The Green Fairy

Absinthe makes you crazy and criminal, provokes epilepsy and tuberculosis, and has killed thousands of French people. It makes a ferocious beast of man, a martyr of woman, and a degenerate of the infant, it disorganizes and ruins the family and menaces the future of the country.
a critic of the liquor, as quote by Conrad III, Barnaby; (1988). Absinthe History in a Bottle. Chronicle books. ISBN 0-8118-1650-8 Pg. 116

Rebecca and Kirk found a store that sells absinthe, which is still relatively rare since it's only recently become legal. We've all wanted to try it, as it was the drink of choice of Van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec, Hemingway, Wilde, Manet, and many others. People used to believe that is was hallucinogenic, but it isn't. It also looks like it's very high in alcohol content, but it's drunk with only a small amount of absinthe and lots of water. It smells like black licorice but doesn't really taste like anything. It was exciting to finally get to try some, but it didn't give any of us epileptic seizures or tuberculosis, and only Matt went crazy... but we suspect he was already halfway there.

Yeah Detroit!

Here's an excerpt from an interesting news story we found in The Independent (British) newspaper. You can read the story in its entirety here.

Choosing a name for a new baby is always tricky. Should it be classical or modern? Safe or a bit zany? One can only wonder how the parents of one unfortunate girl in New Zealand came up with... Talula Does The Hula From Hawaii.

Bathroom Remodel, Day One

But before we rush to the bathroom for some explosive pictures, here is a video of the Chipster. This one is destined to become a classic.

So Mom (K) had the same idea we did about redoing Chip's bathroom this week, and we figured that if everyone is thinking the same thing, we might as well get started. Here are a few "before" photos. Do you think this wallpaper just screams "four-year-old boy and his youngish parents" or does it just make you want to scream?

Now, here are the photos of work in progress. Gabriel had the great idea to go around the house finding things we could put the wallpaper in. He found garbage cans we didn't even know we had and took out the bags. He waited outside the bathroom and caught all of the pieces. He was very helpful.
So we have the walls cleaned off. The next step will be to spackle and paint the molding/maybe the ceiling.

Famille Heureuse/Familia Feliz

We just had a Skype call with Erica, Raul, and the nino, and we wanted to share a cute screen shot we took of the happy family. We wanted to reach right through the screen and pinch his cheeks! So cute.

New Phone Number

We will have a land line beginning tomorrow, 24 July 2008. If you do not have the number, please contact us (on the cell phone) and we'll give it to you. Once you know it, you will never forget it. That will come in handy for you, Nancy!

Feist On Sesame Street

Matty found this, and I think it's adorable!

Reading The Onion

From gabriel's bir...

We have added lots of photos to G's birthday album, so click the link under the photo to see the entire album, or just click here. The added photos are from Mom's and Lisa's cameras. They got lots of things that I'd missed.

In other (non-)news, The Onion has been really funny lately. Check out this article about the Hubble Space Kaleidoscope, and this weather story. Or there's this one about Michigan unemployment.

Oh, but this one from one of our local news stations is real.

The House Is Still Standing

Well, we definitely celebrated G's 4th birthday in a big way. As we used to say, we did it up! Here's the web album,and you can click in the bottom right corner to look at the "real" photos:

Gabriel is one lucky boy. Some of his highlights were the bounce house and sno-cone machine (for the day) from Uncle Jack and Aunt Jen, an air soccer game that Mommy and Daddy like to play with from Bun and Papa, Geotrax Old Rust and Tex from Bunnut and Papa Nick, Geotrax Knight and Sir John from Grandad and Grandma Gail, a transforming clock from Great Grandma and Great Grandpa, and his Geotrax Grand Central Station from Mommy and Daddy.

The party started early in the day and became an "open house", and we were up late into the night celebrating (even after G went to bed in his new Big Boy Bed). The kids played a Transformers scavenger hunt game I'd devised and generally ran around like maniacs. I don't know what we'll do next year to top this one, but G really enjoyed himself yesterday.

In other news, Dayna and Pete stopped over on their way to Ohio from Florida and spent the night. It was really cool to see our cousins, and we had a lot of fun. Pete shared this little tidbit with us:

Weighing M&M's

If you like brown M&M's, you are sure to be disappointed when you buy a bag. If, on the other hand, you like the green ones, by all means get out to the candy aisle right away! How do we know? Well, we just separated all of the colors in a giant bag of M&M's (for G's birthday party, we only wanted the red and blue ones), and just for kicks we weighed them. Here's what we found:

• blue: 240g
• yellow: 168g
• green: 265g
• brown: 154g
• orange: 236g
• red: 203g

That's a grand total of 1266g. The bag claims 1275.8g, and Matthew is pretty sure he ate more than the difference. Therefore, our scientific conclusion is that Mars Snackfood US, LLC does not lie. Bravo, Mars Snackfood US, LLC!

