There are certain things that come with being married to a teacher, or at least a first & second grade teacher.  I’ve made the occasional trip to her classroom because apparently the kids find it fascinating that I actually exist.  I’ve even helped with a couple classroom projects…the ones that require tools – like drilling holes in coconuts for coconut bras and going to lowes to pickup supplies for art projects.  My favorite, however, is the correspondence that Holly brings home for me.  Sometimes this is a picture of an airplane or a likeness of Holly and I that hangs on the fridge…other times it is a quick story or a note for me.

Here are my two latest pieces of correspondence with a 7 and 8 year old:

After giving this much thought Holly and I have decided to become foster parents – with just the two of us in the house (along with Bailey and Lucy) we felt we had room for a new addition. Kids, you ask?  No just a 4 year old black lab named Toby.  Once you get past the 80 pound big hairy exterior, Toby is a pretty mellow and well behaved dog.

Toby belongs to my younger sister, Marie, but had resided at my mom’s house while Marie was in school, until my mom decided to start travel nursing.  My mom could have taken Toby with her but such a big dog in such small confines would not have been a good mix.  My brother took care of Toby for the first couple months but wasn’t really looking forward to another stint so we volunteered.

Luckily Toby and Bailey get along very well; Bailey has perfected the art of ignoring other dogs but Toby is really trying to get Bailey to play with him – we’ll see how that goes.  Lucy hates all living objects outside our home so it is no surprise she hasn’t taken to him yet.

It has only been a couple days but we’ve found a couple of interesting things about Toby:

• He can jump 5 feet straight up into the air but can’t figure out how to get around a plastic baby-gate.
• He carries around a nasty blanket, then cuddles up with it and sucks on it…yes, like a pacifier.
• He whimpers, then barks, then jumps and barks (in an escalating fashion, and depending on how long you pretend not to hear him) when he wants to go outside.
• He makes every attempt to get outside when you’re not paying attention, but lacks the obedient lab trait when you want him to come back.  We haven’t had any jail breaks yet and we hope to keep it that way.

NINJA HAULER: 2005 Nissan Xterra – $12900 (Ronan / Lake County)

 

This video makes me want to move deep into the woods in Northern Michigan and develop my own self-sustaining farm.  I will power my computer with potatoes, lots of potatoes…like the clocks from elementary school. Seriously though, this video may make you question the way you (and I) accumulate stuff and in turn participate in an an ugly cycle that hurts all consumers.

This past weekend centered around Holly’s birthday and all things Christmas.  I attended the GVSU University Relations division holiday party Friday night with co-workers to start things off.  The party turned out to be better than I had expected, fueled by good drinks, food and conversation with friends.

Holly’s birthday was Saturday and after giving her a couple gifts in the morning I headed to the mall to return something at Dunham’s before picking up a Christmas tree.  I hate shopping and I hate returning things even more…luckily Centerpointe mall wasn’t busy so I was able to walk right up to the returns desk.  A heavily pierced teen asked for my license and I begrudgingly obliged to speed the process up as much as possible.  Next the clerk asked for my phone number – I told him I didn’t have a phone.  I wasn’t trying to be an a**hole – I just didn’t want him to have more of my info.  He told me that he had to have a phone number to complete the return so I asked him to just enter his phone number, then asked him if store policy prohibited people without phones from shopping in his store.  Finally I just made up a number (sorry 616-242-1234) and he was happy to get me out of the store.  I should have had some coffee before going to the mall…  I stopped at Menard’s to pick up some sidewalk salt and 900 pounds of sand for the back of the truck.  Thankfully, this transaction went much more smoothly.

This weekend also brought a ton of snow which made driving a big rear-wheel drive truck quite an experience.  Holly and I decided to get a fresh cut Christmas tree from the Lenderink Tree Farms in Belmont, MI after having an artificial tree for years.  I debated whether or not a real tree is more or less sustainable than a fake tree, but in the end I just wanted to go cut down my own tree and drag it home and into the house.  My family always had a real tree growing up and I remember going to the tree farm every year to cut it down with my dad – I must have been sheltered from the part where you had to pay for it as I had a bit of sticker shock when I had to pay $50 for my tree.  This was even more shocking when we passed other tree farms where pre-cut trees could be had for under $20…so I did all the work and paid the tree farm $30 for my labor and the use of their saw.  Good times.  In the end it was a lot of fun and the overall experience was well worth the money.

To round out the day Holly chose to have her birthday dinner at the Beltline bar on Division and 28th street.  Both of our dinners were enormous and very good, but we had to take a fair amount home with us for another day.  After dinner we decorated the tree and finished the night with a piece of birthday cake.

Sunday was a nice and lazy day…I watched football and simultaneously saw my fantasy football team (in my office league) have the worst week ever when it mattered the most.  So disappointing!  The big accomplishment of the day was hanging 75 feet of Christmas lights on the front of the house…we’re getting into the Christmas spirit at the Rapin house!