Some pictures

We took some family pictures for the holidays. Here are my two favorite pictures of our girls.

Yes, I'm still alive

The past few weeks have been very busy indeed. In fact, I needed to check my last post to remember when I'd last written. Lots of things have happened since then:

Kathryn and I attended the annual AWANA rollerskating party. It was Kathryn's first time on skates, and it was my first time since high-school. Kristin and Rebecca came too, since Kristin wanted to get out of the house, and wanted to see Kathryn's first rollerskating experience. We almost ended the evening early when Kathryn fell down and I nicked her finger with one of my skates. I was mortified! But she recovered and actually started to skate a bit (instead of just clomping around in the skates).

For Halloween, Kathryn was a pirate! Unfortunately, it was bitterly cold that evening, so we only visited the houses within a couple blocks of our house. When I get back home, I'll have to find the pictures of the event.

This weekend, Karin, Travis, and Sammy came to stay with us. Since the whole family was in town, Gail and Marge decided to visit too. The house was very full, and we all had a great visit. While Grandma and Grandpa were available for baby-sitting, Karin, Travis, Kristin, and I took advantage of the fact. We went out to see "Stranger Than Fiction". It was a remarkably good movie. I don't normally find Will Ferrell very funny, but this movie had all of us in stitches!

Rebecca's doing fine, but she's got a slight case of the sniffles. I'll try to be a bit more prolific with these blog entries in future... I hope. If I fall behind again, please just e-mail me a slap-upside-the-head to get me back on track. Thanks!

The Family Shopping Outing

Yesterday was our first full "outing" with the whole family since Rebecca was born. We had a few tough times, but we all survived.

Our first stop was at Kathryn's pre-school for a fundraising Fun Fair. I volunteered to help, and was assigned to the Bean-Bag Bucket Toss (like Bozo buckets, with candy in each bucket). The kids were mostly around that happy age that delights in everything (somewhere between 2 and 6) so I had a blast! Kristin took Kathryn and Rebecca around to the other games, and Kathryn came back with a lot of goodies.

Then we drove down to Pita Inn for lunch. Kristin doesn't like it as much as Kathryn and I do, but she still enjoys it in moderation. After that, we hit the main object of our day: Woodfield Mall. We found some early Christmas gifts, and some birthday gifts for Kathryn and for my mother. And we did a lot of walking.

I particularly enjoyed one moment, during dinner at Ruby Tuesday's. Rebecca started getting hungry, and the nearby Motherhood Maternity store allows breast-feeding in their fitting rooms. But our food had just arrived, and Kristin naturally wanted to eat a bit before being chased out with Rebecca. So I held her for a while, using my pinky knuckle to satisfy Rebecca for as long as I could (see the post Rebecca's Habits). Of course, now I can't eat, since both of my hands are occupied. So Kathryn used my fork to feed me some of my pasta while I held Rebecca.

And another notable occurrence: Kathryn's been coloring her speech with many little extra flourishes lately, as in this example yesterday, "It's a good thing I got that 'Get Out of Jail Free' card, because on the very next turn... BAM... I landed right on the 'Go to Jail' space." For some reason, that "BAM" really cracked me up.

Rebecca's Habits

Over the last two weeks, we've discovered a lot about Rebecca's habits. Everyone warned us that "no two babies are alike." Well, they're right (at least as far as Kathryn and Rebecca are concerned).

Like Kathryn, Rebecca is generally very well-behaved. But Rebecca moves her arms and legs a lot more than Kathryn did. To this day, Kathryn sleeps on her back, completely still. But Rebecca is rarely completely still.

Of course, Rebecca's main activities are eating and sleeping. I love holding her while she's sleeping, but I can't really do anything with her when she's hungry. Babies have something called a "rooting instinct", which the Wikipedia defines as, "When the baby's cheek is stroked, the baby will move his or her face towards the stroking and open his or her mouth, demonstrating the rooting instinct." And (partly because Rebecca moves so much) she often accidentally brushes her cheek with her sleeve. We've lost count of the number of times we've seen Rebecca lying on the floor, straining with mouth open to latch onto her sleeve. She doesn't have much control over her arms or legs yet, so it's a bit like watching a dog chase its tail!

