Merry Christmas

I celebrated my first Christmas in 1978, and now here I am in 2008. It has been a good Christmas. No early morning trips to the hospital this year. We spent it at home alone for the first time since we got married. Very nice. One young child and a baby are mayhem enough for one day.

Anyone who lived with me while I grew up won't be surprised that Christmas starts early in the Mike MacKenzie househould. Alex woke up at 5:45 this morning. Avril got him out of bed to feed him a bottle. Meanwhile, the crying woke Kenny up, and he promptly climbed in bed with me. I made the suggestion that we go see if Santa came, and he was all for that idea. We followed the MacKenzie tradition of opening stockings first, then having bacon and eggs for breakfast before opening the rest of the presents in an orderly manner. We were done opening presents just before 8:00, which was the time we were allowed to open stockings when I was kid.
Like many babies, Alex enjoyed the wrapping paper and ribbons more than the actual presents. His favourite presents (once the ribbons and paper were thrown away) were a stuffed Mickey Mouse from his Auntie Afton, and a ride-on train from his Grandma and Grandpa that Kenny is jealous of. We haven't received presents from Grammie and Papa yet, so we'll see if they can out-do their Laqua counterparts.
Kenny is in train heaven. He got a lot of presents this year, most of which was Thomas-oriented, from tracks to movies to remote-controlled trains. He did get a few non-Thomas gifts, such as Veggie Tales, Hoodwinked, candy, a Curious George book, cars, and candy. His favourite toy is Alex's train, but his new Tidsmouth Sheds track set seems to be a close second.
One of Avril's favourite presents is the new blender I got for her. Don't worry, I got her some pretty things, too, along with a score of books and some movies. As for me, my gifts were mostly movies and video games, but I think my favourite is the second installment of The Dark Tower graphic novel.
I also enjoyed the assembly that was required with Kenny's presents.
I hope all of you had a merry Christmas. I look forward to seeing your blogs about it.

Mike Through The Ages

Inspired by Mum's recent blog post, here are pictures of me over the years. I don't have any baby pictures on this computer, so I'll start in 1985 (the year Avril was born, so that's close enough).
The famous starving-dungeon-prisoner picture. This was taken in the summer 0f 1985 in Nova Scotia. Mary and I were staying with Grammie and Granddad while the rest of the family did a cross-continent car trip.
Here I am with Jake and Noah in the winter of 1989 in Raymond. Looking good, boys.
This was taken at the beginning of my senior year at Raymond High School, which was the fall of 1995. I was 17 years old and, I've never been better-looking. Man, I wish my hair was still that thick!
And here I am at the end of my senior year (spring 1996) with my prom date, Alison. It was the start of a long, interesting friendship.
This was taken around the mid-point of my mission. This would have been either December 1999 or January 2000. I'm modeling what coconuts actually look like. I'm also skinny. This was in Guiuan, Eastern Samar, Philippines.
September 17, 2004. The day I married Avril Laqua. Also the day, I'm told, that Noah and Heidi decided that they were going to get married, carrying on the tradition of Noah's life reflecting my own. Avril and I were married in Cardston, and our reception was in Stirling.
Me and my boys, Alex and Kenny, in October 2008 in Edmonton. I'm not as skinny as I was in 1985 or 1999, and I'm not as handsome as I was in 1995, but I sure am happier.

Little Known Facts

Here's a list of things that you might not know about me:

I hate being late, so I'm usually 15-20 minutes early for everything.

I only ever roll over in one direction in bed. Rolling over the other way just feels wrong.

I once urinated on a dead monkey.

I still feel guilty about a lie I told my parents when I was nine years old. Although, in retrospect, I think they might have known I was lying at the time.

I once ate a plate of spaghetti full of dead ants, and I knew the ants were in it before I ate it. This was near the end of my mission in the Philippines, and I was really hungry, and I wasn't about to throw away a huge plate of spaghetti.

If I look at a clock and it reads 11:11, I have to stare at it until it changes to 11:12.

Whenever I hear a comedian or a TV show joking about how hard it is to assemble furniture and follow the instructions from stores like Ikea, I get really mad, because that kind of stuff is really easy to me, and it just seems to me that they're blaming their own idiocy on other people.

When I worked at Thriftlodge, I was never in a good mood while at work. My mood varied between mildly irritated and apoplectic.

My torso is very long in relation to my legs.

Nothing (besides certain people) brings me more joy than a new pen.

I hate it when people call Thanksgiving "Turkey Day".

Whenever I get a new watch, it needs a new battery within a week.

Quite often when I listen to music, I tap my fingers in a specific pattern to each syllable being sung: index finger, thumb, middle finger, index finger, ring finger, middle finger, pinky, ring finger. I can't stop until a phrase ends on the last ring finger of the pattern.

