Dave Kurt's Blog

Saturday, February 10, 2007

Thursday, February 08, 2007

Last weekend my Dad took the whole family to the Caribbean Cove Water Park in Indy. We chose Indy as a half way point for Jon and Beth and us, even though Dan didn't think Jon and Beth were worth driving five hours. The park was awesome, including three huge water slides that went outside. These slides were wicked fast and we spent lots of time on them. It had a huge lazy river, a water basketball court and a giant climbing area where a giant bucket dumped every five minutes.

One of the things that is so great about our family is the way that all of the kids enjoy hanging out and play together and all my siblings and sister/brothers-in-laws get along and have fun, taking care of each others kids all the while having fun no matter what we do.

On Sunday afternoon we went to The Children's Museum of Indianapolis. The place was huge and one of the better museums we've been to. After a couple of hours of walking around, we found the planetarium (also known as the nap-a-tarium) where my brothers, Dad and I took a nice 30 minute nap in comfy seats while the kids learned about stars or something. They had tons of interactive stuff stuff, including a drawing area where the kids could draw portraits like this of their Uncle Jon.

Throughout the weekend, the kids hit the arcade hard. I've been working for ten years to convince them of the poor value proposition around arcade tickets. They saved up 1,000 tickets to get this set of walkie-talkie-headphones (which we still haven't got the 9V batteries yet) along with lots of other useless crap.

We had a blast and ended up pretty water-logged. We watched the Superbowl together on Sunday night with some of Indy's finest mullets. People in Indy have ridiculous team spirit. Every person we saw had a Colts jersey on and every building had a Go Colts sign on it, including the children's museum.

After enjoying some amazing Chick-Fil-A's for breakfast and lunch, we swam some more on Monday and headed back.

Between all of us, we took a lot of pictures, including family pictures. My sister Susan loves to try and jump into the background of our family pictures, so I figured I'd reciprocate:

So you can see the rest of the pictures here and here.

Daddy Daughter Dance

Tonight I took Maddie and Emily to the annual Daddy/Daughter dance that we've been attending for the past four years. The girls and I get dressed up (Madeline picked out my outfit for me), go out to eat and then dance the night away. Their idea for a fancy dinner was Brown's Root Beer in town for Coney Dogs and then we headed over to the dance.

Imagine a middle school cafeteria with a DJ and lights and 100+ dad's awkwardly dancing with no rhythm to the Hustle, the Macarena and others. The Hustle has become my favorite part because the girls gather in a circle around all the dads as we all do the worst rendition of the dance you've ever seen. Mid-way through the dance we're all facing different directions and moving to different parts of the song. The Cha-Cha was the only one with any congruity as it actually tells you what to do throughout the whole song. The last dance was a slow dance to the song Butterfly kisses, a song about how quickly your little girls grow up and how one moment you're at a daddy daughter dance and another moment you're dancing with them at their wedding. I don't think there were too many dads with dry eyes during that song.

While the girls and I were waiting in line to get our picture taken, I asked Madeline what I'd worn last time to the dance. She looked at me and said, "Dad, you wore the same thing last time." Sure enough, I did. As a side note, after seeing what my latest effort at facial hair looked like in this picture, I decided to shave it off. How come no one told me it looked this goofy? As Cathie put it, "It kid of looks like a big smile on your chin" Nice.

Update: I came to bed last night and found a thank you note from Maddie and Em on my pillow:

Dear Dad,
Thanks for taking us to the Daddy/Daughter Dance. (Maddie)
That was a lot of fun. (Emily)
PS We love you lots!

Start spreading the news...

I'm leaving this morning, on a 6am to head home. I had the dessert pictured above last night for dinnner, which could be the greatest dessert ever. It was a hot funnel cake topped in ice cream and carmel. Wow. I've calculated my time to get dressed, packed, drive, return the rental car and get through security down to the second to get every last second of sleep this morning, but 4:30 is early any way you cut it.

