Christmas Eve

Randy and I are really lucky that we can do holidays together with both families.  Part of it is just lucky that I'm Catholic and he's Jewish, so there is no disagreements as far as where we do Christmas or Christmas traditions, etc.  That's just a small part.  The other 95% is that my family and Randy's get along so well.  Like we're surprised our mothers don't hold hands and skip whenever they get together.  In fact this year, Randy's brother hosted Christmas, but more on that later.

My brother and his girlfriend, Ashley, unfortunately have to do the every other Christmas thing.  This year we got them for Thanksgiving, so we didn't get them for Christmas day, but we got them Christmas eve!  We opened half the presents then and saved the rest for Christmas day morning at our house and Christmas night at Randy's brother, Jason's.  Presents went a lot faster than they usually do since we always open one present at a time starting with the youngest to the oldest.  I know most people probably subscribe to the free-for-all tear fest, but we like to see what everyone got and the reactions when they open something we got them, etc.  It's just personal preference and how we like to do things.

Best line of the night:  My dad got my mom and iphone for Christmas.  My mom doesn't know how to use her current phone, but so far she has answered calls and made calls and that is a good first step.  This weekend she would like us to teach her how to text.  Here she is listening to her "new favorite song", Red Solo Cup.  Dad set it up for her.  Then when Dad explained that it was a iphone 3S, Mom screeched, "What??  You got me last year's model??"  Joking, of course, but her timing was impeccable.

My dad and his new Phillies gnome:

My brother, Bryan:

His girlfriend, Ashley.  We hope they get married some day.  We really like Ashley.

2012 Chik-fil-a calendar.  Everyone was super jealous.

Last year, Bryan and Ashley got Randy this great book called "Awkward Family Photos".  This year they got him a second book, "Awkward Pet Photos".

Which of course inspired us to take our own.  Ashley and my neph-puggle, Calvin, are good sports.

Every year Bryan and Ashley get Randy a funny hat.  In past years he got a Cheesehead hat:

And a bakers hat...  among other gems like a WWII French combat helmet, a racoon skin cap, and a knight's helmet.

This year, dun dun dunnnnnn...  It was a ninja hat and practice sword.  Pretty cool, huh?

Hope everyone is still full of holiday joy this week between Christmas and New Years!

Catching Up

This is the first year we put lights up outside our house.  I've done the candles in the windows thing before, but with three floors, we have a lot of windows.  And the cats knock them over, etc. so usually we just hang a wreath on the door and call it a day.  Then we go all out and decorate the inside as much as possible.  Last year shopping the Target after Christmas sale, I bought some outdoor lights.  I was bound and determined I was going to light up the outside of the house.  Not like Clark Griswald, but something nice and festive.

Little did I know the lights I bought last year were only 20 lights long and don't stretch very far.  So I went to Target and got a $30 wheel of lights and I climbed up on the 5 foot ladder and the lights were on the ground by the next morning.  Like I said, I'm new to this stuff, and Randy hasn't ever put up Christmas lights either.  I used duct tape - didn't work.  So my co-worker Kevin, the bathroom fan expert, tells be about the light clips you can buy at Target for like a buck.  Duh.  So I get out there the next night with the 8 foot ladder and we had this:

I also got a $5 wreath at Produce Junction and add my own dollar store bow and plastic berries.  It looks pretty good if I do say so myself, and you can't even see the bite marks where the cats were chewing on the bow.

Sorry we don't have any during pictures, but Randy was too busy worrying I might fall to snap any pictures.  He's a good husband.

Then we came back in to this, which is where Camille has spent her days every day since.

Our tree is a faker that we got on sale at Michaels a few years ago.  It's pre-lit and even has fake pinecones and baby pine needles on the edges of the branches.  I like to hang chandelier crystals (you can get them in bulk from chandelier supply stores.  I got mine from a company in the back of Country Living) all throughout the tree from the middle of the tree out.  They reflect and bounce the light around and make the tree look more full and bright.  Then we put the ornaments on.  See our blue stripe of ornaments from the top right of the tree going diagonally down to the left?  That's our Hanukkah stripe.