Hmmm... should we do percentages? Eh, we'll save that for you to do at home, you know, for fun.

Baby Shower

IMG_2684, originally uploaded by mpgangle.

I went to Mel's baby shower today and made this for her. It came from this pattern, and I adapted it into a duckie.

We Love To Be Campy

We just got back from a really great camping trip with Lisa and Rebecca and families. There were 12 of us total at the Stone Mountain Campground. We swam, went to the laser show, ate great food, and had a really wonderful time together. We can't wait for the next time! To view a bigger version of the slideshow below, just click on the little "view album" link below it.

View Album

Get your own

Michigan Potato

We thought you might be interested in this item for sale on eBay: Michigan Potato. Bid heavily.

Congratulations, Mr. and Mrs. Jack Kelly, Jr.!

Here are all of the highlights from our past week of Wedding Extravaganza 2008. There are tons of photos, so please be patient while they load onto your screen. We didn't want to deal with a third-party screenshow for this one.

Anyhow, we are so happy for Jack and Jen, and we wish them all love and happiness in their marriage! And away we go...

Whirlyball (TM) - turns out this is the same owner as the Whirlyball back home in Michigan! What a small world.

Getting ready for the rehearsal festivities. Patty is the old librarian in the green top.

The rehearsal - check out Father Terry's sharp cowboy boots!

Such thoughtful gifts for Gabriel (he collects piggy banks)...

and Matthew.

It was a full house for the rehearsal dinner - upstairs and downstairs!

Syncronized sparkling:

We proudly wore our Peachtree Race shirts, as we do every Fourth:

The morning of the wedding, Jen gets her hair "did"...

with her bridesmaids there with her:

Mom in her first limo ride!

The girls (and Jen's dad) have a bumpy but entertaining ride to the pond for photos and the church (one hit vehicle and one set of railroad tracks nearly derailed us!) but are lookin' good

Laura and Mom switch rides for the latter leg of the journey

Mommy gets to be the very first girl to pin a boutonniere on our baby boy:

G looking dapper in his tuxedo

My favorite photo ever of the two of us:

G with his uncle and new aunt - check out that smart wedding ring!

It was a full house at the reception but with plenty of room for everyone!

Cutting the cake

Nourishing each other to set the tone for their whole marriage

Mom says, "Don't forget I was here first!" or maybe not, but that's what I will say to G at his wedding!

G with his favorite dance partner - Aunt Vera:

The bride tosses the bouquet to April, appropriately!

Everything was just perfect, and everyone had the most wonderful time. We are so happy for our brother and our new sister-in-law! They are honeymooning in Jamaica right now, and we can't wait to hear about their adventures there!

Pics!

Dad A wanted a photo of him, Matt, and Patie post-race. We don't know who that third person is, but here's one that includes Patty. Hee hee.

Yes, I ran in a skirt! A girl has to look good at all times... actually it's a running skirt, but isn't it cute?!

A Dream Come True!

We went to the Braves game tonight, and if you were watching, you would have seen an amazing catch by a 60-year-old who's way out in left field, with an assist by a 27-year-old nurse and a nearly-4-year-old alien.

Picture in your mind's eye, if you will, the fourth pitch of the game by one Jorge Campillo of the Atlanta Braves to Philly shortstop Jimmy Rollins. The pitch was low and inside, but for the first time this game Rollins made contact. The ball fouled to the upper stands in left field, bounced between the seats in the first row, and was snagged by one Chuck Angle after Laura Kelly yelled, "Watch out!" As a result, Gabriel has this souvenir:

We've always wanted to catch a foul ball our whole lives, and now we did! Okay, well, we didn't technically. Technically, we were out buying beer and Patty had to use the restroom. Technically, if we'd been there, we would have jumped up and knocked the ball back down into the lower seats. How do we know this? Because earlier, they shot a t-shirt up to us and we both had our hands on it and let it fall down. In my (P) defense, though, I was holding Gabriel and kept him from falling over the edge when I jumped up!

Here are a couple of other photos from this totally fun, great game: