OH...IO OH...IO OH...IO

GO BUCKS!
Wow what a game. It is nice to be able to watch a game with confidence. It is SO much more enjoyable.
We reminisced about the, well you know, I don't want to say it but it begins with an L. So any way, at the very sad game SIX count 'em 6 years ago. Kirk, my BIL Ron, and Clint jumped into a neighboring farm pond to drown their sorrows and to pay off a debt to a Michigan fan. Their Jump was off of a 20 ft. (Kirk's measurements so I am sure it wasn't more than 10ft) high dive in 20 degree (again, Kirks' guess at the temp but we were outside all day and I don't remember having frost bite so probably more like 40-50 degrees) weather. Any way you remember it, it was funny. It was also the first experience our friend Poe had in Van Wert and attending an OSU vs UM game (he's a Hoosier and I am not sure but I think he is proud of it if you can imagine that).
Glad to report there was no pond jumping today and all bets were on which jersey # was going to score the most TD's. THANK YOU, THANK YOU, Brain Robiski for finally scoring!!!! so Owen could stop sulking. (Notice previous post, Owen and Brian share a #)
It was a GREAT day for the State of Ohio.

Wonder where Jim Tressel Drive is going to be located???

Go Redskins!

Thought I would share about our local HS going to state for the 2nd year in a row! Go Redskins. They beat Columbus DeSales which rosters the legendary OSU RB Archie Griffin's son and was undefeated. Another local HS, Elder, also made it to state this weekend beating yet another area school, Colerain, to get there. You would think with all of the FB talent in the area the Bengal's could at least be, not so embarrassing to watch.
Hmmm... maybe the Bengal's need to go to training camp with the local high schools (ohhh, that probably wouldn't work because of the no drinking or drugs on school property thing ) or maybe Marvin Lewis needs to 'borrow' a couple of plays, just a thought.

**Click on the blog title to watch a video of the highlights from the game Friday night. Watch closely at around the 1:20 second mark. Now, that is one sweet interception.

My attempt at being a real photographer...

Photobucket ROCKS and makes you seem like one and you can do the coolest stuff on there. Here are some of my master pieces.
You have to click on the picture to get the whole image, I don't know why it is like that and it is too late to figure out.

And the award goes to....

... #80 Owen Minnich!
Well actually everyone got a trophy. Tonight was the awards banquet for the Anderson Wildcats. It was nothing real exciting just a pretty cool trophy with your name and # on it. It turns out they won the last 5 and 1 tie out of the last 7 games. I didn't even keep track because they started off losing so much I didn't bother. This is the first time Owen had participated in something that had a winning and a losing team. (A and AA baseball don't keep score and everyone is a winner in dance :) )
Next weekend is the year end team party and then it's officially over.

Enough said...

Ran across this reading a random blog and thought it worthy to share -

"I worked in the ER last night and am reminded of how fragile life is. Reminded that we are not promised a tomorrow. Not promised LATER. So in an effort to take something from the young life lost last night I urge you to tell your family you love them, to make the most of each moment. To live life to its fullest. To pray without ceasing, to love unconditionally. To give like you have the world in your hands. Love, love love and take a moment to enjoy this life. God has blessed us so completely and totally, and in the craziness of the world we live in, we forget to look at the beauty around us, to love those around us, and to be thankful for the situations we are in. I am thanking God for my friends and family. For his unbelievable generosity and forgiveness, and for all the tomorrows I do have"

enough said.

Over all ready???

The Wildcat season is finally over. They ended the year on a very good note with a big win over the Forest Hills Broncos, the other youth FB league in Anderson. Owen was really hoping that he got to be the QB for this last game because he got to practice it during the week but, he didn't. He was ok with that because he got to play a lot 'D' as a LB. He also had a big cheering section with all the Painter's and the Carpenter's (last names not occupations)
We have the awards banquet Sunday and then the end of year party the next Sunday and then I guess we are officially finished for the year.
Something happened while playing FB this year and now for some reason he doesn't want to dance anymore ??? Could it be a testosterone increase??? Who knows. I keep telling him he might as well because he is already at dance and it will make him more A G I L E on the field but he isn't buying into it. We'll see.
Here are some pictures of his last game I took with my new lens that I should have bought at the beginning of the year, oh well, better late than never.

