All Hail The Wii

Before opening gifts with the rest of the family, Tiffany could no longer hold her excitement in. So she convinced me in the middle of the afternoon on Christmas Eve to let the kids open a few selected items...namely....a certain video game unit which appeared on everyone's wish list....The Nintendo Wii. Here is a short video montage I put together:



Sorry about the language......my bad.

After playing for a few hours we opened more gifts with uncle Jamie, grandma Marcia, uncle David, aunt Ally and niece Riley. Then we headed to the Baptist Church to see Elli play an Angel and Abbi play the Virgin Mary in the Nativity Scene.

After church, we ate sandwiches at Marica's place as aunt Cheryl and Terry, cousins Brad, Holly and Brulee and Uncle Brule showed up for food and Tom and Jerry's. Brad and Holly's first born Henry was a little fussy. Ally, David and Riley made another appearance after eating at David's dads place.

Santa showed up last night, presents were underneath the tree when we woke up......at 6:50am, thanks to the strike of a drum cymbal which scared me. Elli was impatient, so the gift opening began.

Gabe got Guitar Hero 3, which he hasn't put down, Abbi and Elli both received stuff to go with their American Girl Dolls.

Just finished off some coffee cake...ummmmm good! Looks like uncle Josh's coffee cake turned out well too! www.cyclonelane.blogspot.com (Nice slide show Anne!)

Nap time now?????????

Elli Wants Her Teeth Back

A part of the recent all school sing along was Elli and some other students who were missing their two front teeth. Here goes:

Greetings.......

Frigggin Cold

Halftime of the Bears Packers game, we've got every space heater we own on full blast....it's just down right cold. Might need to head to the orange bar to get a nip of something sweet to warm up. We were under a winter storm last night into the morning. We got ice and snow, just a couple inches. It's the wind, 20-40 mph, and the wind guts that are keeping us in for the day.

Kids are off school, they got out Tuesday afternoon. Gabe was treated to an appearance at Central with Bill Clinton and Magic Johnson doing a little stumping for Hillary. After last weeks snow fall, Tiffany treated Elli and Abbi, and Abbi's best friend Miranda to an afternoon of sledding.


Here is Abbi and Miranda:


I'm off until January 2nd, using the last of my 3 weeks of vacation. Our Xmas shopping is done and in the books, I've been in touch with Santa Claus so we're both on the same page (for a while there he wasn't returning e-mails). The girls will perform at the Baptist Church on Xmas Eve at 5:15 for a Nativity scene. Bears...touchdown......21-7 Bears.....It's been awhile since we attended a holiday service, although we probably won't stay after the program is done.

Before the service we will open a couple gifts with niece Riley and uncle David and Aunt Ally before they go off to David's dads place. Then after Santa comes, the kids will open gifts Tuesday morning, then we will all enjoy Grandma Marcia's homemade coffee cake for breakfast before enjoying a nice ham for dinner. Tiffany and the girls have been busy making sweets, fudge, cookies and other stuff. The kitchen has been smelling good!!!! Abbi just came in the living room and slyly change the channel to the Disney Channel without me seeing. I thought the game went to commercial......the commercial seem to go on forever. I glanced at the TV, saw the Disney logo....damn.....Bears block a punt and return it for a TD.....missed it.....caught the replay....28-7 Bears. Sneaky Abbi.



Thursday night we celebrated Marcia's 60th birthday at Biaggi's Ristorante Italiano in Davenport, a very classy joint, even though you don't have to look classy to be there. She thought we were just going for a meal, but we surprised her when she got there. About 15 people, family, friends, were waiting in the Wine Room. We had our own server, stayed for 4 hours, had numerous bottles of wine and spirits. The food is incredible, Gabe devoured his plate of spaghetti and meatballs, Tiff had some chicken stuffed with cheese and ham and I went with the special, a ribeye encrusted with black pepper. The girls went with chicken nuggets.

One highlight of the night was a 24 minute movie me, Ally and Tiffany all helped to put together. It was a picture slide show of Marcia's life, starting with her birth announcement, baby photos, prom and wedding photos, all the way up to photos with her grandchildren. We have Windows Movie Maker, I had to convince Ally and Tiffany if they got me the photos, I could produce the movie, with transitions and fades and music. They wanted to outsource the project, paying money for someone to do it. I showed them a 5 minute movie on what it could like before gaining their approval.

The movie was 251 photos long and had 6 songs to accompany the photos. Marcia had no idea it was coming. I guess the project turned out good, we've had some requests for copies.

Jolly Old Fat Man

As promised.....here are the girls with St. Nick a couple weeks ago at SAU following a performance of Charlotte's Web by SAU students. Wish lists are posted on your right.

We are still very much missing Dakota, found these photos over the weekend. Here Shamon and Dakota peer in between some parts of the old fence they knocked out so they could see in the yard. This is the old dog run, maybe taken in 1997 or 1998. In the summer of 1999 this area became our kitchen, construction was underway when Shamon passed.


The Big D. He was very smart, though he never wanted to strut his stuff and perform for you like he was smart. I think that was a part of his smartness. Get it?

White Christmas -- Circa 21

Thanks to some free tickets from Bill's Moving and Storage, we were treated to an evening out on the town last night at the dinner playhouse in Rock Island, Circa 21. The show was Irving Berlin's White Christmas.

