The Real Gift List

That was just a joke before. Please do not fool yourself into thinking that I would be content with a mere grammatical correction! I want money, precious jewels, fine fruits and cheeses!

But since I don't think I'll get any of those things, here is my toned down birthday gift list. Some of these are actually pretty boring, but if you don't have much time/energy/creativity, those are the ones for you.

• Any Johnny Cash CD, but preferably older rather than newer. (I don't have any, so feel free to pick your favorite)
• white ankle socks
  
• Alice Peacock CD "Who I Am"
  
• A new blow dryer (this one could be difficult, as I'm not really sure which one I want...)
• A gift card to Kohl's (in any denomination) : )

Ok, that is about all I can come up with. However, I will still accept, and even welcome, original gifts, so please do not supress your inner gift-genie. (I don't even know what that is)

Alright, ALRIGHT!!

You've all pushed me far enough. I've finally come up with my gift list, and I expect to receive everything on it. It's actually quite simple, and each of you can give me the same gift if you truly care about what I want.

I would like for all of my friends and family to stop saying the words "like" and "ummm." Instead of "I was like...", I want to hear "I felt..." or "I said...". And if try to look up "ummm" in the dictionary, you won't find it, because it's not even a real word! It makes you sound less intelligent, even though I know you are all very intelligent people.

Thankyou.


And no further references to hair dye would be appreciated as well. If you must know the full story, visit our blog later this afternoon. I plan to have worked up the courage to post the whole painful thing by then.

Check out Andy's Gift list for Janell's Birthday

Hi everybody, I have tried my hardest to get a birthday idea from Janell, but she refuses to cooperate, so the only alternative I have is to pick a gift for her from Andy's gift list, at least that way, someone will get something they want. Otherwise I could just close my eyes and walk through the mall and purchase the first item I run into, then gift wrap it for Janell, but what if I veer into a store full of say, paper clips or toilet paper, you know "Clips Are Us" or "Flush Us", you get the picture. I am sure Andy would rather have a neat gift off his gift list instead of Janell getting a case of paper clips or monogrammed toilet paper. I suggest the rest of you do the same unless Janell immediately and without dalay does an about face and supplies birthday ideas before it is too late.

The Kayaking Adventures Begin

The Hancock Barnharts are now the proud owners of a tandem kayak (thanks to Dad/Paul who has also taken up kayaking). We took our first excursion a couple of weeks ago, and Ella and Fletcher got to come along for the ride. Ella wasn't all that thrilled, and Fletcher jumped out while we were in the middle of the lake, so we had a fussy kid and a stinky wet-dog smelling dog to ride home with. Anyways, here we are, ready to head out on our first adventure. If any of you guys come up to visit us during the summer months, we'll take you out for an afternoon (or morning, or evening) on the lake.

Ella turns 1!

Yes, it has happened. Ella has had her first birthday - and the accompanying cake and ice cream and party hats and candles and noisemakers and punch-balloons and everything.

Ella got to share her birthday party with her Grandpa Gerard (his 60th was on Monday - so we did a bit of a surprise for him) and thoroughly enjoyed eating part of Grandpa's birthday cake, too. Two birthday cakes are definitely better than one! And when one of those cakes has 60 flaming candles on it, watch out! (The Gerard tradition does NOT include licking the frosting off of the candles, so Grandpa didn't have to lick 60 candles worth of frosting before eating his cake)

So...there was MUCH cake (very tasty - and leftovers for us to enjoy!) and frivolity. And presents. Which Ella enjoyed - looking at the packages, mostly (one very large Elmo bag, in particular). Fletcher had to help her open them up when we returned home (the party was at church, because we couldn't fit 25 people in our house at the same time and maintain any level of sanity or comfort), and she was more fascinated watching Fletcher shred the paper than she was interested in opening them up herself. That will change, however, probably by her next birthday.

Here is the "standard" Barnhart birthday photo - licking the frosting off of the candle. However, Ella decided to bite the candle rather than lick it, so now the candle has teeth marks in it, and she didn't get all that much frosting. She'll learn.

Lets Go Camping!

Can anyone explain this? I just took the trash bin out to the road in the rain, and had an instant urge to go camping.

Right at last!

I would like to refer all you Doubting Thomas's to my blog entry of May 27 2006 at http://mikesblog-mike.blogspot.com/ predicting the dramatic and unexpected drop in gasoline prices. Should we play a little tune called "Gasolina" to celebrate my clairvoyant writings?

Ella Gets a Little Jazzy

Confirmed: not only does Ella refuse to turn down jazzy music, but she actually starts dancing to it immediately. So the only question in my mind: which parent does she get this from?

Barnhart Household Sees Gross Computing Power Rise by 4 mhz, Memory Increase of over 500 kilobytes

Harnessing the sheer, brute manlihood of a souped-out 8086 is not for the faint-of-heart. Nor, do I now realize, is it for those without a copy of DOS sitting around on a 320kb floppy. I confess that I did not anticipate so soon the day when I cursed my big 1.2mb floppy disks for being so advanced and so incompatible.


