Ah, the holiday time is almost over and it's once again time to begin relaxing and to start planning for next holiday season at work. Christmas was nice. The kids, especially Katelyn, were so cute this year opening gifts. Katelyn woke up first and saw all the gifts under the tree and started to toddler babble "Santa here, Santa here" and then proceeded to wake up Shawn, Lisa's brother Brad and Lisa's Mom and Dad. Of course there were way too many presents both Santa and Lisa went overboard. I think I may have to finish the basement just to store toys! Spoiled kids I have.

Brad came in for Christmas this year which was really nice. Everyone arrived at our house on Christmas eve and we had our traditional Christmas Eve dinner of assorted appetizers including such favorites as sauerkraut balls, shrimp, calamari, tuna-dill spread (Ruff family tradition started by my grandmother--I'm the only one that eats it), sushi, cheese fondue, fried zucchini, cheese, big stick-o-beef, bacon wrapped water chestnuts, veggie pizza, chicken wings and assorted cookies. After stuffing ourselves with the aforementioned junk and a few homebrews (delicious by the way) the kids opened gifts from Nana, Papa, Brad, and Uncle Ray and Aunt Marsha.

For Christmas, other than the 2 hours or so spent unwrapping loads of toys, we basically just chilled out. It was a much need relaxed day! Everyone stayed Christmas Eve, Christmas and Friday night, which was easier than driving back and forth and it was nice that the kids could rip right into the gift opening instead of waiting for everyone to arrive.

Back to work on Friday and brewed my second batch of beer with the help of Brad. This time I brewed a double IPA which is loaded with liquid malt extract (9.3 pounds) which is sugar food for the yeast. My airlock has been going crazy the past three days. It bubbles more than one time per second which is much more frequent than my first batch. That can only mean one thing; happy yeast farting out tons and tons of sweet alcohol!

The weekend pretty much was spent getting the house back into some semblance of order and running a few errands. I also installed a hanging television stand in Shawn's room that would accommodate the 19 inch tube T.V. we had in the playroom.

On Monday, I went for my annual eye exam and had a retina scan done. The doctor found an abnormality on my retina and has referred me to a specialist to get checked out further. She said it looked like I may have a couple of small holes and some fluid that she wants me to get check out. They may want me to have some sort of laser surgery but I will have to wait and see. I did purchase a new pair of glasses that are totally out of the box for me. I will post a picture after I pick them up in a couple of weeks.

New Year's Eve will be spent with Jill, Todd and their kids again this year. My childhood friend, John is going to be in Cleveland for New Years and he and my other friend from High School, Brian) are having a small get together on New Year's Eve. Unfortunately with the kids and having to work on Friday we opted out of that invite. I like being close to home for this particular holiday anyway due to all the drunks on the road. I really don't like to drive any further than I need to and Jill and Todd live about a mile away! Can't get much closer than that.

My brother Mike is coming for a visit this weekend, I'm looking forward to that. Over the past couple of years, Mike and I have gotten a lot closer. I'm 8 years older than him so growing up we really had very little in common and once he was of the age that his interests began to be interesting to me, I went away to college. Once our Dad passed away, we really have leaned on each other quite a bit. I wish he lived closer.

Speaking of Dad, I can't believe he's been gone for nearly 2 years now. I miss him as much today as I ever have. I catch myself daily being reminded of him. It's really crazy how a death of a close family member can leave such a lasting and profound change in one's life. And that's enough about that subject.

Have a very happy and blessed 2009!


First Home Brew

Damn Santa

Who's the cute snowman in the middle?

Katelyn enjoying a home brew

Santa?

Merry Christmas Eve everyone! Working is finally beginning to wind down for Lisa and I and maybe I'll get back to regular blogging once again. My first batch of home brewed beer is finally finished and is carbonated nicely so let the drinking commence! It really turned out well; much better than my Mr. Beer days. I may post a short movie later of my very first pour from the now hillbilly engineered kegerator. Speaking of hillbilly engineering, that little project was a major pain in the rear-end but it's complete!