We got a spotlight too, but we haven't figured out how to hook that one up yet.  There's always next year!  And if you haven't gone yet, Target is having their 50% off sale and we went today and snagged all of our wrapping paper and Christmas and Hanukkah cards for next year!  It was a little crazy, but what else are you going to do on a crazy rainy day like this?

Christmas Candy Lane

We've been really bad with the blog!  Christmas and Christmas prep has kept us hopping.  We'll have lots of Christmassy goodness in posts to come.  

The weekend before Christmas we went to Hershey Park with our friends, Megan and Matt.  Just a quick side note, I work with Megan and Randy works with Matt.  We kind of set them up.  Sort of.  Intentionally unintentionally.  At a Harry Potter movie.  Anyway, they've been together two and a half years now.  Yay for them and yay for us intentionally unintentionally setting them up! 

As you can tell, we were really mature while Randy drove us down the PA turnpike to Hershey.  Megan is texting me pictures of rings she picked out, while we're all chatting so the boys don't know what's going on.  Like I said, yay, right?

Despite it being really windy and snowing, there were some fun rides open.  The fast and twisty rides are even more fun when your smile freezes to your face, right?  After Randy and I squished our boney hips into a swingy sail-boat kid ride, we decided to walk around a little to feel our legs again.

Hershey really goes all-out.  They have reindeer every year for as long as I can remember.

We even found a Hanukkah-decorated tree for Randy.

For anyone who has been to Hershey, you know that no trip is complete without a visit to Chocolate World.   You can stock up on rarer Hershey candy that's hard to find in stores, like Skor bars and white chocolate Reese's cups and Kit kats.  I'm not ashamed to say that we left with close to 10 lbs of chocolate.  There's a free ride with audio-animatronic-like cows that explain how chocolate is made, and at the end they even give you a candy bar.  Yes, this truly is a magical place.

After grabbing the best fast food I think I have ever had outside of Chik-fil-a, we headed over to the Giant Center to catch a Hershey Bears game.

The way the flash hits the snow, it looks like we were really walking in a winter wonderland.  Luckily for us, it was just flurries.

For those of you not familiar (like me), The Hershey Bears are the minor league Washington Capitols team and the Bridgeport Wolfpack is the New York Islander's minor league team.   We didn't really care who won, so we cheered for the home team.  If you like hockey and you ever get a chance to go, it was inexpensive, family-friendly and clean.  I like going to events in Philly as much as anyone, but to a germophobe like me, it is nice every once in a while to go to a sporting event where there are no rabid fans or questionable bathrooms.  Also a great place to defrost your toes after walking around Hershey Park.

See the Red Robin mascot?  He's sitting in our seats, but it was ok because as you can see from above, the seats we sat in had a great view.

We hope everyone had a beautiful Christmas with their loved ones!  Randy's brother hosted and we had a Cajun Christmas.  I even made bananas foster for the first time, and didn't burn his house down.  More to come!

2 People, 4 Cats and one long weekend

Randy:  HA HA!  Finally, I get to write this.  Just realize, Jodi will read and edit this. Any profanities or controversial topics will be removed.  Just kidding... or am I?

This is exciting.  It's Sunday night and we had an awesome weekend.  So I'm gonna share it with you... from the beginning.

I stayed at work on Wednesday until I was done work.  That meant 9pm.  But, I was done.  If you're gonna take a random long weekend, you gotta have a free mind.  I did some online Christmas shopping Wednesday night.  We had plans for going to NYC on Thursday.

