris

The tone of this post could have been considerably darker had Solomon Thomas not picked off that pass to seal the Buckeyes victory tonight in the Sugar Bowl. But, after a rough start to 2011 for me, finally the Buckeyes send me to bed with a smile on my face...that smile is even a little bigger out of how proud I am of my wife that she was watching the game on AFN - although, it is likely she was only watching so as to know whether or not it was safe to call home tonight or whether she should wait a couple of days to talk to me.

"Giant pop-pops from Chuck E. Cheese are my favorite" - Juneau and Nova love to call everything their "favorite". But their game day gear is on and ready for the Sugar Bowl to start. With the big game in full swing in the background, the attention spans of Juneau & Nova (& Brent) necessitated a little bit of a break to roughhouse.


But, as the game crawled into the late hours, the girls were ready to settle down and cuddle with daddy.
By the start of the fourth quarter, 5 kids were all asleep on the floor in the living room. This arrangement worked well until Thomas snagged the interception and the 3 adults started screaming so loudly (Ed was clearly the loudest) that it was amazing that only 2 of the 5 kids woke up.

And tonight there is much rejoicing for Buckeye Nation!!

"...Time and change will surely show...How firm thy friendship...O - HI - O!!!"

Go Buckeyes!!

Day 67: For your information, they were both Star Wars shirts

Posted by: Cris

Today's blog title is offered in response to the comment left in response to yesterday's blog post from a certain smart alec mommy.

Today was a good news / bad news day:

The good news was that Aunt Coral was off work for the kids last day of Christmas break before heading back to school tomorrow so we headed off to Chuck E. Cheese.

Thanks to concentration like this from Brent...

...he and I were able break the high score on the NFL football game.

We learned this double team strategy from Alex & Lyndsey who broke the high score several times on both of the pop-a-shot games.

And what would a trip to Chuck E. Cheese be without some quality Skeeball...

...and the fun times crawling through the tunnels.

Alex & Lyndsey had to call it quits for chasing Nova and Juneau around the tunnels when their knees were bruised and bent over backs were aching.

But Brent hung in there until everyone had their fill.

We topped the night off with dinner at Jed's...mmmm, fungus balls (not as gross as it sounds).

The bad news for the day was finding out from Nelson and Katy that thanks to the crappy engineering by Honda in the transmissions of their first generation Odyssey's, I now do not own a functioning vehicle in Hawaii but instead, am the proud owner of a 1999 Honda Paperweight. Whether or not it is possible to get a rebuilt transmission to Hawaii for a price that makes fixing a 12 year old vehicle worth it or whether it's just a total loss remains to be seen.

I definitely like the days better that only have the good news part...

Day 66: Remembering a Farm Kid

Posted by: Cris

This cute little dog needs a haircut and a flight home to Hawaii.
This is our little Summit (half poodle/half chihuahua). Hopefully in about a month she will be headed to Hawaii with the rest of her pack. It was great to see my Huskies for a few days while we were at Grandma & Grandpa Stickley's house. They were full of energy and glad to see me. I can't wait to get the yard finished...I just hope it starts moving faster than it has been so I can get them on their way. Plus, I hope that I haven't missed anything on their home quarantine for Hawaii so that they get to come straight home from the airport...keep those paws crossed.

Today, before heading back to Toledo, we pulled ourselves out of bed at a reasonable hour and got prettied up to head to church with Mammaw Nova.

Aunt Coral tried a new hairdo on Juneau:
Nothing better when you get out of a bathtub on a cold Ohio morning than to have a cousin waiting with a towel to cuddle you:

Summit is always ready for any cuddle she can get:

The major focus at church this morning was remembering a family from the church - earlier this week we had heard the horrible news about a 16 year old farm kid (a twin in fact) who was tragically killed in a very freak accident with a piece of farm machinery. It turned out that he and his family were members of Mammaw Nova's church. I was reminded once again this morning as everyone prayed for this family and their loss how incredibly fragile life can be. Though I never knew this young man or any of his family, I found myself very moved this week by this story. Having grown up as a farm kid, we were always mindful of the dangers that surrounded us; occasionally I would read a story of a tragic accident (and yes, most every farmer my grandpa's age, it seemed - except for my grandpa - was missing at least part of one finger) but I don't recall such an incident in our local farm community while I was growing up. I'm sure there were plenty of catastrophies that but for the grace of God could have involved me, any of my family members or friends.

This seems a particularly cruel accident because he was only 16, it was an incredibly freak accident, and he was a twin - Seeing firsthand the connection between my dear twin nieces, I can't imagine a loss more painful than what his brother must be going through. Remember the Warner family in your prayers.

After church, we headed out to El Camino Real for the Ohio version of authentic Mexican food.

Finally, tonight we headed back to Toledo and finished off the evening with a dip in Aunt Coral's hottub. It was in the mid 20's outside but that hot water felt GREAT! Nova and Juneau LOOOVE getting in that thing. They are usually the first ones to ask every night if we can get in "the hot pool".

Day 65: Happy New Year!!

Posted by: Cris

Thanks to the magic of the Slingbox, we were able to spend New Year's Day as it was intended: Watching College Football all day!

For awhile, there was also a game on network TV which meant we could sit in just the right spot on the couch and see the TV in the living room as well as the den and watch 2 games at once. Unfortunately, the Rose Bowl got really disgusting when Wisconsin didn't even show up to play today (Wisconsin fans, you should officially be ashamed of your team today) then got outcoached on top of it...so, we headed out to the barn to brave the cold and play some basketball.

If the barn walls could talk, they would tell tales of 20+ years of basketball games going all the way back to the beginning of my high school days. There have been intense rivalries and hardcore competition which has resulted in a broken arm for Aunt Coral at one point and a separated shoulder for me at another.

These days, with years of basketball taking it's toll on our bodies, the games tend to be a little less spirited.

Although, when Lyndsey started dunking tonight, I decided she was getting too serious and had to posterize her:

Okay, so maybe those were both posed but we still had a great round of games while we waiting for Wisconsin to stop stinking up the field so we could come back in and watch the nightcap game - the Fiesta Bowl.

Other than the stupid Big Ten going 0-5 today, it was an enjoyable New Year's day just sitting around watching football, eating junk food all day, playing basketball and participating in a variety of Juneau & Nova's pretend games (right now, they are totally into a game they simply call "Buzz Lightyear" where Brent is Buzz and chases them around, takes them prisoner and hauls them off to the living room at which point they escape and start the process all over again).

No better way to end the day than a cuddle from my June-Bug.