But once Rebecca decides it's time to eat, my sole contribution is to delay her long enough for Kristin to get ready to feed her. Sometimes it takes a while for Kristin to get ready (especially if she's in the shower, or if I'm just trying to give her some time to sleep before she has to feed Rebecca again). So, in the meantime, Rebecca thrashes her head from side to side, trying to find anything to latch onto. Fortunately, once she finds something to suck on, she stops crying for a short while. Over the last two weeks, I've discovered precisely how long a given item will keep her satisfied:

• Pacifier: varies from three seconds to one minute
  
• My sleeve: two seconds
• My cheek: three seconds (our version of a "kiss")
• My arm (sans sleeve): ten seconds
• Her own thumb/finger/hand/fist: fifteen seconds
  
• The tip of my pinky finger: twenty seconds
• The knuckle of my pinky finger: five minutes!

So as you can see, if Kristin is ever more than six minutes away, there's nothing I can do if Rebecca is really hungry. But most of the time, she just wants a cuddle. That's another difference between Kathryn and Rebecca. Kathryn was content to stay on the floor on her back between feedings. Rebecca demands a bit more "cuddle-time".

More Rebecca pictures

It's been a crazy few days. All of the grandparents have visited (at least once, if not twice). But we're starting to settle into a routine, of sorts. Kristin and Rebecca came home from the hospital on Thursday afternoon. That night, Rebecca slept very well. Unfortunately, Friday night was exactly the opposite -- she wanted to eat every minute! But last night was wonderful again. It seems that Rebecca is alternating between good and bad nights. So Kristin and I are expecting a very sleepless night tonight.

In case you're wondering (and in case there's anyone left who doesn't know the story), Kristin allowed me to choose Aileen as Rebecca's middle name. It was my paternal Grandmother's name, and I've really missed her since she died. Kristin chose Rebecca as the first name because (as she says) her first choice (Amanda) didn't work very well with Aileen. In some variations, Rebecca means "to bind or captivate". And Aileen is a variation of Helen, which means "light". We thought it was pretty cool to give her a name which means "captivating light"!

On Saturday, Kathryn, Randy, and I went to the Trinity Homecoming football game. Kathryn has already started to express jealousy toward Rebecca. So we wanted to make sure that Kathryn still had her special outing on Saturday. (Trinity won, by the way. 24 to 3 against Joliet's University of St. Francis.) Kathryn absolutely beamed when I showed her the place in Johnson Hall Lounge where Kristin and I sat after our first date. Then I told her about how "Uncle Bill" came in and gave me such an exuberant greeting that he nearly knocked me over (seat and all). Kathryn's response was, "Uncle Bill is so silly!"

I'm going back to work on Wednesday, so Kristin's mom is going to come back that day to help Kristin around the house. The time has been going by so quickly! I can't believe it's Sunday already. But anyway, here are a couple extra Rebecca pictures for you to look at. I took them to church today, and was nearly mobbed by the entire Women's Ministry team as they each tried to be the first to see pictures of the new baby.

Rebecca Aileen Howk

Here she is!

10-03-2006 9:21 p.m. 6 lbs. 9 oz. 19 1/2 inches.

Baby Update

Kristin says this much better than I ever could, so here is the copy of her e-mail:

Baby has, somehow, mananged to make it to week 37 (probably due to all your prayers), so when she comes she will not be a preemie! YAY!! Now on to the medical details.

