It was Friday night and Al was on the couch, shivering.  I finally convince her to get in bed after assuring her I’ll take care of the girls for the evening.  We’re only a few days out from CB’s mysterious stomach bug, so we’re both thinking it’s her time for fun.

“Don’t worry,” I tell her.  “I’ll take care of everything, and besides I never get sick.”  Which is somewhat true.  I’ve probably had a stomach bug twice in the last ten years.  It’s not some incredible immune system or vitamin regimen.  No, I think it’s just proper training.  After years of eating Panchos and fried gas station burritos, my system can’t be touched by some mere virus, or so I thought.

Fast forward to midnight.  I jump out of bed just in time to begin my body’s full on liquidation sale.  We’re talking closeout deals on both ends…everything must go.  And go it did, for the next 7 hours.  Needless to say, I didn’t sleep.  Al found me on the couch the next morning with the girls wandering around the den.  She quickly told me I looked like death, and wondered if I was ok.  Whatever she took the night before worked on her, because she was in a 12 hour coma and completely oblivious to my all night symphony.

I spent the rest of the day on the couch.  I didn’t eat, didn’t drink, didn’t move.  At 1:00 Al left for a baby shower, perfect timing on her part.  I warned her that if the girls decided to take my keys and cruise downtown, all I could do to stop them was a stern look.  She told me everything would be fine.  Sure.

I finally managed to sit up around 3:00 that afternoon, a bold move on my part.  CB, being my perfect little nurse maid informed me that I had nothing to eat or drink for the past 24 hours.  Apparently, she thought I looked even worse than Al said.

CB just brought over a plate of crackers, when MK walked up.  MK opened her mouth to say Daddy.  At least, that’s what I thought she was trying to say.  It was hard to tell with the 73 pounds of vomit that came out when she opened her mouth to speak.

I don’t know about you, but when you’ve spent 12 of the last 24 hours bunkered down over a commode, being puked on is probably the last thing on your agenda.  However, I didn’t have much of a choice.  MK aimed, opened her mouth, and I was covered.  Literally, the part that didn’t splash off my face managed to land in my lap.

MK starts crying, CB is doing her best Nana Connie impression waving her hands frantically in the air and screaming, and me…I just started laughing.  What else could you do at this point?

I grabbed MK, stripped her down and put her in the tub.  I told CB to sit in the bathroom with her and if MK threw up again, then well, just yell.

I stripped my clothes off and was standing in my boxers in the middle of the den when Al walks in, completely oblivious, from the baby shower.  I’ve got puke running down my leg and still scattered on my chest.  She barely makes it two feet into the house before she’s trying to back out, and rather quickly at that.

I direct her to the bathroom where she gladly goes to avoid the puke duty, and I continue my clean up.

It’s a horrible situation, and one I wouldn’t wish on anyone.  Yet, somewhere, in the not too distant past, the refrains of “Boom ba-ba Boom ba-ba” are echoing through my mind. Truly, it’s probably the only thing that could compare to my living room.

Al has been bothering me, all over me, won’t let up about the blog. I’ll admit, it’s completely my fault. I’ve neglected the blog, but there’s a reason; there are plenty of reasons. Work, more work, sick kids, holidays, etc… But the main reason is inspiration. I’ve had no muse…until now.

If that’s not enough to move you,  I don’t know what is.  Except maybe this.

Seriously, I can’t stop.  What does this have to do with anything?  And who are these people? Same questions my parents were asking when the girls said we were going to the best parade ever.

The Chuy’s Parade, a regular tradition for our family the last several years, but a first for Nana and Papa.

One thing that amazed me was MK’s reaction.  She has this, thing…shall we call it, when it comes to dress up characters.  And by thing I mean she buries her head and/or runs screaming.  Yet when this comes down the street…

It’s all smiles.  Maybe I truly am doing my best at raising a Geek Girl.  And on a similar note, I think I’m in love.

