Busy, Busy , Busy

Hey all!!

It's been a busy last couple of weeks. We wogged, eat, played and competed. Thanksgiving day my wife convinced me it would be good to get up early in the morning and go join the rest of the crazy people down at the Stockton water front for a little 5k marathon for hunger. I now know that a cup of 7-11 coffee does not, I repeat does NOT warm up your legs for a below 45 degree morning jog. My shins were cold until the last 100 meters. In the end it was worth it though. The kids had a great time. Garrett finished in about 30 minutes, Keith in about 32 and Marie and I finished in a respectable 43 minutes. Not bad for our first time.

We finished off the day at my sister in laws for some delicious turkey and all the trimmings. Oh yea the "boys" also went to the park and played some traditional Thanksgiving day touch football. I was wiped out for the rest of the night. Wog in the morning and football in the afternoon equals sore feet, muscles and well whole body.

The next night we traveled to Jamestowne for a ride on Santa's Starlight Express. The kids drank hot chocolate, the adults sipped on cider and we all sang along to some good o'l Christmas songs. Santa made a visit and couldn't resist hopping on my wife's lap. What is it with old guys hitting on my wife? After the train ride we all ate at the local Mexican restaurant. I must say they had excellent food and the service was top notch.

Last week was jammed packed with and awards presentation for Keith followed up the next night with Keith's first cello concert. Both nights left Marie and I feeling rather proud to be his parents. Saturday afternoon we had an American Ninja Warrior party. Family came over and we watched season 2 sneak peak while munching on some yummy party food. After the show we went out and everyone took their turn completing in our home made Ninja Warrior obstacle course (kudos to my Bro for making my idea of a pipe slide obstacle come to life). We had an awesome time. Sunday was the last day of a long, but wonderful football season for Garrett. He had his awards party at the down town teen center. Now its time to start thinking about baseball........

Is 12:00am too early or too late?!?

It looks like we have made it the norm to mix up Family Fun Night. We got an early start on this weeks FFN and by early I mean 11:15pm Thursday night early. After a quick evening nap, my wife and I loaded up the kids and made our way to the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I midnight showing. We met up with some friends and settled in for the show to start. I wasn't sure we would all make it to the opening credits but with a wave of my wife's wand (Hot Buttery Popcorn) we managed to stay awake.

The movie was definitely darker and more mature than the previous movies. Harry and his friends are growing up fast. I give the movies a shaky B-. I understand this is just part 1 of 2, but I would have liked to see a bit more action and a better transition to the next movie. I give the series as a whole an A-. Part 2 of Deathly Hallows needs to come in at a solid A to end the series on a grand note.

That's all for now (still not recovered from the midnight showing).

Sick :(

This weeks FFN was knocked around a bit by the flu, the cold and just plain old sickness.

We did all get to huddle together and watch a great movie. TOY STORY 3. I must say it is a great ending to a great movies series. It is a must buy for the family. We got the movies pack with the blu-ray, DVD and digital copy. Well worth the cost (psst. you can get a coupon at the Disney movie site for $8 off, or at least you could when I did it.)

Everyone is getting through the last bits of being sick and looking forward to the weekend. It's going to be busy. Football & Hockey and maybe Harry Potter if we all feel well and if we don't we may go anyway. Movie popcorn cures all ills except the after movie tummy ache.

The next few weeks look exciting. Turkey day with the extended family and American Ninja Warrior sneak peak party at our house.

Family Fun Knight at Family Fun Night

 This weeks FFN we took a little trip down the street to enjoy the boy's school's Halloween Family Fun Night. I forgot to take my camera so the photos are from my phone. Not the best but hey it works. The boys had fun. Our youngest decide to run round and play football with his friends the whole time, except to eat some goodies.

Our middle son wandered around on his own. I ate some food and walked around looking at all the kids and parents and teachers in costume while my wife worked at the ticket booth. After shift we both wandered around talking to friends. My wife was at a lose for exactly what to do.

This was the first time she didn't have to watch the kids or work the whole event. She did manage to find something to focus on when our middle son "let" her hold his candy bag and the cape from his vampire costume.

All in all we didn't spend as much time together as we usually do, but it was good to see that we can still share some quality family time together, even when we only check in with each other now and again. I really enjoyed seeing the kids grow up before my eyes.

OuR ParTy SpREad

Meat Stick Anyone?!

We carried the FFN thru the whole weekend however. Saturday we all went shopping to get ready for the Halloween party we were throwing on Sunday. Friends that were staying the night, arrived at our house just minutes before we got back home. (Great timing I now had two more people to help unload the truck). After unloading we all pitched in to get the party food ready for Sunday.

My attempt at Candy Corn Pizza

Bring Out Your Dead

Sunday we met my parents, brother and nephew at my youngest last regular season football game. After the game we went back home to finish getting ready for the party. More friends arrived in the afternoon and we all ate, drank and had fun with trick or treating.

