Weekend in review (and Monday too!)

More spine-tingling excitement from the Falco clan!

The major fun Saturday was the washing of the kids bed linens and pillows, 7 loads of wash required for this and it ran for a good part of the day. LOADS of fun...pun intended!

I also went online and did all my Christmas shopping for the three kids, and all this via Amazon.com. Being a member of their prime service is certainly worth it, particularly around the holidays. All 2 day shipping is free, and overnight shipping upgrades are available for $3.99.

Sunday I took the kids to the mall, making them get up early, so we could be there for the 10 AM opening. This is the fourth year I have done 99% of all my Christmas shopping on line. This year due to financial constraints I won't go into here, only family, I am very sad to say, will be getting presents. (Note though in my spirit of giving I am happy to take your presents!) So anyway, unlike their Dad, the kids still need to have a trip out to procure some or most of their items.

So, I had no problem with this, but did not want to have to deal with crowds just so they could sleep in as is their habit. So, Danielle was awakened at 8:45 (her choice so she could straighten her hair) and Scott around 9:00, so we could be out of the house on time.

Scott still groused a bit about the early wake up call, adding that people would still be in church at 10 AM, but I hate crowds at the mall, and having to wait in line to pay for purchases, so, we went. We arrived about 10 minutes before the stores opened so we used the time to part and walk to the first store we would be shopping at.

The mall was indeed not crowded at all, I don't know if this was due to people being at church, the economic state of things, a combination of the two, but for whatever reasons we got in and out rather quickly, even having time to stop for a pretzel at Auntie Em's before heading out. Total time in the mall was less than two hours!

Sunday the weather warmed up and the temperature rose into the low 40's. It has also risen to about 35 on Saturday. While the driveway pretty much lost the inch of ice it had the roof only shed about half of it's icy covering.

I made homemade chicken soup for dinner Sunday, timing it to be ready after Scott's friend Alex had departed, and because the X had been sick for a couple of days, I made her a container and ran it over to her. She was most pleased, and Scott tells me she had the second serving for lunch on Monday. Scott, Danielle, and I had it for dinner last night too. It was delicious!

I had Monday off of work for personal reasons I won't go into, but I did go out and do the majority of the staple shopping for Christmas dinner. Since I painted myself into a corner I will be making Lasagna and Turkey for 10 people, I think I am going to make the Lasagna Christmas Eve day or there is no way I can pull this off, particularly with my small stove! I planned on getting the turkey too, but I wanted a Butterball, and the only ones that had were either too small or too big.

Danielle and I watched the Alvin and the Chipmunks movie, and I was quite surprised how much better this was than I had anticipated. We did not go to see it, and I am very pleased we watched it. Great viewing for kids of all ages, particularly older ones like myself who remember the cartoons and Christmas albums. Note the link above takes you to a history of the Chipmunks but has links to the cartoons and movie.

Danielle continued to impress me with her video gaming. She and I have moved from Easy to Moderate difficulty on Left 4 Dead and have been having great fun over the weekend and last night playing it.

Scott and the Mall

Scott asked if there was anyway we could get a wheel chair and take him to the mall Saturday. I checked online and the local mall does do wheelchair loaners so today around lunch time we headed over to the woodland mall. I pulled up to the door and slowly Danielle walked her brother to one of the benches right by the door while I parked the car. As I arrived at the bench Scott remarked it was starting to rain so I walked him inside and he and Danielle sat at one of the tables in the food court while I went to get a wheelchair.

The mall, while nice to loan these out for free also wins one of my "What a stupid thing to do!" awards because the information both is in the exact center of the mall, and equal distance down two corridors from any door in the mall. Hello! So you have to walk all the way in, get the wheelchair, and wheel it empty back to whatever door you came in, and when you are ready to go you get to do the opposite of this. Would it not have made sense to put the wheelchair and stroller loaners by one of the freaking doors? Anyway I got plenty of exercise wheeling Scott and the chair around. We had lunch at the food court, I some wings from Wing Heaven and Scott and Danielle food from the Chinese place.

While I finished my wings they said they would slowly start heading down towards the stores Scott wanted to go to, since it takes him awhile to roll the chair using the two big wheels which he wanted to do. I completed eating and headed after them, and when I hit the main corridor they were no where to be found. I called Scott's cell only to find they were a whole corridor past the information booth so I hurried down there and admonished them for being so far away. Scott blamed his sister saying she took control of the chair and wheeled him there. I used my mall gift card Mom and Dad had given me two Christmases past and bought two new books in the Deathlands series, some Archie double digests, and a book for Danielle. I have been saying I would take the card to the mall every time we went but awhile back I had put it in my wallet.

