Rachel B-day and the rest of the weekend...

So Frank and Marla came over to celebrate Rachel's birthday. And it was Tony's just a couple of days ago, too. So we raised glasses to both of them.

Tony, er, um, Frank brought over a great big pork roast. He got here early, so we hung out upstairs making a dent in one of those Heineken kegs that he also brought while I cooked the rest of the meal and the roast roasted. I made those Martha Stewart potato cakes.
And I found a recipe for stuffed acorn squash. And I took a risk because I watched Ratatouille last night and added pomegranate.


And here's Rachel's birthday dinner...

And there was pumpkin cheesecake for dessert.

And Dre got all Cirque de Soleil on us with a peacock feather. It was pretty cool.

So that was yesterday.

And then there was today. Cuz clobbered me in fantasy football despite me looking way better on paper. And the Pick 'Em league was a disaster. I just can't seem to get the hang of the new rules this year - no point spreads, but there are confidence points. So you have to pick the obvious winners and also the underdogs to win. I'm not doing as well this year as I've done in the past. And everyone in the league is all grumpy about the new rules and it isn't much fun.

Jake has been coughing for over a week now. We've got him scheduled for a physical for school athletics tomorrow, so hopefully we can figure out what's wrong with him and get him cleared for wrestling. And it seems that there are a lot of sick people and kids out there right now. It's normal for kids to get sick this time of year and all with the weather changing, but it seems like more than usual this year.

And, I'm sorry, when did he get to be old enough to read his own medicine labels?

Rachel's craft therapy continues...

Tonight she was doing relief printing, or block printing or something. She cut a pattern in to this rubber pad and then rolled it with ink and made a print. Here's her first one.


She wanted to make sure I mention that she copied the print from a design she found on line. I'm sure before long she'll be coming up with her own.

Also, we had our first fire tonight. It was great. And Moe quickly remembered her favorite place to be in Winter.

I've got to get to bed. I've got to get up early and get my work in on Chicago time tomorrow so I can take Jake to the doctor in the afternoon. I've got a call at 9:00 with WPS to finalize our system design. Then I plan to code like a fiend for the rest of the week so I can enjoy Thanksgiving week. Jake's off, too. So I'm looking forward to a nice long family vacation at home. Of course, we'll still have physical therapy in there. And then there's a couple of doctor's appointments for Rachel. But we'll all be together and it will be great.