I eat that big piece of cartilage in chicken breasts.

I love the smell of grocery stores.

New House and Christmas Preparations

Well, here we are in the midst of December. Avril, the boys, and I moved from our crap-shack in Trochu to our beautiful house in Three Hills at the end of November. We love having an entire house to ourselves instead of sharing it with basement dwellers who are constantly setting off the smoke detector. Afton and Avril's parents came up to help us out with the move, and we had some wonderful unsolicited help from our new neighbours, which was especially needed getting the ancient upright player piano upstairs.

Once we got the house into livable condition, we wasted no time getting a Christmas tree. I'm always sure to buy the tree on my own so that Avril can't stop me from getting the $55 one. Kenny loves Christmas trees, and he very much enjoyed helping to decorate it. The only problem was he put all of his ornaments in the same small area of the tree. Mommy and Daddy had to spread them out later when he wasn't looking. Alex is fascinated with the tree, and now that he can finally crawl, the tree is one of his regular destinations.




I also broke out Mum's Christmas cook book and made a batch of sour cream cookies. Kenny helped me make them, cut them, and decorate them. Decorating for Kenny consists of getting frosting on his knife, wiping I little bit on the side of a cookie, and then eating the rest of the frosting. Avril, on the other hand, did a wonderful job decorating her share of the cookies.

Blinding Sneeze

So I was driving to work today, minding my own business, when I'm suddenly attacked by a bout of sneezes. On the fourth and final sneeze, as I'm scrambling in the center consul for a napkin, something bounced off of my knee and onto the floor. I wondered what it was, but kept driving and blowing my nose. I noticed that my vision was suddenly blurry. My first thought was, "Oh, great, I got snot on my glasses." But then I realized the truth. I had sneezed the right lens right out of my frames. I wasn't too worried. My lenses have popped out several times before. But after I stopped the car and had a closer look, I realized that the screw was missing. Aw, man!

Band Names

Man, I'm lazy with my blog lately. This is the second entry in a row that is just pulled off of the Mo-Board.

Just for fun, I have compiled of lists of quotes from conversations I've had online that I think would make good band names. The name in parentheses is who said it. Band names with a * indicate names that Avril and I have used in Guitar Hero or Rock Band:

*Comfort of the Damned (me) Explanation: I was making the argument that Hell was on fire so that people could see while underground. The exact quote was "They were really thinking of the comfort of the damned when they designed that place."
Noah and the Cats (Heidi) Explanation: Heidi was simply talking about Noah and their cats.
*Suzy Ho-Bag (Heidi) Explanation: Heidi was using the name Suzy Ho-Bag as a general term for any woman of ill-refute.
Godlike Teeth (Noah) Explanation: Noah was bragging about his perfect teeth.
All Hail Hyper (Sean) Explanation: I forget what exactly we were talking about, but Hyper is me (short for hyperferrianism), and Sean was being sarcastic.
He's Estreeeeeemely Handsome (Heidi) Explanation: Heidi was calling Noah extremely handsome.
*Psychic Mind Twins (Heidi) Explanation: Heidi has said this often, both online and in real life. She and I have similar senses of humor, and we'll often come up with the same joke at the same time. We are, therefore, "psychic mind twins".
Dudeman (Noah/me) Explanation: This is actually what Noah and I called each other when we were roommates. I forget who said it first.
*Just Regular Rape (Mindy) Explanation: Mindy was talking about the differences between date-rape, spouse-rape, and "just regular rape". I found it morbidly amusing that she marginalized such a horrible thing as rape by adding "just regular" to it.
Duke of Sarc (Noah) Explanation: I said something sarcastic, and Noah dubbed me the Duke of Sarc.
*Your Face is a Metaphor (me) Explanation: A running joke on the Mo-Board is using "your face is..." as a comeback. If someone were to say, for example, "That dog is ugly" someone would come back with "your face is ugly!" In this instance, someone said something was a metaphor, and I came back with "your face is a metaphor!" No, it doesn't really make sense, but that's why it's funny.
Toxic Breastpump (Heidi) Explanation: this was in reference to the whole plastic-baby-products-that-cause-cancer scare not too long ago.
Mad Head Hyper (aklady--not sure what her real name is) Explanation: Mad is Heidi (short for mad misky), Head is Noah (short for headolence), and, as I explained earlier, I'm Hyper. The three of us hadn't been on the Mo-Board in a while, and aklady was wondering where we were. She said, "Where are the Canadians? Mad, Head, Hyper?" I just dropped the punctuation.
F-words and Boobies (me) Explanation: one of the other members of the Mo-Board mentioned that he always made sure that his hotel had HBO before he checked in. Heidi asked what was so great about HBO, and I facetiously answered: "F-words and boobies."