Ok, we woke up at noon on Thursday.  We didn't go to NYC.  Honestly, I'm not disappointed.  We both really needed the sleep.  Some would say that we wasted half a day, but was the day half wasted or half lived?  No day can begin without a coffee from Dunkin Donuts.  But then we went places... we went to Home Depot to help with home improvement projects for this blasted blog... so rather than actually complete stuff, we have now started 8 new projects including changing a chandelier in the dining room and adding moulding to the ceiling, painting stripes (classy stripes not prison bars) in our bedroom, and other stuff that you'll probably read about.  Then we went to Jo Ann Fabric so Jodi can make great things for our friends' kids, and to Pet Smart to buy a couple of new litter boxes (for Jodi... shhh... I promised I wouldn't say that she tinkles in a litter box).  Then, we decided to go to the movies.  We had no idea what was playing.  Hell, I'd see the Muppets again.  It was that awesome!  But, we decided to check out Hugo instead. Despite my brother saying we should see it in 3D, we weren't waiting an hour for the next show.  Typically, I don't see movies with good acting, writing or directing... but Jodi wanted to go.

Jodi:  If you get a chance to see Hugo, do.  I want to personally thank Martin Scorsese for reminding me why how much joy I get out of writing, watching and making movies.  Once again, I'm not giving any details, but it gets the Randy and Jodi 4 thumbs up.

Randy:  We got home super late but it was time to make cupcakes.  Jodi had an order for Friday night.  I loved helping.  Typically, I don't give a damn, but I was tasked to make snowmen to go on top.  Being a mechanical engineer with an overactive imagination, this was a fun task.  We were baking together.  I believe Jodi will post pictures. The cupcakes did not need icing because Jodi's cake was super good.  (Jodi:  We made pineapple/coconut/walnut cupcakes with cream cheese icing.  Not to toot my own horn, but they were heavenly).  But the cupcakes needed the snowmen because I made them and they are badass.

Jodi and I were in the very first Student Managed Fund at Villanova and we went back on Friday to watch the student presentations.  It was great to see where the students have taken our legacy.  Honestly, I didn't understand a word anyone said.  I guess that makes me the Paula of the panel.  FYI, I love Paula. I have both of her albums on my iPod.  Anyway, the best part was watching this woman grill the crap out of these kids.  You knew it was a difficult question for 2 reasons: (1) I needed Google to understand what she asked and (2) all the students had to look at each other to figure out who'd be the sacrificial lamb to answer.

Then we met some friends for dinner at an Asian restaurant called Umami in Lionville.   It is really good. And I'm Jewish and know good Chinese food.  But I also love sushi.  I bought a lot of sushi so I can share with our friend, Becky.  She doesn't eat it.  But she never had oysters until going out to eat with us... so I admire her adventurous nature.  And I got to eat a lot of sushi.  We had a lot of fun, but we always have fun going out to eat with Becky and Linda.

Saturday was pretty sweet too.  I convinced Jodi to eat dinner at Chic Fil A.  MMMMMmmmmm.  I tell the story of George and Martha ChickFilA, but Jodi says I'm making it up.  Apparently, they did not escape persecution from Kentucky.  Who knew?!  Anyway... we came home and I helped Jodi decorate our Christmas tree.  I am not a big Christmas tree decorating fan.  Why?  Because I'm Jewish!  As Lady Gaga would say, "Because I was born this way!"  But I love my wife, so we did it together.  That's the point of being married. If we can't respect and celebrate our differences, and spend quality time together, we shouldn't have gotten married.  So I helped.

Even worse, we listened to Christmas music.  Good gracious... with the exception of Bruce Springsteen and the Rat Pack... I'd rather listen to country.

And that brings us to today. I went to Church with Jodi.  I hate going to Church.  OK, I don't hate anything, but you know what I mean.  First, I don't like making peace with other people.  (Jodi:  Randy means the sign of peace, shaking hands and saying, "peace be with you."  He calls it "making peace".)  Now, this is the strangest thing.  I am a nice person.  I am a friendly person.  But something is just weird about this.  I genuinely wish for people to embrace the differences in everyone's cultures and lives and accept differences and stuff.  But I don't feel like shaking a bunch of strangers' hands and all.  I need a psychiatrist to work out this pet peeve of mine.  The other thing I don't like about Church... Jodi won't talk to me.  She tells me to use my "indoor voice" and won't acknowledge any of my cute observations.  So where does that leave me?  I'm just a Jewish guy in Catholic mass. Weird.

