Random Stuff I've done over Christmas Break

I was off part of last week and most of this upcoming week. Here's some of the random stuff I've been doing:

• We watched Speed Racer. Great movie visually, but it was kind of tough to follow. The monkey that Emily and I met at the Novi Pet Expo was there.
  
• The family watched Space Chimps, a pretty funny movie with Andy Sandberg. Any movie with monkeys is good with me. Decent flick with good animation. It was easier to follow than Speed Racer.
  
• Cathie and I had an overnight getaway. Cathie was whooped after everything she did for Christmas, including accommodating my family staying over at the last minute. She needed some relaxation so I scheduled a massage for her and then took her on an overnight getaway. Tiffany as nice enough to stay overnight with the kids, which they loved. Her boyfriend Reagan got a chance to play the high school pink version of the game of Life.
  
• I caught up on five episodes of Heroes that I was behind on.
  
• Playing lots of monopoly. We got the kids the electronic version of Monopoly for Christmas and we've been playing that. No such thing as a quick game of Monopoly.
  
• We shopped for a washing machine. This is the equivalent for Cathie of me shopping for a TV or new computer. This is the item Cathie uses more in this house than any other.
  
• I went running quite a bit. I went when it was warm and wet and when it was cold and dry. I got a cold weather running ninja mask from Cathie's parents and it works great, but I look like a freak. Maddie appreciates the fact that others can't tell that it's me.
  
• Had dinner with Bob and Anne Rays. Bob and I get together and we've been to lots of parties at their house and out to red wings games with the the Rays, but never out to dinner as the four of us. We hung out for about three hours talking. Bob and Anne have been married for 21 years and have five boys and we can learn a lot from them. Not to mention that they're fun to hang out with. Anne is the youngest of 12 and she helped me understand all sorts of things about my baby sister Susan.
  
• We had a middle child swap. My nephew Andrew came and visited and Maddie went to their house.
• Cathie and I watched three episodes of the show Mama's Boys. We are dumber for having seen the show, but it's a great guilty pleasure. It's basically the dating show Bachelor but with the guy's Moms on the show. The Mom's get copies of the girls background files and pictures of the girls that might be on the internet. Hilarious show.
  

Guys Night Out

My nephew and fellow middle childe Andrew is staying over tonight and
we've got big plans, starting with BW3s followed by a night of movies
and video games.

Marley and Me

I took Emily to see Marley and Me. Great movie, but exactly a kid's flick in a lot of ways. Emily counted 30 separate kisses. There was some innuendo and a bit of language, but it really went over Em's head. I had to explain to her at one point that the Mom jumped into the pool without any pants on, but it didn't seem to be ab ig deal to Em.

There were a couple very sad parts in the movie. *spoiler alert* The one that really choked me up was when the wife goes into the doctor for an ultrasound ten weeks into her pregnancy. The nurse couldn't find the heart beat and brings the doctor in to check, only to tell them they'd lost the baby. This exact scenario happened to Cathie and I 13 years ago when we had our first miscarriage and it brought badck a lot of memories.

The movie also reminded me of how great my dog Riley is and how dumb my dog Lola is.

Penn Gillette would tackle you if a bus were coming

I've always been a big fan of the magic/comedy of Penn and Teller. I saw that at MSU a while back and I've always loved their show Bull#$#t on TV. I found this video from Penn Gillette's blog interesting. He tells the story of a guy from the audience who talked to him for a bit and then handed him a bible. Penn is a pretty outspoken Atheist but there's a lot I can learn from him about sharing my faith. These are some excerpts that struck me. It's worth watching:

How much do you have to hate someone to believe that everlasting life is possible and not tell them that? If I believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that if there is a truck coming at you and you didn't believe it, there's a certain point that I tackle you. And this is more important than that. This guy was polite, and honest and sane and he cared enough about me to give me a bible. I know that there is no God and one polite person living his life right doesn't change that. I'll tell you, he was a very, very, very good man and that's important. With that kind of goodness, it's ok to have that deep of a disagreement.

