Hanukkah Day 8 has begun.  I had grand plans to do some Hanukkah activities with the kids, but both Aaron and I caught a stomach flu.  And then Justin nearly caught the kitchen on fire.  But flammable cheesy noodles aside, we still lit candles (maybe it will get rid of the smell?) and had the kids open their remaining presents. 

Tomorrow is still Hanukkah and if I can stay out of the bathroom long enough, I think I’ll try some activities with the kids again.  Meanwhile, here are some pictures to look at. 

Boy, we’ve got some catching up to do, gift-wise.  The carrot-and-stick of clean-up your room to get presents works fine for Aaron, but isn’t working out so well for Ethan and Justin.  They made great progress earlier this week, but now they aren’t budging. 

I know some of you out there (Mom) are waiting to see the presents you ordered them, so we let them open a couple tonight.  

Also, we got some very odd Soda Pop from UPS today.  I assume this is the package that my brother promised was on the way.  The applesauce, chocolate, and jelly donut flavored sodas sound like fun, but I’m not too sure about drinking Potato-flavored soda.  Eh, whatever, I’ve eaten in some pretty weird places, I’ll try anything once.

Once again, you know the drill – the pictures are here if you want ’em.  

One more night to go 🙁 

Today, Aaron when on his second Orienteering expedition.  A little off-topic, I know, but he’s very excited about this new activity and has acheived some level of accomplishment in it – his second outing and he’s an Intermediate Orienteer, according to the local Chicago chapter of the club that tracks these things. 

Orienteering is about finding your way around the forest.  Spelunking, basically.  With a map.  You meet a lot of military people because it’s a skill they drill into you in the military.  I think it’s good for him to get some exposure to that sort of attitude and mentality.

Anyway, right… Hanukkah.  Day 6.  We lit candles.  There was no party, and we ate turkey sandwiches for dinner then most of us (except me, who’s writing this now at 9 PM) went to bed due to the afformentioned Orienteering outing tuckering us out.   Pictures are here, see you tomorrow.

I love this part.

LATKES!

Tonight was the big Dolnick family Channukah party.  Candles, dreidles, presents, and of course lots and lots of Latkes.  We also hooked up the PS3 to the HDTV for the first time today, and that kept Aaron busy with his older cousin for several hours.  The picture on this T.V. is amazing.  Marla got me some Blu-Ray movies, so we can see pure end-to-end Hi Def movies now.  Absolutely stunning.  It’s pretty hard to take pictures of T.V. pictures, so the out-of-town readers will just have to come over to our house sometime to experience it.  Or buy your own :).

Justin, the trooper kept up with his older cousins as long as he could, then he crawled behind Marla’s back on the couch and fell asleep about 7:00 PM.   

Ethan played with Alyson for hours in the living room and his room.  He had made progress on the clean-up; I haven’t been in there yet tonight but I’m sure he’ll have a lot more work to do as he has a tendancy to take thing out and leave them on the floor.  

In any case, a fun time was had by all and now it’s time to upload many, many pictures.  That link should work now, but the pictures won’t actually be there for several hours.  

More tomorrow.  Good night. 

We were a bit late lighting tonight, we had an event to attend prior to sundown.  But the show, as they say, goes on … just as it has for 2000 years. 

Today Ethan and Justin actually  made progress on their room… I should post some "after" shots sometime (before shots are here).  Ethan, Justin, and Aaron all had one present, to all of them, from their cousins Renee, Seth, Shana, and Yakov.  So since they all got to open a present today, they opened that one together.  I don’t know where they found it, but the kids actually got a "snoopy snow cone machine".  I had one of these when I was a kid.  I didn’t know they still made them.  But there it is, in all it’s glory. 

Mike got "Blazing Saddles" on BluRay (a new toy for the family – a PlayStation 3 and 42" Plasma HDTV…) so we know what I’ll be doing tomorrow (setting up the TV and PS3…) 

The pictures are all HERE, enjoy.  Tomorrow is the party.