During the past week (week 36) I was in the office being checked out and monitored every day except Friday. On Wed morning and Sun night (early Mon morning, really) we had some false alarms. Last night (about 1am) I thought my water had broken, but the nurses at the hospital said otherwise and, since I was still only dilated to about 3 1/2 and not having contractions, they sent me home. :-(

This morning, at my 11am appointment, I saw both the doctor and the nurse practitioner/midwife, who said "I can't figure out why you're not in labor, you're dilated to 5cm." Then they hooked me up to the monitor and confirmed what my own experience told me: I'm not having contractions right now. In fact, between being sent home from the hospital at 3am and going to the doctors office at 11, I only felt contraction. So I'm not sure how I went from 3.5 to 5 so quickly, though I highly suspect those prayers for baby's continued development are why it didn't happen sooner. :-)

The doctor told us (Michael arrived at the office towards the end of the monitoring session) that it's dangerous to be walking around dilated to 5, as the baby could decide to slide out on her own. So, he's going to give me today and tomorrow to go into labor on my own, and then on Wed morning, if needed, he will induce labor by breaking my waters (the amniotic fluid/sac surrounding baby).

So baby should be arriving soon! (And it's just as well, the waiting was starting to really mess with my mind.) Looking forward to seeing all of you, and showing off the little one (who has hair, remember).

My long absence

Well, I haven't written in this thing for a long time. We've been trapped in "false labor pains" for a while now, and it's starting to wear us down a bit. Since Kristin's only in her 36th week, we're praying for the baby to wait just a bit longer. But the doctor seems to think that Kristin will deliver "any day now", and every contraction makes us wonder if "it's time".

So I haven't had time to write in my blog for a while. Every time I get a spare moment, I'm either spending time with Kristin, Kathryn, Randy, or Bill. When I'm not spending time with friends and family, I relax by fighting the Nazis in Company of Heroes. In fact, I'm about to go play that game right now (it's very therapeutic). So I haven't had much time for writing in my blog.

But over the last couple weeks, we've done a couple of interesting things. Kathryn and I went to the Enchanted Castle again, attended Amethyst's third birthday party, and went to the Rockford Children's Museum / Discovery Center. I've seen several movies (Hollywoodland, Flyboys, The Royal Tenenbaums, and Searching for Bobby Fischer). We're still thoroughly enjoying our time at AWANA. And I've started to teach Kathryn how to play Monopoly.

Normally, each of those topics would be an entry in itself, but I'm not really in the mood to write tonight. Instead I'm gonna go push the Germans out of Cherbourg. Good night!

Cary and Becky's New Addition

Here is the very first family picture with Cary, Becky, and Anthony! Hurray! We can't wait to see all three of you very soon! Welcome home!

Guys' Weekend, Part 5: The Pranksters Revealed

Well, between the last post and this one, I chatted with Sarah. She revealed to me that it was, in fact, she and Jen who planted the prank at the cabin! Here's what Sarah had to say about it:

Ladies & Gentlemen,

This past weekend was a smash hit for some and a rather unsettling experience for others. I would like to uncover a few mysteries by telling of the weekend from a female point of view.

Jen & I decided to take a trip up to the Dells this weekend. While a great, fun place to visit it was also in rather close proximity to some men who we decided to have a little fun with.

We started off small thinking a pile of stones with some ketchup should be sufficient, but really there needed to be more. So we moved on to body outlines consisting of plastic utensils (very noisy by the way). During the day we visited a candy store and there were these long gummy snakes that would provide a perfect element of fun & fright. Putting all the pieces together we did a mock up of the outline in our room and then headed up to the cabin where the men were sleeping peacefully around 12:30am.

Everything was going perfectly, we had found the cabin no problem, parked at the end of the drive, took the paths to the back of the house (we noticed there was a light on at the front of the house) and started to lay out the body outlines. We got about half-way through when this dark creature started to approach. At first we were frightened, but then a dog bounded up to us and became our partner in crime for the rest of our adventure, literally he would not leave our sides. Jen even tried several unsuccessful attempts to take him back home. He thwarted our plans just enough that we could only do two outlines when we wanted to do three and we had to reapply ketchup several times as he kept licking it off the severed mid-section of our 1st outline.

There were a few time we thought for sure we had been caught. There was a slam at one point, we though had to be a door, we lost ourselves in laughter a couple of times, and the dog at one point sounded like he was barfing (loud noise).

