There hasn't been any family news posted for a while because really not that much has been happening. Much of the family was sick for so long. I didn't bother taking pictures. We've had a few reasonably healthy days this past week so I thought that before I went to bed for the evening I'd spend a few minutes trying to recollect recent events.
Wednesday night I helped out at RCIA. The topic was marriage and family life. I tried to assist our guest speakers in presenting some of the Catholic vision of what marriage means. Marriage is always such a touchy subject.
Thursday, of course, was Valentines Day. Now that Claire is in school this year, she had her first class Valentine's Day party. She gave all her classmates cards and candies and received several in return. On the morning of Valentine's Day Michelle and I gave her and Abby some candies as well as some gifts sent by the Tarpeys. Being Valentine's Day I didn't dare try to wait in lines at the restaurants to take Michelle out to dinner but I did skip out of work at lunch break to bring her a carried out lunch from Eco's Cafe. I did pick up the family right from work and took them all to the YMCA so that Michelle and I could catch a step aerobics class with one of our favorite instructors.
Friday Michelle and the kids stopped by my office after they picked up Claire from school. Michelle, ever the sweetie, brought me an iced drink from Quikava. Later that evening I put the girls to bed so that Michelle could attend one of our parish's Disciples in Mission programs. The vast majority of the sessions are being held Wednesday night but there is one group that meets Friday nights. It was little surprise to Michelle that the other parishioners in her Friday night group are predominantly folks who work with me on the RCIA team on Wednesday nights.
Today I went to the YMCA for the Saturday morning step class, as I often do. Afterwards I picked up Abby for her swim class. She's made good progress these past several weeks. She's turning into quite a little guppy. Next week is the last class for this session.
When I got home from the YMCA I saw that Michelle had rearranged a few things in the kitchen and dining room. She's aggregated both tables into the dining room making one large table that we can all eat at and have room for guests. A few items from the dining room were brought into the kitchen, but overall the kitchen looks roomier. After lunch the boys went for their usual nap but this time I forced Abby to take a nap with me as well since she was being overly emotional at lunch. It took a long time to overcome her resistance but eventually she fell asleep.
I had to lector tonight so we all went the 5:30PM Mass instead of our usual Sunday 10:30AM Mass. The girls were a bit of a pill but I think they had gotten too used to Sunday morning, with it's followup of church breakfast. Nonetheless I think that tomorrow morning we'll still head over to the church for some brunch after the boys' morning nap.
Daniel is making good progress at taking a few steps. Normally he's happy to move about on two feet if there's something he can put a hand on for balance. It's just that now he's taking a few steps that cross gaps, if that makes any sense.
If there are two things the boys both love to get their hands on, it's the computer keyboard and the stereo buttons. Today when I went near the Macintosh it had a hard disk named something like "+.01". Thanks guys. If it's not the keyboard I'll see the settings for the Cambridge Soundworks tabletop radio all messed up.
On the good side, technology-wise, I've the laser printer all set up. It came Tuesday this week but I was so bogged down that it took several days to getting around to it. One day it was just pulling it out of the box, plugging it in, and printing a test page. Another day was downloading the Mac printer driver, connecting the printer to the Mac, and testing the printing from the computer. Yesterday was installing the memory expansion on it and configuring it for 1200 dpi with duplex mode (aka double sided) printing.
I have Monday off for Presidents' Day. Go figya! For a British owned company?! The greatest irony is to get the 4th of July off. Claire also has Presidents' day off. This holiday kind of snuck up on us so we're not sure what we're going to do at this point.
We did get some very cool news. My folks will drive out for a couple of weeks straddling Easter. Even more surprising is that my sister, Suzanne, will join them for one week of the visit. Suzy hasn't been here in a few years.
Tomorrow I hope to take a look at personal video recorders (PVRs) like TiVo and RePlay. I've heard rave reviews from folks who own them. Their popularity is spreading fast, predominantly by word of mouth.
As you know Lent is now underway. I've read many good meditations on Lent so far. I'd love to post some clippings. However, I really must focus on closing for now. I hope you all have a wonderful Presidents' Day weekend.