Category Archives: Family

Fine! She’s Growing Up.

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I finally broke down today and succumbed to the realization that my Little Bit is growing up, both in terms of age and height, and finally purchased her a new bed. Up until now when she came to spend the night at Daddy’s she has been sleeping in her toddler bed, but recently it has been becoming very apparent that she has out grown this bed and needed a bigger one. We had looked at beds over the weekend via various websites and today after work I went over to Gardner White and picked out a bed for her from their Kenny Collection. Kylie had seen this one and liked it, so I choose the panel headboard with the storage foot board. Here are a few stock images of the bed.

In addition to the bed itself I also picked out a new mattress and, even though this bed frame does not need it, a bunky board as well. I decided on the bunky board because it will give a little more support to the mattress, and considering Kylie will be on this bed for a long time to come, I want her to be as comfortable as possible. The bed is going to be delivered and set up tomorrow, so the plan for tonight is to take apart her old toddler bed and rearrange her room to make space for the new larger bed.

Early Ride and Some Disapointment

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Today marks the earliest I have ever been able to get the motorcycle out for the season! Today and the rest of the week are supposed to be beautiful and I am looking forward to being able to ride again. After picking the bike up from Chuck’s and riding home, Melissa and I decided to ride down to Sidetracks for dinner. When we got down there I also did something that I had never done before, I backed the motorcycle into a spot that was part of a line of motorcycles. It was a pretty neat experience to be part of that brotherhood, to look back and see my bike in a line with others. Of course this is also when I had a chance to verify something that I was dreading, the chrome on my levers is flaking and pitting again! I am beginning to suspect that I may just have a high acid level in the oils in my skin. It’s the only sane conclusion I can come to. Not sure what I am going to do at this point, but I really don’t want to replace them again if they are just going to flake again!

Two Planets, One Kylie

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Tonight I had an incredible opportunity to show Kylie not one but two planets in the sky at the same time! While this month is a great time to see all five visible planets, due to the hours and positions of their viewing relative to our location I was only able to show her Venus (on the right) and Jupiter (on the left), and she was amazed by them. After seeing these we then had an hour long conversation (some of which she was in the shower) about the planets, gravity and orbits. She was so excited about them that we read two of her planet books before going to bed, one each about Uranus and Neptune. It was an awesome hour! The only way this could have been better is if I had the time and space to have set up our telescope and looked at them through it, perhaps next time. Click the picture to view it in the gallery.

Power Outage Means Bonding

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Tonight we had our first real power outage in quit some time. We lost power at about 5pm from high winds. We had no way to know just how long the power was going to be out, but considering it typically comes back on within minutes we continued to watch TV for a few minutes as everything was running off of the APC. After about 30 minutes though we decided that the power wasn’t going to come  back so we turned off the TV to conserve power on the APC. Thankfully we had already eaten dinner before the power went out, so we didn’t have to worry about food. So Kylie and I found other ways to pass the time. We talked about everything and anything that came to our minds, from Kylie’s classes and her friends, to her ballet and violin lessons and even Daddy’s job. While we still had some natural light we also read some books to each other and played games. When the light started to diminish we lit a number of candles through out the apartment, and then took some pictures of them. Bedtime came and we still had no power, so I turned Kylie’s night light to on and told her that as soon as the power came back it would turn on but until then I was going to leave a candle lit on her dresser for light. Then I lied down next to her so we could talk a little more before she drifted off to sleep. After about 30 minutes of us laying down and talking, the power came back on! So I was able to turn on Kylie’s radio and blow out all of the candles. It was a lot of fun not having power and I think that maybe we will make a point of “losing power” in the future to allow us to spend some uninterrupted quality time together.

Gamer Score Milestone

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My gamer score hit 10,000 tonight! Just under two years to hit it. Not to shabby I think. Something tells me I won’t double this in just under two years though.

Three Teeth Gone

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Yet another completely awesome event occurred tonight! I got a text message about 8pm while I was at the hockey game (during one of the few seconds my phone actual got reception) from Tiffany saying Kylie lost her third tooth! This tooth is also on the bottom and is the second tooth on the right hand side from the middle. I don’t have a picture yet, but if Tiffany has one I will get it up as soon as I have it. It’s been a little over a year since she lost her first two teeth, and she already has a fourth one that is loose! Though I don’t think that one will come out as quickly after this one as the second one did after the first.

Red Wings Set NHL Record

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Thanks to my job and a pretty awesome vendor I was able to go to my first real professional hockey game tonight. I say “first real” professional hockey game because I have been to a Red Wings alumni game, but that was so slow paced and laid back that it wasn’t a normal game, many of the players didn’t even wear helmets it was so laid back. Anyway tonight I got to watch the Red Wings set an NHL record by winning their 21st straight home game. Their unfortunate victims tonight were the Dallas Stars. The game was excellent and the seats were probably the best seats I will ever have, thanks to my vendor, we had seats up in the suites and this was my view for the night:

The suite itself was pretty nice and the food was very delectable. The drinks were available from an in suite fridge and staff came in periodically to refill it and the food. A dessert cart even came around gave us our pick of anything off the cart. I had a delicious chocolate cake shaped like a hockey puck with the Red Wings logo on top and filled with raspberry mousse. Yes, it was as good as it sounds! I think this night may have spoiled any further hockey games, or any sporting event for that matter. I mean for starters it was in a suite where we were basically catered to and pampered all night, and then not only do the Red Wings win but they also set an NHL record. How is another game going to top that? 🙂