We gathered up our leftovers and headed back to the car, the dog however had other plans and made it very difficult for us to leave, jumping on the car, trying to get inside and then weaving around the car as we tried to back out of the driveway.

We drove away and had made it back to Necedah and felt a bit down. We wanted to see the reactions so after some discussion we drove back to the cabin. The dog once again greeted us at the end of the driveway and we headed down to the cabin. No lights were on and save for the sound of snoring there was silence. We checked the back and everything was still perfect so we left.

Suspecting that we had been caught at some point, we were eager to hear any reactions from the guys, little did we know the kind of evening they had been through and how it added to our prank.

Needless to say, we are THRILLED it went off so well and hope now that all the cards are on the table, we can all have a hearty laugh about this....goodness knows Jen and I have :)

So a big hearty "congratulations" goes out to Jen and Sarah for this one. They got us good!

Guys' Weekend, Part 4: The Big Black One-Eyed Dog

On Saturday evening, while Bill was still dozing, Jeff and I started working on building a fire for the night. As we were chopping little bits of kindling, we heard the sound of an engine approaching from the back of RJ's property. It was a woman driving an ATV. When she saw us, she asked if we had seen a black lab around the area. When we told her that we hadn't, she explained that she was looking for her one-eyed black lab, that it's name was Pookie (or Pokey), and that it was a "city dog". Then she gestured vaguely towards the back of RJ's property and said that she was our neighbor in that direction. Then she drove back down the trail.

RJ has a lot of trails in the back of his property, primarily for snowmobiling and four-wheeling. I've only walked down the trails a few times. In the daylight, it's a very pleasant walk. But at night, it's a confusing nightmare of twists and turns. This will be important later on in the story.

Later that night after we finished eating Bill's excellent meal of steak, chicken, and portabella mushrooms, we sat talking around the fire. I'm not sure what time it was, but in the middle of Bill's story, Jeff said, "Shhhh! There's a dog nearby; I can hear its collar clinking." We turned around toward the cabin, and reached for our flashlights. We turned them on... and there it was. A big black dog, standing at the edge of the firelight, near the picnic table. It couldn't have been more than 15 feet away, and because of the darkness, it seemed to appear out of nowhere. Then the light caught the glint of that one eye, and it really creeped me out.

Jeff and I tried to explain about the woman's lost dog (since Bill was sound asleep inside when the woman showed up). Then Jeff called it over, and it turned out to be a very friendly, but timid, dog. Jeff got it to sit next to his chair by the fire, and then we tried to decide what to do. We weren't really sure where RJ's trails led, but the neighbor to the north was making a lot of noise, so Jeff decided to try there first. Bill and I stayed with the dog as Jeff went to ask the north neighbors if they knew anything about this dog. When Jeff returned, he reported that they almost disbelieved his story about the dog, saying, "There aren't any one-eyed black dogs around here!" It was also Jeff's impression that our neighbors were already a bit on the inebriated side.

So now Jeff decided to search down the trails at the back of RJ's property. He came back a bit later to explain that the woods started getting very dark. Then he heard the sound of a baby crying, remembered the "Blair Witch Project", and fled back to the cabin. :-)

So we tried again. This time I went with Jeff, and we decided to take the dog with us. We used some rope from RJ's shed as a leash, and set off again. This time the dog seemed to know where we were going. It had its nose to the ground and it was pulled Jeff along at a pretty good clip. We followed the ATV tracks all the way around to RJ's other neighbor: only a short walk away from RJ's cabin! If we'd known where the tracks led, we could have saved a LOT of time. The dog seemed to know where it was. It walked straight up the stairs to a door in the trailer. We knocked, but there was no answer. So we walked back to the campfire (taking the short, direct route this time).