On my birthday, the daughter of my boss with help from Lisa trashed my office. Here's a few pictures:



Speaking of my birthday, we ended up at Sakura which seems to have become our birthday dinner restaurant of choice and then pretty much ended up at home asleep early. The next morning I had to do a radio remote for work at one of our locations at work. It was a lot better than I expected. I spoke every 20 minutes for a couple minutes at a time for the 2 hour remote. I don't typically like to speak in front of a group of more than say 25 but this was really okay. I guess according to the demographics for that particular radio station (oldies format) I was speaking to somewhere in the neighborhood of 40,000 people. I will do it again next year if asked and maybe I'll post the Internet link so others can listen as well.

That's it for now, I do have to get back to work.

Have a Merry Christmas!

It has been a busy past few weeks especially at work. I really haven't had much time at all to think let alone blog. I did however have a great past week. Wednesday I picked up our family Christmas/my birthday present which was a 46" LCD HDTV. When I got home, Brad (Lisa's brother), Bev and Ted were at the house already. Brad and I unpacked the television and hooked it up. The picture in HD is amazing. You can actually see the imperfections on a supermodel's face. After a run to the beer store to pick up our libations for the next few days, we had a few of Brad's homebrews that he brought along and settled in and watched some television.

Thursday morning, I had a bit of a stress meltdown and snapped at Lisa about helping out in the kitchen. As she should have, she pretty much put me in my place. Everyone did their part in making the meal as nice as ever...thanks everyone! Brad and I did our traditional freeze our tails off deep frying of the bird which turned out very well. The turkey may have been the best I've fried so far. After stuffing myself to max capacity and taking my annual Thanksgiving siesta, I watched a bit more tv before heading to bed.

Friday, Lisa and I had to go to work so we decided to hit a few of the Black Friday sales. We ended up at Meijer at 5am, then to Menards for their 6 am opening and finally to Target. All the trips were pretty successful. I picked up a pneumatic framing nail gun for when I finally decide to start the basement and we picked up various odds and ends for the kids. Lisa and I worked until noon and then headed home.

When I got home, Lisa's family and the kids threw me a surprise early 40th (yes I said 40th) birthday party. Since Brad was in town and my big gift was all the equipment to begin my journey in homebrewing, it seemed appropriate to celebrate while Brad was in town. Plus Brad walked me through my first batch of homebrew. Friday evening, Jill, Todd and Skylar stopped by as well and brought me over a couple of growlers full of beer from The Maumee Brewing Company; like I really needed to drink more beer. We hung out and had a few beers and that pretty much was Friday. I spoiled my 30th surprise party which was huge but this time Bev and Lisa really pulled one over on me. Thanks everyone for some really great gifts that will keep giving.

Saturday Brad, Todd and I make my very first batch of homebrew in the garage. One of my gifts was a kit to brew IPA which has fast become my favorite style of beer (I am a self proclaimed hop-head). Everything seems to have went well brewing. The yeast seem to be happy eating up all the sugar and farting out alcohol at a pretty good rate. My basement is beginning to smell like a first class microbrewery. In just about 3 weeks, I will be drinking my very first 5 gallon batch of homemade beer. After we brewed, we went to lunch at Easystreet downtown, stopped at the Woodville surplus store and made a trip to The Anderson's. We were pretty much exhausted by the end of the day and all headed to bed pretty early.

Sunday, Brad took off early in anticipation for the snow they were forecasting for Chicago. Lisa went shopping and I cleaned out the garage, put up the two outdoor Christmas trees and then hung a few pictures, moved some furniture around and put up the tree. Once Lisa got home, she moved some of Katelyn's stuff upstairs to her room and then we all decorated the 12 foot monster tree in the family room. After we put up the tree, I decided it would be a great idea to drop my mobile phone in a glass of beer. Just in case you wanted to try this yourself, I would highly recommend you don't. While beer is fun for humans to drink, cell phones don't like to function after submersed in the stuff. Today, I had to get another phone.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. I also got my 2009 opening day tickets last week! There are 9 of us this year. We added a friend from high school and Todd from Toledo this year. Todd has no idea what he's in for!

There's been so much more happen since I blogged last but I am getting tired and need to get to sleep. Here are a few pictures from the past week:

Katelyn and Uncle Brad

Just a couple of Turkeys

Annual TG Siesta

Surprise

Cool Batman pajamas from Shawn (not under-roos)

Wow, that's a lot of gifts!
(Thanks everyone!)