Lessons in Manliness from It's a Wonderful Life

Great set of qualities from The Art of Manliness Blog on Lessons in Manliness from It's a Wonderful Life:

• Be a hero where you stand - This is the thread that weaves through George Bailey’s life. Saving his brother in the icy water. Keeping Mr. Gower from poisoning a child. Saving the Building & Loan multiple times. But it is the small things that make the hero; Bailey’s dedication to help others who are down on their luck is the true mark of his manliness.
• Treat women well - At a key moment of their relationship, George visits Mary (Donna Reed) at her home and acts like a boor. Luckily, this leads to a final acknowledgment of their love, and for the most part, George is an example of how to treat women well (despite some cultural changes). Despite human, stressful outbursts, he loves his wife, and remains true to her in temptation. He takes care of his mother and even treats Violet (a woman with a dulled reputation) like gold, as a real man should - without taking advantage.
• Love your family/family fidelity - In spite of his frustration and dreams, George honors his father’s work and keeps the Savings & Loan running. With a drafty house, sick kids, low wages, work stresses, and a normal man’s frustrations, he loves and supports his family. Is it easy? Heck no. But he comes through.
• Facilitate others’ success - Helping people move out of the slums. Investing in the little people. Sacrificing for his brother Harry’s success. George’s dedication to his brother’s success is truly touching. The richness of George’s legacy lies in how he touched others’ lives and made them better for it, quietly sacrificing to improve the lot of those around him.
• Stand up for what is right - Bailey’s morals may be simple common sense, but he lives them and fights for them. This is perhaps seen best when George strongly turns down Mr. Potter’s lucrative offer for everything he ever wanted: success, travel, luxury and security for his family, just to maintain the honor of his name. “I don’t need 24 hours!” he tells the man.
• Know your faults and correct them - Of course our protagonist is not perfect. When facing personal failure, he is particularly prone to outbursts towards those with whom he is closest. And it takes a strong woman to keep him straight. He also has a knowable weakness for luxury and a misplaced view of himself and life. But George tries to lift himself above it, and in the end - with a little help from a different point of view and an angel named Clarence - he finds in himself what is beautiful in life.
• Live your life with gratitude - Life is not measured in salaries, homes, trips, cars or Facebook friends. But it is truly measured in those moments when we love and touch others’ lives. Family and friends. Time and love. It may be sappy, but on your deathbed you won’t be looking to hold the hand of your Porsche.

Jon's Fall from Glory

There was a time where my brother Jon was considered a ninja in the comment world. He could leave comments that would make your jaw drop with the sheer brilliance and wit. I'm not sure if Facebook has thrown him for a loop or exactly what it is, but unfortunately, my brother has become the Brett Favre of his time. Jon is trying to hold onto glory that just isn't there, and it's a little awkward for all of us. My brother Dan has surpassed Jon in the whole race and Jon is not dealing with this well.

Recently, I left a post about a meeting with a friend of mine. It was something from the heart that I captured more for myself than anything. My brother Jon posed as a wife (he may have even dressed as her while doing this for all I know) and left a comment on the post. The comment was simple and made me grin:

"Is Pedro the mouse in Paco's pocket?"

The comment referred to the fact that I accidentally interchanged the two names in the blog post. My brother Jon proceeded to talk about this for about fifteen minutes yesterday. He explained why it was funny in hopes that we would agree, and then he could say it was actually him. We never gave him that moment.

Since that moment, Jon has started paying a professional comedian to leave comments on Facebook in hopes to bring his status up. This seems to be working. I left a Facebook status today after listening to a great John Ortberg message from Mars Hill. The message was about what it looks like to have your life poured out for others.

My Facebook status: Dave is wondering when I look back at the end, how will my life have been poured out: spilled or poured out for others?
Jon's professional comedian's comment: I bet Cathie's will be spilled. (making reference to the fact that Cathie spills at least once any time she is anywhere).

If you see one of Jon's comments, please let him know that he's funny. It will do his heart good.

Christmas Day at the Lebbons

On Christmas morning we headed over Cathie's parents for another awesome part of our Christmas tradition. After going non-stop with my family, heading over to Cathie's parents is a little more relaxing and low-key. Cathie's brother Ed, wife Stacy and dog/nephew Justice were there along with Cathie's parents, freshly back from Hawaii.

We opened presents when we got there and it was one kids shrieking, "AWWW!! Look what I got!!" after another and then running over to hug grandma and grandpa or their aunt and uncle to say thank you.

Maddie and Em were estatic about their American Girl Dolls and played with them the entire day. Second only to the dolls were these roller blades, which they took off only to eat.

I'm not sure I've ever seen Nate as excited as I did when he got this PSP from his grandparents. He ran back and forth between them twice, giving them hugs and yelling thanks.

