A New Blog

I have not done much blogging here lately but want to resume blogging. I have decided to create a brand new blog for this purpose. Please check out my new blog, GeekAaron Presents:.

Afternoon at the Mall

Yesterday Emma requested that we go to Mall of America. As usual, she wanted to ride some of the rides at Nickelodeon Universe. I have been trying to get her to try more rides than just the Rugrats Reptarmobiles bumper cars and the carousel. She contemplated going on Blue's Skidoo, but would only do so if I rode with her. As Maximus was also with us, I couldn't leave him so she could go on the ride. Therefore, Emma opted not to try the ride. She did go in the Pineapple Poppers bounce house, which she had not done before. She enjoyed that and wanted to do it again. Unfortunately, our ticket was out of points. I still have not broken down to buy an unlimited daily wristband for her. I just don't think she will get our money's worth out of one yet.

After playing at the theme park, Max, Emma, and I met back up with Mel who had been doing some clothes shopping. We then had dinner at Cadillac Ranch, a bar and grill restaurant on the third floor of the mall. Dinner was very good—I had the A-1 Mushroom Burger—and reasonably priced.

Movie Night

Friday night, Mel and I went to a movie in a theater for the first time in over a year. The last movie we saw in the theater being Robin Hood starring Russell Crowe. My sister came over to babysit her niece and nephew, so Mel and I started our evening by having dinner at Olive Garden. I had a new dish from their Four Cheese Pastachetti with Grilled Chicken. Lately when I have tried different dishes from my typical choices at restaurants, I have been a little disappointed. This dish however, did not disappoint. I enjoyed it.

After dinner we went to the theater to see Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. I enjoyed the movie. It was not as good as the original Pirates of the Caribbean movie, but it was still good. And while it is difficult for us to get out to movies as much as we would like, I hope Mel and I can make it to another movie or two this summer.

Shoe Shopping

This weekend I realized I was in need of a new pair of shoes for everyday wear. I was shopping at a mall Monday with my wife and kids and decided to look for a new pair of shoes. After getting my foot measured and discovering that my shoe size is 13.5 or 14, not 13 as I have been wearing for as long as I can remember, I looked through their selection for a pair of shoes I liked. After finding one, the salesperson went in the back to see if they had it in my size. Unfortunately they did not. I was not really too surprised by that as 14 is not a very popular shoe size.

That evening when we got home, I downloaded the Zappos app from the Android Marketplace. This allowed me to look through the vast selection of shoes that Zappos.com carries, filtering for the type of shoe I was looking for and for my size. After narrowing my choice down to about ten or so different pairs of shoes, I made my selection and placed my order, all from my smartphone. It is really amazing what one can do with technology these days. After placing my order, Zappos.com upgraded my shipping because of a tweet I wrote about them. And because of that, my new shoes arrived already today.

After this wonderful experience ordering shoes online, I do not know if I will ever feel the need to actually go to a shoe store to order shoes again. By ordering shoes for my gargantuan feet online, I have found that I have a much larger selection to choose from. And with free shipping both ways from Zappos, I do not even have to worry about the added expense of returning a pair of shoes in the event that they do not fit.

Fun at the Mall of America

With Mel out of town all weekend visiting a friend in Iowa, I was alone today with the kids. Maximus never seems to be happy when he's home with me, so he, Emma, and I all went to the Mall of America today. Emma always seems to want to go to the mall, mainly because she likes going to Nickelodeon Universe. When we got there around 10:15 this morning, she wanted to go on the carousel. Normally when I go there with Emma and Max, I put Emma on the carousel and then Max and I wait for her ride to be done. This morning however, I decided that Max might want to ride the carousel. So I strapped him on a horse next to Emma's. While waiting for the ride to begin, Maximus appeared to be pretty happy on the horse, but when it began moving up and down and going around, he got a worried look on his face which quickly turned to a scared look. Fortunately he didn't cry, but I thought we shouldn't go on the carousel again right away.

After our carousel ride we went into one of the Nickelodeon Universe stores where Emma looked at almost every item they had. She found a SpongeBob SquarePants dog tag with her name on it that she wanted, but we didn't get one. I was disappointed that they didn't have one with Max's name on it. After Emma had investigated every square inch of that store, the three of us set out in search for the Fossil store so I could get the battery in my watch replaced. As it is located on the second floor, we took the elevator up one level and began walking around the mall. We didn't make it to Fossil right away though. As we approached Macy's, Emma told me that she needed to go to the potty. We entered Macy's to find one. We ended up going to the third floor to find a restroom, after which Emma said she wanted lunch. So we ended up eating lunch before making it to the Fossil store.

After lunch we resumed out quest for the Fossil store. I however took us in the wrong direction. Before getting to Fossil, we stopped at the Disney Store where Emma looked around quite a bit, although we did not buy anything. Eventually we left the Disney Store and located Fossil where I had the battery in my watch replaced. Even though I knew the battery was dead, I had still been looking at it and kept wondering why time didn't seem to have passed. Now I will once again know the time.