Seriously, what 9 year old boy that saw Return of the Jedi didn’t fall in love with Princess Leia?  Nostalgia, that’s all I’m saying. Nostalgia. That’s the only reason for the 47 pictures I took.  Help me out here, people, I know Al’s reading this.

After the Chuy’s parade, there’s only place to go from there…South.  South Congress.  MK insisted on introducing PaPa to the wonders of Hey Cupcake.

When you’re tearing into the Red Velvet deluxe, you quickly learn the power of wipes.

From there it was on to some people watching, second hand smoking some lettuce while watching a bluegrass string quartet, and witnessing Nana single-handedly take down a turquoise street vendor.  Good times.

Of course, to do all this properly, you’ve got to do it in style.

No problem for my ladies.

My Life Among the Women has never been a more appropriate title.  Seriously, I hear guys around this time of year talking about spending weekends in a deer stand, but me…it’s a different story.

“Oh my gosh!! Daddy!  Daddy!” CB was breathless last week.

“What?” I answered.  “It’ll be fine.  Don’t tell mommy, and I’m sure we can probably get the stain out. Eventually.”

“No. Daddy. Listen. Jason Castro is going to be at the Domain.  They’re lighting the tree.  The Big Tree, and Jason Castro.”  CB said.  “You know, he’s like, my all time favorite American Idol.”

“You mean the long haired Aggie with dreds?  High voiced and forgot all his lyrics?” I answered.

CB dropped the exaggerated eye roll on me.  I’m getting that a lot more these days.

“What?” I said.  “I loved his version of Hallelujah.  You know, Leonard Cohen is a musical genius.”

She could sense a lecture coming on and quickly moved on to mommy.

“Mommy.  We’re going to the Domain.  They’re lighting the tree and Jason Castro is going to be there.”

“Jason Castro?” Al responded.  “He’s really cute.  We’re there.”

So, you don’t have to guess how my Saturday night went.  A little preview.

There was a little more to it.  They did have the tree.

And Captain Jack…

Sure, it’s a little random, but he did sweet balloon animals.

MK enjoying the festivities.

The girls kicking it with the big man himself.  One of my favorite lines of the evening came from CB.  We were enjoying the show when this little boy perched on his dad’s shoulders next to us asked his dad why Santa was there.  CB never missed a beat…  “To see Jason Castro.”  The dad cracked up. “Can’t argue with that.”

Photographic proof that Santa is in fact a Castro fan.

The hippie did slip out amidst the fireworks, but not without Al displaying her mad paparazzi skills.

They managed to light the tree, eventually, and the girls loved it.  All in all, a pretty festive evening, and I will have to admit that even I left in the holiday spirit…and with Hallelujah running through my head until New Year’s.

For any of you with kids, I’m here to pimp Boomerang from Cartoon Network.  We really don’t watch much tv at all around here, but we have fallen hard for Boomerang.  It’s the best of cartoons from the seventies and eighties.  The girls, notice how I keep saying the girls, because clearly, it’s not me watching it, especially around 11:00 at night when the girls are in bed.  We’ve now got a full diet of Wacky Races, Penelope Pitstop, Richie Rich, Thundarr the Barbarian, Tom and Jerry, and the Original Scooby Doo, or as CB refers to it…Old School Scooby.

I guess we’ve watched more than a few episodes of Scooby, or at least enough for CB to get the premise down.  The other day MK and I were watching the gang being terrorized by a frozen Caveman that had mysteriously come back to life.  At one point Fred has the Caveman in a wicked headlock, which is still impressive in my book for a man rocking the white cashmere sweater and orange ascot.  I told MK that it looked like Fred was about to rip the poor Caveman’s head off.  She agreed, she’s three.

CB hits me with the rolled eyes and says, “Of course he’s gonna pull his head off.  It’s a mask. “  CB finished, grumbling,  “It’s always a mask.  It’s probably that old guy from the beginning of the show.”

I was stunned.  I think this is one of those milestone moments, like baby’s first steps, or the first day of kindergarten.  My baby is growing up.  Fortunately, even though she’s got the whole thing down, she’ll still watch it.

