Thanksgiving and Black Friday 2021 (and a bachelor weekend)

 Hey everyone, it's that time of year again, the time when I give thanks for all that's great and fight some people for $10 off a microwave, Thanksgiving and Black Friday. Before I get into things, I just want to say taking a month off was not intentional; it was just my first anniversary around the 1st weekend and we celebrated by going to Disney World, so there was a lot of planning and prep that went into that, and then I had to recover from that the next weekend, and then it's Thanksgiving, and then mskate went to see her aunt so there was work with that, and work is a little crazy so when I get home I'm tired, and it's just been crazy. Now that I have some time to myself I figured now would be a good time to get back to things.

OK, so it's the second Thanksgiving as a married man, and we've basically agreed that mskate's side gets Christmas and we stay with her parents for overnights, and my side gets everything else. This is because the only holiday they get really into is Christmas and mskate's parents kept her room a bedroom, whereas my parents get into every holiday and my dad turned my old room into his home office. We had 3 days of festivities planned so we packed for 2 nights. We left shortly after waking up and got to our parents around mid-morning. We unpacked and did "Thanksgiving Ornament Presents" with her parents. When I say mskate's family is into Christmas, I mean they would be "our lawn and house is covered in decorations" people "if it wasn't so gaudy," and as such her dad bought us a bunch of ornaments and wrapped them up for us. His logic for giving them to us on Thanksgiving is "if I'm going to give you Christmas decorations, I'm not going to give it to you after the decorations are no longer needed, this way you can keep them out for the season." That's actually some pretty sound logic. We got some cool Disney Hallmark ornaments, and some Christmas Lego sets and crystal decorations (like the REALLY fancy kind, but her dad got them used for a good deal). After presents mskate and I made brussels sprouts for our contribution to Thanksgiving dinner. It's not a very complicated recipie, just sprouts cut in half with olive oil and garlic salt.

Anyway, food is cooked, now it's time to head to my parents. We were the 2nd to arrive I think, and it was just visiting. Not soon after that pepperbc and her family arrived and then my grandma got there, and then grandma's friends got there. A lot of visiting, talking about the different things we're working on. It was fun time. I had a bunch of hors d'oeuvre before dinner for lunch time, and got a paper for us to look at circulars for black Friday. It was a little difficult since they didn't have a lot of ads due to the supply chain shortage, but the website was up to date and got a lot of information from them. My family went through them and found some things for everyone (details later). Around 4PM we had dinner. I had ham, green beans, brussels sprouts, and rolls. Everyone else had turkey and stuffing with all that good stuff. We had no brussels sprouts left so that's a good sign that everyone liked them, yay.

OK, dinner's over, now it's time for the accordion, because that's part of our traditions. We sang some polkas, Christmas songs, and Small World for mskate. We had a lot of fun. After the accordion we had deserts; home made chocolate cake, chocolate pudding pie, apple crisp, and some other things. Since we had 3 people celebrating birthdays around this time we sang happy birthday and had some birthday candles in the cake. Really fun time. We did some more visiting, and then it was time to go. Mskate and I returned to her parents house and got some sleep for IRA and I to go black Friday Shopping.

OK, it's 5AM. I get up, grab some pop tarts, and tell IRA "get up, time to go shopping." The first store we went to was Best Buy. We got there before the store opened and had to wait in line. We were both cold but it was managable. The main thing I wanted there was an outdoor antenna that I can use for now while we're living in the condo and then get it installed when we move to a permanent house. I got it and IRA bought some DVDs and BluRays. Our next stop was Walmart. I wanted to get sonic colors ultimate on an 8th generation console (because I hate the wii) and jedi fallen order, and I was going to get a $20 roku at ABC Warehouse for my aunt but they had a $15 roku at Walmart so I got it there. IRA got some more DVDs. Our next stop was Macy's where we got a Minnie Mouse stuffed animal for mskate and slippers for my mom. IRA enjoyed the adventure even though he didn't get anything there. Our next stop was Meijer where we were going to get a Disney welcome mat and dog toys, but the dog toys were all made in China and the dogs we were buying for only have toys made in America (or at least, not China), but we were able to find pop sockets at Meijer and wouldn't have to get them at another store. Finding the welcome mats were difficult because I was looking for them in the seasonal section since they are seasonal mats (Micky wishing Merry Christmas kind of things) and the stock person saying "it's somewhere in seasonal," but they were actually standing alone in the outdoor section. Lucky for me IRA was there because he found them. Now it's time for the big one, Target. We went to the target that was close to Meijer and had to stand outside for this one. The employee was funny, he was walking around with a baby Yoda strapped to his chest counting people and then said "OK, now we're not going to shove or fight, and we're going to have a good time, otherwise baby Yoda is going to have some problems." This is the picture I got of him.

There weren't any problems. IRA bought some Super Smash Bros Ultimate DLC packages and I bought $100 worth of apple gift cards to get a $15 target gift card. The cashier didn't understand how the DLC receipt worked and she thought it was something for the store. I stopped her and explained what it was, and how that was IRA's. Good thing I was there. After this Target we went to another Target that was close to best buy and here IRA found some DVDs and I got Skinny Pop popcorn for mskate. Technically it was for our parents and my grandma to have at their houses for mskate since her allergies make snacks a little difficult to have on hand for her, and Skinny Pop is something she can eat. I was looking for 5 feet apart since mskate loves that movie but doesn't have it yet and it was on sale, but this target didn't have it in stock. It was getting to 8AM normal morning time, so we had maybe 1 store left. I had some things to look for at Menards (well just the hope of dog toys), but it was too far away. However, on our way there we found another Target that I forget about and this one had 5 Feet Apart. IRA bought it with some other movies (because the deal was buy 2 get 1 free), and he's going to give it to mskate for Christmas. IRA and I probably could have gone longer but mskate wanted us home for breakfast and shopping show and tell. IRA and I showed off all our finds, and it was fun.

OK, now it's time for 2nd Thanksgiving, this time with my grandpa and aunt. We all drove up together (or maybe we drove separately, I don't remember) and it was good. We arrived around mid-morning and it was a good little visit. We told grandpa about our trip to Disney and gave him the souvenir smashed penny we got him. He really likes Jiminy Cricket, and with it being the 50th birthday of Disney World they had Jiminy Cricket pennies.

He didn't want anything special (he's 95 years old and doesn't want any more possessions), but it's a $1 token gift of his favorite Disney character that I also got as a souvenir so he liked it. I gave my aunt the roku but she didn't know what TV she wanted it installed on so we'll install it another time. For lunch-dinner we had left overs from the day before. It was a fun little visit.

Afterwards we went back to mskate's parents house and visited with them for the evening. We also went to see Encanto, the latest Disney animated movie. I really enjoyed it, a lot of fun music and it strayed from "the animated movie" trope of "buddy roadtrip film." IRA didn't really care for it because there wasn't a grand adventure like so many other animated films of recent years, but I really enjoyed that aspect of it, and mskate was kind of in the middle. Mskate and I had a cuddle couch and IRA sat behind us. We spent the night again, and then in the morning mskate and I went back to our house. The rest of the weekend was pretty tame, just our normal weekend stuff and finding some things on cyber Monday, and planning for mskate's trip to see her Aunt the following weekend.

OK, on Wednesday morning I took mskate to the airport and Thursday and Friday were pretty basic, only special thing was I made a lego gingerbread house for our Christmas display.. Mskate suggested I go see a movie because I don't do that very often anymore now that we're married (because our tastes in movies only really overlap with Disney films), but I realized "actually, this is my opportunity to eat at restaurants we normally can't eat at because of mskate's allergies, I'm going to eat at restaurants that have a bunch of gluten and dairy." On Friday I walked to the takeout pizza and subs place that's a block away from our house and got a side of cheesy garlic bread to go with the pork roast I made. The city did a small firework show in memory of the school shooting that happened earlier in the week, and I happened to catch it as I was walking to get my garlic bread. That was a good way to start the weekend. I also watched 2019's Joker and ate pop-secret buttered popcorn, 2 things I don't really do with mskate around (she can't eat the buttered popcorn, and doesn't like movies like Joker). On Saturday I had a personal pizza from Pizza Hut for lunch and Chinese food from the Chinese takeout restaurant that's also a block away for dinner (mskate isn't confident there wouldn't be cross contamination from there). Sunday was really fun. I went to my parents house to do Christmas chocolate dipping with my family and get pizza from our favorite pizza place (more gluten and dairy). It was just a fun half afternoon. I also did some straightening up for mskate's return this Sunday night. It was a fun weekend. I was going to film a food review, but I got busy with a bunch of things so I ended up not. It's been a crazy busy month. Hopefully December has more opportunity to do content. This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

From Toddlers to House Parties, my Labor Day Weekend Reunions

 Hey everyone, it's Labor Day weekend here in the US, and with the amount of work I did it most certainly was a laboring weekend. On Friday I had my highschool reunion, Saturday was full of shopping and errands while mskate was on a trip with her best friend, Sunday was my friend's daughter's 3rd birthday, and then Monday mskate and I were hosting a labor day party with my side of the family. I'll go through it day by day.

Friday was when I had my 10 year highschool reunion. Yeah, apparently I've been out of highschool for 10 years, and one of my former classmates organized a reunion. Mskate and I went to highschool together, but since she was going on a trip on Saturday she decided to sit it out. I was really excited to go though, and when I saw that some of my old ilose friends were going I knew I had to go. I pulled out one of my safety vests (because I wore one daily junior and senior year) and got ready for a night of fun. I'm glad I left an hour early because it was kind of hard finding the pavilion we rented. I was one of the first to show up, and a lot of people appreciated that I wore the vest because they wouldn't have found it otherwise. One of my friends said "[Pokematic], I'm really glad you wore the vest, that was the only way I would have found this." Since only about 10 people were there in the first 30 minutes the girl that organized it said "hey, let's go around and say our name, what we're doing now, and what our highlight of the last decade was." When it came to me I said my highlight was getting married to our old classmate [mskate] last year, and my lowlight was selling 30 shares of gamestop for a $200 loss 2 years ago and converting 80K dogecoin to $5 worth of bitcoin 5 years ago. I basically spent all night hanging out with my ilose friends, catching up on 10 years of lunch conversations; things like our jobs, tabletop games, videogames, 3D printing, and our general geek hobbies. It was cool because we had everyone except zeldamaster and Trusdale. I also saw some other highschool friends that I kept a little contact with, and we caught up some as well. Dinner was unfortunately chicken, so I ate a lot of collard greens and corn. I'd guess that there was about 60-80 people that showed up, but I only recognized some. It's not that I wasn't paying attention or anything (like mskate likes to point out that I do a lot), it's just that I haven't seen a lot of these people in 10 years and people change a lot in that time, and there were only like 4 people that look almost the same as they did back in highschool. At about 8 before it got dark we took a group photo, and after that it was more hanging out. Before we left for the night we decided to exchange discord names so we could keep in touch. It was a great night. A number of people asked about mskate and I let them know she was going on a trip on Saturday and wanted to be well rested, but I said I'd see to it that she made it to the 20 year reunion.

OK, now it's time for Saturday. This was my "day to myself" with lots of errands. I had to get my allergy shot this week, so I went up to my parents area for my appointment. Nothing supper special, except that I took a long way home so I could stop at Ollie's and the meat store on the way home. Since we were hosting a grilling party on Monday I wanted to make sure we had enough potato chips and snacks, and meat. I picked up some spices and a power bank as well as chips, and got a variety of chips because I didn't know what everyone would like. Then I went to the meat store and bought over 50 pounds of meat. Over August we decided to try to not buy groceries or spend other money, and got our freezer pretty low. Now that it was September I decided to stock up again, and get hamburger meat for our party. I pulled all our meat in the house and reorganized the fridge to hold all this meat. I processed about 40 pounds on this day (which means taking it out of the butcher packaging and putting it in labeled freezer bags in single servings). I also had to move some stuff around the deep freeze as well, and it's about as full as it can get now. After the shopping and processing I did some more cleaning and prepping for the party on Monday, but otherwise pretty chill. Also, the replacement battery for a PS4 controller arrived so I finished that fix from a week ago (I bought a controller for $4 at a garage sale, but the battery was shot and needed replacement, so I bought a replacement on amazon for $15 and brought this controller back to life for under $20). I bought a replacement battery years ago when I thought my main controller lost it's charge but it wasn't the right type (battery was for an older model, and this controller was the newer model), so the controller laid on our coffee table disassembled until the battery came. Now it's assembled and working, so win (plus mskate is happy that the controller is no longer on the coffee table).

OK, now it's Sunday. I went to church and mskate got home a little later. I missed her friend when she arrived (I was already off to get my shot), but I saw her on the return trip. It was cool seeing her again since I hadn't since the wedding. Sunday day was pretty low key, but around 5 PM I went over to our friend's house for his daughter's 3rd birthday. This itself was also a little reunion, because this is my mom's godson and we would typically see each other 2-3 times a year, but haven't since 2019. What's also really fun is godson's wife's aunt was a counselor for my k-12 education and she was pretty involved in my educational development, so it's fun that she is able to say in my family's life beyond my k12 education. Mskate wasn't able to go to this one either (again, too tired), but she'll make it to the next one (which will probably be the son's 6th birthday). So this was funny, the mom decided she wanted to have a magician WAY to close to the party and didn't hire a real magician, so when I got there she asked if I could do some coin tricks, and I'm like "uhhh, I guess so, it's been years since I did magic though." She bought some plastic pirate coins, so I looked up some coin tricks after dinner and visiting with people. I learned 5 tricks but only managed to feel confident with 3 (2 of them required dense metal coins for the fast "toss the coin between hands," and the plastic was just too slow). I was summoned before I could find other tricks, so I did the "there's a coin behind your ear" tricks, and I rubbed the coin until it disappeared, and I rubbed the coin on my forearm to make it change color only to have it "accidentally" disappear. I was a little worried I wouldn't be very good (again, I probably haven't done magic tricks for 20 years), but I told myself "I'm entertaining 4 year olds, they're easy to fool." I ended up doing a really good job, everyone was fooled even though they were sitting all around me. Part of the success came from my ability to play a convincing character. I played an "incompetent magician who is always making things disappear." It ended up going over very well.

Not long after it was piñata time. Since they were little it was a pull string piñata, and that got a good laugh from my mom and I; when my brother and I were growing up, we reused the same pull string pinata for probably 6+ birthday parties, and I knew the winner string because it was always in the same spot. We joked about it and when it was getting low on strings I told mom "I think I know the winner." The parents handled it well though, because each kid got a whack at it before saying "OK now for pull string." If we did that I would have probably enjoyed it more, because I wanted to hit the pinata when I was little. Presents and cake were "what you would expect from a 3 year old's party;" the birthday girl was too distracted to really focus on opening more than one present, and the non-birthday brother wanted to open presents but it wasn't his day, but it was still fun. The cake was also nothing too special, except that it was a dairy free gluten free cake, which ended up being pretty good. After cake it was getting pretty late for the kids (8PM), so it was clean-up and go home time. I stayed behind after to help clean up some and maybe enjoy adult company after the kids were asleep. During this time when the other adults were busy one of the older girls (maybe 7 or 8) needed entertainment so I kept her busy by continuing to "screw up" the color changing coin trick. I did it probably 5 times and I was getting tired, so I'm just like "oh man I hope I don't let the trick slip," but I kept her fooled every time. Cleaning took longer than expected so I decided to leave not long after. Before I left though, I did the "color changing coin" trick for the dad since he missed the main show. I changed up the act before I left, and now instead of being incompetent I was just tired and "prone to accidents." After I did it he was very confused, looking for the coin, and asking "how'd you do that?" It was a fun time, and I said "next time I'll do balloon animals, I have a lot more experience at that."

OK, now it's Monday, Labor Day, and the first party mskate and I hosted at our house. Sure, our "first dinner party" was earlier this summer when camping, but this was the first time it was at our condo. We had been prepping for about a week, and I did all the final shopping on Saturday, it was now time. We had some hours to prep, and around 2 people started showing up. We basically talked for about an hour, and then prepared the burger patties and processed the ground beef. We pulled 2 pounds to make into tacos later, and pressed 11 patties since that's how many would fit on the platter with 2 levels, and rolled the remainder of the beef into meat balls. I grilled up 5 hotdogs and baked 5 potatoes in addition to the burgers. The fun thing is I grilled up everything on my little grill Dad called "the little grill that could." Everyone enjoyed it and the party went off without a hitch. After dinner my mom, aunt, brother, and I walked down to the park that's by us, just for a walk, while mskate and dad just hung out at home. Our park has a splash pad that my aunt and I splashed around a little in after some peer pressure. Overall, fun little party, and it was good to actually celebrate labor day for once instead of crying over it being the end of summer vacation (our school year started not long after labor day, and with mom as a teacher it wasn't a "fun holiday" for anyone).

Busy as it was, this was a fun weekend. Sure, it would have been better if things were spaced out a little more, but that wasn't the way things worked out. Since a lot of people missed out on the class reunion, I think there is going to be more of an effort to let people know for the 20th. I also know that the next children's birthday party I'm going to I'm going to make balloon animals, so that will be fun. This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

Camping 2021 Adventure

Hey everyone, it's that time of year again, the time when I go camping with my family and friends. This is the first time I went camping as a married man, and got my own camp site. I would normally stay with my parents either in their hotel or on their site, but now that I'm married and we asked for camping equipment on our wedding registry I got my own pokematic site with mskate. In the week leading up I gathered up pretty much all the equipment and supplies, and mskate packed our clothes. I also took the Friday off so we could get there right at check in time, and do some shopping at the outlet mall on the way there.

 Friday started out pretty basic. I loaded up all the gear in our SUV and treated it like pretty much any weekday morning. Around 11 we got on the road. I needed to get my allergy shot and pick-up some things from my parents, and since they are on the way we stopped there. It was just a quick little stop, nothing big. After the parents stop and an hour of driving we went to the outlet mall. We were going to stop at the Coleman store since we needed table cloth clips and wanted some spare tent steaks, but the Coleman store was no more so we had to skip it. We did stop at the Pepperidge Farm store and got some goldfish crackers and millanno cookies, and some iced tea bags. After Pepperidge Farm we went to the Adidas store because mskate needed new tennis shoes. I've never been shoe shopping with mskate before, but I know what the comedians say about women and shoe shopping, so I brought my Nintendo Switch in and sat at one of the benches. It didn't take her very long, but I wanted to be sure, and I did get some animal crossing in, so that was good. The last store we went to was a new hot sauce place. The clerk asked if I needed any help so I asked him for some recommendations. I settled on fusion garlic and pepper hot sauce, and that was our shopping trip. After shopping was lunch. We were going to go to this restaurant that gives you big portions and is good for getting camping food, but unfortunately they had a line out the door so we went to a burger place. I got a pizza and fried pickles to get left overs, and mskate had a bunless burger. After lunch it was back on the road.