Emily received a gift from Ed and Stacy that she loved, but we all were creeped out by. It was a robotic cat, every bit as moody and weird as a real cat. The cat would randomly meow and purr, and shriek if you stepped on his tail.

Cathie's Mom gave the girls a spa trip to Toronto. Remember what I said earlier about my kids jumping into the pictures? Following all the excitement, I enjoyed a nice long nap.



We had a fantastic dinner and then the kids resumed playing with their presents. It was fun watching the elaborate scenarios the girls created with their American Girl Dolls, and almost as amusing to watch Nate go into a video game coma with his PSP.

You can see more of the pictures here.

Christmas Eve, Part 2

After our Christmas Eve service, we came back to our house and opened presents from the Aunts and Uncles. The kids really dug their gifts and it's fun to see how well the Aunts and Uncles know each other. Jon got Nate his weight in Gummi Bears (the good Haribu kind) and an alarm clock that is illegal in 7 states. The picture above just doesn't capture the chaos and energy that was contained in the room. It was multiplied by the amount of love that every niece, nephew, Aunt and Uncle has for each other in there. It sounds cheesy, but you have to be there to really understand it.

The love comes out in a lot of different ways - whether it's Kevin and Dan letting Maddie and Steve-O color their hair or whether it's Maddie sitting with Reggie and letting her sing Karaoke (which Jon explained about ten times means "empty orchestra").

There was noise the whole night, either Karoke, kids laughing or Rock Band. We played the whole night with the drums and microphone showing the complete lack of rhythm and singing ability.

Everyone got into it and everyone was having a blast. This Christmas Eve went later than most, with the kids gradually heading up to bed as they tired out and the adults finally crashing around 12:30. Dan and Kris broke tradition this year by heading home on Christmas Eve.

We had a lot of change this year, but it ended up being great. We ended up having more fun than ever and in the end, embracing the change and coming together as a family. The fun that we have together leaked out of every moment we spent together. It'll interesting to see how things continue to change over the years.

Christmas Eve, Part 1

This was an interesting year for the Kurt family in terms of our traditions. Our holiday traditions have always been a cornerstone of our family. My Mom, who died a little over two years ago, loved tradition more than anyone I knew and she instilled that love for tradition in her those around her.

Since my Mom's death and my Dad's re-marriage, we've been figuring out about a whole new set of changes as we blend the two families together. My Dad's wife has three kids, each with their own kids and we're trying to figure out how to make things work together. Things haven't been exactly smooth, but we're learning as we go.

This year we changed things up a bit to accommodate everyone involved. In the past, we've had a big Christmas dinner at my parents, headed to church together and then spent the night and opened presents on Christmas morning, with lots of games, food and drinks in between. This year was a bit different.

This year Dan started a new tradition of having a booger (or a feather) in his hair. Susan, Madeline and Dan decided that a new tradition should involve leg warmers or trucking your pants into your socks.

Jon tried to change the tradition from Prime Rib to ham. He resorted to multiple lies and deceptions, to the point that tears formed on a baby jesus statue at the vatican one of us actually received an angelic visitation from my Mom telling us that Jon was full of crap (this happens more often than you know). In the end, my Dad made some ham. You can see from the picture just how much Jon ate.

We had a delicious dinner that involved some amazing food and very fun pictures. At one point as we were taking the pictures, Ben reached over and honked Susan's boob.

We have a number of odd parts of our family tradition, most are only funny to the family. One involves joking about Dan and Kris not staying over for Christmas Eve, which they haven't done in 13 years. Every year, we pretend like this i the first year it's ever happened. Every year, I do the dishes after dinner and Jon and Dan make the comment, "Look, Dave's doing the dishes for the first time ever." This time, as Judy was helping me, my Dad tried to jump in the picture and take the credit for it. It was sad. You can tell he's very out of his element.

We had some fun games as well, including our traditional Festivus feats of strength. Matthew got this Karate practice board, which simluates breaking 2 wooden boards. We all took turns practicing on the board, seeing which parts of our bodies we could use to break the board. I found that by punching it, you could really damage your fist.

Libby got this cool lock practice set, which the adults created a blind-folded version of the game. I had an embarrassing 1 min 10 seconds while Dan got it in 40 seconds.

