See you at the Taco Bar

After a late night Friday, I didn’t get out of bed Saturday morning until 745am. I could easily have slept a while longer but needed to be up in time to greet the boys. And besides, I didn’t want to let a lovely morning slip away from me either. I slipped out of the room with Mindy and Eiknarf still sleeping soundly.

It was a sunny start and expected to remain that way through most of the day. I started coffee then played on the internet. Coffee was ready in short order. Lindsey dropped the boys around 805am. Reminded me that she would be back just after 530pm.

The kids wanted to play Wii right out of the shoot. I agreed as long as they could keep the noise to a near whisper. I got it all set up then returned to the PC. I had to remind them to keep the noise down a couple times, and even threatened to turn it off if they couldn’t control their volume. I’m thinking it was near 9am when Mindy joined us downstairs.

It was near 930am when I dressed and left for a run. It was gorgeous, sunny and 50 degrees. Like most Saturday’s, I ran just three miles. During my run I deemed this the day to put up Xmas lights. It was expected to reach near 60 degrees under sunny skies. And as soon as Sunday, the weather was expected to turn ugly (rainy and cool).

I wasn’t home 5 minutes before I headed out to the garage to start on the lights. I wanted to be done before the OSU/Michigan game began at noon. Landon asked if he could help Sure. Why not? The first thing I did was wrap the new cool white LEDs around the wreath then mounted it to the face of the garage above the door and around the faux vent.

I set-up my heavy fiberglass extension ladder next to the aluminum extension ladder. It has a much higher reach. I then stretched out the two new sets of multi-colored C9 LEDs that I planned to install along the garage roof line. I took my time going up and down the ladder so to avoid an accident. Neighbor Carl stopped over to chat about the dredging work and his disappointment with the results. I shared that it may not be perfect, but aesthetically speaking, it looks so much better.  

Landon hung with me while I strung the lights along the garage roof. Next, I mounted the roof to do the gutter line and center gable with the 3 existing sets of C9 LEDs. By then, Landon bored of watching me. He and Rocky decided to skate board and rip stick. I headed up on the roof from the back deck taking the clips and light sets in an old shopping bag. I installed all the gutter clips first then started stringing the lights. The older I get the stupider the idea of crawling out to the edge of the roof seems. Gives my tummy the willies. I am very, very careful. Mindy left for Giant Eagle leaving the two boys out front playing on the skate boards.

Took another 20 minutes or so to get the lights strung across the upper tier. Now 1130am, I still needed to get power to the light set at the west end of the house. But having done this a time or two, I had a proven plan. I tie wrapped the remaining length of lights along the downspout to an extension cord I tie wrapped up its backside.

The final step was plugging the lights in to the dusk/dawn timer. They all worked. Yeah! Before heading inside I put red and green CFLs in three of the four coach light fixtures. Our post light fixture is now completely shot. Needs replaced.

My timing was impeccable. The OSU/Michigan game was just getting underway when I headed back inside with the boys. I needed a shower but planned to wait until Mindy was home and maybe even halftime. The Buckeyes took the opening kick-off and scored in a hurry with a long TD pass. Just like that, OSU was ahead 7-0. Michigan came storming back with a touchdown of their own and then a safety and a 2nd touchdown. Just like that the bad guys were ahead 16-7. By then, Mindy was home from Giant Eagle and busy whipping up all the fixins’ for our TG taco bar.

The Buckeyes showed more offense in the 2^nd quarter than perhaps they had all season long. They lead at halftime 24-23. I headed up for a shower. Jimaken brought Jacob and Bella home for the family taco event. Mindy agreed to take them back later that evening.

Michigan got the ball to start the 2^nd half and scored a touchdown regaining the lead. The Buckeyes trailed for the remainder of the game but kept it close and even had a chance to win it on the games final drive. But Braxton Miller over threw a wide opened receiver by about 3 feet with less than a minute to go. Like most, I took the loss to Michigan in stride. If we had to lose one, this was the year, when everything else is going bad for the program. We hadn’t lost to them since 2003. I remember that loss, too. I was on a plane to Portland flying in through Dallas. Didn’t learn our fate until I landed in Oregon.

As suggested, family guests began to arrive around 3pm. Dad, Tommy and Wally arrived about the same time. And then Ashley and Olivia weren’t far behind. I invited my mom, too, but she wasn’t coming. Her recent knee replacement reportedly causing her too much discomfort. Shelly dropped Kaileigh off around 320pm. Mindy offered Siena the opportunity to stay and play too, but she opted to go with her mommy. Shelly said Courtney would be picking up Kaileigh around 630pm when she got off work. Hmmm?

Mindy laid out a heap of snacks while the tacos and tortilla soup continued to simmer in crock-pots. We planned to eat around 4pm. All the neighbor kids were over so we invited them to eat with us. Chrissy & Kenny opted to forego dining with us and instead planned to eat their Olive Garden leftovers.

I cracked a beer somewhere close to 4pm. I opted for the CBC barley wine. Went down easy. Dinner was served just after 4pm. Mindy made sure all the kids were served first. Because the weather was so nice, most of the kids ate from the deck. In fact, they played outback for most of the afternoon coat-free.

Finished dinner and clean-up around 515pm. Mindy suggested we play the lottery game. She picked up $15 worth of lottery scratch-off tickets while at Giant Eagle earlier in the day. We used my Droid as the timer. Worked well. I took the first of the fifteen tickets by rolling doubles just as time expired. More than once during the first five tickets, Ashley lost the lottery ticket on the last roll of the dice just as the timer expired. We felt bad and tried giving it to her anyway. She wouldn’t take it. Deemed it charity.

I took Eiknarf on a walk after about five rounds. Lindsey pulled up while Ashley and I walked the pug. It was finally dark, so for the first time I was able to witness the fruits of my holiday labor. The lights looked awesome. I felt like Clark Griswold for a moment. Honey, Rusty, come look! Lindsey headed inside ahead of Ashley and I.

Lindsey joined our lottery game. And unless I’m mistaken, won the first round she played. But out of the 15 tickets, I won 5. You might say that I was on a roll! J Had a pretty good beer buzz going too. It was a lot of fun. Ashley and Olivia left first. She and ex-Kelly were supposed to be going shopping that night to buy Lindsey a Xmas tree. Lindsey didn't know anything about it.

Mindy left to shuttle Jacob & Bella back to their dad’s place around 7pm. Lindsey left soon after. Dad, Tommy and Wally left just after them, but not before Tommy wrote me a check to cover the cost of his winter ski trip airline ticket that I bought a week ago. Thanks Tommy!

The house was extremely quiet with just me by my lonesome. I took about ten minutes to mop the kitchen tile floor and tidy up everywhere else. The house looked good. I’m thinking it was near 8pm when Mindy got back. We hung out for a few minutes enjoying the quiet. Both of us were tired, so we didn’t plan to drive anywhere. Instead, we headed to the neighbors for a brief visit. We didn’t plan to stay too late, however, maybe an hour. I took what remained of our CBC barley wine growler. Mindy was drinking barley wine too.

During our walk to the neighbor’s I noticed that all of us put up our Xmas lights earlier that day. Teri & Mike were over at Kenny & Chrissy’s, too. Meanwhile, the Stanford/Notre Dame game was just kicking off. I was routing for Stanford. Mike was routing for God’s team. We hung out for about an hour, no longer. Both Mindy & I were getting sleepy. We headed for home around 915pm.  Even though I wasn’t on call, I checked in with work just like I had been doing all weekend. Everything was quiet. We were in bed before 10pm and rejoined the Stanford/Notre Dame game. Ended up falling asleep near halftime.