Happy Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is a time to sit with family and friends and remember all the things your thankful for.  Well, this year we were very thankful that we had a chance to sit with family and friends and remember that we certainly do have much to be thankful for.  One thing quite prominent in our minds that we have to be thankful for is that at least this year isn’t last year.  To quote myself from our Nov. 3oth 2009 blog post, “Well, it sucked.”  Last year Thanksgiving dinner consisted of Ramen noodles and a turkey sandwich from the gas station.  This year Thanksgiving was an awesome fried turkey with stuffing, two kinds of potatoes, rolls, Jell-o salad, pumpkin pie… a REAL Thanksgiving.  We owe a HUGE thanks to our friends the Williams for inviting us over to their house to share the holiday.  It was great.

In addition to getting the meal right this year and spending the day with friends, we also finally got a chance to Skype with my family.  I’m sure most of them wondered if it was really worth the 45 minutes of work to try to get the technology to work, but it was great for us to see how big all the kids had gotten and to fill that spot in the holiday that requires you to get agitated around your family.  Now we just have to keep practicing so we’re all familiar enough with the technology that it isn’t such a big deal for future events.  I must admit, however, that I did at one point confess that it’s probably a good thing that we’ll be coming back for a face-to-face visit around Christmas. 

In addition to being thankful for a plate full of extra calories and a family to make fun of you for eating it all, the other thing we’re thankful for this year is the fact that we had a really enjoyable weekend with the kids.  Last year we spent most of the nights after Thanksgiving in the emergency room with Tyler having a fever of 104.  This year we spent the weekend watching Reagan learn how to sit all by herself.  It was so much fun.  She had been sitting a little before, but this weekend she really figured it out.  We found that the trick was to give her a toy to play with and that would keep her attention forward so she wouldn’t fall backwards.  Here’s a picture of her with some toys giving it a try.  Notice the huge puke rag … I mean burp cloth (ok, puke rag) in the background.  I didn’t say it was a clean experience.

As we continued to work with Reagan we tried a handful of different toys to keep her attention.  As it turns out, her favorite was a big rubber ball.  Tyler would get in on the fun as well – sitting in front of her and rolling the ball back to her as she knocked it his way.  The funniest part was the sound she makes.  There’s no way I could type it so I had to include a video.  The only way I can think of to describe it is that she’s able to make the sound that the old analog TVs would make when you went to a channel that wasn’t broadcasting and just got the fuzzy picture.  Take a look and turn up the volume and you’ll see what I mean.

Baby Reagan learning to sit and playing with a ball.

Tyler’s favorite baby sound was the way he made the sound of a Rainbird sprinkler head.  Between the two of them we’ve got quite a pair of noise makers.

On a final note, as a weekend project I figured I would give our computer a little upgrade and install some additional RAM memory.  Those of you that know me well won’t find this as a surprise, but I figured the best way to accomplish this task was to run to Staples after dinner and just pick up the memory chip and go ahead and install it.  How hard could it be, right?  Well, although it really wasn’t hard, I got a friendly reminder that sometimes it pays to actually stop and think about what you’re doing first. 

After purchasing the RAM, Tyler and I pulled out the computer, popped the side off, tore open the packing, and stuck the chip into the RAM slot… well, almost.  As it turns out, the chip I was sure was the best bang for the buck was the wrong type of chip (DDR3 instead of DDR2, for the nerds out there).  Best Buy has the “Geek Squad”, the show Chuck has the “Nerd Herd”, well Tyler and I were huddled over the computer like the “Jackass Crew”.  Ok, I probably shouldn’t include Tyler in that designation.  After all, I think in the picture below he looks like he knows more about what’s going on than I do. 

When Thesha came over to take the picture she was so excited to see her two guys working together to fix stuff around the house.  Thankfully she took the pictures before the illusion wore off and she realized I had just dropped $60 on something that didn’t work.  Thankfully I redeemed myself and was able to make the exchange at Staples for the correct chip and all was made right.  Our computer is so fast now it can almost open up a program before Thesha starts yelling at it to “just freakin’ work.”