Category: Family

Will had a trip back to the past this year for Halloween, returning to the knight look. It’s an outfit he got at the recent RenFest, by the way– so I guess it’s a multi-purpose outfit. At least I assume he’ll wear it the next time we head out there.

While I have tended to be a bit of a Halloween grinch in the recent past, I was for some reason in rather good spirits about the whole thing. Maybe it was because it was Will’s last Halloween in elementary school. Here’s a picture of Will’s class in costume after this year’s Halloween parade:

His teacher, who we really like, is off to the far right dressed as a monk and holding a bag of chips– a chip monk. Get it?

Will’s school had their annual Halloween parade on the 30th and Annette and I had a chance to be here. Here’s a little movie I made with my Flip video camera of the event, one that only a parent could love:

For this year’s trick and/or treating, Will had over a friend who is in his class, Costas. Here’s Costas, dressed as a pirate with ninja head covering, giving the good knight what he had coming:

As for the trick and/or treating, a good time was had by one and all. I think I have mentioned this before, but ours is a huge trick and/or treating neighborhood. With the pleasant weather, we had hundreds of kids and “kids” who aren’t so much kids. Andre, Pete, Wendy, and assorted kiddies stopped by, along with various EMU and neighborhood folks. I bought over 15 pounds of candy, and I ran out about a half-hour early. We always have some adults double-dipping on the candy, but this year, the element we hadn’t seen before was some parents driving down the street really slow (and playing really loud music) while their kids went for the candy.

But with these minor things aside, it was good trick and/or treating for all. Will and Costas had a good haul:

Oddly, no one wanted the Butterfinger. Yum, Butterfinger….

Today was the last game for Will’s soccer team the Earthquakes (I guess mine too, since I helped out Jim K. with coaching and kid wrangling), and what a miserable game it was. We had to play the first game (9 am), and that comes mighty early on a Saturday morning. It was in the 40s and rainy and kinda windy. Only sleet could have made it worse. And we lost and lost very very badly, like zip to 10. That caps off an 0-6 season, one where we played two (maybe three) games we really should have won, and three or four games where we just crushed.

But you know what? The kids really didn’t seem to care a whole bunch, and at this age (under 12), I guess that’s a good thing. This isn’t exactly a super-duper competitive league, and the kids all really seemed to get along great. It was a lot of fun working with/hanging out with the kids and with Jim, and I hope I get a chance to pitch in again in the spring. The way I figure it, I have a little more time this year with my “sabbatical lite” schedule at work, and I think Will is right at that age where it’s still “kinda cool” for Dad to be hanging out and one of the coaches.

Incidentally, in the picture above (there’s a bunch more in this flickr set) is the kids goofin’ a bit, holding up the “L is for loser” hand gesture. Good sense of humor, these kids. One of them was talking to Will about how they had this perfect record, that no one had ever lost all of their games like that. Will said “Oh yeah? I haven’t won a game in two years!”

Well, maybe next year….

As a registered Wii owner, I received an email from Nintendo telling me that I can get a free Wii jacket for my Wii controllers. As the email said, “The Wii Remote Jacket provides cushioning for the Wii Remote for people who might accidentally throw or drop their Wii Remotes while playing games.”

I have to say that throwing or dropping the controller has not been an issue, but banging it into the coffee table has been– we don’t really have enough room in the living room for optimal Wii-ing. So I don’t know who’s throwing or dropping all of these controllers.

Speaking of Wii-ing: we haven’t been playing much, I think just because this is such the busy time of year for everyone– even quasi-sabbatical boy me– and we just haven’t had the time or desire. Last night Annette was teaching, so it was just me and Will. At first, I thought we were going to Wii. Then he said he wanted to watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which we’ve been working our way through for a few weeks now. Then Goosebumps came on and that became the choice. Maybe he was too pooped to Wii.

Since I have a cold this morning and am in no mood to go to the gym, perhaps a little Wii is in my near future….

Here’s a set of pictures I just uploaded from the camping trip. I’ll try to monkey around with the video tomorrow….

It is, as they say, a long story. But the short version is this: Annette and Will and I are going camping with our friends Jim K and Rachel D (along with their kids) at a place in Canada a few hours from here called The Pinery. Now, traditionally, my idea of “camping” has been staying in a hotel without WiFi, or (God forbid!) a television. For whatever reason, I’ve been talked into tent/car camping, meaning that we’ll be staying in a camp ground that has some basic services like flush toilets and showers (thank freakin’ God), but where we’ll lack electricity and anything beyond a tent for shelter.

As the saying goes, we will see how this turns out. I’l report back with pictures and possibly video after the weekend. Wish me luck….

Sorry I haven’t been around here much this week, but I’ve been busy with the start of school and with stuff around the house (much painting), not to mention preparing for Annette’s book party. Annette’s book, Boys in Children’s Literature and Popular Culture, just came out and Will and I are obviously very proud, along with the great friends and colleagues we had over last night. I forgot to get out a camera to take some pictures, but no one did anything that was too photo-worthy anyway. The cake was very cool though– Rachel made it and it featured a picture of Annette’s book cover that was cool– there was good drinks and conversations, fine cheeses, meatballs, etc.

The biggest hit of the night though were the Stuffed Jalapeños, and I thought I’d share the recipe here. This actually comes from Annette’s mother, which I presume she picked up from her time in the south and not from her German heritage. They are spicy, but not as crazy-spicy as you would think because cooking the Jalapeños very much softens up the heat. Also, I’d recommend using some rubber gloves to prepare these; Annette found out the hard way one time that cutting up a bunch of jalapeños and getting that under nails or in a tiny cut is super-duper unpleasant.

Of course, there is absolutely nothing remotely healthy about these things.

Stuffed Jalapeños

22 to 25 Jalapeños
1 lb breakfast sausage (for example, Jimmy Dean)
1 package cream cheese
1 cup shredded parmesan cheese
1/4 tsp garlic powder
salt and pepper to taste

• Cut the jalapeños in half long-ways. Hallow out the seeds (I just use a spoon to scoop the stuff out) so you have little jalapeño boats. This is where the gloves very much come in handy.
• Cook the sausage, making sure that it is broken up into nice and little pieces. Let it cool a bit.
• Mix up everything else in a bowl. When all of that is well combined, add in the cooked sausage and mix that in well, too.
• Spoon the cheese/sausage mixture into each jalapeño half/boat/shell, about a half teaspoon per shell, depending on the size of your jalapeños.
• Put them in a baking dish or a cookie sheet. You can easily make these a day ahead of time and pull them out of the fridge when you’re ready to cook them.
• Cook them in a 350 degree pre-heated oven for about 12-15 minutes until the cheese on top of them is just starting to turn brown.
• Eat them.