Top 10 Reasons why ATARI is fabulous:

My grandma has a working ATARI from my childhood (rather, my g'pa's mid-life crisis or my 31-year-old brother's childhood). It is in working condition and still provides hours of entertainment among her grandchildren. We have collectively come up with the top 10 reasons why ATARI is fabulous.

10. You only get 3 (or 5, depending on the game) lives -- no saving, no excuses.
9. No blood and guts; you just die.
8. The mesmerizing music...plus, you have to wait until it stops to begin the game.
7. The simple names: Defender, Jungle Hunt, Kangaroo, Pitfall, Donkey Kong, Frogger...
6. 2 buttons -- none of this X, R, L, A, B business...
5. The joystick.
4. The fact that in "Jungle Hunt" when you have your hands full swimming under water and fist fighting (or avoiding) alligators, you need to come up for air.
3. The same backgrounds.
2. It's the grandfather (but not great grandfather) of all modern video games.

and the number one reason why ATARI is fabulous...
1. I can actually play it... well, I'm good at one game: Frogger. Ask any TND person and they'll say this is an accomplishment!

More pictures later...

Caverns and Road Trips...

Well, we finally made it to California...not without a few gliches on the way. Most of the trip, however, has been really nice. Five of my immediate family members (mom, dad, jono, jenny, me) piled into my grandparents' suburban at 6:00 in the evening to head to Arizona for our first adventure. Yes, you read that right -- 6:00 in the EVENING. For any of you who have met my dad (all you Kerrville trippers out there, and family), you may remember that he loves to spice things up in his own special way. He's an accountant through and through, so he made a spreadsheet telling us when our shifts were to drive. Okay, so there was no spreadsheet on paper, but he did tell us his spreadsheet-like system. Two people were to be awake at all times. They would occupy the front two seats. One would be the driver (thanks, captain obvious) who would begin his/her two-hour shift...no more, no less... Apparently there is "research" out that says that if drivers only drive for two hours at a time that they will be refreshed and not get sleepy. However, after my 10-12 shift, followed by Jono's 12-2am shift (which I had to stay awake for), I'm not so sure the "research" is accurate. We would begin in the evening to avoid the monotony of west Texas and the southwest desert region.

We arrived in Arizona earlier than expected. Thus, we had to wait for a breakfast place to open up before our first adventure. Come 6am, a mom-and-pop style restaurant unlocked their doors and we seated ourselves and waited for our warm meal. Jono, after driving and not really sleeping, was snoozing in the car and missed his nourishment altogether.

Arizona, I've found, is quite an exciting place, geologically. We toured a relatively new cavern area called Kartchner Caverns. The caverns opened only in 1999 because they had been kept secret for so long to preserve its natural environment. Our morning tour was of the "Big Room" (pretty creative naming there), which was interesting, but not quite breathtaking. After lunch and a quick nap in the outdoor amphitheater (just the kids...we were exhausted and it was the most perfect day - 72 degrees), we took an afternoon tour of the Rotunda/Throne room. This area was quite a sight and I can't believe more people haven't heard of these caverns. It ended with a light and music show of the Throne room with the incredible "Kubla Khan" column (an enormous stalactite and stalagmite joined together) dominating the view and thousands of "soda straws" and "drapery" formations adorning the ceiling.

After driving and resting in Phoenix for the night, we got up super-early (4:45 California time, 5:45 Phoenix time) and drove to Bakersfield. Our lovely suburban ("The Burb" for short) decided to sputter and die several times as we drove through the mountains and on to the California Grapevine. Instead of taking it to a mechanic, Dad decided that since we were about 60 miles from our destination, we would chance it and just have to stop and restart the car every 6 miles... Lots of prayer later, we finally made it to grandma's!

Hodgepodge of Events...

Narnia movie, Mavs game, Spelling bee, end of year craziness, exams... So much has happened in the past two weeks that I have had hardly a minute to myself. Last weekend, I barely took a break from school. Saturday morning, 150 precious 6th graders met me and the other 6th grade Language Arts teachers (plus one of our guests each -- thanks, Anne!) at the movie theater to enjoy "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe". Some of the kids apparently forgot how to read their movie tickets, because they went into the wrong theater. THAT movie started at 10:00 instead of 10:30. We couldn't rope off a section either, so we were all scattered about, but that way, I could just pretend that the poorly-behaved students weren't with us... We had a couple issues to deal with after the movie was over, but overall, we were able to enjoy the visual representation of our novel.

That afternoon, I helped chaperone the FCA (Fellowship of Christian Athletes) trip to the Mavs game. All of the FCA groups in the area met before the game for a Chick-Fil-A dinner and a talk from one of my favorite sports persons of all time: Avery Johnson!!! He used to play for my Spurs and he's a Christian. What a great influence he has on young people. One of our kids won a raffle drawing for a basketball signed by all the Mavs players. I enjoyed having a good experience with some of my students. We were divided into groups and each chaperone had about 8 students to look after. All of mine were the short, stocky, 6th grade boys who haven't yet grown tall enough to disperse the wide. They are so much fun. On the bus ride back to the school, we talked about the parallelisms between the Narnia book/movie and Christ. I enjoyed watching them dissect the layers and talk about Jesus with each other.

So my real weekend began and ended on Sunday... Church, and rest and relaxation. ahh...