After about another hour of driving we arrived at the state park. Since I went camping with my dad and brother earlier in the year (link here) we didn't need to get a recreation pass. I checked us in and got our site. We pulled up and started the set-up process. This was the first time setting up our tent, and even though it was my first time I'm a bit of a tent expert so I did it no problem. Well, only slight problem since it kind of requires 2 people to get the poles all set right, so my godfather helped me with that. After the tent was set-up I pulled the air mattress out and started inflating it. Fun fact, I somehow ended up with the air mattress pump my parents used for 20 years when they camped, so I used that on our air mattress. After I got the air mattress inflated mskate set-up our sleeping bags and the clothes. Since we didn't have table cloth clips I improved with bungee cords. With everything set-up we visited with my godfather and his family. For dinner we had walking tacos, primarily because it has minimal clean-up (just need to clean the electric skillet after heating the taco meat). I forgot our extension chord, but thankfully one of our friends had an extra one I could borrow. My parents brought up an extension cord when they came up on Saturday. I also somehow forgot the dish soap. I don't know how, I had it out with everything, and I swear I had it in the car, but even after unpacking everything I couldn't find it. We got some from the camp store, and now that's part of our camping equipment.

Friday night was pretty low key. Mskate brought pot holder materials for making finger weaving crafts. She showed my god-siblings how to do it and some other camping friends, and everyone really enjoyed it. After dinner we went to the ice cream store that's just outside the camp ground. Mskate had a special vegan gluten free sunday, and I had a mixed ice cream thing with brownie bits. We had a camp fire at one of our friend's site later in the evening. Just a calm first night. I was going to take a shower that night but the water was too cold, so I said "I'll try this tomorrow." The air mattress was a little under inflated, so when I got in mskate shot up, and when I got off mskate sunk low. The following day I inflated the air mattress more so it would be more comfortable.

Saturday started out pretty basic. For breakfast we were going to have hash browns and bacon. I brought a box of freeze dried hash browns and basically figured hydrating them would be similar to other freeze dried hash browns I've had in the past (hydrate in the box), but they were "hydrate in the microwave." No big problem though, I just took a bowl of water and heated it in the electric skillet, and then when they were hydrated I took them off the skillet and fried up some bacon for the grease; who needs butter or oil when you have bacon grease. The hash browns and bacon was good. After breakfast mskate and I drove to some different showers and they had hot water. When we got back I told everyone in our group that the other showers had hot water. Between breakfast and lunch we primarily did the finger weaving and pot holder craft. I made us 2 pot holders and mskate made a 4 foot finger weave. Mskate and I also went on a little walk, just down the beach trails so nothing really big.

My parents got up to camp around lunch time, so we said our hellos and got lunch ready. Mskate had hot dogs and I had a ham and cheese mini-sub. They heated up something on our skillet, but I don't remember what. After lunch it was time for the beach. I didn't really feel like swimming, but I put on my trunks and went out to the beach. I brought my metal detector I bought last year on black Friday and combed the beach. Unfortunately all I found was 3 bottlecaps, but oh well, I helped clean the beach some. After metal detecting I read another chapter of my Pirates of the Caribbean Dead Man's Chest manga novel. After a chapter I decided to join everyone else in the lake. It was REALLY cold and I only went up to about my waste. I visited with the group, but went back in pretty soon after. After some relaxing mskate and I went around trying to book a Disney vacation. We went to the camp store to use their wifi, but that wasn't working well, so then we went to my parent's hotel to use their wifi. We had to use my dad's laptop since mskate's ipad and both of our phones weren't working right with the website. We were able to book our trip and it's going to be over our 1 year anniversary. That will be fun.

It's now approaching dinner time. My mom and mskate went to pickup the pizzas that everyone ordered over the morning. This is when things got fun. No one really planned it this way, but everyone started to gather at our site, and mskate and I ended up hosting our first dinner party. After dinner I started setting up the campfire on our site. When I got the wood and paper set-up it was time for ice cream. Mskate got a different vegan ice cream thing in a gluten free cone, and I think I just got some basic seasalt caramel. When we got back I got the fire started, and then did a little treasure hunt with my youngest god-brother. I took the bottle caps I found earlier and buried them in the sand just below the surface, and we dug them up after finding them with the metal detector. I knew when I was his age I would have really enjoyed an activity like that, and he enjoyed it too. The fire was fun, and it was cool hosting everyone.  I brought some potatoes wrapped in foil to make in the fire, so I put the potato in the fire and made a baked potato. Everyone was really impressed by it and the idea of doing a potato bar next year was floated. Before I went to bed I decided to give the showers a try, and they were warm enough to shower in, yay.

Sunday was a pretty low key day. I had a chocolate muffin for breakfast and then got dressed for church. We all went to the spot in the back that we always sit in. It was perfect for our group when we were much larger since we would pretty much fill the entire section, but now that we've shrunk significantly in size we only filled up about 1 pew. On our way to church I saw a garage sale advertised, so on our way back I decided to stop there and see if there was anything good. There was an Indiana Jones brand machete for sale, but I had to pass. When we got back I pulled out our food to share with everyone. I had a ham and cheese mini-sub and some bacon. I gave everyone else the rest of the sub buns, ham, and cheese (because I didn't want to bring it home). After brunch we packed up our stuff and got ready to go. Since we had the party at our site the previous night there was still a lot of other people's stuff at our site, so I made an announcement to get your stuff since we're checking out. I wasn't able to get the tent back in the original bag, and I tried when I got home but I just wasn't able to get all the air out and it just didn't fit back in the original bag. When we get a yard I'm probably going to try to get it back in the bag since I can do it on the grass, but for now it's rolled up as best I can and in our camp bin. Overall it was a fun trip. Next year we'll bring more finger weaving stuff and probably foil wrapped potatoes since that went over so well. This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

A Simple Camping Weekend

Hey everyone. A month or so ago my dad had the idea to get a cabin in May and invite his sons (my brother and I), and last weekend was that weekend. It was about 2 hours north of me and 1 hour north of him, and there wasn't much of a plan (just getting together for some guy fun). Getting set-up was a pretty simple affair. Primarily we just had to make sure we had enough food and all the camping equipment we would need. My dad brought eggs, hash browns, brats, bacon, and ground chuck and bacon steaks, and I brought homemade chili, biscuits, chex mix, and pringles. For fun I brought some board games and an analog TV tuner to see if we could find an analog signal, and prescription bottle stickers and paperwork that I wouldn't be able to put in my shredder to burn, and my dad brought a wood burning experiment. I got everything ready and out in the living room ready for the trip.

