Dad gets to take Stephanie on a DATE

It all started with... My loving wife leaving the house to celebrate a friend's birthday while Jacob and Jessica were invited to spend the night with a friend.  This left me (aka Dad) with a unique opportunity - one on one with my youngest, most incredibly cute daughter, Stephanie.  Who, I might add, I adore immensely.

We decided to change into clothes more suitable for a DATE.  I told Stephanie that she was in charge of selecting our attire.  She chose for me a very comfortable and good-looking (I look good in most everything) brown button-down shirt with a green tie.  Yeah, you read that correctly - a tie.  Afterall, this is an important date with Stephanie.  Stephanie chose to wear a very pretty white blouse with a baby blue cover thingie.  She also went with a couraroy (does anybody know how to spell that?) skirt and shoes.  She would be sure to point out that she chose shoes with "heels."  I took some pictures-

and a shot of just me-

I then asked Stephanie to decide what we'd do... what would we do?  What would she chose for our BIG DATE.  We decided to go with the traditional - Dinner and a Movie.  Yeah, I'm so current.  We got in the car (yes I opened her door) and on the way she asks me... I thought this was AWESOME.  Stephanie's sitting in the back seat, and she tells me I can't turn around and look at her.  She starts to ask me... "What color shirt am I wearing?"  ... and ... "What kind of dress am I wearing?"  ... and ... "Am I wearing shoes with heels?"  I think she wanted to know if I actually noticed her, and, of course, I got every question right because Stephanie (my wonderful daughter) is INCREDIBLY NOTICEABLE.

We went to an Italian (pizza house) eatery.  While there, we both made funny faces and took pictures-

And Stephanie got her picture too-

The meal was pretty awesome.  We had Canadian Bacon... We talked about how school was going and what friends she likes the most at school.  Stephanie doesn't have any problems at all opening up.  We then went to the movie where we saw How to Train Your Dragon.  On the drive home we got to talk about our favorite parts of the movie and what made us laugh the most.

Stephanie is a GREAT DATE.

Coming Soon ---

My most INCREDIBLE date with Stephanie... here's a picture to whett your appetite.

Jessica's 13th Birthday

Lets get the disappointment out of the way early.  Barbara and I executed on the actual "Party" portion of Jessica's 13th Birthday yesterday (Saturday, May 1st).  The theme was a blend of Amazing Race and Mission Impossible.  The disappointing part... we made a video, but alas, this BLOG doesn't seem to afford us the opportunity to actually post the VIDEO.  Why don't we just say... the video was a me, solo, in Mission Impossible garb, doing Impossible Martial Arts moves and it was AWESOME.  I wish I could share it with you... really, I really do.

Any ways, the hormones... I mean Jessica's teenage friends (who really are a great group to see and hangout with) showed up around 2PM.  My wife dispersed the adults helping - to all the locations these kids would have to find later in the party (as part of the Amazing Race/Scavenger Hunt part).  She then showed the video and gave the kids their directions... as well as their team tee-shirt and an adult driver.

The kids tore off to their respective destinations with their "Clue Cards" in hand.  I was positioned at the YMCA... the kids struggled at my location as each team was instructed to do a particular, somewhat embarrassing activity at each destination.  The better their performance the more points they would earn.

After tearing around town, with only ONE ADULT getting pulled over by the cops... the kids finished the race and rallied back at Milburn Park.  This is where I battled the demons from he!! (that's a public BBQ pit with two LARGE BAGS of CHARCOAL spitting fire, molten lava, billowing smoke thicker than the head of any teenager... ) to provide barbecued hot dogs and hamburgers.

While at the park, we did some three-legged races, sack races and the "poop a potato game."  It worked out really well.  A little cake, handfuls of M & Ms and some presents and then all that was left to top the day off would be ... CLEAN UP.  And I'm sure all of you know how much I love CLEAN UP.

Oh... I guess there's more bad news.  I don't have any pictures.  I probably should have snapped off a few pictures with my phone, but I guess I was too busy messing with the barbecue.  The party was a blast.  Here's a shot of Jessica at her birthday dinner with just the family.  Doesn't she look mature?

Yeah... she looks great doesn't she.  Man I wish she would stop growing up...

Peace Love Happiness

Jessica style-

WHO raises warning to Level 4

[ATLANTA, GA April 16 UPI] -- The World Health Organization Friday elevated its international pandemic alert one step to Phase 4 in response to the latest outbreak of Textuenza. The increase in the alert status signals an outbreak of human-to-human and human-to-cellphone-to-human transmission of Textuenza most notably seen in Austin, TX, which increases the risk of a global epidemic, but does not mean a pandemic is inevitable, WHO officials said in a news release.

Fukuda said authorities need to focus their efforts on mitigating the disease rather than attempting to stop its spread, stressing that "containment is not a feasible consideration."

Experts indicate that containment begins with educating the public to recognize the disease and the onslaught of symptoms. Textuenza is a new, HIGHLY contagious variation/strain of the Type-A influenza virus and a mix of human/animal versions of Mad Cow disease. "It's a potent combination that we are trying very hard to contain. Unfortunately, all our containment efforts have failed miserably since the disease has mutated and been found to spread via text messages. As you can imagine, this puts adolescent and pre-teen children at VERY HIGH RISK."

Textuenza symptoms include head droop, inability to make eye-contact, twitchy fingers, seemingly unprovoked and uncontrollable giggling, laughing, snorting, eye-rolling, grunting, shoulder shrugging and drooling. Affects seem most pronounced in young teens with a cellphone in their hand. The undeveloped frontal lob of young teens make them especially susceptible to the disease which is now transmittable through simple texting.

One set of parents expressed their concern, "We just gave our daughter, Jessica [Daniels] a cellphone for her thirteenth birthday, and we're very concerned about this disease. We're convinced most of her friends have already been infected and are currently contagious. Just last night, when she opened her birthday gift, we begin to see signs of infection. What do we do now? The cellphone is already out of the box," said Mr. Daniels.

What's next? What unforeseen consequences lurk in the not so distant future for the Daniels family and other parents of young teens? What happens if these kids start to get behind the wheel of a car? God help us all.

Teenager... newest member

Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.
-Ferris Bueller

 

Sadly, the world’s newest teenager probably won’t recognize this gem of a movie quote… Jessica’s life has been moving at Mach speed (at least from my perspective), and now, today, on April 15^th, Jessica becomes… a TEENAGER.  Yes, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls of all ages, Jessica is celebrating her 13^th Birthday today.

Easter 2010

We celebrated Easter in 2010 and the kids hit the eggs pretty hard -

You can see Jacob and Stephanie prepare their TEN eggs for coloration-















Jacob's best fake smile for the parents smile-

Stephanie couldn't be any more excited-