Jodi promised me a Dunkin Donuts coffee, so for that, I'd give out Communion.  Actually, today's thought was, "do I have to be Catholic to give out Communion?"  I'm sure the answer is yes, but maybe if I could do something interactive... that might be fun.  Can I be the guy to collect all of the donations?  I'm Jewish, I'm stereotypically good with money!  That should count for something, right?  Clearly, I can't listen to Confession.  Or can I?

But, we came home and Jodi and I watched the Eagles. And they won.  See, what an awesome weekend, right?!  Then, as the game got boring, I decided to clean the family room.  I did an awesome job.  I even got Jodi to take before and after pictures.

After:

Here's our next goal... a clean house by Christmas day. See, Jodi invited her parents to our house. We might change the title of this blog to 2 people, 4 cats, some in-laws and their pets.  Eh, maybe not.  But Jodi and I cooked dinner together.  So, here we are... its Sunday evening... and we didn't do anything too exciting, but we didn't do anything too exciting together.

And everyone needs to see Alice Cooper in concert.

If Jodi doesn't post pictures with this... please complain.

Think pink and red

Jodi:  Just a real quick post tonight because we need some good sleep, but we couldn't resist posting tonight.  Today we're an aunt and uncle again and we just couldn't be happier!!!  Our friend had a healthy baby girl, Lyla Lise.  We can't wait to meet this beautiful little girl.  Seriously, it's all I can do not to hop in the car and call in sick tomorrow.

As if that wasn't enough amazing news, we also learned another friend, who is due in the spring, is also having a little girl.  With our good friends out in California due with another little girl at the end of December, we're going to have 3 new nieces in the next few months!

Randy:  So apparently, there are people actually reading this other than coworkers and friends.  They are reading this blog because if they lied to us about reading it, we'd only quiz them and expose their lying, black hearts.  Jodi looked to see who is reading this and we have about 12 Russians reading this among folks from other countries. In this Christmas/ Chanukah season, I would like to take the time to say the following:

When Ivan Drago fought Rocky, the refs should have stopped the fight earlier.
Red Dawn was an awesome movie, but maybe the paratroopers were jumping out of a crashing airplane.
Gorki Park was an under-rated band.
Rambo III was totally fake.
The Beatles were on to something when they were back in the USSR

So, welcome.

We didn't clean.  I blame Jodi, 4 cats and a nightmare.

I do not blame me.  I am a victim.
Goodnight everyone!

Little Man...

Jodi:  Randy and I went to go see Alice Cooper at the House of Blues in Atlantic City Friday night.  Don't worry, this is not a review.  I'm not going to give a set list or tell about all the details of the show.  But hey, if you get the chance to see Alice Cooper, go for it!  He gets the Randy and Jodi 4 thumbs up.

Whenever we're on the boardwalk, we like to go out and watch the waves roll for a little bit and relax.

Of course it wasn't the ideal day for a walk on the beach, unlike this day a couple of weeks a go.  

And...  it was night.  Can you tell I'm a sucker for the one-handed self-portrait?  Luckily my monkey arms are long enough that we can fit both of us in the frame.

Randy: As you can tell, Jodi had a great time at the show. But let me correct one misconception.  Jodi was nervous about going.  She does not like heavy metal and she can be uncomfortable when she is out of her element.  Ok, Alice Cooper is not heavy metal (like Pantera, White Zombie or Megadeth). However, standing outside of the House of Blues, we were surrounded by lots of your stereotypical goth-for-the-weekend folk... except with Alice Cooper-styled eye shadow.

My favorite part of the night was a conversation between Jodi and the bartender. So Jodi wanted a bottle of water.  So she paid for the bottle and the woman handed it over.  Then, she realized that she gave Jodi the cap.

"I have to take the cap.  It's a weapon, but you don't look dangerous."  Awesome!  This is the second concert that Jodi looked out of place compared to the black t-shirt and jeans convention that were attending.

