Recap

Mom
Gift card from Williams Sonoma
Rosie Thomas CD with the REM song on it
gift certificate from Arcadia Knitting www.arcadiaknitting.com
John Hiatt CD, esp one that has "Have a Little Faith in Me"
Best Buy gift card

Tom
Gift Cards to best buy

Leah
clothes. Medium shirts. Size 8 pants. Or medium pants
Banana Republic, Gap and Old Navy
No sweaters
I would love a little sharp knife. Preferably Rachael Ray.

Cal
An umbrella (they sell them for like $6 in kids' toy stores)
Another membership to the museum or the Minnesota Zoo
books
Cal needs a puzzle organizer. "They" have these wooden table-like things with slots for wooden puzzles. I have no idea how much they are or where to find them. And it's late so I can't look it up right now.

Isaac
http://www.elc.co.uk/toy-34123
http://www.creativekidstuff.com/ ...tasyblocks.html
http://www.creativekidstuff.com/...ravel- town.html
socks.
Books
Also, there are these cds put out by Putamayo and they are great kids cds. You can find them at children specialty shops. Here's the link to their home page.
http://www.putumayo.com/en/ putum...tumayo_kids.htm

Becky
iTunes gift cards
more art from Kari
earthy smelling candles
The Complete Vegan Kitchen (or another Vegan cookbook)
an orange tea pot
a pasta/veggie streamer pot

Cheryl
Game Stop gift cards
Cool (outside) vest - size L
another business card holder from Leah (she lost it and it was her fav)
Sweaters for work – Size L

Richard
Anything from They Might Be Giants Discography.
Blues Brothers
Blues Brother 2000
Clerks X
Best Buy Gift Cards
"The Year of Living Biblically" by A.J. Jacobs

Kari
the Oppenheimer CD (they only have one, so if you go to Best Buy or something, I think it should be pretty easy to find). I'd also like the Social Distortion greatest hits CD. Any of the "Dexter" series of books would be great, too (except the first one - I just splurged on that). So, I think that includes "Dearly Devoted Dexter" and "Dexter in the Dark". They're all by Jeff Lindsey.

Eric

Jason

Steph

Heyyyy Jason, Steph and Eric give us some ideas.

Christmas Exchange

Stolen from Sarah Jane on their family blog:

"Hey All-Talked to Leah Rose last night about our annual Christmas Exchange, we both agreed that we should still do it. If anyone opposes strongly just don't participate. We thought we could try it a little different. We could do a boys and a girls gift exchange, with a limit of 15$. So I'll buy a gift for the girls exchange (no gift cards) (something like jewelry, bath and body, something for the house etc) and Brian will buy something for the guys one (tools, video game, poker chips etc). Then on Christmas we'll play the game where we pull numbers and steal. So mom, dad, you can play, Sally, Grandma Holper, etc. Anyone who buys for the exchange is in. Sound good? Leah is telling her side I'm telling ours. YAY CHRISTMAS"

Thanksgiving

Hey Familia. I'm using this post as a kind of mass email. Cheryl and I are leaving for Seattle tonight - I'm hoping we don't end up sitting in Ohare all night! I'll miss you all this weekend. Just another Thanksgiving seperated.

I plan on kicking a little A this weekend with the scavenger hunt. Watch out.

Let the Hunt Begin

Thanks for all the suggestions. I hope that this turns into a lot of fun.

The Rules:

Attempt to take a picture of yourselves with the items on the list.
You get one point for every picture, and .25 points for every member of your family(pets included) you can cram in there.
1 extra bonus point per picture if you capture "that guy"(will add link at home) in any of the pictures.
10 points for being the first to complete all the pictures.
5 points for being second.
100 points if you are married to a Kari.
Just post your findings here.

The List:
A cow
A Baggage claim
A delicious pint of beer
A $50 bill
A star fruit
A unique building
A Winning a poker hand
A Letterman's Jacket
A broken mug
A mouthful of cranberries.

Have fun!

A Must See Film

Thank you Richard for pointing this out:

See Ya

If new art from Kari or Cheryl chillin' on the couch with Lily are on the Family Foto Fscavenger Fhunt list, then I'm totally in the lead!




Thanks Kari! I love my painting!

Photo Scavenger Hunt

I haven't forgotten about this, time has just gotten away from me. Postpone a week, if you have any more ideas get them up here, then I will post the list sometime within the week.

Family Foto Fscavenger Fhunt

So I'm a big dork and came up with what I thought was a brilliant idea. I think we should have a blog photo scavenger hunt. For the next week think of 3-5 things to add to the list and put them in the comments. Next Monday I'll compile some set number of them (10?20?), then we will have a week to get pictures of ourselves taken with the items on the list and post them back here on the blog. Who up for that?

Christmas already

Hi everyone! So, I guess its about time to start thinking about Christmas. Although, I know Leah is already on it as she bought Scott his present months ago.

Mom and I were talking last night and we thought it might be a good idea for everyone to post a few ideas for gifts. I think last year turned out great - should we stick to $20 or $25 (?) per person?