I'm taking the girls to the Daddy/Daughter dance tonight is always fun. We all get dressed up, go to dinner and dance akwardly with a bunch of other rhythmless white men. The strangest part last year was when 100 dads did the hustle very badly as the girls stood in a circle around us clapping.

Wednesday, February 07, 2007

Cathie's Uncle Tim

Please pray for Cathie's family. Her Uncle died today from a heart attack. He was a great guy. 18 years ago when I was first introduced to Cathie's family he welcomed me right into the fold. He got to know my Mom really well when he was working delivering for DHL and my Mom worked at Eddie Bauer. Tim had a gigantic heart and was a great guy.

Please pray for Lori

Please pray for my friend Lori Girard's Mom and her family. While looking at some back problems Lori's Mom was having, they found a spot on her lung which turned out to be cancerous, but couldn't do anything until the spinal surgery occurred. After the spinal surgery, they did a brain scan and found out that she had brain cancer as well. Crap.

Tuesday, February 06, 2007

Cold at 5:30AM

Sunday, February 04, 2007

Watching the Superbowl in Indy

Indianapolinites at their best as we watched the Superbowl in the hotel. Where else can you see a dude wearing a team jersey and a feather boa while the woman next to him wears a bikini top and fuzzy cowboy hat.

Will shaved his Grizzley Adams beard!

Emily saw his full beard and exclaimed that Uncle Will doesn't look like Uncle Will any more. She no longer has to be afraid!

Saturday, February 03, 2007

When is it Okay to leave a church

I've seen people leave churches very badly (I think I wanted to punch some of them in the face, which doesn't say much for me) for what I saw as horrible reasons and seen people leave well, whatever that looks like. I thought this was a great article from Relevant Magainze on When is it Okay to leave a church?

Friday, February 02, 2007

Switching to Google Reader

It took Will suggesting it a few times, but I think I'm switching over to Google Reader. I've been using Bloglines for a few years and love it, but I think Google Reader has really gotten it right. Bloglines hasn't done much in terms of innovation since I've used it, while Google Reader has slowly improved. (If you're using bloglines, you can export all of your subscriptions and import them into Google Reader)

If you're not sure what an RSS reader is, you need to check it out. It lets you put all of your blog subscriptions in one place and it will show you people's new posts, instead of having to go out and check all of the individual blogs.

Great Moments in The Office

Last night's episode of The Office was one of the funniest ever. There were too many great lines to try and list them all. Here's a list of the all of them. Some of my favorites:

Jim: Michael referred me to a male strip club called Banana Slings. Instead, I called the Scholastic Speakers of Pennsylvania.
--
Michael: So you know who turned out to be kind of a creep? Ben Franklin. And Elizabeth the stripper? Gave me great advice. Which rhymed. Really makes you wonder how Ben Franklin can become president but someone like Elizabeth can’t.
--
Michael: I am instituting primae noctis.
Jim: Primae noctis, I believe from the movie, Braveheart, and confirmed on Wikipedia, is when the king got to deflower every new bride on her wedding night. So …

Michael: I’m sorry. I had a very different understanding as to what primae noctis meant.
--
Michael: Mr. Franklin, I would say you are probably one of the sexiest presidents ever.
Ben Franklin: Well, actually, I never was president
Michael: Yes, but Ben Franklin was.
--
Michael: Guys! Beef. It’s what’s for dinner. Who wants some man meat?
Jim: Michael, Dwight would like your man meat.
Michael: Well then my man meat he shall have.

Random Stuff

My Dad is taking the whole family to Caribbean Cove Waterpark in Indianapolis. Jon, Beth and Libby are driving up from Memphis and the rest of the family is driving down. I can't wait to hang with the whole family. This will be the first Super Bowl in 12 years that I haven't watched with my friend Brad.
I took my iPod into Best Buy for it's fourth and hopefully final repair. In theory, they're supposed to replace it with the latest model under their extended service plan lemon law.
We got our Wii back finally. They replaced the drive unit and sent us a new version of Zelda. Apparently the gouging of discs was known issue, much like they had initially with the Xbox 360.
I'm in New York for a few days next week, home the following week and then in Austin for five days.

Thursday, February 01, 2007

Nate's Birthday

We met my Dad tonight at Outback Steakhouse in Brighton for Nate' s birthday. Nate ate an entire 18oz Porterhouse by himself, which was rather impressive for a ten year old. He's no passed the mark where he can order off the kids menu. Gosh I feel old having a ten year old. My Dad must feel old having a 40 year old son (Dan), and my brother Dan must just feel plain old being a couple of months away from 40. My brother Dan will start getting AARP cards soon.

Happy Birthday Nate!

Ten years ago today at 3:30, my son Nate was born. He's an amazing boy and I'm . Here are ten things about him:
10. Nate loves video games and can beat me in most of them.
9. When he was a baby he used to be a biter. When you would hold him, for no reason he would bite your shoulder. Hard. We tried hot sauce, yelling at him, pinching him and even biting him back. Nothing worked.
8. Nate's favorite book right now is the 2007 Guinness Book of World Records.
7. I am farther in the game Legend of Zelda, Twilight Princess than Nate.
6. Even though his Mom and Dad are both MSU Alumni, Nate is a U of M fan for some reason (thanks to his Uncle Ed).
5. Nate loves listening to music and understanding the stories behind in the lyrics and behind the song. Every couple of weeks he and I put together a mix CD of all types of music from Tom Waits to Rich Mullins to Weird Al. He listens to it as he falls asleep at night, typically putting one song on repeat - almost always a different song. I like going in at night and covering him up, hearing what song he's at on a particular day.
4. We occasionally refer to Nate as "The Troll" as he comes home from school and immediately goes down into the basement to watch TV and play video games.
3. Other than me, Nate is the only other person who understands my Audio/Visual systems and can help Cathie and the babysitters get things setup to watch what they want to watch.
2. Nate is a strong believer that cleaning his room and making his bed every day is a waste of time, because it's just going to get messy again.
1. Nate is amazing boy with a huge heart for others. He has an understanding of his faith that goes beyond your typical nine year old and he thinks deeply about things. If I were to lay out everything I'm looking for in a son and in heaven pick from every child based on those requirements, Nate is exactly the son I would choose. I believe he will grow up to be dangerous for good in the world.

Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Makenna Update

Great news. Makenna is coming home from the hospital. She's got pneumonia and RSV, but the cast is off of her arm. Pray for Dana and Eli also. The kids have ear infections and just about every other kind of illness you can get.

Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Dead

My iPod died again for the fourth time. It's a 4G 40GB iPod and it's done pretty well for me over the past 2 1/2 years. I take the thing everywhere I go - in my car, on the plane and to the gym so it takes a beating. I bought the Best Buy extended service plan which (as I understand it) when it dies for the fourth time, they'll replace my iPod with the original cost of the one I bought (for $400 2 1/2 years ago). In theory, I should be able to get one of the 80GB Video iPods. We'll see.

Kevin has a large head and has passed that head size down to his children.
My brothers and I like to believe that Kevin has had relations with my sister only the three times that their children were conceived.
Kevin coaches girls basketball for East Lansing.
Kevin is a video game ninja. He can beat any level of any game and learn any game within seconds. It's creepy.
Kevin can fix or build just about anything.
He played college basketball for Huntington College even though he is only 5'6" tall (I think).
Aside from holidays, I've only seen Kevin wear t-shirts and
Kevin has helped us move every single time and even helped pack for some of them.
Kevin is a super generous guy who is willing to do whatever is needed - watch a million kids, build a deck, spend a whole day fixing a hot water heater - you name it. That's the kind of guy he is.