Quick Post

Just a quick post of a trailer I think looks really good. You can't go wrong with Vince Vaughn and Christmas

My wife the thief

Ok so fist of all I need to say that my original title for this post was "My wife the snitch," but I was worried that people might confuse my intended definition of someone who thieves things with the more common definition of someone who reveals information which they should have kept secret. I didn't want people to start worrying that Tracey was in prison and was going to get shanked in the yard and various other prison cliches.

Now I fully believe that Tracey worked hard to keep this behavior in check during the dating process. I am guessing that this was due to my adamant refusal that we would be one of those couples that would share food (by the way I was kidding myself if I thought I could get away with not doing this. Not only do we share but I am now always tapped for food clean up duty, eating anything Tracey does not finish. I am sure that this will just get worse when we have kids). Once we were married all bets were off and now if I have something delicious and turn my back I can guarantee that she will snitch a taste. I was going to post a picture of her in the act but she is so sneaky that I am not able to catch her with the camera. Maybe I need to set out one of those scouting cameras to catch her.

Maybe I am to blame. I recall in the past that my sister Margaret would always steal a bite or two any time I made a sandwich. I may need to do some further investigation and/or look into some sort of food protection devices.

Here are a couple videos. First of all this awesome video of Natalie Portman that I hope I have not posted before.

Second is this video specifically for my wife since she loves this skit.

Finally this video is for Sammy who will get this song stuck in his head for the rest of the weekend

Anti Popped Collar Technology

All is well in the world for Ben. He discovered a shirt that prevents douche bags from popping their collars. He found it at Old Navy. There is a little button on the back side of the collar that keeps the collar attached to the shirt itself. We can all rest easier knowing that evil douche bags will be thwarted. Now we just have to protect certain nephews from their parents. Parents who pop their son's collars and cause our darling nephew to become a 2 yr old Guido. You know who you are!!! Leave the kid alone!!!

This image has been blurred to protect the innocent.

Ben's Birthday

Ben is FINALLY 28 so now I can stop hearing about how 28 is so old and how I already have one foot in the grave.

We had a party at our house consisting of Ben's siblings and their rugrats as well as my mom and two brothers. We ate in the backyard and it was so stinking hot that I was afraid Ben's awesome birthday cake would melt. For those of you who don't know, my husband LOVES Costco cake and there is half a sheet cake in our fridge right now waiting to be consumed by Ben and only Ben. It was hard enough to get him to share it at the party!

Despite the heat we had a great time. Our niece Miriam just learned to walk and it was fun watching her toddle around. (She almost stepped in Cameron's cake . . . that's a new thing to have to watch out for. We watched various kids pick cake up off the ground and shove it in their mouths. Doug (Ben's sister's husband) provided a valuable service and got some of the younger more persuadable nephews to play a neat game of "Let's throw the apples in the hole in the garden so Uncle Ben doesn't have to pick them up to mow the lawn!" Perhaps the best gift ever given to Ben. We also learned that when there aren't enough toys for kids to play with, they will find things to become toys. In the case of Grant, Thomas, Paige and Sterling, these toys were pipes from the garden. How exciting!

Ben got AWESOME birthday presents including steak knives, a game for the Wii and a hitch for the Tuscon. It doesn't get much better than that does it? Sterling and Grant gave him some silly string that I may need to hide out of self-preservation.

All in all, I think it was a pretty good birthday for him. He probably likes the left over pizza from the Pie and the leftover birthday cake the best.

Camping with the family

Every once in awhile my husband reminds me how freaking funny he is.

This weekend we went camping with my family. Camping means hanging out at the campground, going on ATV rides and eating a lot of junk food. Additionally on this trip, Ben got to hear me perform fantabulous hits of the 70's since they were the only CD's in my dad's Excursion. We had to drive it up instead of our car as extra towing power because my dad was afraid his new Semi wouldn't fit into the campground. Shocking thought isn't it. (Don't worry, I'm sure we will post on my dad's semi and all his crazy toys.)

Ben is relatively new to Dannelly style camping. This means he is constantly being trained by Paul (my dad) on various camping skills. My siblings and I have learned that this is how life with Paul goes. You are always being directed to do something. It might be the classic "Hold your plate with both hands!" or "You need to shine that flashlight on (blank)." No matter what the direction is, you sometimes wonder whether or not he forgot you are his offspring and not his employee. These directions/commands have good intentions because he wants us to learn things. The funny thing is that he often thinks that we need to learn something that it pretty much common sense.

On this trip Ben "learned" that he had to let the diesel light turn off before turning on the Excursion. He also "learned" that when cleaning dutch ovens, you don't want to scrub the black off and if you are going to lift a hot dutch oven lid with the pole, use both hands! He also learned how to cook (keep in mind Ben does almost all of the cooking at home) potatoes and that you can't mess with them or they fall apart. My dad is so stinking cute sometimes. All of these lessons are particularly funny because Ben is a chemical engineering PhD. student and pretty darn smart to boot.

One of the funnier moments of the trip has been documented by these photos. I have a little brother who likes to steal my helmet for his hoochies and then forget to return it to the trailer. As we prepared to ride on Saturday I found that the little punk had done it again! GRRRRR!!! This meant that we were short a regular helmet.

Leave it to my husband to solve the problem. When my parents first purchased our ATVs they also purchased the "Dumb and Dumber" helmets. As you can see, Ben found them. He completed the ensemble with some super awesome goggles and gloves all while leaving his ever present baseball cap on. My husband is H-O-T-T-T! Not to be outdone, Bessie (my little sister Bethany) donned the white helmet and the two made fashion history. He now plans to add stickers to increase the helmet's awesomeness. Possibly a glittery Virgin Mary or simply letters across the back stating the obvious . . . "Ben Rules!" I think my mom was a little embarrassed because she kept offering him her helmet.