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!)