October | 2013 | OUR LIFE IN 3D

Archive for the month “October, 2013”

31 Oct 2013

The Sky is falling…

Before I have to tell you how the ‘Sky is falling’ I do have some proud, upbeat news.

Let’s whisk you away to the awards ceremony at Dylan’s school today….

..where Dylan eagerly awaited her first award at the Elementary school assembly. It was a half day for the kids today and part of it was spent on the phone stuff…..

…like having your name called out over the loudspeaker to come up and get your award!

She actually was really excited, in contrast the pic above. When I got home from work I asked her how she felt about getting the award. ‘Was it really fun being called to pick it up in front of your school’ I asked?

Dylan thought for a second, remembering how it felt than enthusiastically started nodding her head and smiling from ear to ear.

Nice work Dylan!

So nice feelings all around. Our greyhound, Chumley, was feeling quite friendly this week too as we got home from work….

He was quite excited as he saw an unexpected gift arrive at the house one day.

The girls got a surprise gift in the mail from some grand parents just in time for Halloween. There were cards and candy and outfits, and cool / hip bracelets that kids wear now that Dad didn’t know existed, and so on. Dylan has become the official card reader for the two sisters as Skylar confesses up front, “I can’t read” ……

Dylan reading her Halloween card while Chumley starts to dig himself a hole!

But, similar to the way Chumley felt after he tried to dig his way through those hardwood floors, all good feelings surely must come to an end and so did ours this week.

Being treated somewhat like a Princess all the time can bring a sort of entitlement with it. I think all you Princesses out there know what I am talking about. And so too it can be with Dylan.

Sunday she went over to our neighbors to see if there son could play. She stood at the door and knocked. And knocked. And knocked, not thinking that maybe they may be busy inside or not home at all.

Finally after 10 minutes our neighbor’s mom answered the door. Dylan asked, “What took so long?” seemingly to take the waiting a bit personally.

The mom apologized and said, “I’m sorry Dylan but I was putting our 18 month girl down for her nap.”

Unphased, Dylan asked, “well couldn’t you have answered the door first?”

Oh yes she did!

Add to that her being forced to sit on the ‘Naughty Spot‘ about two times a day since Saturday plus a second yellow face sent home from the teacher at school for not following instructions and it appears we have a little bit of a diva on hour hands Chicken Little.

They both could end up in the dog house!

And our happy boy Chumley, feeling a little entitled himself decided to take a pooh in our guest bedroom downstairs while we were not paying attention. “Bad Boy, Bad boy. Very Bad boy…

What else could go wrong this week I thought?

I had my first follow up visit with my Oncologist, who is the doctor that orchestrated my whole procedure. This is the first time I have had contact with him, face to face since prior to the procedure.

Not knowing what to expect I took a deep breath and headed into his office.

This is something like how the doctor’s visit went. Oh, and it is not for the squeamish if you find yourself with a weak constitution (like me)….

Dr. U: How are you doing?

Me: I feel great!

Dr. U: Any problems? Any burning? Any irritations?

Me: No, I feel great!

Dr. U: Writing something in his tablet looks up and says, “great, follow me….”

And he walks me out of the office and to his private nurse and says,…..

“She will set up your next appointment. See you in 6 weeks.”

And that my friends was my 3 minutes of face time, consultation and evaluation, 6 weeks after my high tech cancer treatment. He seemed very sure of himself!

I wonder how much those few minutes cost my Obamacare?

Have a great fall weekend knuckleheads!

I will try to do better next week!

Posted in Archives and tagged the sky is falling

31 Oct 2013

12 Comments

Boo Y’all!

Just some of our scarey monsters trying to scare you

and wishing you a very Happy Halloween!

And remember this one from last year?

And the HILARIOUS outcome at the end…after they had too much candy? Too Funny!

And, if YOU are still up late because you had too much candy,

here is an adorable Halloween from 2 years ago where Dylan warns Mom at the end not to touch her candy! Its for her special surprise! Too cute!

Happy Halloween all you Gremlins!

I’ll try to do a better job next time…..

Posted in Archives

26 Oct 2013

29 Comments

Report Card Day

Friday was a big report card day here in 3D.

