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Dec 10, 2012

Our Life As Seen Through Holiday Decorations (& Giveaway!)

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Shortly after Thanksgiving, as soon as Aaron felt well enough after the flu, we pulled out the holiday decorations and set up the Christmas tree. I love that we always decorate the tree as a family, with everyone involved in dressing it up with garland and ornaments.

Our tree’s ornaments are an ever-evolving group, which started originally with ornaments from when I was younger. You could say it’s one big geek tree. My mom used to buy me a new ornament every year, usually a Star Trek or Star Wars ornament. I then added some Disney ornaments to it in my early 20’s.

The Next Gen Enterprise – one of my favorites from high school

Once Aaron joined the family, my mom picked up on his interests (comic books and superheroes) and went to Hallmark for a new superhero ornament every year. This was one of the first she gave him:

flying near the top of the tree, of course

There are plenty of other sentimental ornaments on the tree, too. There’s the Siamese cat that reminds me of our first Siamese. And the Irish dancer glass ornament from when I used to dance. This is one we bought at Walt Disney World when we were on our honeymoon, nearly ten years ago:

As soon as Cordy and Mira were old enough, we began taking them to Hallmark to pick out a new Keepsake ornament each year as well. It’s so much fun to open the box of tree decorations and see a visual history of our daughters’ interests by what they picked for their special ornaments at different ages.

This year, the store was full of possibilities. So many different ornaments that they liked, but our limit was one each. They walked back and forth considering the possibilities for nearly 15 minutes before making their choices.

So. many. choices!

For Mira, it was Rapunzel from Tangled. She loves the Disney Princesses at the moment. For Cordy, it was Snoopy, since it reminded her of our trips to Cedar Point this year.

My mom has already picked out two for Aaron this year, although he doesn’t know what they are yet, so I can’t share here. But Hallmark also sent us an ornament for him, too:

Thor’s mighty hammer will crush any tree invaders!

This is one of three Avengers ornaments that come with bases that can join together for a tabletop display. Thor is now joining his superhero friends on the great geek tree, near Iron Man and the Hulk.

Beyond the Christmas tree, Hallmark also sent us a gift for the kids. (Mira, really.) Meet Christopher, one of the Interactive Story Buddies:

He’s not just a stuffed animal that accompanies a storybook. Inside that plush covering is a smart little electronic box that not only lets Christopher speak, but is programmed to listen to you for certain phrases and then respond, as if he’s listening to the story and can’t help but chime in. Just like your kids do when you’re reading a story they already know.

I have to admit, this is a super-cute idea. Mira adores this bear, and his book, Christopher Can’t Sleep!, is a favorite request for her bedtime story. I’m amazed at how well he recognizes the trigger phrases to respond to when I’m reading the book. (The phrases he responds to are a different color in the book, so you know when to speak clearly and not skip a word, like I sometimes do when trying to hurry through a book.)

He’s not a one-trick bear, either. Besides the book and respond-along CD that come with Christopher, Hallmark already has other interactive books that he interacts with, and there’s an iPod/iPad app for him, too. He’s one of several different Interactive Story Buddies, each with their own theme and books to go with them. You can check them out at Hallmark’s website or in stores.

Giveaway!

Hallmark is giving one lucky reader a Thor ornament to start (or continue) your geek tree, as well as Christopher, the Interactive Story Buddy! To enter, please use the Rafflecopter widget below. Giveaway is open until the end of Saturday, December 15.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Full disclosure: I received the two products mentioned above from Hallmark for review. All opinions are my own, including my belief that the best ornament ever was the Star Trek Shuttlecraft Galileo with Spock’s voice wishing us a happy holidays. And yes, I have that on our tree, too:

 After 20 years, it still lights up and talks. A testament to a true keepsake ornament.
Filed Under: family time, holidays, memories, pop culture, reviews ·


Nov 26, 2012

What A Week

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Last week at this time, I was expecting to have a relaxing Thanksgiving week. My only concern was for Wednesday, when the kids would be home from school while I was still working. I had an enormous to-do list with confidence that I would get it all done.

