Valentine's Day: 1st Holiday in Our New Home

Wednesday Dad and I planned how to celebrate Valentine's Day on the actual day, but Mom had forgotten to tell us she was going out of town that evening.  Thus, we celebrated it a day late tonight.

My plan was to make a heart shaped cake with cupcakes as Mom thought that was cool when we were in Target the other day.  Since the kitchen is only partially unpacked I had to improvise a little in how I made it.  For one, we had no mixing bowls unpacked when I was mixing up the batter, so I ended up using a pot.  Of course, the one box I unpacked while the cupcakes were baking was the one with some of the mixing bowls!

Secondly, we have not found the pans, so I could not make regular sized cupcakes.  What I had unpacked already, though, was my mini cupcake maker, which ended up being a better way of making them anyways.  However, it took forever to use up all the batter (about 8 batches at 8 minutes each).

I topped the cupcakes with cream cheese frosting and strawberries after arranging them in a heart shape.

Not Being Able to Find Mom & Dad in New House

The first night in our new house I ended up repeating the experience of when we moved into our first house when I was 1.  At that time we moved from a two bedroom condo to a one story house with what I remember being four bedrooms and 3 living rooms.   It was basically really huge and when we first moved in I would wander around unable to find my mommy and daddy.

Over 20 years later moving back into the same house with my both parents for the first time in over 5 years, I ended up doing the same thing.  It is not that the place is huge (my room is huge compared to my old one, but the house overall is not).  However, I asked Mom where Dad was and then went to find him outside playing what I call musical cars because you have to park the cars just so to fit them all in the driveway.  Then I went in to tell Mom I found Dad only to end up going in circles trying to find her.

Thus, it is easy to wander in circles with the way the main path through the house is basically a circle.  In fact, you can do a whole circle route if you go out on of the doors to my room and then go in the front door.  Funny enough that is actually the shortest route from my room to half of the house including the bathroom.

Changing Lightbulb in Mik's Room

Of course, one week from move date and the light bulb in Mik's room finally went out. Mik is now sure wishing the move date didn't get moved back a week, as he had to put up with Dad coming in after waiting two nights of no real light in his room and putting the ladder right over him to change the bulb. He asked Mik to move, but only gave him five seconds, which wasn't even enough time for him to stop leaning against the bed. Quite uncomfortable fifteen minutes of waiting for Dad to then go search out a fresh lightbulb, but at least it is changed.

Continuing Our Melting Pot Tradition

When I "graduated" from high school in 2004 we went to The Melting Pot.  Then in 2007 we celebrated my Bachelor degree graduation at The Melting Pot.  Mik graduated from high school in December and last night we finally got around to going to The Melting Pot to celebrate (it took so long to get around to it because of Mom and Dad going to Chicago for Christmas and then having  several days of parties and get togethers this past week with their getting remarried on January 1st and having a bunch of family and friends in town).


Unlike most times we have done the Melting Pot, this time we stuck to just the cheese and chocolate.  It was also the first time we had gone as just the four of us and it was kind of odd to only have one pot at the table.  Thus, we had two cheese courses to be able to try to different cheeses.  Then for dessert we had the Cookies and Cream Marshmallow Dream.

Our First and Last Christmas at Mom & Dad's in Tucson

Last night we opened our Christmas presents at Mom and Dad's house. With us moving to Alabama in January, it will likely be the one and only time we do Christmas at that house. In fact, I think it was the first and probably only time Mik went to that house when it was where they were living.

Opening presents before Christmas has been pretty traditional for us and continued this year with Mom and Dad going to Chicago for Christmas and Mik and I deciding to stay home to celebrate Christmas in Tucson for what may be the last time for awhile.

Mom and Dad ended up copying what Mik and I did a few years ago and got each other the same exact present. A few years ago Mik and I got each other the same Harry Potter movie on Blu-Ray and this year Mom and Dad got each other a 2013 runners calendar (they are both going to do the Chicago marathon next year).

Here is Mik getting nothing! He opened the card and thought he got nothing. He was expecting an iTunes card, which is all he asked for this year, and didn't read the tag inside that said good for an iTunes card from Mom. More importantly, though, the other tag in the card said good for tickets to the Lakers @ Suns game, so he will get to go to the game he has been wanting to see right before we move.

Strawberry in December

We left the strawberry plants alone when we replanted for the fall. I didn't really expect to get another strawberry, especially since we only got two or three this summer. This morning, though I found one ready to pick and it wasn't even from the plant that I had noticed was growing a few last week, so we might actually get as many or more strawberries in December as we got all summer.

What it took for Mik to decide to move

For over a month now Mik has refused to decide about moving to Huntsville until he at least saw the city.  After our house hunting trip this weekend was almost over and we even decided on a house, he still refused to commit to moving and actually was thinking of how he could get an apartment and stay by himself in Tucson.  Last night he said he would not talk about his decision again until Monday.


This morning, though, he finally decided he will move.  He still is not that interested in the city and the idea of moving, although he does like the house we are trying to get.  What made him commit was that Mom and Dad came back from checking out the Kroger with Pumpkin Pie Ice Cream.  This is a flavor he looks for every year and we had not found any in Tucson this year despite looking at many different grocery stores.