Yes, that's right. Another computer has been placed under my charitable auspices. I found it abandoned at a local Salvation Army earlier this week. Ironically enough, I had intended to visit my local branch to present them with a $30 cash donation. Once I was there and my heart was burdened by the neglected IBM PC, I offered both my cash donation and my sponsorship of the machinery's adoption.

In case anyone happens to need a little more processing power these days, I will be graciously connecting my newly-purchased IBM 5150 to the outside world via a bulletin-board system. It will be accessible in minute or half-minute units. I will consider waiving the $4.00/minute connection rate for close family members. "Close" applies only to those still living at home. And "connection" is defined by physically walking downstairs to the basement. And "connection rate" is defined as any of the following: turning the computer on, placing a disk in the drive (double rates for using both floppy drives), appreciating the sleek design of the computer as one is walking past, or walking past it, even if only to get to the bathroom.

C.P.B. takes Wisconsin by Storm

No doubt the tents are still wet and the sleeping bags are mildewing quietly in their garbage bags. But before all that Wisconsin rain dries out, I wanted to post a few photos from last week's camping trip (from the dry days). Hopefully Daniel will post a little video clip of David doing his part to make sure Daniel's hair got washed at least once during the week.

More Ella Photos

Greetings, fellow Barnharts and Barnhart-types (Janell & Andy). Just a quick post to once again inform you all that the photosite has been updated. That's right, there are new adorable photos of everyone's favorite niece/grandchild (the only one, that is!) posted for your browsing. I am hoping to not get stuck in a "post new photos once every 3-4 months" rut, but things have been pretty crazy here in our household for the past few months with traveling, working on house projects, and mom passing away (I've written about 130 thank-you notes...and that takes an awful lot of time!). Anyways, just wanted you all to know. We'll post again.

SO....HOT....

hi everyone. i don't really have anything to say, but i was tired of no one posting anything, so i thought i'd share with all of you how hot it is here. it's hot, for lack of a better descripton. Karl's at band camp this week, so his family invited me to come spend the night at their house seeing as they have extra rooms and air conditioning.

I go back to school in a couple of weeks. just to let you know in case any of you were wondering.

my car has been invaded by a ghost. today as i was driving to work the locks kept relocking over and over again. and then as i was driving home from work, as the locks were locking, the dome light started turning on and off. so, it's either a ghost, or the result of my car being rained on the other day. i prefer to think it's the ghost of some nerd who always got locked in the car as a joke.

it's so humid, i think if i went swimming i would feel drier than i feel sitting here in the kitchen.

ok, now i really have nothing left to say. leave comments saying how hot and humid it was where you live today. whoever was the hottest gets a prize!!!

A few thoughts from Andy...

Hello Barnharts. It's been a while since you've heard from me, so I thought I'd update you on what's going on in my life.

Janell and I just celebrated our 1 year anniversary. I reminded her, that she has spent roughly a quarter of her life with me. Once she finished crying, she realized that it isn't quite as dismal as it seems. She still had a good 3 quarters of her life still. Now, when she turns 36 and has been with me for half her life, we could have bigger problems.

You can view the happy couple here and here

On a brighter note, the best day of the year is approaching quickly. That's right, it's everyone's favorite brother/son in-law's birthday! July 30th, 1980 was an amazing day in history, and it should be celebrated as such. So, I have updated my gift list and reposted it. I know what you're thinking..."It's awfully presumptious of him to think WE are going to give HIM a present". If you're thinking that, you are correct. I am presuming it.

http://www.andy-mccann.com/gifts.html


That is all.
Thanks.

The Yard is Back!

In an earlier post, I detailed the promising-yet-currently-dismal garden. This evening, mid-July, I'm back to announce that rain has taken its toll and the garden, successful beyond all our intentions, has even begun to invent all sorts of new vegetables that we didn't bother to plant. Few of them, unfortunately, are very tastey. And they happen to crowd out the vegetables that we intentionally planted. So, sadly, we had to let them go. But now that we've cleaned them out, the glory of the tomotoes and the cucumbers springs forth. For those too lazy to click back to the old post from a month of two ago, I'm including the picture here for a side-by-side comparison.

Ella Invents a New Sport

Lisa: Her Secret Life

I recently came upon this snarly picture of Lisa, and it took a moment for me to realize what it reminded me of. Then it hit me: Lisa is a celebrity! There is no other explanation for this "Why-are-you-photographing-me-you-annoying-paparrazi-but-I'm-glad-I'm-famous-enough-that-everyone-wants-to-look-at-me " look. Sorry Lisa, I just had to out you.

Floody?

Does anyone else remember a certain RedRiderTheGunShotCowboy running around singing this for days and days until he was threatened within an inch of his life by other, unnamed siblings? Or maybe it was Lisa...either way, you can imagine my delight when I stumbled into the lyrics for this beloved song. And yes, I did proceed to sing the whole thing to myself. I was alone, and I couldn't resist. Laugh now, but wait until you start reading!

