The Dynamic Duo

Wow, Bob. Let’s see if I can summarize my year in 25 word. Let’s see: Same job, kids all gone,still involved in Weightwatchers, Husband bought a truck, hates it, wants to do woodworking. Discovered same has diabetes. nuff said.

Well, that was more about the husband than myself, but all of that necessarily has a big impact on my life, or at least it should! I actually hope that this year is a little better one for him. But first he needs to sell that dang money guzzling truck!
We had a very nice Christmas, although only half my kids were home. It is absolutely HEAVEN to have the two youngsters back home for a few weeks to add a little “color” to my black and white world. We had dinner and games at Uncle Bill’s house on Chrismtas Eve, and dinner at Uncle Chuck’s house on Christmas, so UltaMom got a cooking vacation! The ultradaughter decided to spend the holiday in Pocatello with her boyfriend’s family. In fact, she usually brings home extra ones for Christmas, so it seemed really different without her! The plan was for Heather and Heath to make the trek to Howe the day AFTER Christmas, but that was when the big blizzard of 2003 hit Pocatello. They couldn’t go ANYWHERE! The gifts are stil under the tree, which gives lazy UltraMom a good excuse not to take the tree down! I thought she must have been exagerating a bit, and being a chicken about driving in a little snow until the big blizzard hit us! I haven’t seen this much snow in years! It started on New Year’s Eve, and on the first day of 2004, it snowed pretty much all day. Put that together with the wind (the wind actually doesn’t blow every once in a while, but windiness is the general rule around here) and you have the recipe for major drifts, road closures and power outages! In fact, the plan to spend Jan 1, 2004 in Idaho Falls enjoying a meal at a favorite restaurant and viewing a new movie in the comfort of Edward’s 14 Theater Movie House was scrapped in exchange for a day of games, pizza and a little outdoor fun. Jim, Johnny and Jim’s friend B.J. took turns driving the 4-wheeler and pulling each other behind on an inflated intertube. UltraMom even had a ride! The pizza, UltraMom’s special homemade Taco Pizza, was in celebration of good grades all around. ALL of the aforementioned boys achieved grades of nothing lower than an “A” in all of their fall semester college classes! UltraMom is bursting with pride!
Jan 2, UltraMom was due to return to her job in Arco, but, darn the luck, the roads were closed! Fortunately AFTER UltraMom had her shower and finished making waffles, the power went out and remainedout for the next 5 or 6 hours! The poor boys were unable to play Football on the Playstation, and had to play card games with UltraMom, much to the delight of one and all (mostly, UM, I gotta admit).

Christmas was very special because we got to talk to UltraSonBob and the Ultragirl. We got their wonderful, thoughtful and most of all CREATIVE packages, beautifully wrapped by Amazon.com. Their “to-from” tags were the best!
Here is an example: “Family: Step throught this door and you’ll find yourself in another time, full of dinosaurs, and other hair raising adventures. Shake before use. UltraBob and UberTomo” The gift was a Homer Simpson trivia game! Johnny is our resident Simpson’s expert, so the rest of us don’t stand a chance.
Oh, so you want to hear more? Sure. I love sharing UB’s creative streak, and it also makes my job of writing a lot easier!.........”Family (especially Kathode) We think that this pair of false teeth will provide hours of pranking fun for the whole family. Tomoko " The Mad Jokestress" Suzuki and Robert That gift was a booster pack for my favorite game of Cranium. I’ll take you on, any time, especially the Word Worms category!
Next:” Momstaroni, Tomoko and I enjoyed this particular brand of sausage so much, that we wanted you to have some. Tomoko “The Mad Gourmet” Suzuki and tiny Bob.” This gift was a DVD: namely “Spirited Away” the award winning Japanese animated feature. By the way, Johnny and I watched it last night. Very interesting, but a little strange. This was really interesting: we decided to watch it in English with subtitles. The subtitles did not match what the people were saying! We decided two different people must have done the translating. We finally turned the subtitles off because it was too distracting. I want to watch it again in Japanese and turn the subtitles on. Also, I want to watch all the extra stuff to see if some things are explained a little better. But I did really enjoy it.
“Dad, Thought this present might give you some insight into your own life:) Tomoko “The Crusher” Suzuki and little Bobby” This gift, much to our informed amusement, was the DVD “Grumpy Old Men”! No need to say more about that!
Big Bad John (Sr.) Rub this on those tired feet to relieve gout. Dr. Tomoko Suzuki and the assistant” This one was another DVD, an especial favorite of Big John Sr. “Quigley Down Under”. He really had been in a lot of pain with gout in his big toe, and sitting down and watching the movie takes some of the load off, so I guess the medicinal claims are true, in a way. Johnny made sure we got a photo of UltraDad rubbing the movie on his foot!
There’s an intriguing one for Heather as well, but we’ll have to wait for that one I suppose…

Well, Johnny is watching Batman on TV: the ORIGINAL Batman from the TV series with Adam West. The criminal is one of my favorites: The Penguin, so I gotta go. So far, 2004 has been a lot of fun. Hope yours is good too.
UltraMom