“For you, dad. For you.”

Thanks…

Baylor Homecoming has come and gone once more and it was great to be back.  We headed out Friday evening to the Bonfire festivities.

The pic captures it all.  How do you answer a ten minute chorus of “I can’t see daddy.  Daddy, what are they doing?  I can’t see a thing.”  Throw Miss MK on the neck and hold the other.  I’m now officially 2 inches shorter, but my right arm is three inches longer, so it all works out somehow.

I will have to say the highlight of the evening came on the way back to the car.  We left a little early and decided to head by the Bear Pit, always a popular destination with the girls.  We didn’t realize that because this was the 100th anniversary celebration for homecoming that they were going to top off the evening with an enormous fireworks display.  Apparently we weren’t the only ones in the dark on this one, because I’m pretty certain no one told the bears.

If you look closely, you’ll notice two things.  The fireworks directly over the Bear Pit, and the Bear’s eyes in the lower left corner.  Seriously, I’ve seen Meth addicts on a three day vacuuming binge that were holding it together better than those poor bears.  The girls have always complained that the bears are sleeping when we’ve been in the past.  They thought the action was great.  I did to, for the first few minutes.  Then I started looking at the actual enclosure itself and realized that this thing was built to hold in bears that sleep 22 hours a day.  I didn’t want to stick around and see the end.

Fortunately, we all made it out to the parade the next morning.  The Bear seemed ok, then one of the floats backfired and he attacked a hobo and mauled a traffic light.  Other than that, it was all good.

MK assuming the position.

Girls, girls knock it off.  I’m not Flash.

We did resume one of our favorite Homecoming rituals…watching the parade with the Braunsteins.

CB and Graham provide quite the running commentary.  This one brings back the memories, and the following photo is too good not to bring back for one more run…

Still waiting on the royalties from Baylor for the rights to this one.

I am getting old.

We dressed them up, they were cute, and we shoved them out the door to beg for candy.  That about covers it for Halloween as far as I’m concerned.  I’m aware I could be treading on thin ice with some of you, but hey, it’s not the first time.

I will have to admit that it was pretty cute watching this one sprint from house to house, and when you’re that adorable it’s hard not to take in a pretty good haul.

CB confirming that, yes, that freak with one arm and a machete protruding from his scalp was actually a real person and not a statue.  Thank the Lord for high speed photography or I never would have gotten a pic.  Back to my original theme of Halloween.  Probably my least favorite holiday.  Fortunately, Al shares my opinion on this one.

I think it was the night of Halloween when we started making plans and Al mentioned that we had been invited to three or four different dress up parties.  She failed to mention any of that to me…wise woman.  The whole dress up scene is great, until maybe the age of 8.  Anything after that, and you’re pushing it.

I did have to put one up of my ballerina.  Look closely at the footwork.  I did that once, actually twice.  The first time I was on crutches for 4 weeks, the second was much worse.  Clearly, she doesn’t have her old man’s ankles.

The funny thing with our girls is that they’re picking up on the Halloween vibe as well.  I think next year we’ll throw four or five bags of candy on the table, let the girls dig through everything they want, and call it good.  Works for me.

I’ve had problems…major problems.  Hard Drive failure kind of problems.  I’ve been buried in SATA ide cables, connectors, and every other futile data recovery option out there.  Let’s just say I’m on a first name basis with the neck-beards at Fry’s.  No luck.  I don’t mind losing anything… except the pictures.  As any of you that followed the blog for some time know, I’m a complete degenerate when it comes to pictures; can’t get enough.

I was smart enough to do a back up, several actually of all our photos – in the several thousand range, from the time CB was born until mid 2008.  That’s when it gets a little sketchy.  I had some others backed up to am external drive, that also had issues.  You know you’ve got problems when you backup your backup and still manage to lose something.  As my dad would say, I’m snakebit.