Friday was the drive up day. I packed up my stuff and kissed mskate goodbye. The drive up was long. I hit traffic, and it wasn't very fun. Another thing that happened is my subscription to satellite radio ran out as I was driving, so that wasn't very fun. I thankfully had some comedy specials downloaded to my phone so I listened to them. I got there around 5:30 and we immediately started heating up the chili. I unpacked all my stuff as they cooked. After it was heated we served it up. Everyone really liked it, which made me happy because this was a new recipe, one where I forgot the chili powder. After dinner we had some of the chex mix and pringles, and everyone was happy I brought the chili in a mason jar because we used the jar to transport dish cleaning water from the spigot to the camp site. Now for the fun wood burning experiment. My dad saw someone make a thing where you drill a main hole in a 4X4 piece of wood, and then angled holes along the side, pour in lamp oil, and then you get fire to come out of the holes. He didn't have a 4X4 or lamp oil, but he did have some birch logs and sterno, so we drilled some holes in one and tried some different things. Here's the video.

Once the wood experiment was done we used the burning wood to build our camp fire. It was a fun time. We chatted as we sat around the fire. Nothing super spectacular, just talking about life. We did this until about 11 PM when the fire burned out and we went to bed.

Saturday was our main day. We woke up and had the hash browns, bacon, and eggs. Dad and I also had a biscuit. Since the forecast called for rain we went to one of the cities that was close to the camp ground. We explored the city and looked for some stuff to check out. We went to a farmer's market and I picked up some beef jerky and dark chocolate raspberry bark. It then started to rain, so we took refuge in the freighter watching building (because the city was along a shipping rout). We sat at a table and just waited out the rain. My crocks were filthy from the rain mud and campground pickups, so I left them out in the rain to get cleaned off (it helped a little, but not much). We went close to the border see if we could pick-up a TV signal, so I pulled out the tuner, set it up, and started trying to get something.

I like to say I was trying to contact the mother ship. Unfortunately I didn't get a signal, and I went through the entire VHF and UHF band (2-89). We went back to the camp ground to eat lunch after I wasn't able to find a signal. We had the brats and some of the pringles. After lunch we decided to go on a little walk down by the lake. There wasn't much of a beach, but there was a shore line, one with a lot of rocks. My brother found some flat stones and started skipping them. I then started looking for some good stones and went skipping too. Dad just sat down on a down tree and watched us. We did this for maybe an hour, just skipping stones and chatting. I managed to skip one about 14 times, but most of the time I either got 2-3 skips, or failed just went plop. My brother had pretty similar luck. Then there was one stone that I found, it was perfect for skipping; flat, slightly convex bottom, completely flat top, almost circular, and light. I was talking it up, and when I threw it, it plopped, not even a skip. That got quite the laugh out of everyone.

After stone skipping we decided to explore the other city near by. This is when I went thrifting. I found a habitat for humanity restore and a goodwill. I looked at all the VHS tapes looking for lost media, and then I went to the toys looking for American Girl Doll stuff. Unfortunately I didn't find anything, but my dad and brother enjoyed the restore and all the home equipment. After thrifting we went to the main street. My dad had been there in the past with my mom on get aways, but it was always so busy that they weren't able to explore the main street. This time since it was before memorial day it wasn't very busy, so we were able to got to everywhere. There were a lot of cool little shops, mostly tourist trap like knick knacks, but since we were tourists it was fun. What was really cool though was the city general store, a place that sold a little of everything. I picked up some pickle hot sauce, and here's my quick review from later that night.

Another cool thing was Wimpy's Hamburgers, a little restaurant that is based off the Popeye character Wimpy. That was really cool since Popeye is probably my favorite golden age cartoon. I didn't eat there since we already had all the food plans made, but if/when I go back there I need to eat there (and get more of that pickle hot sauce).

We walked a little more down the road and went to the brewery. Dad and bro wanted to go there and have a beer, but unfortunately they were closed down, so we just went back to the car and went down to the pier. They had a beach and a wave breaker set-up, and bro and I walked the wave breaker while dad just rested in the car. It was pretty cool, there were waves crashing on the boulders and it sounded like something from a pirate cove in a movie. When we got to the end of the wave breaker there was a light house beacon thing, and it was covered in graffiti. I was expecting the standard, "Jack and Diane 4 ever" and "Tim was here," and while there was some of that, most of it was religious inspiration, like "you're looking for a sign of God's presence, here it is" and "Jesus loves you." I was very conflicted as to how I felt about that, because while it is vandalism and that's something He generally frowns upon, there's also something about painting over this form of evangelization that just seems wrong. Whatever, not my moral dilemma to solve. We walked back to the car and went to an antique store on the drive back to camp. I like to go antiquing, and even though I typically don't find stuff there's always that "what if." Plus, I like to just look at all the nifty old stuff. There was a lot of decorations and toys, but what caught my attention was the room of records. Normally I'll find a half-full apple crate of albums at antique shops, but this was like an entire mini-record store, so that was cool. Then there was one thing that REALLY caught my attention, Mad Magazine the board game. I played this back in kindergarten in latchkey, and I remember the satirical humor being way above my head. Now that I'm an adult and developed a taste for Mad back in highschool, I wanted to play it again and see what the humor really meant. Unfortunately I didn't have $30 worth of want, so I passed.

Now we're back at camp, getting dinner ready. We had hash browns and the ground bacon chuck steaks my dad made. What it was was ground chuck roast with bacon ground in with it, shaped into a patty. It was really good, but could have used more bacon. I put some of my new pickle hot sauce on it and that gave it some really good flavor. Now it's time for day 2 of the fire project. Since we tried some different things the night before, each of us got a log and had the opportunity to do what we wanted. I wanted to try 4 holes a 12, 3, 6, and 9, each of different sizes. Bro wanted to try some holes on the side in addition to the top. Dad just wanted to put a bunch of holes in his, and drill in to get more sterno. One thing we all agreed with though, is we needed something to cover the main hole that we put the fuel in. Lucky for them my alcohol of choice comes in bottles, so I flattened out some bottle caps and made little lids. Here's the video of the events.

While we were having fun with our logs, we built up a fire, this time using proper technique so it wasn't quite as tedious as it was the previous night. Then when the logs were done, we just kicked them into the fire. I burned all my prescription stickers, so that was good to get done with. Like the night before, we just talked about life and how great this campout was, and that we need to do this again (but maybe get a cabin with an attached toilet). This went on until about 10, then Dad and I went to bed. Bro handled the fire for another hour since he has some trouble sleeping.