Dads & Dolls

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Today was an awesome day! Kylie and I went to our first (hopefully of many) Daddy Daughter Dance. It was held at the Southgate YMCA and was about 2 hours long. They had light refreshments and craft activities and some structured dances. There were a number of slow songs but there were also some fun upbeat songs that kept us all moving. Kylie really seemed to enjoy the locomotion that turned into a limbo line. She thought it was funny watching Daddy go under the limbo stick, we also learned how to do a minuet. It was more fun than i would have thought it would be. I could see doing some type of ballroom dance lessons when she gets older and possibly doing something like that with her. The organizers told us there were about 60 girls at the dance, which was twice what they had last year! We did not know about the dance last year and we only found out about it this year because Tiffany now has Kylie going to the YMCA for latchkey on days that Kylie has a half day or no school, also Kylie will be spending her summer week days here this year when school is out. I really hope we can do this again next year! If not at the YMCA then maybe there will be one at her school.

Great Improvement

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Tiffany just got back from a meeting with Kylie’s teacher about her progress so far this year, and the results are exactly what we have come to expect from Kylie. 🙂 In November Kylie was reading at level 8 and now she is reading at level 14! Only one other student in her class improved in their reading level that much. To put the reading level in perspective in order to advance to 2nd grade she needs to be reading at level 16 by the end of the year. Her teacher said she “will be reading at a 2nd grade level well before she is in 2nd grade!” She is also on track with her math skills, and the class will be starting science next week. Overall she is doing very well and “she is a pleasure to have in class.”

A Wicked Good Night

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Since I have lived in Michigan I think I can count on one hand the number of times I have gone in to Detroit, and of those occasions almost all of them have been to go see an event (a play or musical, sporting event, or concert) and tonight was no different. As part of Melissa’s Christmas present, and as a gift to myself, I bought us tickets to go and see Wicked at the Detroit Opera House. In addition Melissa also received another piece of her Christmas present tonight because it looked beautiful with her dress. She received the lovely necklace and matching earrings that she is wearing in the picture (clicking the image will open the full image if you want a closer look), which she likes very much. 🙂

The evening of theater was preceded by a wonderful dinner at Mario’s Italian Restaurant. Mario’s is a great place and we were impressed from the moment we walked in. Neither of us are used to a place this…upscale for a lack of a better term. For instance no other place I know of brings you a vegetable and relish tray the moment you sit down. But then again Mario’s has been around since 1948, so they are a hold over from a much classier time. Because it was our first time the waiter was kind enough to give us a few tips for dinning at Mario’s, one of which was to skip the appetizer because there was only two of us and the meal portions are rather large. All of their entrees include an antipasto salad, soup, and pasta (if you’re getting a non-pasta entree) in addition to the already served relish dish. So we took this bit of advice and ordered just the entrees. I ordered the Manicotti and Canelloni combination which is a half portion of each of these two delectable dishes, and let me assure you they were indeed delicious! I am partial to manicotti to begin with and get it almost every time I am at an Italian restaurant so believe me when I say that Mario’s manicotti is superb. Melissa ordered the Spaghetti Marinara with mushrooms, and while she enjoyed the meal as far as pasta goes she was not all that impressed with their marinara sauce. She felt, and from the looks of it I agreed, that it was too thin and watery for her liking. Holding true to our recent obsession we ordered their Crème Brulee for dessert, and like our other encounters with this delicious dessert we were completely satisfied! I think that Mario’s is definitely a place we would come back to again if we were in this part of Detroit again.

Once done with our fine dinning we retrieved the truck from valet (oh did I mention that Mario’s has free valet parking? No? Well they do.) and headed down the road to the Detroit Opera House. There was a valet parking lot directly across the street from the Opera House that we took full advantage of and headed in. The Opera House itself is very beautiful on the inside, though we only looked around the first floor. After purchasing a few keepsakes from the show (a shirt for Melissa and a magnet) we headed in to the actual theater to find our seats. It turned out that the seats were a little more off to the right of the stage than I had originally thought, but they were still excellent seats. The musical itself was very well performed and the singing was great, and once I got over my disappointment (I’ll explain in a minute) the show was very good and I would recommend it to anyone. The set designs were amazing and beautiful, and the large Dragon over the stage representing the Clock of the Time Dragon was really cool,  particularly when the eyes lit up! Also the way the tik-tok machines were represented in the moving set pieces were very intriguing.  Now for my disappointment…. I have actually read Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West that this musical is based off of, twice. The second time I read the book was to read it with Melissa so that we would be familiar with the book before seeing the play, big mistake. The musical deviates, a lot, from the book and for me that took a large effort to get over. For those who have not seen the musical but have read the book, the musical basically starts with the girls going to Shiz, nothing before. That in itself is fine, but they changed the complete background of Elphaba’s parents, her sister’s disability, and the very nature of Fiyero’s character! Amongst other smaller changes this really made it difficult for me to truly enjoy the show in the beginning because I kept finding myself thinking “that’s not how it was in the book.” I do understand that they would need to change things in order to make it all fit into a 2 hour play, though I wish the changes hadn’t been so drastic. I think if I had not gone into the show with the expectation that it would be closer to the book that I would have been fine from the beginning. That is my advice to other’s if they have read the book, don’t expect the book and the musical will be fantastic from the start!

This was really a very lovely night and hopefully we will continue seeing plays and going out occasionally in 2012! Hopefully not all at the end of the year like this year, but it is a nice beginning.