"My Kitty Kat"

It was a wonderful, fun filled, Halloween Family (& Friend) Fun Weekend!!!!!!

Fall Changes

Fall is upon us, which by the way is my wife's favorite season of the year. We both love the changing of the colors. The way the trees transform into explosions of reds, yellows and browns.

The change of seasons has also brought some changes to our FFN's. Last Tuesday I went in for sinus surgery (again). All went well, but it did throw off our family time together. My wife and kids were great helping relax while I recovered (am recovering). I did get up the strength to play a game of Yahtzee with the boys (never underestimate the strategy of a 7 year old) with my youngest kicking our butts. He even would have one if we did not count his extra Yahtzee bonus.

We are all looking forward to next weeks Family Fun Night when we travel all the way down to the end of the street to attend Family Fun Night at our kids school. I know they stole my blog title....... :[

 But it looks like it will be fun anyway. We have friends coming to stay with us for the weekend and other friends coming over to have fun on Halloween. So look forward to some "scary" photos in next week's update.

Family Fun Night Switch-ups

The last two weeks FFN has seen a few changes...

The weekend before last my wife and I were out of town for some Adult Fun Nights. Grandma stepped up to the plate and took over FFN duties. The kids had a great time and still had some quality family time. They spread out the fun all weekend with football, swimming and a few treats from Grandpa.

Last weekend with my wife out of town left FFN wide open. Again FFN was spread out over the whole weekend. The kids and I watched movies (Iron Man 2; so-so, Prince of Persia-Sands of Time; great family movie), had some Cold Stone ice cream, ate pizza, more football (jr. novice youth football for the youngest), more food at yummy Mongolian BBQ (gotta love all you can eat noodles, meat and sauce, oh yea and a few veggies for color). And best of all we still found time to clean the whole house for my wife's return. We all missed mommy/wife and can't wait for this weeks FFN (I see more dice in the future).....

Opps not that kind of Dice....

That's better. See ya next week!

FFN takes the night off

This week our family fun night was preempted with a friend visit. We let the kids enjoy the time over the weekend playing with their friend. We still had some quality time together, but mostly over food. YMMMM pancakes, sausage and eggs. Take a look at the pics page for some pics of last weeks fun with Dicecapades.

Back to Family Fun Knights

Well we started again. My wife and I took the kids to Toys R Us and spent a little time looking over the isles of games to see what new wonders we could find. After several hours of searching (ok it was only about 20 min), we decided to give Dicecapades! by Haywire Group a try. Did I mention the game has over 100 dice? The game is suggested for players over the age of 12, but our 7 and 10yr old had lots of fun playing. We did need to help the 7yr old with the tougher trivia questions although he did get a few everyone else was stumped on. The game has trivia questions, skills, drawing, spelling and memorization challenges. The only real problem we ran into is the time. The box said 30min to play a game. We ran over an hour easy. Some of the questions are worded a little ambiguously, but we just made a few house rulings to clear things up. It was nice to get everyone together again and spend some quality time with the t.v. and video games turned off. I'll have some pictures to post in a couple of days. Oh and did I mention it came with over 100 dice?!?

The planning stage begins

It has been about six months since we had our last family fun night. Baseball practice started, snack bar duties and all the other things that so easily seem to get in the way, got in the way of family fun night.

Time to follow my own list of how to get started. I sat down with my wife and we went over our families' calendar commitments. Baseball is over, but football has already begun. So when can we all get together?!? After much deliberation and deep thought (OK it wasn't really that hard), we decided on Friday/Saturday Nights. (another tip for the list - be flexible and have a couple of days each week if possible open for FFN. It makes it a lot easier to plan and keeps you from skipping weeks, which leads to months, which leads to...... you get the picture)

Now it is time to plan what we will do for FFN. Any suggestions?

Welcome to the first installment of Family Fun Knight!!!
 

"Honey! Who's night is it to cook dinner?" 

   "I did it the last three nights. It's your turn."

 "Are you sure?"

  "YES!"

 "Alright. Who is going to be home to eat? The boys have practice tonight."

  "I'm going to the gym at 7:30, so we better eat early."
 "OK, sounds like take out tonight."

Sound familiar? AS our children grow and become more involved with sports, friends and the riggers of homework, it is harder and harder to find time to come together as a family. A couple of years ago I had the idea that our family needed to have a night dedicated to just being together and having fun. No pressures about who is going to cook, what is on t.v., or any of the other million excuses that were getting in our way of sharing quality time together.

This blog is for you and me and all the other families out there that may need a reminder from time to time, that family time is important. That just being together figuring out a puzzle or building a new Lego set while talking about the day's events means something.

Let's use this page together. Send in ideas for Family Fun Knight Events and stories from your own family gatherings. I will post what our family is doing.