Sunday was packup day. We ate the rest of the hash browns and bacon and biscuits, and then we packed up all our stuff. After we said our goodbyes I went to the church that was right there down the road from the camp ground, and their mass was at 10 AM which was right about the time I got there. Talk about convenient. After mass I began the trip home, until I had the bright idea of going an hour out of my way to go to a city that the FCC has listed as having 2 analog stations. I put the college that's close to the city in my GPS and started my detour. I got there and tried to contact the mother ship, but nothing. I then put the GPS coordinates of the broadcast tower into my GPS and it took me to nothing. I went to one last open location and tried it on the 1980s TV I brought with me, and nothing. That's when I drove home defeated. On my way home I got mskate a beanie baby happy meal toy. They didn't have the owl she was looking for, but I got her a penguin and she liked it. All in all, great trip. I had some great guy time with my family, and the only thing that could have made it better was finding one of the last analog TV channels. Oh well. This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

Oh, and thank-you Max for your continued patreon support.

How I Spent my Spring Vacation

 Hey everyone, so at work we had some major slow time and I had 3 weeks of vacation time, so I decided to take a week off from May 3rd to May 7th. I didn't have much planned, but I had some chores and fun activities to do, so here's what I ended up doing.

Monday was the "chore day." First thing was we went to our storage locker to get some shoes and bags for our upcoming trip to Arizona. The bins were a little berried behind my yellow store shelf, so that was a bit of an ordeal. We got her bag our, but unfortunately all the sandals she wanted were not in that bin. Oh well. Before we went mskate said she wanted a diet coke slurpee, and it had to be diet. I know I've seen them before, but 7-eleven rotates their flavors and they didn't have them at the 7-eleven that was on the way home from the storage locker. After the locker we went out to lunch to a local restaurant. Back when we were dating we used to go to all sorts of restaurants, but since covid we haven't done that. Well with things opening up we went out to a local restaurant. We wanted lunch but the place only had brunch available when we got there, so I had a brunch burger croissant sandwich and mskate had a salmon croissant sandwich with the croissant on the side (she can't have gluten, so if a gluten free bread isn't available I eat it off the side). We ate in an outdoor room thing, and I asked to turn the heaters on (and they let me). It was pretty good, I would go there again. After that we went up to our parents area so I could get my allergy shot and pick-up and drop off some stuff at the parents. I got my shot and then we went to a 7-eleven by the allergist. Unfortunately they didn't have diet coke either, so we went to my parents house. On the way to my parents, we went to the 7-eleven by their house and unfortunately no diet coke. We went to my parents house and picked up some muffins and said hi to my dad (mom was out, probably at grandma's). After my parents we went to a 7-eleven by her parents house, and again, no diet coke. She dropped off some snacks and other things for her parents to take on their road trip to Arizona (because it's a memorial trip for mskate's grandma, and we're flying). The rest of the day was kind of relaxed, but I did dishes and some other small chores. Oh, and because it was Star Wars Day May 4th, I made this little thing I posted to hugelol.

Tuesday was our fun day. Generally speaking things were pretty calm in the morning. After some breakfast we went to mini golf. There is a mini golf course some cities over and we wanted to try it out. It was a pretty fun course with a sea monster and ship theme. Here are some pictures I took.

Nothing super exciting, except I got some hole in 1s. I also found some golf balls that people hit into the water. Since it was still pretty early in the season only the little lake with the sea monster had water in it, and it was pretty shallow. I saw a blue ball in it and I fished it out. Mskate wasn't exactly thrilled, but I made the case that the place will appreciate it since I'm doing their work for them, and she said "OK, you can try twice." I only needed 1 try. Then in another where the water was completely drained I saw a pink and purple ball, so I jumped into the river bed and grabbed them. Below is my bounty.

At the final hole I did my yellow ball as a serious one for points, and I think it took me 3 strokes. Then while mskate was totaling the points I did this.

I won by 4 strokes. After minigolf we went to a 7-eleven, and alas, no diet coke. We did go to A&W where I had chili cheese fries and mskate got a diet root beer. We went home after that and just relaxed until it was time for the movie. We went to see Raya and the Last Dragon, and it was good. Want my review, here you go.

OK, that was Tuesday. Wednesday was a medical day. Mskate went to the dentist and I went to get my 2nd covid vaccine dose. I was actually supposed to get my dose on Friday, but the place had to cancel and reschedule. Lucky for me and them I took off all week so I could easily reschedule. I was a little late to the appointment, but because it wasn't very busy it wasn't a problem. I exercised my arm so it would hopefully not be very sore the next day, and one of the other people waiting in observation asked if that would help. I said "I don't know, but I always heard to exercise after an injection." I got home and ate some lunch. Mskate went to her dentist and I recorded this catholiccontriversy video (because I like to record in an empty house).

I also reorganized the shipping boxes and material in the storage room. I had to do this while mskate was out because if I didn't she would be saying "throw this out, throw this out." But now instead of basically filling half the room it doesn't take up much of anything. I also relisted some items on ebay and reorganized the games I have listed so I don't have to go far. I drank a lot of water and took some advil, and was good.

Thursday was the moment of truth, would I be knocked out by the vaccine side effects or be good. My dad and brother and mskate had reactions, but my mom and grandma didn't. I was lucky and all I can really say is I have a sore arm. Because of this mskate and I decided to take an impromptu get away to Columbus to go to the American Girl store for the 35th birthday promotion. We were only going to do this if I was feeling OK, and I was. I checked the FCC low power analog map to see if there were any low power TV stations, and since there supposedly are, I packed up the analog TV from the 80s. I'll let the vlog speak for itself, but I'll go through the details because I didn't capture everything.

[vlog coming soon]

First we went to the American Girl Doll store. We were going to check in first, but the hotel was 20 minutes away and the store would close in an hour by the time we got to the store. We parked and walked over to the store. This was the 2nd time I went there, and while I'm not into dolls I do appreciate the creativity of all the characters and accessories. Oh, and I REALLY like Courtney, the 80s doll, because I love 80s stuff. Back in highschool one of my classmates said "you were born 20 years too late, weren't you?" She has a working pacman arcade cabinet. Unfortunately they didn't have any of the floor models powered up, and the pinball machine for the 60s girl had the ball taken out of it, but it was still fun seeing these accessories. Oh, and now there's an xbox gaming set, and we're going to get that at some point because we both will appreciate that (I like the gamer aspect of it, and mskate likes the cute doll accessory aspect). We also got some mystery bags, and felt them to figure out what they are. (We also went to the candy store, I got sour ribbons, chocolate rocks, and candy bricks).

After shopping we went to the hotel. I drove there and checked us in, and just barely made it for dinner and drinks. Drury Inn is awesome, they have continental breakfast, continental dinner, and each adult guest gets 3 alcoholic drinks. I had a tequila sunrise, gin and tonic, and glass of white zinfandel. Tequila sunrise is a house cocktail, and and I always like to try house cocktails, and since it was free I decided to try a gin and tonic. We unpacked the car and got in the room. There was a problem with the original, 1-room room, so they upgraded us to a 2-room suit. I set-up the analog TV and tried tuning into the low power tv stations, but didn't get anything. I also tried installing crypto mining software on my travel laptop (because mining at a hotel is free to me electricity), but I couldn't figure out how to get the mining software working, so that was also a bust. It was a pretty quiet night after that.