Time to light the third candle.  I love Channukah, it’s one of the few times per year I can spend a lot of time with my family.  We light candles, which adds a warm glow to the house, and then we sit around and talk – like humans – about our day, what we did, etc.  Then we sit down (together) for a big meal. 

Or sometimes, like tonight, hamburgers and hot dogs from Poochies. 🙂

OK, as promised, pictures:

Day 1 & 2

Day 3 (Today)

Also for those of you who want to know more about this huge mess of toys that the kids have, see here.  Aaron’s room is actually much cleaner since he started cleaning up, and he earned one new present today (Star Wars Battlefront II).  Ethan and Justin are still testing the waters to see if we’ll really withhold Hannukah presents from them.  Hey, when Marla’s parents were kids, they got socks and school supplies for Hannukah.  Maybe we’ll give them some. 🙂 

OK a little background info is in order.  Two factors are affecting our Channukah this year:

1.  The house is literally over-run with toys.  The kids never throw (or give) away anything, and they don’t put them away either.  Yeah, I know, I’m whining, but the point is – they’ve all three been given an ultimatum: throw (or give) away 80% of your toys, and put away the rest, or they don’t get to open any.

2.  The crazy, cyclical financial services market conditions mean that this is a "down" year for Mike.   We’re not going broke, or anything that rash, but we’ll certainly be taking things a bit more "low key" this year. 

That means that we don’t have our usual pile of gifts for the kids, and the small pile that has arrived from relatives will wait until they can do something besides sit and watch T.V. or play computer games.  

That said, we’re still celebrating Channukah.  There’s still the lights, the gelt, the dreidles, and the latkes.  We’ll also be having our famous family get-together this Saturday.  

So here’s what’s happened so far: Evening 1 (first candle lighting), we didn’t light.  Mainly because we cleaned up the living room for the event, then the kids tore it apart again (literally).  

Day 1 / Second candle lighting: We lit candles, and Aaron got enough of his room cleaned up to earn a present.  Since we haven’t purchased them any yet, Aaron opened Nana’s.  Pictures will be posted shortly and I’ll post the link here.

Mike and Marla, who of course keep their room clean :), also opened a present from Nana.  Thanks, Nana!

Today is Day 2 (candle lighting 3), I’ll post about it (and maybe get the pictures up) later tonight. 

Evel Knievel died today, according to his website.  Although he was much more active in the 70’s with all kinds of high-flying stunts, no kid who grew up then can forget the hype around his infamous Snake River jump. 

These were the days when we built ramps out of pieces of plywood, propped them up on bricks, and took our bikes waaaay back and started peddling like mad toward the ramp.  More times than not, it ended badly, but we all survived – and so did Evel.  That was the magic of it, facing down danger and whether you got beat up or not, ultimately living to try again tomorrow. 

Sail On, Evel. 

Note: This is not a review or product endorsement.  I’m actually making fun of this product.

So it’s come to this.  As if WebTV wasn’t enough, and those stories you hear about Internet-shy executives who have their secretaries print out their email for them, now you have  a service that does this for you.

Billed as "Email without a computer for your parents or grandparents", BUY.COM is selling the HP Printing Mailbox for $30.  I’m sure there’s a monthly service charge too.  Basically, you set up a service (called "Presto") which this device calls into, and any email sent to your Presto mailbox is printed out by the device, pictures and all.

I see some value for this, they point out that it can be used to get extended families more involved in elderly care by keeping them connected on the go.  You could, for instance, use your iPhone to send a reminder to Grandma to take her pills.  Then, Grandma gets a nice little printout on her HP printer.

Despite that, I can’t help but laugh about this.  I won’t endorse this product, so you’re going to have to go to BUY.COM yourself and search for "HP Printing Mailbox" if you want one.  I’ll be here at home, laughing.  🙂

Happy Thanksgiving from the Humphries-Dolnicks.