By this time, Emma wanted to go on a few more rides. Before we got to any of the rides though, we saw that SpongeBob SquarePants and Squidward Tentacles were making an appearance, so we got in line so Emma and Max could see them. I was worried that Max might be scared of the large costumed characters, but he did fine. He even tried to grab SpongeBob's nose.

After getting their photo taken with SpongeBob and Squidward, we made our way to the Rugrats bumper cars. The last time Emma rode in the bumper cars, she ended up getting stuck in a corner. This time she did much better. She ended up riding the ride three consecutive times. She would have gone again if I would have let her, but I thought that three times was enough. I was amused the first time she rode the bumper cars today listening to all the parents along the side of the ride shouting to their kids to turn the wheel one way or the other and to press the peddle. I was among those parents doing this.

Before leaving, Emma wanted to ride on the carousel one more time. She wanted me to ride with her. I wasn't too sure about that since that would require Maximus to ride on the carousel again, and he really did not like his first experience on the ride. I relented though, and the three of us all rode on the carousel once more. This time though, I put Max on a horse that did not go up and down. He did much better this second time on a horse which was more limited in its motion.

Finally we were about ready to leave the mall. On our way out we walked by the LEGO store. Unfortunately Emma wasn't paying attention to where she was going, and the ran right into the corner of one of the support columns outside the side of the LEGO store. She was in a lot of pain and cried as we walked through the mall toward the exit. As we were close to the exit, we walked by Häagen-Dazs, where two employees were giving out small sample spoons of ice cream. The tiny spoon of ice cream had the effect of making Emma feel much better. Just to be sure though, they gave her another sample. She was doing much better for a moment until she ran into Max's stroller. She was once again whining as we made out way to the car. Finally leaving the mall a little after 2:00.

Both Emma and Maximus ended up falling asleep on our way home from the Mall of America. Maximus even stayed asleep when we got home, so I was able to put him down for a nap where he continued to sleep until I woke him at about 4:45 for dinner. Both kids had such a busy day that they each went to sleep fairly easily tonight. I am actually surprised that I am still awake considering all the work I did wrangling the kids today. I even walked over 14,000 steps today. More than 10,000 of those were at the Mall of America. I think I will go to sleep once I finish writing this.

Buying Tangled

Yesterday I picked up a copy of Tangled at our local Target store. It is going to be a present for Emma for Easter. There were several options available to choose from. There was the DVD-only, the two-disc combo pack with the Blu-ray and the DVD, and finally there was the four-disc combo pack which included the Blu-ray 3D and the digital copy as well as the 2D Blu-ray and the DVD. While we do not have a Blu-ray player, I decided to go with the four-disc combo. We did buy an HDTV earlier this year, so it's probably just a matter of time before we get a Blu-ray player. We will not be buying a 3D TV in the foreseeable future, but the digital copy will be nice. It would be nice if Disney sold a combo pack that had all three formats of the movie with the exception of the 3D disc, but I guess that would just complicate things. Besides, with the five-dollar coupon I got online, the four-disc combo pack cost the same as the two-disc pack.

The Losing Continues

I lost an additional 1.2 pounds this week, bringing my total weight loss since February 23 up to 7.0 pounds. I was worried that I wouldn't have any loss this week as we ate out twice during the week. I did count most of my Weight Watchers points though, although I did estimate the points for one of the dinners, and I used up every single point I had for the week.

I'm a Loser, Again

Yesterday was my weekly weigh-in day for Weight Watchers, and after two consecutive weeks of gaining weight, 0.4 pound each week, I have resumed losing weight. My weight was down 3.4 pounds from the previous week for a net loss of 5.8 pounds since I reset my tracking history four weeks ago, on February 23. Since I have not lost 5.8 pounds, I reached my first 5 pounds milestone. A couple of things that helped me get back to losing weight was more accurately tracking what I ate and actually getting exercise. I rode my bike on the trainer four times during the week. I intend to move up to riding at least five days each week. Not only will that help me with my weight loss, but it should also help me to prepare for RAGBRAI.

Four!

This past Sunday was Emma's fourth birthday. Time really goes by quickly. I can not believe she's already four years old! She seemed to have a pretty good birthday. We went to Don Pablo's for dinner Saturday night with Aunt Rebecca. Because we were there to celebrate her birthday, Emma got to wear the birthday sombrero, and we got a free order of sopaipillas.


We asked Emma Saturday what she wanted to do for her birthday. The only thing she indicated the wanted to do was to go to Sunday School, so since Maximus was sick, he has thrown up in the car on the way home from the restaurant Saturday night, I took Emma to church while Mel stayed home with Max.


After we got back home from church and ate lunch, Emma opened the presents we got her -- two Zhu Zhu Pets and the Zhu Zhu Burgers Overpass. She had a good time with her new toys, but later in the afternoon she didn't seem to be feeling well and she fell asleep on the couch. Emma ended up going to bed early because she wasn't feeling well, and by the afternoon, she also was not behaving very well. She still thought she had a good birthday though.