TV Update

So I'm home from Montana and totally into Everest: Beyond the Limit 2007. I watched a couple more episodes today, and I now have four left. I may have to look into the first season. Plus, while you are watching a show on Discovery Channel, you see all these commercials for other shows, and you sit there thinking, "Hmm, that looks kind of cool." I could end up watching a lot more DC this winter.

I'm also pretty excited to start watching Robin Hood Series 2 again. I was watching weekly as it was being shown, but soon got behind, so now I'm going to start at the beginning again and work my way through. One of the reasons I'm excited about RH is, of course, Jonas Armstrong. Last year after watching RH Series 1, I have to admit I was pretty obsessed. I read how he had been working out since last year and had put on 20 some pounds of muscle, but I remember in the first few eps of this series, I was thinking, to me, he kind of just looks plumper. Not that he was ever fat, but his body type last year was sort of tennis player/swimmer type, which was just fine by me! I have a Google Alert in place on him, and I was just reading on someone's blog that they thought he looked chubbier this year. So since I am planning on watching the whole second series all at once, I'm sure I'll be able to come to an opinion on my own!

Snoqualmie Pass

Well, the good news is we made it home okay. The weather up Snoqualmie Pass could only have been worse if there had been a sheet of black ice underneath all the compact snow and ice, which I don't know, maybe there was. Anyway, as we were white-knuckling along behind all these other cars, going about 30 MPH, I was watching the guy in front of us, thinking to myself, "Man, if we could just get close enough to see that guy's license plate, maybe my brother-in-law could run it and get me the address so I can send him some HATE mail, along with some helpful winter driving tips." Such as, if you are driving UPhill in a SNOWSTORM and you are following behind someone, if you feel the need to hit your brakes at least once a minute, YOU ARE FOLLOWING TOO CLOSELY. I don't care if you are traveling with that person, it's pretty unlikely he's going to suddenly make a break for it, knowing you are glued to his bumper, and somehow get away. Plus, chances are you both have cell phones. Get a clue, you idiot!

Then, while we were slogging along in the treacherous winter driving conditions, we were listening to the pass report, which was telling us that the stuff we were currently in would not be as bad as what was coming tomorrow, a winter storm warning. Hello. I think you weather guys should check outside before you tell us that what's already here is going to be coming later.

Last Day in Montana

Well, we decided to go ahead and start for home a day early, mostly because it snowed in Kalispell almost all day. Not the dumping kind of snow, but enough to stick a little and leave three or four inches. Also enough to finally sled. A couple of times yesterday, Samantha came up to me and said, "Two more days until we leave!" like she was so excited to get the hell out of here. Then today, after we decide it might be prudent to give ourselves an extra day, she starts in on me with, "I don't want to leave. Tomorrow isn't the 30th." I finally told her to stop worrying because she was going to give herself a tummy-ache. I told her it's okay to be sad to leave Grandma and Grandpa and all her cousins, but we will be back... Then she starts bargaining with me, "Okay, in January." "No, maybe February when you have mid-winter break." "No, I want to come in January." "Whatever you little turd. Go to sleep."

We fed the ducks at Woodland Park yesterday and today. It's a totally different kettle of fish when you feed them in the winter. They SWARM you and your baggie of bread or popcorn, and the bigger ducks and the geese HONK at you LOUDLY and sometimes peck at your feet. The kids all stood on the park bench while I tried to lead ducks away to give them some space. Luckily, Jana was there with her camera to do this:

Five seconds later, they were all running to the car, screaming. They described it as a real-life, violent videogame.

Everest: Beyond the Limit

Jana is a huge fan of anything about Mt. Everest, not that she wants to climb it, but it's interesting to her to read about and watch TV about. So she had Everest: Beyond the Limit TiVo'd and we've been watching bits and pieces of it. It's funny, because probably every 45 seconds, she's pausing the program so we can comment on how insane these people are. Seriously. I think it's the same sort of mental condition that makes people want to go to Alaska and live by themselves in the wild off the land. Maybe they're not insane, per se, but there's something up. But then maybe they think there's something up about people who want to drink non-fat Black & White Mochas from Starbucks and watch British TV all day.

Quinn's Hotsprings Resort

My parents, Scott and Jana, Carter and Max, and my family and I went to Quinn's Hotsprings Resort Saturday to meet up with my relatives from Spokane, Jim and Patti, Brittany, Drew and Drew's fiance Jami. We had a really good time, and the kids LOVED the pools. Quinn's has five pools of varying temperatures, the hottest being around 105 degrees, I think, while the coolest was 56. 105 may sound hot, but when the outside temperature is in the 20's (I'm guessing), it's really comfortable. And since there's no chlorine in the water, we didn't have to deal with trying to comb out Alex's hair afterward. But if you got out and wiped yourself with a towel and then got back in, when you got out again, your towel would be frozen in the pile you left it in. If we were to ever go back again, I would definitely take a ROBE and SLIPPERS or FLIP-FLOPS. Man. But other than that, the pools were nice, the food was good, the company was delightful, and even the ride to and from was just plain fun. Air Supply's Making Love Out of Nothing At All is one for the ages.