So then Cordy, who wasn’t feeling well Sunday night, woke up Monday morning with a high fever, cough, and headache. That meant she was home with me all day, on the couch with her Nintendo DS and watching numerous episodes of Beakman’s World on Netflix. I didn’t get as much done as I had planned because I was caring for her, too, but she clearly had the flu, so keeping her home was the right idea.

Cosmo kept watch, too.

That evening, right as she was fighting sleep on the couch, finally breaking a sweat after a 103.5 F fever, the cable/internet went out. As I tried to reset the cable box, my computer prompted me to restart for a Windows Update. I let the computer restart, hoping I could get my internet back again so that I could continue working.

But then the computer wouldn’t start again. It would try to restart, get to the point of loading Windows, hang, and then reboot. Safe Mode didn’t work, running diagnostics didn’t work…after fighting with it all night, I was computerless and lost an entire night of getting anything done.

Cordy was better on Tuesday, but still not well enough to go to school. Aaron took her with him to work, where she could hang out in his office with her games and books away from everyone else, while I figured out if my computer was dead or not. Aaron’s brother saved all of the data from the hard drive (YAY!), but the diagnosis was that the hard drive was dead.

The afternoon was spent researching new computers and working out how in the world we were going to afford a new laptop. I had been planning to buy a new laptop in a month or so, but this was just a little too early for me to be ready. Tuesday evening, I went computer shopping while Aaron entertained the kids, and by 9pm I finally had a new computer to resume my online life. The kids had no school the next day, but I hoped that at least most of my plan for the rest of the week would be back on.

I wish I could have got it without Windows 8.

And then Wednesday morning came and Aaron had been gifted with Cordy’s flu. Well…damn. To make it worse, we had my family coming over for Thanksgiving dinner the next day, and we had yet to finish cleaning the downstairs to prepare for the event.

I cranked through as much work as I could while tending to the chaos around me during the day on Wednesday. By 6pm, Aaron voluntarily went to bed feverish and achy after shivering on the couch all day. After I put the kids to bed, I dumped as much clutter as I could into boxes and hid it in the garage. (The perfect hiding place when you need a house de-cluttered quickly.)

Then I pulled out the Lysol wipes and Febreeze antimicrobial fabric spray, and completely wiped down the entire first floor of the house. No fabric or hard surface that anyone might possibly touch was forgotten. None of our visitors were going to leave with the flu. I finished this task (and a lot of internet surfing) around 3am and slept on the couch.

Thanksgiving went smoothly. Aaron was still too sick to come downstairs, so Mira and I ran care packages of food up to him while we feasted downstairs. It was great to spend time with family, although I felt bad that Aaron couldn’t join us.

I did participate in Black Friday shopping. I don’t really like the craziness or the crowds, but it does allow us to get great deals on things we need and gifts for others. Luckily, I got most of our shopping done online this year, but did have to go to the stores to get a few items for family members.

By Friday I was completely drained from the week. I had barely slept for days, I was mentally worn down from the stress of losing my computer and having my plans upended, and all I wanted to do was shut down. And for the most part I did.

It’s now Sunday night. I’m still playing catch up, but feel a little better. Everyone in the house is almost well again, and Mira and I escaped the flu. I hate having my plans changed – I can handle the little stuff, but with so many large roadblocks thrown at me this week, I wanted to scream.

Tomorrow morning the kids go back to school, Aaron and I go back to work, and everything goes back to normal. At least that’s the plan.

Filed Under: Aaron, Cordy, family time, holidays, plague · Tagged:


Nov 5, 2012

Halloween Recap (Late, As Usual)

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Despite the cold and rain last week, the kids still insisted on going trick-or-treating on Halloween night. I’ve been getting over bronchitis, meaning walking outside in frigid, wet air probably wasn’t the best idea for me, so Aaron took the kids while I handed out candy with the dog.

Here’s what they looked like before they had to put on winter coats in order to go outside:

American Dream (took over for Captain America) and Snow White, escorted by Batman.

We had about half as many kids come to the door as we usually do. No wonder, considering the weather, but it meant long periods of waiting for the next group of kids. Cosmo stood watch patiently.