Offensive Line #80
Click on this picture and check out O's butt!!! I thought it was his and was like WOW
baby got back and then I figured out it was the QB's!! LOL

In the center trying to break free of the hold.
"Your not allowed to hold you know."

Good picture -
too bad it isn't Owen.

TACKLE!
(or hugging?)

Chasing down the ball.

Mother / Son Dance

Here we are on our 2nd annual date to the 'Mother/Son' dance held at school. Last year was a little rough but we had a great time this year. The theme was football but that didn't mean to me that we should wear football stuff but it did to pretty much everyone else so we were a bit over dressed. We only did the chicken dance but that is one more than we did last year :)

Trick or Treat!

It was a great year for 'Trick or Treating' . The weather was nice and balmy for the end of October. We went with the Robbins' and the Maddy's again this year. Meredith collected 116 pieces of candy that she likes and Owen had 131 - he likes everything!

Obiwon Kanobe and "lunch lady' serving up her hotdog!

Pretty freaky decorations from the neighbors, the one house even had an old TV in the yard with static going....."TV people"

One stash of candy.

The Many Faces of Bennett

Happy - Sad - Suprised - Angry - Scared.....Bennett.

Shaw Farm

We went to get our pumpkins at Shaw Farm this year. It was fun but HOT. Nana and Aunt Peggy took Owen here when he was in preschool but it was cold and rainy and Peggy stayed in the car. It was a first visit for Mere, Kirk and myself. We did the corn maze which took us an hour - they had punches 'planted' throughout the maze and if you found all 6 you got a free pumpkin so of course Owen and Kirk were all about finding all 6. It must have been 90 that day and we had already been sitting in the heat for Owen's football game so walking in flip flops through a bunch of corn stalks for a $2 pumpkin was a bit trying on me and Mere's nerves but we got all the punches and our free pumpkins. Not sure what our big pumpkins even looked like because I think my vision was blurring from dehydration. We had a good time although it could have been a bit cooler.

Not enjoying the corn maze any more, we were hot, tired and THIRSTY!

You need to click on this to get a close up of the facials.

Randomness

A random shot Meredith took after one very hot FB game in mid-October.
I like it because the sky is...so clear and blue.

Hurrican Ike sweeps through Ohio ! WHAT????

A HURRICANE in Ohio?!?!

Yes, if any of you are following the news, Hurricane Ike reeked havoc across 1600 miles of the US stretching from the devastated Texas area clear through to New York.
We, unfortunately, were in "his" path. Did we know it at the time??? NO!
Well at least I didn't. I knew it was mighty windy but when we lost power at around 4 pm Sunday and didn't get it back until Wednesday afternoon I understood the full force of "his" power. I am not going to complain because I have seen the footage of Texas, and all the rain in Indiana, and am THANKFUL that we only had the wind. I was really so oblivious to the extent of the wind that I took Meredith to Target to get a birthday present and then dropped her off at a party, all right in the middle of this. Yes my van blew a little on the road, yes there were some traffic lights out on the way to the party, yes I saw some trees down, NO it didn't register. I took her to the party dropped her off and came home and when I was pulling in the drive way I noticed my freshly planted mums laying across the driveway, still no light bulb. I did however start looking around the neighborhood at the trees blowing and decided to take some pictures but then I went in without another thought until our power went out which made me mad because I had clothes in the washer and dryer! Kirk then found out that none of the banks he works for had power in Cincy and he was going to have to drive all the deposits etc. 1 1/2 hour to one that did have power so that they could be posted. So while he drove off into the wind, Owen and I went to get Mere from her party. Turns out they lost power 15 min. after I dropped her off and a tree fell in their back yard and a window blew out on their porch. They even sent the kids to the basement because they didn't know if it was a tornado. On the way to pick her up Owen and I noticed a LOT of trees down and so after we got her we decided to drive around and look. It was amazing how much damage there was. There was even damage at our backyard neighbors, which I never even knew happened. When we got home we decided to take a walk around the neighborhood and see how bad it was, our neighborhood was not as bad as some and several of our neighbors still had power - energy hogs! After our walk we decided we needed to get something to eat and not wanting to open the fridge we decided to just go get something - mistake! It seems everyone else was thinking the same thing and over 1/2 the restaurants didn't have power either. It took us an HOUR after ordering to get our food at McDonald's!!!!! When we got home we headed to our neighbors to charge our phones, since she still had power, and while we there we got the call about school being canceled. We spent a lot of time and ate at Elizabeth's the next day.
We are fortunate to have a gas water heater so we could shower at home :) :) Doesn't seem like much but, when you have nothing else at least being able to shower at home is a BIG deal. We did pretty much nothing Monday except leaf pickup. At 6 that night with still no power we decided we needed to take care of the freezers - mistake... we should have done it sooner, we lost a lot of stuff that quickly. We gave a lot to our old neighbor who had power and we cooked up on the grill 3 different meats and thank heaven for Elizabeth we were able to cook up 2 kinds of chicken, a couple appetizers, a box of garlic bread, and a dessert bread. We ate like kings. On Tues. - still no school and we opened our warm candle lit shower up to my cousin and his family since they had no hot water.
Some places were starting to get power on Tues. and Mere had her acro class and Owen had football. Wed. the kids had school and they were not happy about that and that afternoon we got POWER!!!!! This also made the kids mad. They liked showering together by candle lite, playing outside, and being disconnected from the world. Tonight is the first time they have watched TV since Sun. You really don't realize how much you are plugged in until you become unplugged. I missed my ice! and email (some) oh, and definitely my blow dryer and straightener - the 80's called while the power was out and asked me for their hair back!!!! It was quit a little Swiss family Robinson experience. I can feel for the people who still don't have their power. It is OK for a day maybe two but then it started to be draining and it gets old quick getting your food from coolers, relying on your neighbor for things (thank goodness for GREAT neighbors) and not knowing if you were going to be able to get gas. (lots of stations ran out of gas because there were so many stations w/o power. We actually had to use the mower gas to get me by one day. FYI - don't let your tank get that low when a hurricane is approaching) So anyway we survived and are back into our plugged life. And here are some pictures of our little ordeal
BTW almost 700,000 Duke Energy customers were without power which means well over a million people and the greater Cincy area is a bit over a million, which virtually means practically everyone in Cincy was w/o power.

