Category: family
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'Tis the season to be jolly and joyous...
Christmas shopping is complete. The Christmas program is over. We’ve received a bunch of Christmas cards already. We still haven’t gotten any sent. Apologies in advance to organized friends like Stephanie and the Hollands. It’s not that we don’t appreciate you thinking of us and sending us the pictures. We do, really. We’re just not organized enough to get our own sent out this year. When I was growing up it was the family joke that we would send out a New Year’s letter, because our Christmas letter always went out really late. I think this Hubbs household might have to do the same thing.
Tasks for this week: baking cookies. Well, that’s mostly Becky. She has baked so many cookies this last week already. Toll House cookies. Chocolate Espresso cookies. O’Henry bars. Chocolate chip cookie dough balls. I know the Chex Mix is coming up yet this week. She has a schedule for every day divided up into morning, afternoon, and evening, with baking tasks laid out appropriately so that she can finish before we head to Wisconsin on Saturday. I am impressed, as usual, with her organizational determination.
Other tasks for this week: Wrapping presents. Just because they’re all bought doesn’t mean they’re ready for Christmas. We’ll load up the coffee table downstairs with all the wrapping implements and then turn something on the TV. I’m thinking it’ll be more Heroes. I never watched Heroes when it started last year on TV, and once I got behind, I knew it was no use trying to start in the middle. So I got Season 1 and we’ve been saving it until we had time. Now with the writer’s strike and no new shows to watch, it’s the perfect time. We watched five episodes over the weekend. Totally hooked. If not Heroes, it’ll be time to break out the Muppet Christmas Carol. It is pretty much a yearly tradition - who can fail to love Kermit as Bob Crachit and Michael Caine as Mr. Scrooge? So much fun.
I’m taking Friday off work to get a head start on the holidays. Then we pack and head off to see the family. Lots to do between now and then, though. After all, it’s only one more week ’til Christmas.
Well, I asked.
Becky and the girls stopped by my workplace for a few minutes this morning to drop off some lunch for me. As I sat in the van with them chatting for a few minutes, this conversation with Laura (3 years old) ensued:
Me: Yeah, Laura, I’ve got to go back to work for a few hours…. but then I’ll come home.
Laura: And you’ll go wee, wee, wee…. all the way back to my house?
[Becky chokes strangling laughter at this point.]
Me: Yep, then I’ll come back to your house. Wee, wee, wee, like the little piggies? Are you saying that Daddy is a little piggie?
Laura, with comic scorn: No. [Pause for perfect comedic timing.] You’re a BIG piggie!
Well, I asked.
It's Monday again already?!?
Well, it was a busy weekend. The whole family showed up Friday night for one last get together before we head our separate ways this fall. The result was two days of playing cards, music, football, and making at least one obligatory Hubbs shopping trip to Walmart and Sam’s Club. Aaron and Andrew also got haircuts… Andrew opting for the “I wanna look like Chris” haircut. I don’t think he’ll be maintaining his, though, so he should have hair again by the time he gets out out to Oregon.
Hit the gym this morning to run and do a little lifting, and yeah, it feels good to be sore again. I’ve been too much of a slacker the past couple of months. Gotta get back to it. The pounds don’t lose themselves.
Nine Years
Hard to believe it’s been that long already. Nine years ago tonight, on a hot, sticky night in Charlotte, NC, Becky and I exchanged our vows and became Mr. and Mrs. Chris Hubbs. (Our first stop after the wedding was in a Home Depot parking lot that had an available dumpster, but that’s a different story.) God has blessed us greatly, and it’s been a wonderful nine years.
So today we are celebrating in Orlando. Becky woke up at 2:45 CDT this morning to finish getting ready so she could catch her 5 AM flight from Cedar Rapids to Minneapolis, and from there she headed down here to Orlando. I picked her up at the airport about 1 PM. We grabbed a little lunch and then came back to the hotel. I think she spent some time at the pool while I grudgingly attended the afternoon’s technical sessions at the conference.
Tonight we ate dinner at Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse. It was my first time at a Ruth’s Chris, and given the price I wouldn’t be able to eat there very often even if there was one close to Cedar Rapids. That being said, tonight I had what was hands-down the best steak I have ever had in my life. It was a filet, cooked medium, and just the smell of it on that sizzling plate as it came to the table was almost worth the purchase price. I will say this: Ruth’s Chris knows how to do service right. When we made the reservation online, the form asked if it was a special occasion, and I noted that it was our anniversary. From the time we arrived at the restaurant and gave our name, each staff member who spoke with us first wished us a happy anniversary. Then they gave us dessert “on the house”. It was tasty, too. Bravo, Ruth’s Chris of Orlando.
Two more days of conference and then we have two days on the beach before heading home. Nice.