Over the course of the next couple hours, Jeff walked back to the south neighbor's to see if anyone came home. We gave the dog some water, which it lapped down greedily. But eventually, we had to turn in. We considered what to do with the dog. Our first idea was to take the dog inside for the night. But we didn't think we should risk bringing a strange dog into RJ's cabin -- we didn't want it to start tearing up the carpeting or the furniture. Since the dog seemed to know its way back to the neighbor's place, and since it wasn't that cold a night, we hoped the dog would find its way back. We all felt helpless about leaving it outside, but we couldn't think of a better option.

I fell asleep almost immediately, so I don't know what happened next. As Jeff tells it, the dog started barking later in the morning (around 3:00 a.m.), but then suddenly stopped. I didn't hear a thing. But the next morning, we awoke to discover that someone (probably the north neighbors) apparently didn't appreciate the barking that late at night. There were two "police chalk-outlines" (made out of white plastic knives and forks) on the ground outside. One of the two outlines was cut in half, with ketchup spread around it. We didn't wait around to ask any questions. We'd planned to leave at noon, so we packed up our stuff (including the chalk-outlines) and went to the local "Roadhouse" for lunch before heading home.

I wish I had some sort of closure for this story, but I don't. We saw neither the dog, nor the neighbors again. An odd ending to an odd experience...

But on the way home, we had the chance to listen to the Bears completely dominate the Packers (which is, of course, the best possible ending to any Wisconsin trip)!

Guys' Weekend, Part 3: The Rock

On RJ's cabin web page, he mentions a rock formation that he simply calls The Rock. Jeff and I tried to find it on Friday afternoon, but without success. We expected that something as grandiose as The Rock would have signs and a Park-District-sponsored trail all neatly marked out for travelers. As it turns out, The Rock is simply a huge rock formation, right next to the Wisconsin River. There are no signs, and no parking lot (except at a restaurant across the street). By the time we realized where we were supposed to be, it was already getting dark. So we decided to wait until Bill arrived, and try The Rock together.

On Saturday, Bill (having just arrived at 5:00 a.m.) was in no shape to scramble up The Rock. So Jeff and I left him at the cabin and went by ourselves. Now, for those of you who don't know Jeff, let me explain that he and his wife Christy have (on multiple occasions) gone on hiking trips in the Rocky Mountains. They frequently go out camping. I was, frankly, a little intimidated at the idea of trying to keep up with Jeff.

Getting up to the rock formations themselves was the hardest part of the experience. We walked up a steep dirt trail toward The Rock, but it felt like we were "crawling vertically" rather than "walking". The dirt was fairly loose, and I found myself grasping at the ground with my hands on more than one occasion. The few trees along the trail became my best friends, because I could hang onto them without worrying about sliding back down the trail.

When we made it up to The Rock itself, I felt more comfortable. I've always liked clambering around on rocks, and these rocks had enough footholds to make me very happy. The view from the top was breathtaking! Of course, neither of us had a camera. So you'll have to take our word for it that we were actually there.

Guys' Weekend, Part 2: I Hate Nintendo Football

To waste some time on Friday night, Jeff and I tried playing Nintendo Super Pro Football at RJ's cabin. Neither of us knew the game, and there was no instruction manual. In order to learn the game, we decided to play together against the Nintendo. We figured we'd grasp the concept after running a few plays. We set it to "Beginner" and chose to play the Chicago Bears. We let the Nintendo play the Green Bay Packers.

It only took us a few plays to realize that we didn't have the slightest clue how this game was supposed to work. Every time we passed, it was intercepted. When we tried to run, the quarterback would try to toss a shuttle-pass to non-existent teammates. We regularly ended up in punt formation on second down. And when we actually wanted to punt on fourth down, our team instead tried to kick a field goal from our own 20.

Somehow, we managed to get a touchdown on the first game. I think we picked up a fumble at Green Bay's 10 yard line and ran it in. Of course we missed the extra point, but we were too ecstatic to mind. The final score was Chicago: 6, Green Bay: 100.

The next day was little better. We decided that the game probably used statistics from the real NFL teams (and the game was made in 1992). Obviously, the '92 Packers would dominate the '92 Bears. So we decided to play the Packers and make the Nintendo play the Detroit Lions. The result was a catastrophic Packers: 0, Lions: 77.

