Nerds, All of You

I can hardly believe that three college educated people are having a rousing debate over who is the better superhero (although, too be fair, I think Korynn may have been the least nerdy in her comments).
To Danny: Haha. Your wife does not support your choice of superhero.
To Spencer: I can't believe you have a wife.
You two are like two grown up, educated versions of that kid who wore his coo beads and a utility belt everywhere he went. And, you are both wrong about who the greatest superhero is.

I submit to you the greatest superhero of all time:



Further evidence that Mark is the greatest superhero of all time:

He's super strong:


He's got awesome hair and sideburns:


He can sing and play the guitar:


He helped produce this:


...and this:



And he defied biology and logic by springing from a union between this:


...and this:



There you go. The greatest superhero ever. Suck it.

Happy Birthday Spencer!

Happy Birthday Spencer and congratulations on being so old that not even Mom can remember exactly how old you are! You are the best!

A Lot of Things

So, I have a lot of things to ramble about.

First up: I recently finished a book called "Dancing Under the Red Star." (Short interruption: Brick just came up to me with a carpenter's knife- closed thank goodness.) It is the biography of an American women who, as a child, went with her parents to live in Russia and was later imprisoned in a Stalinist labor camp. She is the only known American woman to survive a Soviet death camp. It was truly a fascinating book. The first half detailed her childhood in Detroit and then in Soviet Russia, the wrongful arrest and imprisonment of her father by the Soviets and the struggles she and her mother went through during World War II in Russia. The second half talks about her wrongful arrest by soviet police, the nine years she spent imprisoned and her struggles to leave communist Russia and Germany and return to America. This book kicked butt and spoke very plainly of the horrors of Communist Russia. I strongly recommend it to anyone who thinks that socialism or communism "isn't so bad."

Secondly: Friday night Mark and I went to see "The Day the Earth Stood Still" which was pretty cool. Finally, a role in which Keanu Reeves was totally believable. He maintained a nice monotone through the whole movie, which isn't really different from any of his other movies, but it actually fit here. Bonus: listening to him speak Chinese with a surfer accent was hilarious, or, if you are an actual Chinese person, cringe worthy. All in all, it was a pretty cool movie, but not too scary, as I earlier in that day came to the conclusion that should we be faced with an alien invasion I'm not running, but rather waiting in the comfort of my own home for them to kill me. It seems much more relaxing and as long as they kill all of us I'm fine.

Next: An apology to Danny. I may have mentioned, way back in October, while driving the girls somewhere, that Obama was the devil. I certainly tell Mailee on a regular basis that he wants to steal all of our money. I am truly sorry for influencing your apparently influential 5 year old, and, I look forward to celebrating Hanukkah with your family this year.

Which brings me to my next thought: the curious events surrounding Obama's open senate seat. What surprises me about this isn't that Blagojevich was attempting to "sell" the open seat or that the state of Illinois has a governor named Blagojevich. What surprises me is that everyone is so surprised by this "unexpected" corruption. O'Rlly? Illinois politics has been notoriously corrupt for decades. If this is news to you then you may be stupid, or at the very least, extremely unaware. I am neither shocked nor dismayed, but on the contrary, quite delighted. It is a delicious diversion to watch various officials stumble all over themselves to deliver denials and exclamations of shock. I haven't been this entertained since Jim McGreevey came out. I look forward to further developments.

This, I think brings me to the end of my thoughts. Should I have another thought during the day and the opportunity, I may honor you all with it.

Shoot Me

Remember how I said Brick was going through a tantrum phase? Well, as if that wasn't annoying enough, some time in the last week Mailee morphed into this whiny argumentative child. Mark said last night that it is amazing so much attitude can come out of such a small body. She has been whining for the last 30 minutes about how she is cold. I turned the heat up, turned on the fire and gave her a blanket. Her current problem is that she doesn't want to put the blanket on herself. I wonder if she would be so cranky if we lived in a straight up communist country and she didn't have such a nice blanket. Chew on that, you little snot.

The Thanksgiving From Which Dreams Are Made

First off, a big thanks to Spencer and Roxann for hosting us for Thanksgiving this year. I got to exchange spending 3 hours with 19 billion of my in-laws for spending 3 days with just 1 of Spencer's in-laws and it was well worth it. I will grant that I actually like 99% of my in-laws and I can handle spending 3 hours with 95% of them. It's just that 1% that makes me cringe and that 5% that I really can't handle more than an hour with.

Anyhoo, we really enjoyed our time in Tennessee, although Brick was sick the entire time, so we didn't really get to do much. It was relaxing and Mailee really enjoyed the time with her cousins. Here are all the kids, minus Brick, sitting on Santa's lap.

And this is what Brick was doing.

Here is Caitlyn at the bottom of the slide. I'm pretty sure she pushed some bigger kids out of the way first.


Ben and Matt.

And here is Mailee.


So cute. Well, in the interest of time, I don't think I can go into any detail about the trip. I will say that Brick is doing much better, but now Mailee is sick, and I woke up sick on Sunday and now I am coughing and wheezing.
Gotta go. I can hear the kids plotting a rebellion against Mark so I had better go save him.