We got pretzels for a treat and headed to their Mom's house so they could pick up their items for the week.

Friday and Wing Heaven

Friday my son Chris and I got together; I picked him up at 2 PM and we braved the holiday crowds and went to the Woodland Mall for Chicken wings at Wing Heaven. This place has some excellent wings and they do a 12 piece sampler where you can choose 4 different sauces. So far I have sampled the following of their 17 sauces:

SCORCHING
HOT BBQ
SWEET RASPBERRY PEPPER
SPICY GARLIC
MANGO HABANERO
CARIBBEAN JERK

After finishing our lunch/dinner we hung at my house watching TV together alternating with us each playing games on our computers. Around 11PM I took him home, this was the longest time we have spent together in one day and I greatly enjoyed having his company.

MAULED IN GRAND RAPIDS

It was bound to happened, yesterday the kids and I were malled in Grand Rapids! Hmmm, I may have spelled it wrong on the title! I have done virtual all my Christmas shopping from the comfort of the computer this year. But, Scott and Danielle needed to get gifts for their Mom and each other so I took them to the mall yesterday. We went right when they came home from school and I let Scott drive; he did pretty well though he still needs a bit of work on corning.

The mall and parking lot was very crowded, we parked near the end of a row and hiked in. We hit Clair's so Danielle could get some gifts for her Mom and Scott and I chatted outside while he stretched out on the base of one of the ugly looking kinetic-type sculptures that malls seem to buy for some reason.....

We headed down by Paylees so Scott could get slippers for his Mom and while He and his sister did that I went into Walden books to pick up a gift card from Scott to his sister so she would not see it. I also snagged a half price teddy bear gift card holder.

The kids had to head into Sears as Payless did not have suitable footwear. Danielle bought herself two pairs of holiday novelty socks and Scott got the slippers. We headed to the food court when they had Chinese food and I tried a 12 wing sampler from a place called Wing Heaven. You get 3 x 4 wings with four different sauces so I got Caribbean Jerk, Spicy Garlic, Mango Habbenero, and Scorching. They were all very good with the first two being the best and the Scorching ones being mildly spicy but tasty. We headed home stopping at Forest Hills Foods for a few items.

Total time out about two hours which was excellent considering how crowded the mall and the grocery store were.

Keep on Truckin'

My previous record on the exercise bike was one hour and fifty minutes, and I believe 30 minutes of that at the higher tension level.

Today I beat that with a two hour workout and 46 minutes of that was at the higher tension level. WHAT was I thinking???

What was I thinking? After that, we all headed to the mall. I had told Chris I would get him an additional little going away present. He headed off for EB Games while Scott, Danielle, and I had lunch at the food court, the two of them both getting Chinese noodles and meat, and I had a 6" subway club on wheat with veggies and mustard; no oil or may for me!

We walked over to EB Games where Chris was still looking, after he made his selection we headed off the Walden Books where I picked up the next novel in the Anita Blake Vampire Hunter series, a Simpson's comic Book for Chris, and some anime book for Danielle. Note the Anita Blake link preceding this describes the fictional character; for information on the Vampire Hunter novels, you can click here.

We stopped at Forest Hills Foods on the way back to my house so I could pick up the items for dinner this evening (if it is a success watch for a new recipe here!). The kids waited in the car reading various materials while I headed into the store. After I had procured my groceries we headed back home only for Chris to discover that he was missing two of the three CD's of the game he bought!

So far, there has been more than sufficient exercise today, though, I am going to try and get the two younger kids to go to the pool a bit later as it is in the low 90's today.

Afterthought added later in the evening, Scott, Danielle, and I did go to the pool for an hour and had a great time!

Violence at the local Mall

I was quite distressed this AM to read a report of a stabbing at the local mall that my family and I shop at on a regular basis. When we moved out here from New Jersey almost 7 years ago, the area was so nice and peaceful than the east coast and so much more family oriented. My X and I were shocked when strangers would greet us! Don't get me wrong, we were not living in a war zone or anything back east, but, area out here was so much nicer. From the friendly people to the family rest rooms and kid play areas in many stores and such you could see that family life was important out here.

Now I see I will need to be looking over my shoulder in the formerly perceived safe shopping area. I mailed the X and to her to be aware, particularly if visiting the mall after dark.

WHAT IS WRONG with people these days????