Captain Ameripup won’t ignore his duty.

My three returned after only an hour, ready to call it a night. The candy haul was still impressive, though. Both kids had full pumpkins, which we immediately dumped on the floor and began sorting. In our house, we have two different sorts – first is the standard “look for anything slightly open or that could have been tampered with” sort that I think most people do.

But then we have to sort Cordy’s candy for anything containing artificial colors, since she’s unable to eat them.

This is the “can’t eat” pile. Ugh.

I know it upsets her to take away over half of her candy. In previous years, this was much harder and involved some fairly hefty bribes to make her happy. As she’s grown, she’s started to understand just how bad she feels when she eats artificial dyes, and so she’s more willing to part with the loot. It also helps that a company called Unreal (no affiliation with them, I just like their candy) makes their own version of popular candies without the artificial dyes and junk. I bought a few large bags of their version of M&Ms right before Halloween so we’d be ready.

This year the offer of a new deck of Pokemon cards and the large bags of Unreal candy were accepted in trade for the candy she couldn’t keep. She still had about a third of her treats from going door-to-door, too.

Now it’s all over. The Halloween decorations have been put away (the pumpkins remain for now), the costumes have been moved to the dress-up toy bin, and we’re back to normal. (Well, aside from Ohio being the center of all things political at the moment.) It’s no wonder why November is so depressing for me – it’s that month between bright, happy, sparkly months.

And no, we won’t put up holiday decorations yet, even though they were being sold in stores before (!!!) Halloween. I’ll keep my less-fun November and let Thanksgiving have its day before I will put up any decorations. I’ll probably listen to Guns ‘N Roses “November Rain” a lot, too.

Filed Under: Cordy, family time, holidays, Mira ·


Oct 10, 2012

HalloWeekends at Cedar Point: A Screaming Good Time

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This may have been the coldest weekend so far this fall. So what did we do? Go spend all of Sunday out in the cold, of course!

When we went to Cedar Point back in August, we saw the signs for their HalloWeekends events and thought it would be fun to come back out and see the park all set up for Halloween. Halloween is one of my family’s favorite holidays: costumes, candy, spooky stuff – what’s not to love?

Don’t we all wish for one of these now and then?

The weather, though, did not cooperate with our plans. It was cold and cloudy, and we decided quickly to ditch plans for letting the kids wear their Halloween costumes to Cedar Point. Layers of warm clothing were the costume of the day.

 This guy needed a jacket.

Despite the cold, HalloWeekends at Cedar Point was a lot of fun. The entire park was decorated in skeletons, pumpkins and monsters. There were Halloween-themed events all day long, as well as scary haunted houses for the older kids and grown ups later in the day. And of course most of the usual rides were open, too.

This time we took our sister-in-law and a friend of hers with us so that we could trade off kid-duty from time to time, giving Aaron and I the first chance to ride a roller coaster together in YEARS. (Seriously, super big thanks to you both!)

There are plenty of kid-friendly HalloWeekends events that are fun and not too scary. They have the Magical House on Boo Hill, which is a young kid version of a haunted house. It was mostly spooky decor with some slightly scary special effects, like a floating table, a kid-size organ that played by itself, and a skeleton who appeared and disappeared in a closet.

At the end of the house, the kids were all given a small bag of treats as a reward. I also liked that they had someone at the front door, keeping out older kids and teens who weren’t accompanying a smaller child.

Cordy and Mira also loved the hay maze and ran through it several times.

The HalloWeekends monsters came out a few times during the day to interact with kids and dance.

Cordy even followed along to learn the Thriller dance.

There was a costume contest for the kids, but we didn’t bring costumes due to the cold so we didn’t enter. At 4pm, the HalloWeekends parade came through the midway, filled with bands, dance teams, monsters, floats and of course the Peanuts gang. Even though there were monsters and zombies, the kids weren’t scared seeing them marching in a parade.

But of course the main attraction is still the rides, and Cedar Point has some of the best. Aaron and I were thrilled to ride the Raptor, a suspended coaster that has several loops in it. And thanks to shorter lines we were able to experience the 195 foot drop of the Magnum XL twice. (Back car, naturally. It’s a must for that roller coaster.)