One interesting learning experience was around our traditions and how they translate to the kids. It seems that the kids are learning about the traditions, some good, some bad. One of our family traditions is to always take family pictures. We also tend to like to try and jump into other people's pictures. This is okay when it's four of us. It doesn't translate well into 14 nieces and nephews. While we took our family pictures, every one of the kids tried to jump into the pictures. Most of our family pictures from this Christmas have someone else's kid in them. It was funny for the first 20 pictures.

One thing that was evident in our tradition is how much everyone loves to spend time together. The kids just love spending time together. I love spending time with my nieces and nephews, my brothers and sisters and the feeling is mutual. The joy radiates from the room as the kids spend time together. Whether it's Matthew being led around by his cousin Ben and loving every minute of it, or Dan and Kevin receiving hair make-overs from Maddie and Steve-O. We just love being together as a family.

Our Christmas Eve time is so important together that we decided to change it up. After hanging at my Dad's for a bit, we headed over to our house to change and head to church at Crossroads.
This was an experience it itself. Having always been in a high school until this year, this was the first year we could have a christmas eve service with candles.

Christmas Eve service is one of my favorite parts of Christmas. I have so many great memories of going to my Mom's church. I love the traditional Christmas Eve service with Carols and my family. I remember loving getting dressed up and sitting next to my Uncle Bill and singing my heart out. We make the same jokes every year ("Are the Barclay boys going to sing this year?") and blow out each other's candles during the candle light service. My Mom was always so proud of us and everyone of her grandchildren.



The Kurt family took up the first 2 1/2 rows of the service with a standing room only crowd. Maddie and Emma did the Christmas reading and were wonderful. Because of the packed house, the kids all set up front on the ground and loved it. Joe did a great job of gearing his message towards the kids and adults. My family was very well behaved, except during the candle-light service. The kids have caught on to our tradition of blowing each others candles out, and at one point as Joe walked by, Gabe tried to blow his candle out, which cracked me up.

The evening was different, but still great in a lot ways. You can see more of the pictures here.

Christmas Eve Service

The Kurt family took up two rows at our church's first ever Christmas
Eve service.

OMG we're not BFFs anymore!

I just read this article on the front page of the Wall Street Journal entitled, OMG, We're not BFFs anymore? Getting un-friended online stings.

Unfriending online "friends" is emerging as the latest offense in the world of social networking. Sites such as Facebook and MySpace allow people to build personal profiles with photos, videos and up-to-the-minute updates about their lives, then to share them with select users, or "friends." The process has even turned the word "friend" into a verb, as in, "so-and-so just friended me on Facebook." Users agonize over whom to friend (your mom? your ex-boyfriend? your boss?), and worry about whether their friend requests will be accepted or ignored, lingering in cyberspace in what some dub "friend purgatory."

I found it funny that this was front page WSJ material. The article was nothing new or amazing, but I could relate to not having someone accept my friend request or finding that I was no longer friends with someone online and racking my brain to figure out why. My brother Jon has this happen on a regular basis.

Christmas Eve-Eve - Our Family Christmas

We celebrate our family Christmas on Christmas Eve-Eve morning. It gives the us a chance to have our own small Christmas as a family and hang out during the day and enjoy the presents. We normally do a nice dinner in the afternoon.

Amongst other things, Emily got a a giant jar of pickles and a Nintendo DS.

Maddie got a Karaoke machine and a ton of clothes (note that leg warmers and tight jeans are back in).

Nate got a real electric guitar and amp along with Rock Band 2 with drums and microphone. This is a blast. I'd played it briefly at the Rays and watched as their whole family would rock out on this game. It was fun watching all three kids play and I can imagine that tomorrow night, my siblings and I will show the rhythm, voice and coordination that some consider special.

We've got a nice dinner planned, followed by a visit to my Dad's house tomorrow.

Greatest White Elephant Gift Ever?

I was very excited about my white elephant gift this year. Last year, we started a tradition to do a white elephant gift drawing amongst my siblings. Everyone but Kevin was very creative last year (he gave a gift card) and this year we tweaked it a bit further. My gift was to make a candy necklace. I bought 25 different $1 boxes of candy at Wal-Mart and planned to thread a string through the corners of the boxes, making a huge necklace. Genius, right?

As I talked to my siblings this weekend, it turns out that at some point they canceled this whole deal and never told anyone (well, anyone but Cathie and I, because we seemed to be the only ones out of the loop). If you see me randomly giving people consisting of boxes of candy, you'll understand why.

Christmas Eve-Eve-Eve?

The kids got to open one of their presents last night: their Christmas Pajamas! It's a fun part of our tradition that they expect. The girls then proceeded to do each others hair.






