Wow that was a busy weekend, at least as far as mine generally go.  Actually, it was a rather busy week overall.  We had a festive event stuck in the middle of things when we celebrated Donette’s parents 50th wedding anniversary on Wednesday.  They came over to our house and we fixed pan seared ribeye steaks, which is one of my favorite dinners.  One would think that, being their 50th anniversary, I would fix one of their favorite dinners, but you gotta stick with what you know.  After dinner Donette gave them their gift, four nights in Branson with the entire mob of kids and grandkids.  She and her sisters have been planning this for well over a year, so it was good to finally get the secret out.  They rented a 5400 square foot house right next to Silver Dollar City, so hopefully there will be enough room.  Yes, this will be my third trip to Branson this year;  Heckle at will.

Friday I had the day off, and we made the most of it.  We dropped off Gabe at “school” and headed off to the gym, and then went on something of a shopping spree.  It was time to start getting ready for this big Branson trip, and there is quite a bit of grocery shopping to be done for 15+ people.  Luckily good ol’ Costco fit the bill well for this purpose.  That took up a good part of the afternoon actually, between finding everything on her enormous grocery list and trying to fit it all in our ‘fridge.  After that, in a blatant attempt at pacifying my rapidly declining attitude, Donette started calling around town trying to find a Wii for us.  We’d talked about getting some kind of game console for quite a while.  We debated the pros and cons of all the different systems at great length, taking into consideration what games are available for each, and the different options and packages available, etc.  After cross-referencing all the different factors in a complex matrix, we decided on the Wii because it was the cheapest.  That effectively killed the rest of our night;  We bowled and boxed and golfed our way well into the wii hours of the night.  (Wii hours?  Get it, get it?  Boy I slay me.)

Saturday I think we were busy again, but the exact details escape me.  I do remember I was really quite sore.  One can only hope it was from our trip to the gym and not the seven hours on the video game.  Granted, you do actually move your arms and stuff while playing it, but the whole thought of being sore from playing video games is a bit disconcerting for some reason.  We did a little more prep work for the Branson trip too, including boiling up enough chicken broth to make soup for the next year.  I’m not sure what happened there.  I did my math very carefully, but somewhere in the conversion from liters to quarts and doubling recipes and such, I must have carried my naught one too many times.  Somehow or another I ended up making two and a half gallons of stock, which I have no earthly idea what to do with.  Anybody need extra gravy on that plate?  (Not a question that really needs asked actually, at least with Donette and I.)

Sunday I spent the entire day cooking.  I put together a massive pot of gumbo for the trip, and smoked a traditional Thanksgiving brisket.  (At least it should be a tradition, if it ain’t.)  Meanwhile, Donette went on another shopping spree;  More groceries and more Wii accessories.  This time she came home with an extra set of controllers, and a Rock Band game.  We were so busy with the food that we didn’t get to play on it until pretty late in the evening, but it was a lot of fun.  It went a long way towards affirming my long-held belief that I was likely meant to be a rock star instead of a cubicle-monkey.  “Prodigy” was the word I kept hearing Donette use, if I remember right.  I have no doubt that if I practice consistently over the winter I just might find myself onstage with “Guitars For Christmas” next year at the BBQ.  Actually I got booed off the stage more often than not.  But, that would be nothing new for Guitars For Christmas either, so I still might make the band.  The extra controller set paid off too;  It should really be included with the game right off the bat though.  It was a lot more fun going head-to-head in everything, especially boxing.  It was all fun and games until I got overly excited and kidney-punched the wife.  She got back up though, she’ll be fine.  Hey I was just trying to add a little realism to the game.