The kids had plenty of fun in Camp Snoopy, too:

Cordy opted out of any roller coasters, even the Cedar Creek Mine Ride. Mira, still not quite tall enough for most of the roller coasters, was limited to the Iron Dragon (a suspended coaster with no loops) for her thrill experience. And she went on it three times. It would have been four, but a late day rain shower stopped her fourth attempt. Hopefully she’ll grow another inch by next year to gain access to several other roller coasters.

Aaron and I also went through one of the more scary haunted houses. It was appropriately spooky and we jumped several times as we wound our way through all of the tight spaces.

Despite the cold, we had a fantastic time. HalloWeekends still has all of the fun of any day at Cedar Point, with the addition of some great Halloween themed events and attractions. The decorations are amazing, the shows and haunted houses are fun, and I paused for a moment to pay tribute to the recently closed Disaster Transport in the Rides Graveyard.

You will be missed…

HalloWeekends at Cedar Point is open Friday-Sunday through October 28.

Full disclosure: We received complimentary passes to attend Cedar Point. Parking, travel, food, and an amount of money I’d rather not discuss to win our kids two Pokemon toys in the games area were covered entirely by us.

Filed Under: family time, holidays, local fun, reviews ·


Oct 2, 2012

LEGO Castle Adventure at COSI (Giveaway!)

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I’m not sure why, but the last weekend of September is probably the busiest weekend of the entire year. No one in Columbus coordinated their calendars and as a result there were a billion things to do. (That may not be an accurate count of events, but isn’t too far off.)

We had so many activities going on this weekend that we were forced to pick only a few and turn down all other offers. I’m still exhausted as I look around my messy house and wonder when will I have an empty weekend to get any cleaning done?

But one exciting event of the weekend was visiting COSI for the opening of their new LEGO Castle Adventure exhibit. LEGOs? Castles? Science? It was like some of our favorite things came together in one big package for us.

The exhibit features the science of castle building, allowing older kids to practice building virtual castle walls to withstand a catapult, while also having lots of real LEGOs to build and play with. Professionally built LEGO castles and medieval scenes were on display, as well as a giant LEGO dragon and her baby.

There was also a throne room perfect for photos, and a smaller castle to climb with a slide on the other side.

Did I mention Mira was being a ham that day?

They even had a jousting arena, where kids could face off against targets or each other.

Bins of dress up clothing ensured that most of the kids in the exhibit were looking the part as a knight, king or queen. Mira especially liked dressing up and pretending to be a knight, using her pink unicorn shield to protect me from the dragon.

Cordy preferred to stay in the LEGO building area, creating a fortress to hide a small box she built. She said the box was filled with treasures. Very small treasures.

The LEGO Castle Adventure exhibit was a lot of fun, but after half an hour they were ready to see more at COSI. It’s a huge building, filled with different areas to explore, so we spent the next few hours wandering the exhibits.

We shot water at King Neptune in Ocean.

Mira tried to make a phone call in a 1962 phone booth in Progress.

We looked at tasty works of art, all created from Jelly Belly jelly beans.

And they hammed it up in front of a green screen in the WOSU studio.

It’s easy to spend most of a day at COSI, and we didn’t even have time to check out a movie in their Extreme Screen theater.

Giveaway!

Want to check out the LEGO Castle Adventure and COSI for yourself? I have a four pack of general admission passes, along with four Extreme Screen passes, to give to one lucky reader!

Obviously this is more convenient for readers local to the area, but if you’re planning a family trip to Columbus at any point this year (hey, why not?), these passes are good through the end of the year.

To enter the giveaway, just leave a comment below telling me what part of COSI you would most like to explore with your kids. That’s it, easy-peasy. One entry per person. I’ll accept entries until end of the day on Monday, October 8, then select one winner at random. Please make sure I have a way to contact you if you’re the winner.

Good luck!

Full disclosure: the kids and I received a free one-day admission to COSI and COSI provided the giveaway passes. All opinions are my own.

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Filed Under: family time, geek paradise, giveaways, local fun, reviews ·