Nate even tried to get in on the action:

I've had some recent conversations via e-mail with Cathie's Uncle David, who has spent multiple tours in Iraq and has a view into the war and the people that I don't have. It's been a good conversation and made me think. I believe at the core that President Bush is a great man. I know a lot of people will laugh at me for saying this. I believe that he is a President who is not swayed by what is popular but sticks to his convictions, even though I don't always agree with them or see the consistency. I read this great article in the WSJ today entitled The President Comforts a Marine Mom. I think it's a great view in to the heart of President Bush. William McGurn starts with this:

In my years in the West Wing, I read many horrible things about this president. Some were by former military officers who ought to know better, especially the one who accused him in print of not caring about our war dead. More frequently, legitimate differences over the war led some to indulge in hateful accusations about the man who led it. Few came from people like Julie, who spoke directly with the president about a subject painful for both: the brave young lieutenant who was born to one and laid down his life under the command of the other.

The article talks about Bush's extended conversation with the soldier's Mom and the burden of being the one who sends others sons and daughters to die. I can't imagine carrying that around. As I think of Christmas and the redemption that Christ brings to me and to the world, I continued to read this:

These days our public discourse finds it difficult to handle such talk, and any presidential mention of God is cheapened into a caricature of a man who launches wars on direct orders of the Almighty. In a particularly moving moment, the president spoke of what he did pray for, including the hope that through this "opaque piece of glass," as he put it, people might catch a glimpse of what Christ wants us to be.

That too can be ridiculed, but in fact and in context it was a statement of humility -- a completely orthodox acknowledgment of the responsibility each Christian has to live a life that bears witness to the redemptive love we trace back to that Bethlehem manger.

Merry Christmas!

Oh the times they are a changing...

I read two papers front to back ever day: The Wall Street Journal and the Detroit News. I love waking up in the morning, especially on the weekend when I have time to savor it, and sit down with a cup of coffee and enjoy the paper in peace and quiet. At the bare minimum, I read the first section of the WSJ, especially the editorial page, the Detroit News first section and sports section.

Because of tough times, The Detroit News is limiting home delivery during the week. I'm not sure exactly when this will start, but they're going to only deliver it at home a couple of days a week. They're trying to shift people to an online medium, which will be interesting. As much as I love my Google News Reader, I still can't tear myself away from having the physical paper to sit down with.

Christmas Preparation

On Sunday night we went to our church's Christmas play. It's something we've traditionally done as a Christmas eve-eve service since we didn't have a building in the past. With a building, we're now able to do multiple showings of the play and then have an actual Christmas Eve service, complete with real, live fire (candles).

After church, Tiff, Kasey and Katie came over to help Cathie wrap Christmas presents. Fez and I sat and watched as the girls did a great job of wrapping way more presents than we thought we had. Fez and I agreed that we would both have switched into "sloppy wrapping mode" after about the second gift. The girls kept it up until about 1:30am and headed home.

Afterward, Cathie and I talked about how lucky we are that our daughters have girls like these three in their lives. As a Dad, it's nice to know that my girls have role models aside from just their Mom and Aunts that exemplify what it looks like to be a woman who follows Jesus passionately. Their love of the poor and hurting, their examples around chastity and purity and showing how to walk the fine line to understand and enjoy the world we live in while pursuing the kingdom of God. People like Jess, Kasey and Tiff have really been like big sisters to the girls and and even though they've just recently gotten to know Katie, she's a fantastic role model for my daughters as well.

This is part of why I love being a part of the same church family for almost 15 years. Kasey and Tiff were girls who grew up in my youth group and babysitting my kids and have now become extended members of my family. Katie is currently in our high school youth group, one of my junior high leaders and a babysitter. This is the kind of church I think of as I read the book of Acts. A church where families were larger than just familial boundaries and extended beyond. One of my favorite parts of having these girls babysit is being able to hang out and talk to them afterward. They have a pretty honest view into how we parent and live as a family, for better or for worse. As they've become an extended part of our family and rubbed off in a great way on my kids, my hope is that we can do the same for them and their future families.


Even Lola got in on the wrapping fun. Tiff tried to hold our giant half puma/half cat. The thing is ginormous and has earned the nickname (amongst others, like giant mean cat) "Fatso" or "Fat Cat". It pales in comparison to Dana's cats, most of whom are no less than 40 lbs and have bum legs.