The next day was an impromptu event. I realized we were outside Columbus, and low power stations are "low power, and therefore don't have far range," so if I was to get anything we would have to go back into Columbus, so mskate got to have another trip to the American Girl Doll store while I played around with the TV at the top of the parking structure (because the best place to get a signal would be high up). I had some trouble with the power inverter in the car, so I decided to try mooching electricity from the outdoor mall. I tried plugging into the outlets in the stairwell, and then tried plugging into an outlet on the side of a store, but those outlets were all turned off. I'm carrying this 30 pound TV up and down the stairs, plugging into all outlets I can find and not getting anything. Serves me right for trying to mooch I guess. I went back to the car and read the manual. Turns out the engine had to be on, go figure. I tried the channels but nothing. This is when I had the great idea to go to the GPS coordinates of the towers, so I plugged them in and we went to one of the tower locations. It was of course way out of the way, but it's my vacation I'll do what I want. It just so happened that the tower was right next to a cemetery, so we went into the cemetery and got right up to the tower. It didn't work. Apparently it was the Columbus NBC affiliate, and they were all converted to digital. Mskate wasn't going to put up with going to the other tower, so we just went home. I did a little research and while the tower was just 1 mile away, if it was broadcasting analog I would have been able to pick it up from where we were. It was still cool seeing a broadcast tower up close and personal though, and I think there was something the TV was picking up because there was a pattern to the static. We got Sonic for lunch because it was right there, and then drove home. I did a little bit of grocery shopping that night but it was pretty low key after we got home and unpacked.

Saturday was pretty low key. We listed some items on ebay, specifically an American Girl Doll mskate got but ended up not being one she wanted; she thought she got a historical doll but it was a truly me doll. I had a major craving for take-out pizza from this place that's on the other side of town, so I put in the order and got it. As I drove there I realized that garage sale season has started, so after lunch mskate and I went out garage sailing. She was looking primarily for American Girl Doll stuff, and I was looking for my nerd stuff or things I could sell easily. Unfortunately neither of us found stuff we were interested in, but mskate found someone selling new clothes her mom really likes for a great price so we picked up Christmas presents. I did come across a guy selling license plates, and while they do sell, I've found they're generally more trouble than their worth since ebay has a habit of taking them down and they don't sell for a lot. Oh well, it was mainly for an outing. While out garage sailing we went to a 7-eleven and while mskate didn't get a diet coke slurpee, she was able to get a sugar free vitamin water slurpee, so that a success. After garage sailing we went to the grocery and picked up some maraschino cherries and a grandma card for mothers day, and some snacks for our upcoming trip. I ended up getting "hard cherries," so my grandma will have to pace herself when she eats them. After dinner we watched Hunchback of Notre Dame on Disney Plus, so that was fun.

Sunday was Mother's Day. We went to church like we normally do, and then we got ready to go to my parents house. We got all gifts ready, mskate wrapped the presents and after a little waiting we went to my parents house. We arrived a little early and that gave us some time to just visit with my parents. Then everyone showed up. Here's everyone that came; my grandma, pepperbc and her family, and my grandma's friends J&P. We primarily talked about things, like their upcoming trip to Evansville. While talking about things, I brought up how I'm looking for low power analog TV channels, and how PepperBC has some up by her house on the other side of the state, and that they will pass by one on their trip. My mom and aunt may humor me on their trip and try to get a channel, but time will tell. Dinner was pretty good, my dad made roast beef and J brought rolls and pies. It was REALLY good. After dinner we did our sing along with J playing the accordion. We ended up doing a video call with the Evansville relatives so they could enjoy the sing along too. After that we gave the gifts. Everyone enjoyed what they got, and we made a big point to say "the cherries are alcoholic, don't eat too many at once."

All in all, it was a great week. I'm really glad I took it off and was able to be so filled. Yeah, it would have been good to be a little more "productive," but that's OK, vacation is meant to be fun. Well, this has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

My Christmas 2020

Hey everyone, it's that time of year again, Christmas time. Normally this is a time of going to my parents with a big party, going to McDonalds as Santa prepares Christmas at my grandparent's on Christmas eve, and wild lights with mskate. But with 2020 being, 2020 (crazy lockdowns if you're reading this in the somewhat distant future), things had to change.

I'll start off with a little black Friday fun. Normally black Friday is a blog all it's own, but thanksgiving was kind of bland with lockdowns and such, but it was kind of neat because I had to split my time between my biological family and in-law family, and that was a new experience. We had lunch with my parents and dinner with mskate's parents (or maybe it was the other way around). Either way, we ended up staying at her parents house for the night. As I've said in previous years, I go black Friday shopping every year. Ever since I took IRA with me last year he looks forward to going with me since his family isn't into in person shopping, or crazy crowds, or all the insanity that goes with black Friday shopping that he and I enjoy. Well thanks to 2020, it wasn't like any black Friday I ever experienced, and that was kind of a good thing. You see, ever since I started doing black Friday back in 2010, it's always been "early," like stores open at midnight or 11, or 10, or open all Thanksgiving. I know in the past they used to open at like 5AM or 3AM, so only the REALLY hard core would go out, because that's what my mom would do when I was little, but it just kept creeping earlier and earlier and a lot of people were vocal about their disapproval (like my highschool English teachers). Well because of covid and needing to reduce crowds, the stores opened at like 5AM like they did in the past. IRA and I went out at like 10PM and just kind of went the black Friday rout, and were only able to pick up some stuff from drugstores that were open on Thanksgiving. We went to bed and were going to wake up at 5AM, but I didn't set my alarm right so we ended up leaving at like 5:45. We still did the Black Friday rout, going to best buy, target, big lots, and walmart. We didn't pick-up as much as normal since neither of us really had much to shop for and most of the stuff was picked over because we were late.

OK, fast forward some weeks. Mskate and I normally go to the wild lights at the zoo, but it was too crazy this year with all the restrictions, so mskate found something similar but different. Our county does their own wild lights thing, only it's a driving thing through a large city park. We left a little too early though and the place wasn't open yet, so we decided to walk around the mall that was kind of close by. We didn't spend a ton of time there since we only had about an hour, but we walked around and got some steps in. After walking the entire mall we got back in the car and went to find the place. It was kind of funny, because the GPS wanted to take us through the street that was blocked off so they could have the lights, so we had to get creative. Mskate put a bank in that was close to the entrance and we used that to get us to the general proximity, and then we put in the actual park so we could go to the lights.