By Monday, the week was in full swing again. Two other teachers and I were the leaders of this year's Spelling Bee, so of course we had to dress up as bees... After all of the kids' preparations, etc., the whole thing was over in less than an hour.

This year is almost over. Right now, I should be grading the writing portions of my kids' exams, but I digress and procrastinate yet again. One thing that preoccupies me in school is a wonderful ginger bread house that one of my students made for me. I'm slowly eating away the gum drop sidewalk and I'm almost to the Skittles bushes! It's so tempting -- not only for me, but especially for my students.

Jenny came safely on Saturday. Her winter break has begun and mine will if I can get through tomorrow! We celebrated Anne's birthday (with three of the four of us feeling a bit "under the weather"). I had her come up to school with me and we are pulling many a practical joke on my colleagues and students! teehee... We fly to San Antonio tomorrow evening and my family will drive (yes, drive) to California later this week. More later on that!

Swiss Fondue

I have an Asterix and Obelix comic book from Switzerland that makes fun of stringy, cheesy fondue. This picture definitely reminds me of that comic. I made fondue last night for the TND group. I think I added the milk when it was still a bit too cold, because the cheese became a bit grainy... nothing worse than grainy fondue. But everyone said it tasted okay, so I was happy. I love Gruyere cheese. It has a very different taste to it (not cheddar) and it reminds me so much of my ham and cheese sandwiches that I would take on the tram on my way to whatever activities I had after work last year.

As tradition goes, the only thing you're supposed to drink while eating fondue is white wine. This is to further homogeonize (sp?) the cheese in your stomach so it is easily digestable. Coca Cola has enough acid to do the same and that was the drink of preference last night. Melissa was a bit of a rebel and wanted to try drinking ice cold water with her cheese. I think unless you're eating a whole pot by yourself, you should be fine. Let's hope she has a regular day today... :) If you'll notice in the top right picture, my Christmas tree is decorated! Yes, the journey with the Echo was successful and Anne and I were able to put white lights and gold ornaments on our tree. We finally found a gold star to top our tree (we've been in the market for one for quite some time now...). Tim and Zach decided to sit in the romantic nook for the evening (teehee), with lights around the windows and everything. I forgot to get extra chairs, some of the guys had to sit on the floor. However, my three friends from church and I crowded on the couch.

"A Charlie Brown Christmas" was on TV last night during TND. I had it running to create atmosphere. All in all, I really enjoy having people over. I wish we all lived closer together, but c'est la vie.

I must quickly say that Kevin built a killer fire (not literally) to christen my fireplace. It couldn't have been at a better time because the weather turned pretty cold last night. Today there's a chance of snow (most likely sleet) and we may not have school tomorrow. We'll see. I need us to have school tomorrow because if we don't, we may not finish our Narnia book by the end of the semester. Mostly, I hope for safe travels of my kids, so I guess their safety comes before us finishing our book...and it would be nice to have a day at home!

The Beefy Echo...

Anne (my roommate) and I embarked on a wonderful journey to purchase our Christmas (not "Holiday") tree. This is the first time in many years that I have been able to have a real tree. My dad is allergic and we have, in years past, been able to purchase wonderful pre-lit-put-it-together-one-branch-at-a-time trees. The tree my family puts together is fabulously decorated with homemade ornaments from each of the four kids' childhoods. I remember one ornament in particular that I made either in kindergarten or preschool. Apparently, they let us loose with some clay and we were to make clay wreaths. I guess the balls of clay I used were so dense, that it made the ornament weigh about 5 pounds. Our oh-so-cute school pictures adorn the center of the wreath. If we had a real tree, we'd have to hang it practically on the trunk of the tree so its weight doesn't cause a smaller limb to break! With our fake trees, we didn't really have that problem because each limb is made of a sturdy metal painted brown.

Back to the beefy Echo... So, this year I'm ecstatic to get a real tree with Anne. We tried to get a friend from school (who lives across the street from our apartments) to help us because he drives a larger vehicle than a Toyota Echo, but that didn't work out. Anne and I first went to Calloway's nursery because that is where she gets her Scotch Pines every year. However, they did not purchase any Scotch Pines this year (pretty arrogant choice, if you ask me). So, we went down to a place just across the street from our apartments -- the Home Depot Landscape Supply store!!! Let me just say that the selection there is fantastic! We walked right in and found the perfect Douglas Fir (from the well-priced lot). It's a 7-footer, very full, and fairly straight. As soon as we were set on our tree, Anne went to get a nice employee to help us. He taught us how to carry the tree up 3 flights of stairs (one person at the top, another at the base, and it's not so heavy!). After a small lecture about how we need houseplants ("What kind of air are you breathing?!"), he carried our tree (upright, by himself) to the "loggers."

The "loggers" trimmed the tree (but not in the decorating sense) and made it super-pretty for us to take home. They strapped it to the top of the Echo...only after making fun of me for bringing towels to put down between the tree and my car (I've got a small car! You can see the roof if you're standing next to it!). They asked how far we were taking the beauty and Anne said, "Oklahoma." To which they replied, "I wouldn't doubt it." teehee. So there we are, in the 75 degree weather, Echo performing beautifully as we cart our tree across the street and up the stairs.

Pics of the decorations to come. The Echo did well and now he needs a little scrub.