All that to say, it’s been awhile for the blog.  I’m moving forward now with a NAS box of over a terrabyte of storage as well as a pro flickr account that i’m currently filling with a few thousand pictures.

Swine flu, flesh eating zombies, armageddon…bring it on.  Sure, I may not make it, but hopefully my pictures will.

A tradition like no other.  Probably brings to mind coolers, hot dogs, brauts.  It does for me, well, at least it did.

I didn’t exactly envision a tent, blanket, and  a half hour coloring session.  But, hey, that’s how I roll.

MK at least had the basics down.  Supporting  your team, and snacks.  Clearly, the snacks.  Look closely and you can see Goldfish was the appetizer of choice.  Actually, you don’t have to look that close and you could still check for cavities.

So maybe it’s not hardcore tailgaing, but we at least had to make it official.

Now, I don’t consider myself old, far from it.  But, I am, experienced, we’ll just call it.  If there’s one thing you can always look forward to at a BU tailgating it’s the ladies.  Since I have a couple of them on my hands, I’ll have to pass my wisdom on to my nephew.

The shades are perfect.  You see them, they don’t see you.  Perfect, just let em’ walk on by.  Play it cool.

“Ok, I saw the blonde too, but put the shades back on, man.  It’s all about subtlety.”

Fired up for the big game.

I’d like to think our support helped keep the Bears in the end zone, and they certainly spent a lot of time there Saturday.  An outpouring of BU touchdowns, a couple bags of cotton candy, and the girls are lifelong Bears.

Like David Hasselhoff’s career, or how Obama actually got elected.  Of all the great mysteries of the universe however, the Oatmeal Festival has got to be tops on the list.

If this is your Board of Directors, I’m not sure there’s much I can do in the way of explaining things.

The Pet Parade was first on the agenda.

Interesting enough, but keep moving.

It might not seem like much, but trust me, there’s a lot going on here.  The girl who decides to bring a chicken to the pet parade.  Honestly, the chicken’s owner is a little more disturbing.   But look closely, you’ve got old lady in folding chair who’s completely captivated with something other than chicken girl.  Although, after looking at her shades, it could just be cataracts.  Next, you’ve got the guy to her right.  He gets there early enough to get a good seat…just so he can read the paper.

Our neighbor for the parade, the goose.  Apparently the goose was a huge fan of the parade, as well as root beer.

The next guy really concerned me.  I saw him coming up the street and I grabbed the girls and started sprinting for the car.  Seriously, tell me you don’t see this guy and think of that red sawdust they used to throw on the floor when some kid puked.

This guy was,  I have no idea what this guy was doing.   Strange as he was, his mother stole the show.

I don’t know who she was, what she was driving, or how many bodies she had buried throughout the county, but she scared the kids, so that’s cool.

The Oatmeal Festival is small town pageantry at its finest.  Strange, strange sights abound.  I can’t explain any of it, but I highly recommend all of it.

This field trip really surprised me.  Al is always taking the girls on some exciting romp throughout Central Texas, and most of the time…I’m pretty jealous.  However, this time left me insanely jealous, and more than a little confused.

I’m a huge horror fan, Al not so much, and by not so much, I mean not at all.  That’s why I can’t figure out why she took the girls to the set of the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre.  Sure, Al said it was a place called Kiddie Acres, but I’ll let you decide.

Not exactly the welcoming you see at somewhere like Sea World, Disney World, or even Ihop for that matter.

I think this picture says it all.  MK was more concerned with the structural integrity of this plane, and with the rust stains on the tail, I can’t say that I blame her.  CB, on the other hand, just caught her first glimpse of Leatherface.

“Sister, is that a severed leg?”

Why is MK smiling ?  Probably because she wasn’t stuck with sister.

The girls made it back unscathed.  Although, they both ran in screaming when our neighbor fired up a chainsaw last weekend.

Al has a trip to Sweet Berry farms planned next month, and then a follow up to an abandoned warehouse where a group of children went missing in the eighties.  Should be interesting.