Sunday, November 5, 2017

The Experience Dump

When I started this blog, I had the best of intentions.

I'd write about my experiences, documenting my life as well as things that happened in the family - and I'd share it here; so friends and family that aren't always around could see what's going on in our lives.

I was going to update once a week, and it was going to be awesome.

Thing is: in a family, so much happens so regularly that documenting it all can be quite daunting. And, on top of that, finding time to document it even more so.

That said, I've found myself putting off updating because it's hard to find a chunk of time to sit down and go at it - so I've decided that to get back on track, I'm going to do an "experience dump".

I'm going to share everything that's happened since my last post in rapid-fire style, so strap in and let's get caught up to date:

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A few weeks ago, we had our annual small family reunion out at Lake Eufala. 

My parents rented a lake house. Shelly and I took the kids. My aunt and uncle came. My brother and sister in law came. My uncle's daughter and granddaughter came as well. 

Oh, and like, a thousand dogs came too. 

I mean, I think there were really 6 dogs in total - but that's a lot of dogs. 

Too many dogs. 

But, the lake house was great, the view was beautiful, and they had a media room that I got to set up my new Super Nintendo Classic in. 

I got to play Street Fighter 2 with my kid and kid brother. Man, that was a lot of fun. 



A few weeks earlier, Shelly had found "Tropickles" at Walmart. These were fruit punch flavored pickles. Apparently, they're quite a normal snack in some Southern states, but we had never heard of them. After putting them up on facebook, my brother made the mistake of saying he'd try one, so we brought some. 




Yes, they were horrible. Science has clearly gone too far.


Adam and Kelsey brought a game called 'What Do You Meme?', and in true family form, it was way too awkward for our comfort. We still played it, but I mean... wow. 



After that, we went over to Pete's Place in Krebs, a pretty well renowned Italian restaurant that was pretty good. The prices were a bit surprising for the type of food, but the atmosphere was really unique. Every table was in its own room, so when we sat down with the family, we had a private party to ourselves without having to reserve a room. 



The lady that took our picture outside said "Hey, you kind of look like the guy!" 

Shut up, lady. Nobody asked you. 



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Jaxon plays the drums in his school band, and this year he got to march in his first parade. For Jade's birthday party, she had four friends spend the night. We took the girls out to watch the parade and to cheer for Jaxon. 

I really wanted to embarrass the kid, and had made plans for all of us to scream when he passed - but this kid was 110% professional and didn't even look our way. 

Truthfully, his "professionalism" was probably him just not wanting to acknowledge we were cheering for him, but either way, he looked like he was in the zone. 



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I finished the Cherokee book I've been working on with my friend Brad. It was a pretty daunting process, making this one happen - but we've actually found a publisher, and it's going to be out early next year. 


Finishing this one has now freed me up to work on my next children's book. It's going to be a children's book for kids who can't sleep. This is something we've battled Jade on since moving in together, and the idea came from the stretch of time that I was making stories up nearly every night to try to get the kids in sleep mode. 

Making books is just a really fun hobby. I have high hopes about the publisher we're working with, but in the end, it's really just cool to have a stack of books that I've made. I would highly recommend doing it to anyone interested. It's super easy (though quite tedious). 


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Just before Halloween, we took the kids out to a fun run for their principal, where they both did awesome. 




Two days before Halloween, we got pumpkins and carved them while watching Hocus Pocus. As the only person in the family who really gets excited about October, it's like pulling teeth to try to get the family to watch anything Halloween related. Hocus Pocus was a compromise. 

For a while there, Jaxon had started to act like he was into scary movies - but it was short lived. 






After that, it was time for Halloween. This year, Jaxon was almost too cool to actually go trick or treating. He had all but decided to just stay home and pass out candy, but I think the idea that Jade would get something he didn't spurred him on to actually go once more. 

While he ended up just wearing a big shark mask he had gotten from Walmart, Jade chose to dress as a "Pink Lady" from Grease. Though, with the cold weather and rain that night, the only real part of her costume easily visible was her old style glasses, so she really looked more like an old lady. 





She chose to pose without teeth to complete the picture. 


Our friends, the Taylor family came and trick or treated with us like they've done the last two years. We only do our neighborhood, but normally the kids end up getting quite a haul. 


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We did end up watching Stranger Things season 2 as a family, though.

Well, at least we ended up starting and finishing Stranger Things season 2 as a family.

We watched the first few episodes with the kids, but then "cheated" on them by watching a few more while they were at their dad's.

Turns out, this was a pretty unforgivable act, but thankfully they let up after we told them we would watch the ones they hadn't seen with them again.  



Seriously, is there a better way to spend a day than in blankets on the couch watching things with your family?


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We had three going away parties at work over the last couple of weeks:

Sam from urgent care is moving to be a "floater", going from clinic to clinic wherever he is needed. 



Dana from the ER is going to the hospital in Claremore. 




Judy from Behavioral Health is retiring. 



It would be weird to not have any one of them around, but all three gone from their respective posts is going to be quite a change. 

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Oh man, that's a lot already and I've still got more. 

Let's see: 

Amanda at work made hamburger cupcakes for Kourtney's birthday. 



Kevin took me hunting for my first time ever (I didn't get anything, but I learned a lot). 


Caitlin got a tiger cookie. 


Jordan and Nikiah threw a rotten banana on my floor, and then Jordan hid from her boss. 



Aaaand, now it's Sunday night. It's dark outside, and I'm working on dinner: Flank steak with veggies. 




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Ultimately, I hope to get back to more regular posts. I need to learn how to not try to write a novel every time I update, so updating doesn't seem like such a big undertaking. 

For now, this is a very abbreviated version of the last few weeks of our life. Hopefully, I've done a decent job capturing the multitude of straight up characters that take part in my story. 

Until next time. 



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