Why I Hate My Driveway

Cutting a path thru deep snow to get Mama Chaos out for work the next morning.  After doing little to nothing during the Covid months, this caused me pain in muscles that I never knew I had!

 

The Best Seat In The House

Caleb's in there too!

This is what watching football on Sunday's looks like.

 

Schmitz Christmas 2020

The start of the loot...  

Calebber emptying his stocking.

Rob emptying his.

The best thing in either boys stocking?  Coupons to be redeemed at our neighbors house for breakfast!

Mom opening the ONE gift that any one of the three boys got her...   we suck.

I have a love for cooking (and eating...) and my bride does a wonderful job of getting me tools to advance.

The dogs got some new toys too.  Juno is currently in control of the favorite toy and Steve is keen on stealing it!  He's waiting for the proper timing.

The toy in question is this thing. At this point, Juno is just about exhausted from keeping it away from Steve and wrestling with it.

Piles of coffee, and frankly, of the two that we've tried, some dang good coffee too!  The Black Rifle Coffee Company supports Vets, so there's added benefit as well.

Calebber with his new SEP sweatshirt.

Robby got several gift cards for Christmas as he's going to turn 16 on March 1st and goes places with his buddies, which of course, requires money.  I was tasked with wrapping the gift cards so I used a good half roll of duct tape, clear packing tape, some electrical tape and so on.  It took him nearly 40 minutes to untangle it all, as we'll see in the next several pics...

After much unwinding of layers of tape, he came across this envelope when he thought he was done.  He wasn't.

Inside of that hard fought-for envelope, was this wonder!  Another wad of tape encrusted gift!

The mound of tape is growing and it's getting harder for the lad to find the starting point of the next layer...  that's a shame.

Just about there...

maybe...

He was pretty happy when he finally got to the gold, but he wasn't all that happy with me!

 

Schmitz 2020 Thanksgiving/Christmas

Jackie, Rob and Mama decorating the Christmas tree.  Mom was just stepping in as Jackie and Rob did the bulk of the labor.

Jackie and Rob wanted to open their presents before any other of the peeps arrived.  Rob took about 1/2 hour to open this first gift. Jackie is a fantastic person from a fantastic family!  She is a person of family amongst us!.

Rob finally opened his present after nearly 23 minutes... I kid, but it was a long time!  His reward?  
A framed pic of himself and Jackie.  Worth the wait!

Next up, shorts that he had identified on a previous shopping trip.  Pretty impressive!

What has become his favorite sweatshirt...

Rob got Jackie a Cleveland Browns retro t-shirt so she could be subjected to the same indignation that he has endured as as Browns fan.  Caleb Mouthing off about the Browns T-shirt!

Aunt Dianne running the operations!

Unfortunately, we didn't tale pics of everybody with their GGB house and so we just don't have those pics.  But we do have Rob and Jackie with their's.

 

Ying & Yang

The Ying to Stevie's Yang.

 

Some Interesting New Beer!

 

Chef Caleb

Found this beauty while looking for another specific picture of Calebber! At Ohana's for Caleb's birthday, in my old sweater.  The chef was a nut job, which is very cool for this job and loved having Caleb behind the table with him!

 

9th Annual Got'cha Day!

This boy came into our lives 9 years ago on Dec. 05, 2011!!  He and I were in the grocery store criss-crossing aisles as we were super unorganized.  We walked past a huge display of different kinds of donuts and he said, "OOOOOOH, Donuts!!".   I replied, "Charley (don't ask...), you'll get a big fat belly like your dad eating those things!".   He then replied, "Well it is my Got'cha day.".  I then replied, "By God, you're right!".  He then said, "Charles you forgot about your own son!!!!".   LOL!!  He ended up with a tub of donuts.

 

Winter Wonderland

Absolutely beautiful, but SOOOOOO heavy!!!!  Crazy wet snow!

 

Reunited and it Feels So Good!

Stevie is back with his girlfriend, the space heater...

 

Oh boy,  I fear he know's that I'm talking about him!

The Little Chinaman Who Could

 

Caleb helping me cut the branches back on the two trees that hang over the field and cause the farmer grief at planting and harvest.

Vaca 2020 - Day 10 - Orlando Area (post 2)

Day 2 of the Schmitz's dividing and uh... conquering? Nothing from the Mama/Robby side of the world in this post as they went back to the same place, Harry Potter World,  as they had attended in the last post. Caleb and I, however, branched out did some other things.

More spots in Florida, more gators...   It seems about 1 out of every 5 places has a gator pond and since we were mini-golfing next to a real, good sized pond,  don't think that I ever let my guard down watching for a sneaky critter or three!

I probably won't add a ton of captions to these as there's not really much to say, other than, it was fun and it was HOT!!!

Holy smokes!  This was deep into our second game (there were two full courses interwoven) and the sweat spots are starting to show.  We had the entire first game to ourselves and another family showed up while we were having a water guzzling break trying to decide whether to play the other course, which we obviously did.

Dad wins!!

Caleb performed a bit of surgery on our score card where I got the only hole-in-1 for the day.  Dad wins again!!! 

 

Ripleys in Orlando.  Apparently the building, upon construction, started to sink on one corner so they stopped the sinkage, but left it alone.  Then continued building the building normally from that point.

Lesley wouldn't go into this, I tried a few times but had to back out for fear of passing out.  Caleb?  He spent a bunch of time going back & forth, dancing and whatever else in there.  Those lights are spinning around the tube at different speeds making you think the plank you're walking is tipping.  Nope.

The fifth commandment written on a postage stamp.

Caleb with a big'ol LiteBrite!

Caleb as a fat man!  LOL!!

This is closer to reality!!!

I didn't take a bigger picture of what this alphabet soup created, but I think it was Bob Marley.  Very cool.

Torture devices.

The guy who did these next things was a fella who created art in the eye's of needles, betwixt razor blades or other crazy small places.

The razor blade...

The close-up of the razor blade art.

This room made me tip over...  and gave me a bit of a headache.   Pool balls roll left on that table...  it's not right.

After leaving Ripley's, we saw a crab-mobile!  You can also see the sign of the IHOP where Caleb and I had breakfast the previous morning.

I believe that's it for Orlando!  Caleb wanted to get ice cream after playing mini-golf, but the small place right in the parking lot was closed.  We drove down the road a bit, but not too far.  We found a little place owned by some older ethnic folks.  I asked them how their business was holding up while he was mixing our malt.  He got real serious, spoke some serious words with a painful concern obvious on his face.  We ended up saying a quick prayer together and we left there with him in a much happier place!  If I lived there, I would go get a malt or two every day.

Orlando was a bit of a worry heading into it, but it treated us well and we treated it as well as we could.

OOOH!  Wait!!  A few photos of our hotel.

The pool that our family's best swimmer, Rob, would never be in for more than about 5 minutes due to storms and him dragging his feet.

Cool retro looking cafeteria.

I'm not sure what or who the terrorist was who moved the friggin' flush handle to the right side of the toilet, but I nearly plummeted to my death the first time I used the thing and there was nothing there for me to lean on...  terrorism.