Go Bucks!

OK we were just searching around the blogspot and found another Minnich, which is really pretty cool because there aren't that many out there spelled like this. Actually in a people search Kirk is the only Kirk Minnich in the US. So any way we found this Minnich and it turns out that he is a BIG OSU fan just like us so we have added him to our list to follow. You should check out his blog, well if you like OSU that is.

The 'Runaway' Rat!

Violet, Violet, Violet...
What can I say, I will start back at the beginning (and make it brief) Santa went off his rocker last year and brought Owen and Mere rats for Christmas - which, do the research, make very good pets- the best of all the rodents with the shortest life span. So any way, we have these 2 rats, Violet and Remmy. They live in a cage on top of hutch in the basement BUT we don't shut the cage doors (unless we have guests because they seem to freak most people out especially my aunt and Kirk's dad) so we don't shut them up and that way they can run around on the top of the hutch climb their cage whatever and it has seemed to work just fine until now! You see, Violet has taken to 'jumping' off of the hutch and running around the house. We had found her missing a couple of times before this past week and we just joked and said Remmy had pushed her off in search of food and didn't think much of it. (Violet is MUCH more adventurous then Remmy who prefers to stash and gather all the food and will eat anything, Violet is picky!) But as of lately, Violet has obviously mastered the whole 'jumping' thing because she is freely wondering the house. Labor day weekend we went to the movies and when we got back and walked in the kitchen there she was at the dog's bowl looking up at us - didn't think much of it, just thought it was one of her "outings". Then Monday night I was reading to Owen in bed and kind of heard a scratching but didn't think much of it even though the dogs were outside. Well, I continued to read when all of the sudden there was Violet coming right towards us from the foot of Owen's bed, I screamed at first because she scared me. She is a rat! and then Owen and I laughed and just let her stay till we were finished. Let me back up on how she got on the bed. Owen and Mere like to take the rats into his room and close his door and play with them (see Meredith's room post on why they can't play in there). At the foot of his bed is a mesh hamper that we keep all his webkinz and other stuff animals in and they like to hide the rats in there and make them climb out. Well Violet being the rat that she is learned to climb out and then grab his comforter and get herself on the bed, which is what she did Monday night. So back to her latest and greatest. Last night at I don't even know what time, Cody (our dog who sleeps at the foot of our bed) jumps up and starts shuffling around stirring me awake some what and thank goodness for that because the same scratchy sound from Monday was coming from my bed!!!! I looked on top of my comforter and saw it moving and lifted it up and THERE SHE WAS!!!! crawling up to me. Now how she got on my bed IDK other then well she is a rat! But it totally freaked me out. So I picked her up and took back downstairs and Kirk was sleeping on the couch down there and I woke him up and told him what had just happened and then he goes your kidding because I was laying her asleep and she came right up and started sniffing my face, talk about freaking out. He was like she is lucky I didn't kill her. He had gotten up and put her back in the cage (unlocked of course) and she obviously needed something else and went on another mission and found me. Oh, and also last night before we even went to bed, Kirk was watching TV and I was on the computer when I heard him start going 'come here Violet' and she was off and running then also. Then this morning when we were talking about it Owen swears that she was in his bed last night too and he took her back downstairs (but that is up in the air as to if there is any truth to it) So, she really has mastered the 'jump'.