I'm assuming everyone can be here for Christmas Eve again. It was way too much fun to miss anyway.

Ok, see ya in the comments!

AZ & Lily!

I was in Phoenix for Stacey and Matt's wedding this past weekend. I had some pool time and lots of fun with Amy and her family (I'm an honorary Opahle now) and the wedding was beautiful and a really really wonderful time.



Here's Stacey with Mom's purse that she borrowed for "something old". Stacey is the 3rd of my 4 friends who have married this year to borrow the purse. Mom, this was your great aunt's purse, right?



Palm tree and the sunset from the terrace.



Matt & Stacey. I don't have many pictures since everyone else was going wild with their camera and I'll be getting those sooner or later. This is right where the ceremony happened. It was beautiful and of course pictures don't do scenery justice anyway. The restaurant was on the top of a cliff overlooking Phoenix.



Amy and Becky before the wedding on the terrace. I have no idea how to straighten this picture out.



And for the finale.... We got a kitten!! Her name is Lily and she's part siamese. She was born on my birthday! Its fate! She's really cute and funny but still being a little shy. I hope she's running around and not such a scaredy kitten whenI get home tonight. Mom and Tom, you'll have to stop by to see her this week!

Movies

I saw two really great movies this weekend and I have to share- and you will soon see I am not a writer, nor try to be. Although I do sometimes use the word "nor."

Reign Over Me with Adam Sandler and some other cool dudios was so so great. It was sad, real and had redemption. I loved it. It was rated R for language because the F word was used probably about 10 times. I usually don't like to watch rated R movies, but this one was f-ing awesome.

Music and Lyrics with Drew Barrymore and British sappy guy in all the romances... what's his name? Bridget Jones... You know. This movie was also great. It made fun of the 80's a lot, which I can always appreciate. And it was a feel-good movie. I wish Eric would have watched it with me so that we could have laughed together but he is at a monster-truck rally tonight. However, I actually had a harder time watching this PG-13 movie than Reign Over Me. It had a lot of scantily-clad booty shaking and orgasmic noises. It made me a little uncomfortable. So, actually, I'm glad Eric is watching the school buses get smashed into pieces.

I do realize that these movies have been out for a while, so many of you have already seen them. In that case, just let me know if you f-ing agree with me.

Happy Birthday Scott!

Ultimate Kickball Champion

Our kickball team won our division! We are going to the regional tournament on October 27 (I know... it's Isaac's birthday). I am super bad at kicking and get out every time. But, I'm a rockstar outfielder. I made a double play this week by catching the ball and tagging second base because the runner didn't tag up. It was awesome.

Finally!

Hey we bought a couch! As you can see, its gorgeous, but a monster! A little bigger than expected... Also new is the end table and tv stand (complete with Family Guy in the background).

A little distraction for this hard week I guess.

IT'S LEAH'S BIRTHDAY!!

Happy Birthday to you L Diddy,
you sure have turned out pretty!
I've noticed that you get giddy
when those guys of yours do something witty.
You've moved away to a far city
and at times it makes me feel sad and sh----,
but your heart's not dirty or gritty,
you're loving and kind and show pity,
we could even find you on a committee
pointing others to the Celestial City.
So I hope you like this little ditty
that says my love for you is not itty-bitty!


Newborn Leah 1978

School Pics. Can you guess youngest to oldest?

Leah's early years.

Leah and Eric 1999.

Hope you have a wonderful birthday Leah! I love you babe-
Mom

Must Read

I just finished reading Extremly Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer. It was AMAZING. Its about a 9 year olds search for a lock to a key that he found in his dad's closet after his dad died in 9-11. Its real and sad but the saddness is tolerable and shouldn't scare you away for many reasons. I highly recommend it if for all.

For your convenience.

Thanksgiving

What is everyone doing for Thanksgiving? Eric and were talking about having everyone up for the weekend. Would that be doable? We don't have tons of bedrooms like the sauna house in MO, but the basement will be done, so lots of people can crash there and Cal can crash with us. So, we'd have two extra bedrooms plus the recroom. What do you think?

Staceys' Shower!

Today Mom hosted Stacey's shower at their beautiful condo. I wasn't the photographer of the event so the following pictures are the "after party". (Tom was only part of the after party - he hung out at the beach while we invaded the condo). We stayed and enjoyed wine with Mom, Tom, Nurse Jackie and Cheryl. While we were enjoying this wine, Mom hatched the idea of having monthly Sunday dinners at her place which turned into Saturday night dinners with the McElroys coming maybe once every other month. Sounds fun, right??! What'd'ya say?
Miller's, maybe we can get you here once or twice!



Anyway, has anyone seen the movive "Jaws"?..... The one with the sharks?

Gavin Thomas

Kim & Lee had their baby this morning! Gavin Thomas, 8lbs, 3oz and everyone is doing great. Cheryl and I went to the hospital tonight to meet him. He has fuzz all over his body and a conehead! I love him already.

Title

Hey family! We had a ton of fun on vacation. I think we should do something like that every month or so. Maybe we could at least get together for a steak dinner? No? I miss everyone already.