Suprise Visit

Never a dull moment.

Friday afternoon around 4pm Aaron called and said "What are YOU guys doin' this weekend???" And we said, "Hangin' out with YOU!" They poured into the car and cruised to the Way Out Inn for some way out fun. Seeing as at the end of December A is going to Antarctica (no shit, for real!) we won't see him until like beginning of March... so we needed to get our party on one more time before he went to the true land down under.

We had a really nice time. Saturday we went out to Lawrence to the New Balance outlet (I bought a baseball hat) and then to Malden Mills where they sell polartec fleece by the scads. Aaron was looking for a fleece hat, but they only had them pre-made for layettes. So we bought 2 kingsized comforters for our big bodies to keep warm under this winter.

We then got lunch and had a picnic and went to the top of Solstice Hill/Ward Hill in Andover, where we'd done a geocache back in the summer. There is a fabulous view of Boston from up there, and we had fun hiking in the snow. It was cold but not too windy. And I took some fun pictures of everyone.

And, even though we did all this fun stuff, I still managed to redesign the top layers of the site, so I guess is the fourth or fifth iteration of the look and feel of the page. I also added a search engine, so you can search the whole freakin' site for a topic like "Monkey Stink" and come up with said entries.

As for the site design, it is seasonal and boy is it vain.

Tess says I'm gorgeous and she loves it. I doubt the gorgeous part. She's just being nice. She shoulda said "Hey, what's all that white crap all over the front of your coat? Eyebrow dandruff? Were you doing a cop imitation and snarfing on powdered sugar doughnuts???"

The answer is -- snow. Jessica was standing off to my left, and she threw a handful of snow in the air right as Michelle took my picture. One split microsecond later and that picture would have been of me killing her for getting snow all up in my face and shit. There is nothing I hate more than snow in my face. Almost any other substance on earth, but not snow in my face. Ever.

Foolish child.

Smitty emailed me and said that's a fabulous picture of me up there on the first page. I don't think it's THAT great, but it's decent. So I let my ego shine and shine, instead of putting my dogs or kids or some plants or something on the first page.

I still can't believe Aaron is going to Antarctica. I mean -- dude. Antfreakinarctica. Damn.

A&M&G split while we were in church in order to get back home to Bah Hahbah before it was too dark... Aaron has a load of stuff to do in the next 2 weeks to get completely ready to leave. Michelle will do Christmas with her family (they live in Maine too) and she will probably come be with us for New Years.

We'll set up a shrine to Senor Cocoanuts because he won't be whooping it up with us. He'll be in ... another hemisphere! Getting freaky with a tiki won't be nearly as much fun without him.

I just went to link to the Freaky Tiki Picture Show from last year and all the thumbnail graphics are missing off the index. Fuuuuuuddddddge. Only I didn't say Fudge.

Yet another thing for me to fix. I'm thinking I may take down some of the much older picture shows and go through the site and pare things down. I'm sure I'm well over quota again but my host hasn't nailed me with a warning yet. Sigh. New Years resolution...

so speaking of pictures... I guess I'll leave you with some from the weekend. I'm kind of tired of sitting in this chair, I've been here for hours tweeking the site layout. I will have some more content to talk about tomorrow.

probably the best picture I've taken of jessie in years. since the fall picture with the leaves in the front of her bib overalls. this is christmas card worthy	too bad i can't get geoff to make a nice face when i take HIS picture. meh.
same here -- she looks all cute and what's he doing. making a silly face	aah. the girl thinks she can throw snow at the mamma. she doesn't know she'll be dead if she does... mwa ha.
aaron and michelle, and if you look closely, you'll see he is licking her left sunglass lens.	aaron and doug comparing their... stiff appendages. mwa ha. aaron looks like he is READY for antarctica dude!