Side note - Cody doesn't bother the rats at all which is a good thing for Violet but she needs to be careful of Mazey because she is not so sure of the rats and we are not sure what she would do if she found Violet out on a mission.

BTW: they are in the cage with doors locked now.

Overheard today...

Just wanted to post a few things overheard from the kids as they were playing with Sally today...

• OMG, your going to the grammy's! ( I took this first comment to mean that they were playing someone was a singer)
• You need to take your pill now. (Are they actually paying attention to the news about celebrities?)
• What AM I going to wear? Go get me something. (Sally is the assistant???? How do they know this stuff?)
  
• Where's my body guard?!
• Am I still the butler? No, you're the chauffeur now. (poor Owen, oh well, at least they are playing with him)
• No, I want to be Alicia Keys. (That name had to come from Sally, I am not sure my kids even know who that is. Again, poor Owen, he wanted to be Alicia Keys)
• Hey Owen, you can be Nicolas Cage from Ghost Rider. OK OK OK. (uhmmmm, should I tell them that they are getting their award shows mixed up???)

BLINK ;)

Poor Mazey just isn't very photographic. We like to say she has MaMa eyes (blinks in every picture). It's funny to think that a dog is like this but Mazey Lou is .



Finally - open eyes!

UGHHHHHHH!!!!!

A small portion of her 'stuff'



To think, I thought those 2 little bags would be enough for her trash!



Another sampling of her 'stuff'


Ok I know I wasn't a perfect kid and I am pretty sure I wasn't neat but I don't really remember being that messy (was I mom???) but Meredith is the biggest pack rat - and let me tell you she gets it honest. Really there was probably no way of her not being one. I believe that it is a bit hereditary and she has it coming from both sides so she was destine to be one also. I really hadn't intended to spend HOURS cleaning her room yesterday all I really was doing was putting some of her clothes away from her and when I got to her closet I noticed a pile shoved in the corner and I pulled the stuff out and it was like 2 weeks worth of clothing! Things, after seeing, I realized I hadn't seen in like 4ever! Well that got me going.... and I got into her dance stuff - ahhhhhhhhh. I found, and I kid you not, 10 pair of dirty socks in her bag!!!!!!!! Could that be why she was wearing Owen's????? She is incredible. So, I get her closet and dance bag cleaned out and I decide to tidy up the area beside her bed where she always has a bit too much stuff for me. Well, low and behold when I get down on the floor and look I was flabergasted at the s--t under her bed! I was so overwhelmed I decided to take a picture for documentation. (I wish I would have taken a picture of her closet items). I have to give it to her, she is very clever. You see, she knows she isn't allowed to clean her room by putting things under her bed because I can see under her bed while in the bathroom and I tell her, so the clever little think she did was CRAM it all to the front of her bed so that I couldn't see it from the bathroom! Amazing, simply amazing is all I could say. I continue to ask, "why do you keep these things?" and her response is "IDK???" Then I asked why all the hidden clothes, and she responded I was in a hurry. For what, IDK , but obviously in a hurry from cleaning. Just so you know, there were 2 water bottles, a sippy cup????, 3 bottles of water, a 1/2 trash bag of old school papers, 4 shirts, 2 shorts, and a pair of underwear. In her closet she still had Halloween candy hid! Yes, there is a 'Clean House' intervention in her future :)