Fun with Family
We had the whole clan over this weekend - well, almost the whole clan. Ryan came in from Chicago, Aaron and the folks from Wisconsin, Andrew from his job in Illinois. Becky’s folks were already here visiting. We were only missing Rebecca, who is finishing up her six-month DTS in Panama. She’ll be home in about 10 days - sure looking forward to seeing her.
We took a whole ton of pictures over the weekend and I’m in the process of uploading some of them to a Memorial Day Weekend set on Flickr. Here’s a couple samples. Enjoy!
Devil's Lake Camping Trip
Yes, as promised, we went camping last weekend up at Devil’s Lake State Park in Wisconsin. My brother Andrew pretty much organized the whole thing; his girlfriend Heather is visiting and it was good to get to see everybody. Some thoughts from the weekend:
- Devil’s Lake is a beautiful park. Dave, if you read this, yeah, it’s worth going for a day trip or an overnight. Lots of nice hiking, the water is beautiful and crystal-clear.
- What the park service considers “paved, flat, and level” in a hiking trail isn’t so much what I’d consider “paved, flat, and level”. It scares me a little bit what one of their “difficult” trails would look like. :-)
- Tent camping when it gets down to 40F at night is kinda chilly.
- Tent camping when it rains overnight is more of a pain.
Now, mind you, I don’t want to sound whiny. It was a fun weekend, a good time was had by all. Many pictures are available on my Flickr site, and I’ll append a few of them here. We had a fun time just crashing around the campfire, playing on the beach, and hiking. We enjoyed watching the rain whilst sitting indoors at McDonald’s eating breakfast on Sunday. :-)
Overall, it was a good weekend, but good to be back home, too.
24 Hours of the Hubbs: A Celebration of the Mundane
When I decided to do 24 hours of Flickr, I wasn’t really sure what my Saturday would entail. Nonetheless, I gave it a go. As Saturdays go, it was fairly basic. We went to some neighborhood garage sales, cleaned out the garage, went shopping, and watched a movie. So while some of the pictures are cute, none of them are particularly artsy or profound. Oh well.
Here are a few samples of the pictures; you’re welcome to visit the whole set on Flickr.
A good time was had by all...
This weekend we had very nearly my whole family over to visit. My sister is still in Panama, but otherwise, my parents and all my brothers came in on Friday and got to stay through Sunday afternoon.
We had massive amounts of food and celebration; fortunately then we were able to send some of the leftovers home with them, otherwise we’d be eating them for a week and there’d still be some to go bad. There is still a bit of birthday cake hanging around, though… I’m looking forward to another piece of that carrot cake - yum yum.
Things are staying busy with the family these days - Mom and Dad are busy as usual; Ryan is waiting to hear on his acceptance to Georgetown grad school, Andrew got accepted to George Fox University and will be headed there in the fall… and not leaving Aaron out: last week he bought a b-e-a-utiful Taylor acoustic guitar. We had to keep a towel around just to wipe up all the drool. :-)
I’ll post some pictures once I get them off of the camera.
Party Time
This weekend my parents and brothers will all be coming to visit. (My sister is in Panama doing missions stuff.) The occasion: the first of what will, God willing, be a long lifetime of birthday convergences: Addison has her first birthday on the 13th, and then I celebrate the big three-oh on the 14th. I’m sure we’ll eat far too much food, stay up too late talking, tell lots of bad jokes, and play innumerable rounds of Dutch Blitz or some other equally competitive game.
Good times will be had by all. Best wishes to everyone who reads this and their weekends!
The Penguin, and New Friends
Thursday was get-ready-to-head-home day. We picked up a cartop carrier that Ernie had salvaged for us. It is in excellent shape, and with all the post-Christmas shopping Becky did, it’s a good thing we have it! There’s no way we’d have fit all the stuff into the van. Then we started packing up to go home. Can’t believe we brought so much stuff along. Seriously, we took the back seat out of the Caravan, and it’s still packed up nearly to the ceiling, then we have the cartop carrier almost full, too. Goodness.
Thursday evening we headed in to Charlotte to meet some of our “weird internet friends” for supper and to hang out. We met Brandon, his wife Sarah, and Andrea at The Penguin near downtown Charlotte. The Penguin is a nice hole-in-the-wall place; very small, very loud, very eclectic. The jukebox would be playing heavy metal one minute and jazz the next. Very unpredictable. The burgers were good, and the specialty that we had to try was deep-fried dill pickle chips. They were fantastic.
After supper we went back to Brandon and Sarah’s apartment for dessert and to watch Brandon’s beloved Texas A&M Aggies who were playing Cal in a bowl game. The Aggies ended up losing. Sorry, Brandon. We ended up getting back to Waxhaw about 11 PM. It was a fun night, fun to finally meet some people we interact with online all the time. And yes, they’re normal people… not weirdos… just like I’m a normal, non-weird person. Heh. :-)