Guys' Weekend, Part 1: Where's Bill?

Last year, Jeff, Randy, and I waited for Bill and Paul before leaving McHenry for the cabin. The original plan was to leave at 1:30. But because of work schedules and various delays, Bill and Paul didn't show up until 4:00 or so.

So this year, Jeff and I decided to leave whenever we were ready, get up to the cabin before Bill and Paul, and wait for them to show up. The first wrinkle in our plan was when Paul unexpectedly cancelled. He had some kind of foot injury, and he needed to have it checked out. Bill was more than slightly concerned about having to drive up to the cabin alone. We reassured him that if he printed out the directions on RJ's website, he wouldn't have any trouble. So, armed with RJ's directions, Bill told us that he was going to "take it slowly" and that we shouldn't expect him until about 11:00 p.m. Knowing Bill, we estimated that we wouldn't see him until around midnight...

Jeff and I arrived at the cabin around 4:30 - 5:00. We spent our time building a fire, playing Nintendo Super Pro Football (see "Guys' Weekend, Part 2"), and searching the area for The Rock (see "Guys' Weekend, Part 3").

But at about 1:30 a.m. we started wondering about Bill. The temperature had plummeted, and it was a very cloudy, dark night. There's absolutely no cellular coverage around the cabin (the nearest signal is 15 miles away), so if Bill got lost in the area, he might never find his way out again. So Jeff and I drove back down the road until we finally got a cellular signal. We were hoping that Bill had left me a message on my phone, "Hey guys. It's really late now, so I decided to wait until Saturday." But he didn't. I tried calling his cell phone, but I didn't get an answer. So we figured that either he was sleeping at home, or he was already lost in the Cellular Dead-Zone.

We couldn't do anything else, so we went back to the cabin and went to sleep. Almost the last thing we said was, "If Bill shows up tonight, we're gonna pay him back by scaring the living daylights out of him."

A few hours later (we found out later that it was 5:00 a.m.), Jeff woke me up: "Michael! I think Bill just pulled up!" We both scrambled down RJ's ladder-like staircase. I ducked into the doorway to the bathroom. From there, Bill would need to pass me to get into the cabin, but I wouldn't be in view immediately. Bill came in very quietly, passed me, and starting putting his bags down. I stood for a few moments, deciding how best to startle him. As I contemplated this act of absolute cruelty, I imagined the look on Bill's face. It was such a funny thought that I laughed out loud. Unfortunately for Bill, I was close enough to him that the sound of my laughter did the job nicely. He jumped straight into the air, cocked his fist, and spun around. I have to give him credit for such incredible reflexes; he moved faster than I thought he could.

The Guys' Weekend

Tomorrow Jeff, Bill, Paul, and I are heading up to RJ's cabin in Wisconsin for our annual Guys' Weekend. Randy can't come because he's visiting his family in Florida. RJ is one of my co-workers, and he has a standing offer for any of his friends to use his cabin, as long as we take good care of it. There's a big firepit up there, and RJ said that he left us a LOT of firewood.

RJ's a great fellow, but he's got the reputation at work for being a prankster. And it's no wonder: he's the webmaster of ComputerPranks.com, and he often brings his antics into the workplace. So who knows what we'll find up there. I'm always a little hesitant to use the shower... because I'm always paranoid that he's got a web-cam installed in there. (Just kidding, RJ... I hope!)

Unfortunately, I seem to be a bit more accident-prone this year. I've had two injuries over the last two days. Yesterday I bruised my shin pretty hard at AWANA (trying to beat Marshall to the first-place prize). I don't know what (or who) I hit. There were a bunch of flailing arms and legs, a collision, and somehow I ended up with a bruised shin.

Then today at work, I gave myself a nice long cut while playing table tennis (yes, we have a ping-pong table at work). Brian hit a nice shallow slice off the right side of the table. As I reached to return it, my forearm got a little too close to the corner of the table, and I cut myself pretty well. I did return the ball, but I had to forfeit anyway (it's not sanitary to bleed all over a ping-pong table).