Dylan received her first ever report card from Elementary school. I guess you all know how proud we are of our little school girl. She has continually flashed signs of brilliance in most things she does.

It was also ‘Crazy Sock Day’ at school

To our surprise then we found out she did not get all ‘A’s on her report card.

She got a ‘B’ in Writing as well as Music and Art.

Now her writing is not what you and I do. It is simply learning how to write upper case and lower case letters, as well as making sure they are placed on the ruled line. And to be honest she has trouble with this. If she would have gotten an ‘A’ here it may have made the others grades suspect. But we are so very proud of her, ‘B’ and all!

Her teacher says she is a real joy to have in class. She says she is a good helper. And when I walked into school this week I found Dylan’s picture on the wall outside her classroom.

Dylan’s teacher spotted D. using the ‘Lifeskill‘ of Responsibility and gave her an award for it. Atta girl Dylan!

Plus those Parent Police out there may be happy to know she has replaced the Buffett CD with her favorite Disney songs CD for our ride to school in the morning.

Skylar, on the other hand, did not receive any report card Friday. But she did attend a preschool Arts and Crafts session at our local library that day. She cut out materials to make a paper pumpkin that she is so proud of.

She evidently behaved so good at the library that our nanny decided to take her to the mall for a soft pretzel. OK, this may have been as much for the nanny as it was for Skylar.

While sitting at the mall eating their pretzels a lady at the near by both asked is Skylar wanted her hair curled? After a little negotiating Skylar got herself a brand new ‘dew…until bath time later that same afternoon.

She is so cute and mastering that ‘Say Cheese pose’ at such an early age!

Her nanny confides Skylar is doing quite well in her own school work at home and do a lot of the things Dylan is asked to do in Kindergarten right now. Go Skye!

And I had my first report card of sorts, as related to my cancer treatment. I had an appointment with my cancer doctor Friday. It wasn’t so much to see where I was at with my cure but to take a pictures of all the seeds that were inside me.

Its funny, when you think of ‘seeds’ and you may think of Spring or Growth or Life. With my seeds, it is quite the opposite! These nuclear bad boys are to kill existing cancer cells. The ‘weeds’ in my prostate so to speak.

They checked my vitals. Took a quick scan of my mid-section via a CAT scan machine. And then gave me 20 minutes of face time with my doctor.

He smiled and told me everything looks great, just the way it is supposed to look. All the seeds were properly in place. And that these darn side effects affecting my urinary tubes, pee’ing and getting up several times at night should start to wear off about now.

So I was all smiles and left in a pretty good mood. They didn’t have to stick me (yet) or insert anything anywhere or test anything. Just a few pictures.

So, feeling pretty good, I decided to celebrate at my favorite restaurant that just happens to sit at the end of the road from the doctor’s office…

That’s right, a dozen Halloween donuts from Dunkin Donuts, including my favorite…the Boston Scream!

So Friday was a great Report Card day all around!

I have talked a lot about Dylan’s techno-savvy skills her lately, between Internet searches and skills on Mom’s cell phone. So I wanted to leave you with a cute video from December 2010. Dylan was about 2 1/2 years old I think. You all know the Hookie Pookie, right?

Back then that was Dylan’s favorite song and we had a video I bookmarked on Youtube where we could do a crazy dance to it once a day. Lots of fun! OK, several times a day.

So if you are familiar with the Hookie Pookie you know how the dance goes,

“…you put your left leg in, left leg out, left leg in and you shake it all about.

You do the Hookie Pookie and you turn yourself around. That’s what its all about”

Well we just got done playing with the song on the computer and I must have walked away.

I say this because I went to record some Christmas videos a few weeks later and found one video on there I didn’t remember making.

What is this I thought?

So I played it. Here Dylan climbs up on top of my chair in front of the computer. Remember, she is two and 1/2 now. She then plays the video again on youtube, without anyone’s help (2 1/2). Then she decides to pick up Daddy’s video camera and film herself doing the Hookie Pookie…sort of.