Into the Wild

Jana and I went to Into the Wild. We both had read the book and really wanted to see the movie, and since this was the last night it would be in Kalispell, we went. While it was a very good movie and a very good book, I guess it's the story of it that becomes bothersome. I seriously think this guy had something wrong with his head to do the things he did. It's like he got the college degree his parents wanted for him, pretending everything was fine, and then with no warning, he dropped out of their lives and out of society to live "off the grid". Jana and I decided it almost must be a guy thing, because she knows some guys who saw the movie and loved it.

Samantha's arrest record

The other night, coming home from Walmart and Christmas shopping, Samantha and I got pulled over. There had been a car wreck, and I didn't notice that the tow truck was trying to merge onto the highway. I saw that he had started moving, but thought I could sneak around him. Anyhoo, this nice officer pulled me over, told me I failed to yield to emergency vehicles and how important it was, looked at my I.D., and told me to be careful in the future. No big deal. As we're pulling away, I hear Samantha sort of muttering to herself, "Well, I was pulled over when I was 5; now I'm pulled over when I'm 6."

What I'm Planning on Watching in the New Year if the Writer's Strike is Still Ongoing

UK T.V.
Life on Mars, Series 1 and 2
Robin Hood, Series 2
Torchwood, Series 1 (the episodes I missed)
Five Days
Jekyll
Spooks (the new series)

U.S. T.V.
Jericho
Lost
Life
Reaper (the episodes I haven't watched yet)

I will update this as I go!

Auxilary Gymnasium

So you can imagine my panic while sitting at my daughter's first middle school JV basketball game when I glance to my left and notice the beautiful burned-wood sign hanging above the exit announcing that if you exit by that door, you will be in the "Auxilary Gymnasium". Hello. All I knew was that Auxilary was misspelled. The first thing I did when I got home that evening was spell-check Auxilary. I originally thought there should be two L's. But Auxilary is spelled AUXILIARY. So either the school paid for someone to create the sign and (a) no one noticed it was misspelled, or (b) people noticed but didn't want to hurt the misspeller's feelings, or (c) someone made the sign for free and you can't look a gift horse in the mouth. Surprise, surprise, it bugs me EVERY SINGLE TIME I am there.

Christmas 2007

Just when I was thinking I wasn't going to bother this year, I threw the girls in front of Grandma and Grandpa's holiday tree (that one's for you, Jana) and they managed to sit still and smile for a couple of minutes. Here is the result.

Merry Christmas from Samantha Rose

Here is some of the artwork Samantha has been busy with lately. I don't know where she got it, but she absolutely won't write a word unless she KNOWS how to spell it correctly. So if she shows me something she has done and there is a word spelled wrong, I totally have to struggle with telling her or not. Ultimately, I'll end up telling her and she will scrap the whole thing and start over, even if I tell her it's great the way it is. I think it must be a real struggle for her in kindergarten where they are supposed to sound things out and then be corrected later. It was a struggle for me, when school started, to tell her to sound stuff out whenever she would ask me.

How to phase your accent out

Since I basically proof-read for a living, I do tend to proof-read road signs while driving and think about it for miles and miles when I see a misspelling or a word used wrong. I guess it's a serious pet peeve of mine. But I also like to note it when people say things differently. For instance, there's this traffic chick on KOMO 4 morning news. I can't say she's new, since I hardly ever get to watch the morning news (I'm usually stuck watching The Fairly Oddparents - GAAH). But this lady has sort of this half accent. It sort of reminds me of the time on Friends when Ross started teaching a college course with a fake English accent and his friends told him that to get rid of the accent, he needed to fade it out. So Ross starts using his fake accent for every third or fourth word. Hysterical. Anyway, so listening to this traffic announcer lady, at first I though, Hm, does she have an accent? Oh, no, she doesn't. Wait, yes, she does. Oh, I guess not. Woops, there we go again. So that drove me nuts until she said, "Both the driver and passenger were taken to hospital." So I've only ever heard people from England say "taken to hospital" or "released from hospital today", so I'm assuming the accent she's trying to hide or trying to pretend she has is English. But I actually think it sounds kind of cool to say "taken to hospital" instead of "taken to THE hospital," so it's okay. I'm actually a huge UK TV fan, which is what I'm planning on watching in January if the writer's strike is still going on. Take that, American TV!