Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Thievery and Kidnapping...

Not really. We did have a bit of excitement in our evening, though. First, though, we never blogged about this, so for those of you who remember the double stroller story, Dan tried to nurse that stroller back to health because he liked the idea of it, but we never could get it to be very user friendly, so we broke down and bought a new one. It went about a trip and a half before one of it's back wheels came off the rim. But alas, a little drilling and a few screws and bolts later, it's just like new, except the ride is a little bumpier. Anyway, that's not the point of this story. And none of that has anything to do with our exciting evening. Here goes...

We were coming home from our friends' house where we had dinner, when upon arrival, Dan noticed that the aforementioned double stroller was missing. (We, like all our neighbors who have strollers, keep it outside our front door.) We were quite sure that no one would steal the thing, but we weren't really sure about any other explanations. Maybe the guy that picks up trash took it down to the trash, not realizing that it wasn't intended to be trash. That didn't seem likely, though, since it sits there day after day, so maybe someone actually stole a baby stroller. Our neighbors' was still there, but Dan decided to go downstairs to talk to the door man to make further inquiries of him.

Upon arrival to the lobby, Dan got a phone call from a frantic Tami, who said, "Is Zeke with you?!" Dan told her he wasn't, and Tami said that he wasn't in the house. Dan thinks that surely he couldn't have gone that far in a matter minutes from the fifth floor of a guarded apartment complex. Nonetheless, Dan told Tami he'd be there right away and got back in the elevator and went upstairs. As he went up, he was thinking up some elaborate plan where one of our neighbors stole our stroller as part of some elaborate plot to kidnap our son. Dan watches too many movies.

When he got out of the elevator, he was met by Tami, who was searching the hallway and the stairwell for our beloved son. Dan asked if the front door was open, as he was fairly certain that he had closed it behind him. Tami said that it was closed, but wondered if he could have sneaked out behind Dan. (Our door takes quite of bit of force to close it all the way, something which Zeke couldn't have done on his own.)

Dan was fairly sure that Zeke was still somewhere in the house, so he went in and began to look around. Tami followed and went back to his bedroom, where at last, she found him in his bed, blanket clutched tightly to his cheek, thumb in his mouth. Apparently when Tami was putting Kaiyah to bed, Zeke sneaked in behind her and put himself to bed, never saying good night or anything; just getting in bed and sucking his thumb.

We were both quite relieved at Zeke presence, and even a little impressed that he would put himself to bed, but there was still the matter of the missing stroller. Dan went back downstairs and continued his previously interrupted chat with the door man. The door man said that he would check with the cleaning guy. When he said that, Dan remembered that he had heard the man cleaning the hall earlier in the day. Dan said to the door man, "Ah, o bebek arabasını yangın merdivenlere koymuş, galiba." That means, "Ah, perhaps he put the stroller in the emergency stairs." So Dan went back upstairs for a second, checked the emergency stairs, and sure enough there was the stroller, safe and sound, with its back wheels still bolted on.

Dan went back downstairs and assured the door man that everything was okay and there was nothing to worry about, then headed back upstairs to enjoy an otherwise peaceful evening.

Saturday, January 24, 2009

Birthday Presents...

I had a wonderful birthday yesterday and got some nice presents from the people I love.
The love of my life (Tami) gave me this really nice heavy winter coat, complete with a removable hood. Unfortunately, we seem to have hit a warm streak with temperatures in the 50's this week, but I imagine it will get colder before spring. I hope so, anyway; I really like this coat. (-:
Zeke and Kaiyah gave me a new teapot. Tea concentrate goes on top and water goes on bottom; that way, you can make your tea as strong or as weak as you like it. It's also shiny, so it takes fun pictures.
My parents gave me Mario Kart for the Nintendo Wii. It's lots of fun and has a cool feature that allows you to play against people all over the world through the internet. I played with my brother and his 5 year old son yesterday, and they both beat me badly. Incidentally, if anyone has the game and would like to send us your license number, we would love to play with you.
Tami's parents gave a game called Blokus. It's highly addictive, and I think it's proven to make you smarter, so if you've never played it, you should give it a shot.

Anyway, I feel extremely blessed to have such a wonderful family. I wish for thirty more years (really 60 or so, but 30 for the sake of the metaphor) as wonderful as my first thirty.

Saturday, January 17, 2009

A Memphis Evening...

Well, we're probably going out of town next weekend, so we decided to celebrate Dan's birthday a little early tonight. His mom brought in some Corky's pork ribs, so we decided to have a Memphis birthday party. We turned on the blues music, cooked the ribs, along with some fried pickles, baked beans, french fries, barbecue coleslaw, and some old fashioned dinner rolls. We topped it off with some caramel hot fudge cake and had a really wonderful evening. And then the Memphis Tigers completed the perfect evening with a win over UAB. Go Tigers Go!

If you want to see the rest of our pictures, click here.