In the video, she is dancing and turns the camera on and then holds it to her eye like she has seen daddy do time and time again. If you take a look keep in mind she is dancing while filming this and so the movements of the camera represent her ‘shake it all around’ and so on. Take a look…

Oh, and she is innocently singing the song too while she is dancing…and filming with camera to her eye…while standing on top of the chair…with nobody around to see her. She’s just in her happy girl mode!

The sippy cup sitting there illustrates how young she was then. Yes, that’s my Dad, her Grandpa, chiming in there at the end. He is turned around and facing the other way watching TV. He just heard her singing to herself. He didn’t realize what she just did.

Have a GREAT rest of your weekend everyone!

I hope you find that happy innocent inner child too and do a Hookie Pookie with someone! Or alone like little D.

Posted in Archives and tagged hookie pookie, report card, school

22 Oct 2013

45 Comments

Blog of somewhere Hot…..

Friends, this Christmas season may be tougher than I thought. We just received displays for chocolate drizzled popcorn at work. And if that wasn’t bad enough we also received some white chocolate and cinnamon drizzled popcorn. (sigh)

Forget the chocolate covered pretzels. I will be up a pant size by Thanksgiving! I’ll be the turkey!

You may have heard me sing my theme song “King of Somewhere Hot” from time to time.

“…where I can truly reign supreme,

Somewhere fresh and clean,

Where a man can claim…

I’m the King…

King of somewhere Hot.

Well evidently I may sing it maybe too much?

Saturday, Skylar, my 3 year old, had a cardboard crown from a Burger King happy meal. You know the kind. You piece it together and a tab on the back.

Well she was feeling very friendly Saturday morning and so she went over to our greyhound and put the royal crown on top of his head. And she says,’ You’re the king of somewhere hot Chumley.”

Chumley was ecstatic!

Well no, not really. You see he, our black greyhound, had just had a duel, a face to face bout, with Skylar’s 2 foot blow up Shark. And he won! So his day had already been made!

Jaws has been caged!

Compounding the issue of my 3 year old picking up Jimmy Buffett songs is my 5 year old who sings Buffett songs on the way ‘Back to school’.

If the parent police ever find out about my little girls already becoming Parrotheads they may just take my Parent card; or World’s Coolest Dad coffee mug from me.

Another point of interest this weekend is, after much hard work, rearranging, unpacking and tossing out, I was finally able to park my car in the garage this weekend. No metaphor intended this time.

Getting both our cars in the garage has been a goal, a challenge, or quest ever since we moved in last May. I frankly thought the garage too small. But it fit! Cross it off the list! It fit!

And that, my friends, is the kind of extravagant family activities that have earned me the WordPress Family Award this week!

Presented by: Turquoise Compass

Yes, Jessica, at Turquoise Compass really flattered, surprised, and completely dazzled me with the WordPress Family Award.

Since I will probably never get ‘Freshly Pressed’ this may be the closest I get to an award with a WordPress logo.

If you enjoy travel or a coastal read and pictures of turquoise blue water, Jessica has a blog for you! She is a well credited teacher taking a year off to explore the turquoise waters around the globe…I am sooo jealous.

Similarly, another new friend, although she never has told me her name, PeaceLove&GreatCountryMusic honored me with a comparable thrill in recommending me for a Sunshine Award last week.

http://peacelovegreatcountrymusic.com/2013/10/08/sunshine-october/comment-page-1/

Thanks Peace Love & Great Music!

I am smiling over here and happy to know that a few people actually enjoy reading about me and my girls and their crazy shenanigans. I know not everyone can stomach hearing about other people’s kids.

So thank you ladies so much!

And thanks to all of you that drop by and leave a comment to let me know you were here. These things keep me going.

Now I normally don’t really do awards. For me, they take a lot of my time, as you know how chatty I can be. I have told you everything worth knowing about myself already in previous award speeches. And I really hate passing out an award to a limited number or recipients when all of you are more deserving than I.

But this tribute is to ‘Family’ Bloggers I suppose and so the 50 other coastal, or fitness, or funny, or motivational or Stylish other favorite bloggers I love so much shouldn’t get too offended if I don’t nominate them this one time? Right?

So here are my nominations for favorite Family bloggers that rightfully deserve this award too. You all do a great job where I look forward to hearing about you and your families. And I am sorry I can’t pick all you great moms and dads out there….

Dances with Chaos: This is probably the best mommy / family writer out there in a world of great writers IMHO. Always amusing never dull.

Momma Gets Real: A very funny and candid mother who shares some of the highs and lows of raising her clan.

Don’t We Look Alike: This is a mom and daughter tag team (mostly mom) that write on all the various issues in adoption. The mom, an adoptive mother and the daughter a very talented singer and dancer.

Cuckoo’s Nest : One of my favorites. Mom does great illustrations of fun in her young family and her future heiress. She is equally gifted in front of as well as behind the camera. And in the kitchen!

Taking The World On With A Smile: Karen is a multiple award winner here in 3D. I probably annoy her with this stuff. She has two great teens that serve as an illustration of what I have to look forward to…if I do things right.

Leeanne Shirtliffe ~ the Ironic Mom: Leeanne is just a very, very funny writer and author of the hilarious new book, “Don’t Lick the Minivan: And Other Things I Never Thought I’d Say to My Kids”. Her motto is ‘if you can’t laugh at yourself, laugh at your kids. She is my go-to source for funny ideas to ~~steal~~ borrow when I have none of my own.

Southern Sea Muse: This is a blog by a southern lady living on the coast. It is not so much about her family but ideas and conversations with ‘the Big Guy‘. Although I truly enjoy when she adds stories about her kids.

Talk To Diana: Another great read, that is not so much about family and more on business, philanthropy, and helping others. But then I read about the relationship she has with her kids and I know it is all worth it.

Swimming Into My 50’s: Here is a kindred spirit in more ways than one. We both hate being 50. Where I like to Salsa she is actually good at it. Her kids are an extension of her great personality.

Dirty Rotten Parenting: Don’t let the title fool you. She is a great and caring mom who just happens to put a funny spin on things, pointing out we all share the same things with our kids

So Congratulations and thanks to you 10 greaterable (Dylan’s word) Family blogs. I enjoy what you do and look forward to you doing it the next time. If you would like to pay your award forward, let me list a few of the rules:

For the WordPress Family award:

Include the award’s logo in a post or on your Blog.
Link to the person who nominated you.
Answer 10 questions about yourself. (anything)
Nominate 10 Bloggers.
Link your nominees to the post and comment on their Blogs, letting them know they have been nominated.

Now, if you don’t want to do parts of the above rules I get it. As you can see I am not really a ‘Rules’ guy either. I know it takes time. I know many blogs out there don’t even acknowledge their awards.

On the other hand, why ignore some of your favorite blogs? Why not reach out somewhere and touch someone that touches you? I am sure that would make their day! Right? Its always cool to get (and give) an award.

Or, like my daughter Skylar, or my friend Paris, might say:

“…I don’t care how hard you look.

You won’t find me in a book.

Cause I’m here right on this spot!

The King of somewhere Hot….

**Thanks again Ms. Turquoise and Ms. Country Music!

Posted in The More Awards I Get The Worse I Look (awards and other surveys) and tagged awards, I'm King, Jimmy Buffett, King of somewhere Hot, parrotheads, sunshine award, Thank you!

18 Oct 2013

24 Comments

Are you ready?

I had the opportunity to travel to a company meeting yesterday on upcoming events in 2014. These types of things usually are bolstered by some sort of funny or motivational videos to break up the meeting.

Unfortunately for you, one of these really stood out to me yesterday. I loved it.

Part of it was because it was a real life running story, and have a bit of a racing history. But another part of it just illustrated what one can achieve when you want something bad enough.

My company used it to illustrate the point of ‘Being Prepared’. But I think you can label this great achievement under a half dozen personal or professional clichés. ‘Heart’ comes to mind.

So if you can use a good motivational lift today or if you prepare similar types of business meetings yourself you really should see this….

Goal attainment comes to mind after watching that. What do you think?

What would you have done?

I had another video I have been wanting to post, but I did not want my blog to come across as one that preaches these things all the time. There are many blogs out there that can do it better than mine.

It’s actually one of my favorite commercials right now. Its by Guinness. And if you watch it don’t assume you know what the moral of the story is. Watch and see what happens towards the end. That final motto is a phrase I have lived by.