So the way things are going, I'll be lucky to avoid falling into the firepit!

Just Like Heaven

If you haven't seen "Just Like Heaven", beware that spoilers follow...

I'm finally starting to understand Randy's "Good Movie" Criteria, which I now paraphrase as, "A movie should only be as good as it's trying to be." It's still nonsense, but I'm starting to see a glimmer of truth in it. My personal version of Randy's Criteria is, "As long as I set my expectations to the right level, I can enjoy almost any movie."

Thus, when I sat down to watch "Just Like Heaven", I was prepared for a cute generic romance. I was not disappointed. It was precisely a cute generic romance; no more and no less. But there were a few points which worked in its favor. It didn't overuse its jokes. It didn't spend too much time setting up the fact that our main character is a ghost. And aside from one very ill-placed scene, it didn't rely on slap-stick humor. I liked it only because it didn't fall into too many of the common romance pitfalls. Like the movie "Men of Honor," it was a very average movie. I know I spent 90 minutes watching... something. But after a year, I probably won't even remember that I saw it.

The only scene that impacted me at all was the ending. And, unfortunately, it wasn't a good thing. All romance movies require at least one "let-down" moment: the couple breaks-up, or there's a huge misunderstanding, or one of them is presumed dead, etc. In this case, they just decided to play the old "amnesia" trick: one character completely forgets the entire relationship until some event triggers her memory. Then our couple happily embraces, and the credits roll. It was just an excuse to tack a few extra minutes onto the running time. I don't think they could have come up with a weaker ending if they tried.

All-in-all it was a cute, but very forgettable movie.

Anthony Alexander is coming to America

Great news! After jumping through many legal hoops, Cary and Becky are going to Guatemala tomorrow to bring their new son home! Much rejoicing! I have no idea when they'll be back, but at least the waiting game is finally over. Three loud cheers!

Storytelling at the Celtic Knot Pub

A few weeks ago, Jeff and Christy invited us to attend the Illinois Storytelling Festival in Spring Grove. I had no idea that "professional storytelling" was still being done, or that it was still so popular. I expected it to be quaint, but somewhat dull. I was happily mistaken. Most of the stories ranged between stand-up comedy and morality tales, and we were enthralled.

So last Thursday, Kristin and I went down to the Celtic Knot Pub in Evanston to hear Sid Lieberman perform. It was a long drive, but I enjoyed spending the time with Kristin (it's not something we get to do very often). The Knot is a nice Irish pub in downtown Evanston. Kristin had the steak, and I (of course) had the Shepherd's Pie (very well made). Then we retired into a little room off the main dining room called The Snug (because, well... it's snug). Sid told us two stories: one brand-new one about his father, and an old one about his daughter. The story about his dad was a "first telling," so he asked us to offer some suggestions for improvement.

I think I'll look for some more opportunities to hear professional storytellers. There's just some kind of innate purity to the art of storytelling. There's an intimacy to the stories that you don't find in the other forms of communication (novels, plays, movies, artwork).

Here are some links to Sid Lieberman telling The Telltale Heart by Poe. There's a video here, and just the audio here.

What a week!

There are a lot of changes these days. It seems that everything's happening all at once (except the birth of the new baby, thank goodness). Last weekend Dad and I rearranged the furniture, but we left everything else strewn about. At the beginning of the week Kristin picked most things up, and generally created order out of chaos.

Monday was Parents' Orientation Day at Kathryn's new pre-school. She's attending "Joyful Noise" pre-school at the local Presbyterian church on M-W-F afternoons. On that first day, I think Kristin and I were more nervous than she was. Despite being an "only child," Kathryn had no trouble jumping right into the fray with the kids.

Starting next week, Kathryn will have dance class on Tuesday mornings. But we were still busy, because Kristin's parents dropped by on Tuesday to spend the night on their way to Michigan. McHenry was a bit out of their way, but it was nice of them to stop by while they were in Illinois.