The Lord told Noah, there's gonna be a floody, floody

Lord told Noah, there's gonna be a floody, floody,

Get those animals out of the muddy, muddy,

Children of the Lord.

The Lord told Noah, to build Him an arky, arky,

Lord told Noah, to build Him an arky, arky,

Build it out of gopher barky, barky,

Children of the Lord

The animals, the animals, they came in by twosies, twosies,

Animals, the animals, they came in by twosies, twosies,

Elephants and kangaroosies, roosies,

Children of the Lord.

It rained and poured for forty daysies, daysies,

Rained and poured for forty daysies, daysies,

Almost drove those animals crazies, crazies,

Children of the Lord.

The sun came out, and dried up the landy, landy,

Look! There's the sun, it dried up the landy, landy,

Everything was fine and dandy, dandy,

Children of the Lord.

Rise and shine, and give God the glory, glory

Rise and shine, and give God the glory, glory

Rise and shine, and give God the glory, glory

Children of the Lord.

England is apparently Boatland

Although I had plans of posting dozens upon dozens of intriguing pictures that I've taken over the last week or so, I was foiled by my lack of intriguing pictures.

No. I was foiled, rather, by my unwillingness to crop, resize, upload, describe, and oogle over all my photos. I'll outsource that task to Daniel once I get home. But, in my ever-charitable thoughtfulness, I've decided to release a teaser:



This was probably a pirate ship. Although I didn't read the little signs that talked about the ship (mostly because the funny British spellings like "shippe" and "cannonne" threw me off course), I'm just going to go with my gut feeling here. Vicky and I went took a train down to Portsmouth today, on the south coast of England. It was full of boats, naturally, so Vicky eventually dragged me away from shoe shopping in the mall to visit the big boats. This one is so old they decided it best to leave it out of the water.

Sometimes he makes me laugh

Anyone who has known Andy for very long would be able to tell you that he is a little picky when it comes to food. To be fair, I will eat just about anything, so it doesn't take much before I put someone in the picky eaters club. But by any standard, Andy's tastes are highly discriminatory. Though I could list all of the foods on the "Andy-does-not-eat-list," that is not the real reason for my post.

The food I want to focus on today is bread. Not so much a loaf of bread, (because he doesn't really eat that), but sandwich rolls. I am gradually learning what makes a good (and bad) sandwich roll. The bread must be soft and a little doughy, with no type of seeds or other foreign objects on top, and any kind of flavor is out of the question. Its incredible how fresh and tasty the rolls can look in the package, and then when you try them they are tasteless, tough, or stale. Needless to say, I've learned by trial and error. Though Andy has been more than gracious, I always feel a little guilty packing his lunch with a sandwich I know he isn't really going to like. I usually have a flashback of my first-grade self, trying to swallow the lump of white bread and Bologna in my mouth.

All of this is a backdrop for the events that unfolded tonight. After Andy and I ate dinner tonight, I left to go grocery shopping. Among the items on my list for this week were "Good sandwich Rolls." I wrote it like this so I would remember to really look and find the PERFECT roll. I write this every week. Except that tonight, I actually found it! A new grocery store opened down the road just recently, and their selection is superb. So tonight, I found the perfect fresh, doughy, plain sandwich roll; I was ecstatic!

As I put the groceries away, I set aside the things I needed to make lunches for tomorrow. I could just imagine Andy coming home after work and raving over the sandwich perfection. (a little much perhaps, but you'd be surprised how excited he gets about good food) I was just finishing putting the groceries away when Andy came into the kitchen. We started talking about something, and it took a moment before I noticed that he was holding something in his hand. And he was squishing it. And it was the rolls! My perfect, Andy-approved, my-search-is-over sandwich rolls! My face must have conveyed my horror, because Andy immediately froze, then slowly looked down at the bag in his hand.

ME: "What are you doing??"

ANDY: "Uhhhhh...."

ME: "Those are for your lunches!"

ANDY: "I thought they were moldy!"

ME: "So you wanted to smash them?"

ANDY: "I was going to give them to the birds."

By this time, Andy looked so crestfallen that I couldn't help but laugh. You may be wondering, as I was and actually still am, why you would want to pulverize the bread before you would give it to the birds. You may also be wondering, as I was, why it was assumed that the bread was moldy. However, I feel it is best not to pursue the answers to these questions. I do know that next time, I'm getting two packages; one for Andy to eat, and the other for him to play with.

Happy Birthday Bweeza!

Happy Birthday to my beautiful (I'm not being sarcastic, as this picture may lead you to believe) talented, free-spirited, mole-match sister. I was very glad when mom had you, because I really needed someone else on the girl's team. And because you looked like Shirley Temple, but that wasn't until later. I love you Lisa!

Love Janell