Uncle Jamie called in the early afternoon and said his boss at Bill's, Becky, had purchased a bunch of seats for the staff....sort of a Holiday party like gathering. But, one by one, workers came up with other things to do, so Becky told Jamie to call us and Grandma Marcia.

We arrived in from the cold around 6pm, just in time for dinner, served buffet style in the old theater just outside the District of Rock Island. I had been there to see productions a few times growing up with my family, it was a new experience for Marcia and Tiffany and Jamie and the kids. We were minus Gabe, he was invited to an all night party at a friends house.

At first the user told us to go to the balcony for our seats, but another usher said she made arrangements to sit closer to the stage. There was a table for four, so we took it, almost in the middle of the theater, stage right. Marcia and Jamie sat towards the back of the theater with the rest of the staff from Bill's who were able to attend.

We ordered drinks, ate salads and hit the buffet, which was comprised of corn, veggies, potatoes, fish, baked chicken, pasta and had a cook slicing up a pork roast. We all ate well.

At 7:15 the Bootleggers started the pre-show and at 7:45 the main show started. It was a musical comedy about a singing/dancing/acting duo from the Ed Sullivan Show who served in the Army during WW II, who discovered their old General was in financial trouble running an Inn in Vermont. They managed to save the Inn for their General and find love along the way.

At intermission we ordered some dessert. Check out Elli inhaling her Sundae:
Elli really got into the show, we were lucky to be placed near an aisle so we were cornered by a wall on one side of us, which you can see in the photo above. Elli stood up and danced and lip synced her way through the second act. She was very funny. As the show ended, the couple sitting across the aisle behind us stopped us as we were putting our coats on. The man said next time they come to see a show they want to see Elli on stage!!!!



















Elli went gansta for this photo during the intermission.

I took this video on my phone, I ask Abbi where we are at and then the house lights went down for the show.

It's getting to seem a lot like.......

Hello All, been a few weeks since the last post, yes a lot is going on with the Ivanlams as we make our last minute preparations for the Holidays. The tree is in the front living room, the stockings are hung. And we got 4 inches of snow on Thursday.........Winter and Christmas is near!!!!!

One reason for the time in between posts is our computer......we updated systems to Windows Vista on our new HP, but the change has not been easy. Vista doesn't want to recognize our video camera, which isn't that old of a camera, so placing video clips on the blog is on hold for now until I can figure out what I need to do. We have some great video from the day after Thanksgiving when the Twirl Girls performed a routine at the Festival of Trees. They did a great job, there was a lot of people watching. We have old fashioned still photos, but oddly enough, the photo card from Tiffany's digital camera, along with Santa photos of the girls, is being difficult, the card doesn't want to show us the photos, we fear we may to to re-format the card, which would in turn delete anything on the card. That is not a Vista problem, because Tiff's other photo cards for the camera work fine. URGHHHH!

The video camera issue is frustrating, with a DVD burner and Windows Movie Maker, we were planning on making DVD's of our home movies with ease, I've made some slide shows with still photos that included music behind them with fades and transitions and graphics....it was very easy do to and looks impressive. I'm sure I'll figure something out. Until then....let's go retro. Christmas circa 1999 with Gabe and Abbi....so cute!



The new system does have the approval of Gabe, he had a lot of problems with the old computer, trying to get his MP3 music player to work with it. He recently spent $20 of his own cash to buy an IPod off a friend, the smallest and cheapest IPod. His friend received a new IPod, so Gabe offered him a deal he couldn't refuse.

Abbi and Elli started basketball practice this week for the Dad's Club, Tiffany got roped into coaching Abbi's team, no other parent stepped forward to do it. Both girls will also play roles in First Baptist Church's production of The Nativity, Abbi will play the role of Mary and Elli is going to be an Angel. They have been practicing for the last few weeks and will perform near Christmas.

During last week's ice and snow storm Tiffany took Abbi and Elli to see a production of St. Ambrose's Charlotte's Web. Following the musical, Santa Claus (the real one) made a special appearance for the kids, again those photos so far are irretrievable, if we can get them off the photo card I will post them. Hey...let's go retro again....The kids with our beloved Dakota (R.I.P.) in 2004.



The Gaber has a full plate with activities almost every day after school. If he's not preparing with the Show Choir group for the winter Show Choir season, he is working out in the weight room with the other football players or playing in the winter indoor soccer league at the Sports Bubble. He intends on playing soccer, a spring sport in Iowa, and then trying out for baseball which is still a summer sport. The Show Choir group performs at competitions in Jan, Feb and March on the weekends, traveling to Omaha, Mount Pleasant, Des Moines, Chicago. It's like a short musical compacted into 20 minutes. The competitions are like those cheerleader things on ESPN, or marching band meets. Gabe has 2 teachers at Central that work with the kids and they hire a choreographer from Ohio or somewhere that comes to town every so often. It's pretty serious. You should see some of the stuff he has to wear! Broadway Gabe!

OK OK......one more retro picture.......here's a good one from 2002.
I did figure out how to take a clip from a DVD and publish here. For those of you who have not seen the work I do with Mediacom......here's a sample from the first basketball game we taped this season, back on Nov. 20th.