Wednesday was Kathryn's official First Day of School, and my mom came up from Joliet to help Kristin paint Kathryn's room (pink, of course). I came home for lunch to wish Kathryn well for her first day, and I admit to being a little sentimental. My little girl's going to school now! It's just another of those little steps towards independence.

Wednesday night was the first night for AWANA at our church. We decided to let Kathryn try it and see if she's ready for it. Technically AWANA starts at Kindergarten, but I think they'll make an exception for Kathryn. Everyone at church knows her, and the AWANA staff had already unofficially suggested that we should try to enroll Kathryn. Plus, since I've been looking to get involved with another ministry at church, I offered my help. They immediately sent Kathryn downstairs with the other kids, and they put me to work outside with the campfire. There were already four youth out there, and they didn't seem to need the help. But they made me feel very welcome, and Kathryn and I both had an incredible evening.

Thursday is now our only day of the week without any scheduled activities. Mom and Kristin continued painting Kathryn's room, and Kathryn slept in the "playroom" on the air mattress (which she absolutely loved)!

Today Kathryn went back to school, and I think she's starting to get the hang of it. Or... at least I'm getting used to the idea. :-) I'm just glad we have a three-day weekend to recover from all these upheavals. As long as nothing blows up over the weekend, I should be ready to face the world again on Tuesday.

For now, I'm gonna play some much-needed World of Warcraft. Next time I'll have to tell you about yesterday's trip to Evanston, and about the cute, but sappy romance movie I finished watching last night.

Moving Day (kinda)

Kristin and I decided that we're going to stay in our little house for another year. We're gonna build up a little more equity, finish Kristin's student loan, pay off some of the bills from my surgery, and try again next year. So, obviously, we needed to do a serious re-organization in order to make room for Baby Howk.

To that end, I enlisted my Dad's assistance today. He drove up here this morning, and we spent the day moving furniture from room to room. The "master plan" is to make the computer room into a playroom, so we can give Kathryn some place to keep her toys. The kids will both sleep in Kathryn's room (we'll see if it works). We'll have to be flexible on that one: maybe allowing Kathryn to sleep in a sleeping bag or on the couch once in a while (which she enjoys anyway).

In order to make room in the computer room, we moved the bookshelves into the front room, and the computers into the master bedroom. Moving the computers was our biggest challenge. Neither my Dad nor I are "skilled" electricians. We can set up a computer in no time, but when it comes to running wires and crimping connectors, we're lost. We needed to move the cable modem from the computer room all the way to the other side of the house, through the crawl space.

So we examined the wires, and considered our options. We finally decided to use the existing cable modem coax wire (if it would stretch far enough). But that would require us to cut off the existing connector, strip the wire, and crimp a new connector onto it. After a trip to Radio Shack, and after spending some joint-numbing minutes in the crawl space, we began our "delicate" work of adding the new connector.

Once we fixed it up, we obviously wanted to see if it would work. All of the computer parts were still in the computer room. So I grabbed a power cord out of the jumble of cords, and rushed to see if our wiring job held good. We plugged it in, and after a few breathless moments, both the "Power" light and the "Cable" light came on. Success!

Now, if you have ever had to pick one power cord out of a tangled mess of cords, you might be able to anticipate what happened next. In my rush to test the coax, I paid insufficient attention to both the precise voltage of my power cord (12 V), and the precise power tolerance of my modem (10 V). Thus, ironically, while congratulating ourselves on successfully moving the cable modem, my father and I heard a dreadful "pop". Immediately, we saw (and smelled) smoke issuing from inside the cable modem!

Surprisingly, once I found the correct power cord, the modem still works. But just to be on the safe side, we're having Comcast bring us another one on Thursday. In the meantime, we just won't leave it plugged in overnight: we'd hate to have an electrical fire on our hands!

But all in all, Dad and I had a very successful day. And it was great fun to be able to spend the whole day with him -- he always cracks me up!