Rock Chalk World!!!

National Champions! There were yells, screams, tears and shouts of joy (followed by a rapid flickering of the porch light) to signal the Jayhawks amazing win over the Memphis Tigers. 75-68, I've never seen sweeter numbers! A dream come true! Rock Chalk!!

Traitor

Well, it's almost here. Final Four Weekend. It seems to me that the 2 best teams are playing each other on Saturday: North Carolina and Kansas. A poll on ESPN had people rank who they thought would win the championship; North Carolina got the most votes, then Kansas. It's really too bad they are already facing each other. I wouldn't want to face Benedict Williams until the most important game of the year. Facing them in the semi-finals is like the US facing Russia in ice hockey, another semi-final game. I mean, who cares that they beat Finland for the gold medal? While I would rather win the championship than beat Roy (if I had the choice between the two) it is a little bit of a letdown to face UNC on Saturday and not Monday.
But still, I will be rooting for KU and against Roy. UNC used to be a team I would root for, and I probably still hate Duke more than UNC, but the feeling of betrayal is still there.
I remember from years past Roy would get emotional if people criticized him. Hopefully all the comments from Kansas fans in the last week have hurt Roy's concentration, though I doubt it has. Still, any edge is still an edge.
Rock Chalk Jayhawk!!

Life is Good

A couple of momentous events have taken place in our lives, well at least momentous for us, so I wanted to make sure they made it into the family record. The first is that Katie finally ran in her second 5K race (Shamrock Shuffle) and despite the more hilly than expected nature of the route finished with a satisfactory time of 35:06. She's now looking forward to participating in annual Madison Crazylegs Classic, an 8K race that ends at the 50 yard line of Camp Randall, the UW football stadium.
Also for the first time ever, Robert and Katie completed without error or cheating the Sunday (3/16/08) New York Times crossword puzzle. A last minute memory from Robert that the French word for water is eau saved the day! There was much rejoicing.
We also just had a couple of great visits from Liesel and Dominic (despite the fact that illness took over our house for a few days and their return to Ohio was challenged by a blizzard) and Stacy, Amanda, Ashley, and Meghan who made the trip up from Salina. We had a great time with all of you! While they were here we went to the KidsExpo where Mary Ann got to ride a miniature circus train and a pony and Rose became infatuated with the Oscar Meyer WienerMobile and we all got Wiener Whistles! Hurray!
Also, while I'm on a roll blogging here, I'll let you know that we also just got our carpet installed today in the new room, so now we (i.e. Robert) just need to put in the baseboards and it will be all ready for Mitzi!!
We wish you all a Blessed Holy Week!

Basement

Well, the basement is changing. My dad and uncle came up from KC and Salina to help work on our basement renovation. I had the studs and wiring done (and almost all the insulation) by the time they got up here last Sunday. The 3 of us were able to hang the drywall, mud and get primer and paint on. Today I (with Mary Ann's help) was able to get a coat of our "accent" paint on 1 wall. We have light blue/off white on the ceiling and 3 walls and a darker blue on one wall. It's finally looking like a room. But, it sure is long and thin. We still have to put up some caulk around the window, get carpet, put up baseboard and crown molding (or maybe just quarter round...). And get doors for the closets. It's a pretty nice room.

Vacation is over for Robert. 2 weeks off from work now gone. Who knows when the next vacation will be--the next school year's schedule isn't out yet. Any requests anyone?

Birthday extravaganzas!

Well, as briefly touched on in the last post, Mary Ann is now 3. 3! Wow. We've had 2 birthday parties. The first was just the 4 of us on her actual b-day. We had cake before dinner, spaghetti for dinner, and presents too! She really loved all of her presents. Then, on Sat Feb 16th, we had some of her friends over. 7 kids, other than our 2. Yikes! But, Mary Ann had fun. First the kids played upstairs, then downstairs. They danced, they rocked on the rocking horse (turning it into a see-saw) and then had cupcakes. It's still Lent, so no chocolate for us.
This past Tuesday and Wednesday were spent at the Kalahari resort. It's one of the biggest indoor water parks in America. We had gone there last December for the Wisconsin Neurological Society's meeting. Mary Ann's been talking about it ever since, calling it the "elephant place" since that is the theme for Kalahari. Anyway, we got a special deal and went there for 1 night and 2 days. 2 very long days. We reserved a queen suite which was very nice. 2 queen beds in one room for the kids. Another room for us. There were 2 bathrooms, 3 TVs, and a real-sized coffee pot. It was pretty nice. The kids stayed up until 9:30, giggling, turning the lights on, turning the TV on, and Mary Ann getting into Rose's pack-and-play. We all had a great time in the water park. We also went to the outlet mall. Those idiots decided to make an outdoor mall, which obviously isn't very smart in the winter weather of Wisconsin. But, we got some good deals. We left the Dells at about 6:30pm and made it back for a good nights rest.
And, Obama and McCain won the primaries in Wisconsin. We'll see if they both win the nomination. We DID vote on the way out of town on Tuesday, even if we did vote for different people.

What to do in the Winter

Well, in honor of the 13 plus inches of snow that fell last week and the arctic blast we are supposed to have this weekend (wind chills of 35 below zero are possible) I thought I'd brainstorm some ideas of what we can do here in the winter. For those of you who read this to keep up on the family, I'll let you know that we are all doing well, Rose is jabbering more, Mary Ann had a marvelous birthday on the 5th, and while we are all experiencing symptoms of cabin fever, I don't think it will reach "The Shining" level of insanity.

Winter Activities:
1. Painting finger and toenails
2. Playing with Play-doh
3. Watching a lot of movies
4. Emptying all toys from bins onto the floor
5. Spreading toys from one end of the house to the other, on both floors
6. Staring out the window in disbelief that snow can come down that hard and that fast
7. Staring at the window in disbelief that ice can actually form inside the window
8. Taking naps
9. Reading silly novels
10. Play Ring-around-the-Rosie
11. Play London Bridges falling down
12. Build a bear cave
13. Turn the bear cave into London Bridge
14. Go to bed at 6:30
15. Mentally thank the inventor of the snow blower multiple times
16. Call your sisters many times
17. Google anything and everything
18. Watch "Happy, Hairy Monsters" on YouTube
19. Teach a 3 year old how to start videos herself on YouTube
20. Have a family jam session
21. Have a family dance session
22. Smear toothpaste all over the bathroom mirror
23. Unroll the roll of toilet paper, it's totally worth doing a timeout
24. Play with your mom's fingernail polish by yourself
25. Learn how to make yourself dizzy (Rose is really good at this)

Politics

Now that the first state has spoken, I wanted to ask all of our readers:
If you consider yourself a Republican, are there any Democrats you would vote for over a Republican? And, vice versa if you are a Democrat. So, after the people are nominated by their parties, are there any match ups that you could see yourself voting for the other side?