Jodi:  The opening act for Alice was a band called Livan, or a man named Livan and his band.  You know when you go to a concert and you're like, gosh, I hope the opening act doesn't suck (because most of them do) and you're pleasantly surprised when they're super fun?  Like when we saw the Killers and their opening act was a Japanese Beatles cover band called the Silverbeats.  This was one of those instances.  He (they?) had a ton of style, and the music was good.  I had trouble keeping still and Randy had to tell me to save some of my camera battery for Alice.  I need an opening act with stage presence, because if I don't know their songs, I need something to keep me interested.  Boy did they put on a show.  And they had a chick bass player, so that gives them extra points.

I particularly liked this skirt:

And his eye makeup:

I might have to steal some of these looks.  

Then Alice came out, just like I remembered him from the Muppets, but about 30 years older and with spider arms.

I'm sorry the picture is so blurry, but these are actual inflatable spider arms.  Fabulous, right?  You have to love a theatrical performance, which I knew he is known for.  What I really liked about Alice is that he doesn't take himself too seriously.  It's just all in good fun.  And when he came out with a snake, he was really gentle with it.  

He just seems like a nice guy that you'd want to sit and have a beer with.  Which is going to seem funny when I type you this next bit.  This is him dancing to his new song of which the lyrics go, "I'll bite your face off, little man...."  We call Keller "Little Man".  So now every time Randy sees Keller, he tells him he's going to bite his face off.  Keller just smiles his content little cat smile while Randy gives him scratches.  But now I'm off topic.  The back of his shirt literally says, "I'll bite your face off."

My camera battery died in the middle of "Feed My Frankenstein", but I was able to squeeze our its last micro-ounce of juice to snap one more picture at the big finale.  Randy's favorite part, naturally:

At the end of the band introductions, he said, "And playing the role of Alice Cooper tonight....  ME!"  Totally fun.

Randy:  It took us over 2 hours to get home (including a pit stop to get Jodi's car).  And then we hit the diner for a late night snack.  By the time we got home it was 3am... actually... I have no memory from the time we left the restaurant.  I'm writing this, so we survived.

What great shows have you seen lately?  Have you been thrilled by a snake charmer or a man in a fun skirt?  Anyone else go see a concert just because you saw them on the Muppets 30 years ago?

Do do that voodoo that you do so well

As a part of cleaning the house, we're going through all our stuff and trying to pare down.  Randy has been going through his strange collection of monkeys and voodoo statues that he keeps in his room (the den).  Hence the "gift" to Nikki last week.

Now you might ask, how many life-like monkeys and voodoo statues could one man need?  From looking at the den, the answer is many.  When Nikki left, Randy also tried to send her off with this one:

Nikki politely declined, but offered to take him next time she came if we were not able to sell him on ebay.  Then I got to thinking.  He looks an awful lot like a special love in my life.

Do you see it?

They could be twins, right?  Maybe if my mixer was some type of alien-looking skeleton.  Now I kind of like the little guy and feel bad about knocking on his head to see what he is made out of (some kind of hollow resin?)  Randy thinks he is a Haitian voodoo statue and he is meant to guard your door.  I offered to put him in the closet by the front door so he can protect the house, but Randy insists that he would then be protecting the closet door and not the actual front door.  I wonder where he gets his information.  I did do some brief online research, and while I haven't really figured out what he is or what he is supposed to do, I don't think he is as scary as I originally thought.  I figure if he is representing anything, if we think positively towards him, he will do the same towards us.  Karma.  And if he doesn't represent anything, it's a moot point and he's kind of fun like this one that I found on Design Sponge:




See his (probably not plastic) brother over there in the corner?  Kind of cute now, right?  He's in the closet downstairs for now (with the door cracked so he can see) facing the front door, but I'm hoping to find a better place at some point.  


So anyone have any information on this little guy or have any statues that look like a kitchenaid mixer?  Taking any large hauls to good will?  Tis the season!