OK, now for the fun stuff. We enter the park and get in line. By now the car was starting to get warm, so I took my heavy winter coat off and was only wearing my light hoodie. Mskate pretty much did the same. What was really cool is that they had lights on the way in, so even when we were waiting in line there was stuff to look at. They also set-up a "scenic stop" as the way to turn around to go into the park, which was kind of neat. Lucky for me since mskate was using her phone to play music, she had to use my phone to take all the pictures, so that made it easy for me to get all the pictures up for you.

There were also a fair amount of animated lights, with a few frames a second. Here's a compilation (muted for copyright because we had Christmas music playing in the car).

It was a really fun little outing. It was about 1 hour of fun. There were 3 miles of lights set-up, and we only drove like 10 miles an hour and made stops along the way. Mskate also wanted to have popcorn and snacks for the drive, and that was a great idea and felt really great. I don't remember specific examples, but I do remember my parents driving me around to look at Christmas lights when I was really little, and driving around looking at lights with snacks reminded me of those times. We were also saying "we're definitely doing this with future kids; it's festive and pretty, it builds the memories, it's not too far from our house, and the kids just sit in their car seats without worrying about being too cold or getting too tired." And it was cheap, only $5 per car; we'd spend like $20 per person at the zoo, which also adds to the "we're doing this with kids" aspect. It was a great experience and probably the start of a tradition.

Speaking of new traditions, mskate and I also had a Christmas movie marathon list. Mskate made a list of movies on a piece of poster board and hung it on the wall. As we watched movies we would check off movies. 

Obscured from view are "prep and landing" and "snowden on ice" because it had personal information in the title. We watched a movie about every night of December, sometimes 2. A lot were movies we've seen before, but others were new to one of us. It was a fun thing and probably a new tradition. We also wrapped all the presents we were giving to other people and put them under our tree for storage. "Where does one store many Christmas presents without them being in the way," and the obvious answer is "in plain sight." Normally I would just put them in the bed room where I kept them unwrapped, but that was only ok when I was a bachelor. I think we also found a good place for us to store our gifts in the future before we have kids (because Santa you know).

OK, now it's time for the real festivities. Because we had 2 families worth of gifts to distribute, our car was REALLY full. Lucky for us I have a Durango which has a lot of cargo space. Just call us Santa, because our sleigh was filled. Our time begins on December 24th Christmas Eve. We stopped at her parents first to drop off our gifts to her family and our overnight stuff, because we needed to clear some room in the car before our next stop. Now it's time for the main tradition, Christmas Eve at my grandma's house. We went to her house and unpacked our bag of presents for that group of family. Normally we go to McDonalds before exchanging gifts, because that was when Santa would deliver the presents when we were little and now we do it just because it's tradition, but because covid stopped indoor dining we just went right to her house. Mskate and I passed out our gifts to everyone. I got some gift cards, snacks, movies, and a charging dock for my PS4 controllers. We gave my grandma a red lobster gift card, photo frame from our wedding with her, and some other nice things.

After all the gifts were passed out, my grandma pulled out a super meaningful gift for my brother and I. About 10 years ago my grandpa lost his original wedding ring, and when we were convinced it was gone for good my grandma got him a nicer ring to replace it. We even made a fun little nesting egg "70 years of life" thing. Then 5 years later we found the ring when replacing the clothes dryer, so he would wear both rings for the remainder of his life. Now with him passing earlier this year my grandma decided to give my brother and I his wedding rings as a keep sake. I ended up getting the original ring and my brother ended up getting the nice ring. It just so happens that his ring fits perfectly on my right middle finger, behind my college class ring that he got me as a graduation present. I now carry him around with me everywhere I go now.

OK, gift time over, now it's time for dinner. We had pulled pork BBQ take-out. It was really good. My grandma had some trouble understanding that mskate and I were eating out in the living room because we wanted to be away from everyone and not because there wasn't enough space. She kept trying to figure out a way for everyone to sit at the table, or trying to give up her space so we could sit there, but eventually we got through to her with "you will feel bad if we don't sit at the table, but we will feel bad if we do sit at the table which will make you feel bad that we feel bad." That normally gets her to understand "we are choosing to do this thing that you think is bad, this is what we want." After dinner we watched church on TV. This was the same priest friend that officiated our wedding. His church also gave out interactive bags, which had a battery powered tealight candle, book, and oplaki (phenetic spelling). When mskate pulled it out she asked "what's opalek?" and I didn't know what she was talking about. Then when she pulled it out I got excited because oplaki is a Polish tradition that I would do every year with my other grandparents, and it's great that we have it this year as well. Mass was pretty good, and then we packed up and went to mskate's parents.

When we got to mskate's parent's house it was pretty low key. We each opened up our pajamas, I matched with IRA and mskate matched with her mom and dogs. Well, she matched with 1 of the dogs; unfortunately the one pair of dog pajamas were too big for the one dog and we ended up regifting them to a friend that has a big dog they would fit in. We went to bed soon after that and her parents set-up all the presents. Now for one of the funniest things that happened. Mom-in-law put the dog's presents under the tree, and their dog Delila got into one of the presents I got her, bones with a peanut butter filling. It's about midnight, and her parents are woken up by the "thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk" of her picking up the bone and dropping it on the hardwood floor. The parents trying to handle this ended up waking up mskate, and then she woke up me to tell me "listen to the commotion outside our door." She was probably the happiest gift receiver.

OK, it's Christmas morning. I had a spot of breakfast before we started opening the presents, and breakfast was lemon merengue pie. Yum. I ended up getting a Super Mario Monopoly, 2000s trivia game, Blockbuster movie trivia game, socks, and some ornaments. Mskate primarily got clothes and ornaments, but she also got spongebob the musical (one of our dates) and a Hedwig lego set. The dogs also enjoyed the other presents we got them, and they didn't get into them earlier because her parents put them high up out of reach for them. IRA ended up getting a nintendo switch, and I helped him set it up since I also have a switch. After presents I went to our room and watched church on my laptop. After church we had brunch, and then after that we packed up our presents and went to my parents house for that gift exchange.

We unpacked our presents to my family and I set-up the presents for everyone. Mskate and I ended up getting some puzzles and movies, and I got an XBOX ONE controller charging dock. What was really fun was the stuff I got for my family. I got my dad a peanuts bluray set, vikingpolak a flashlight and lighters, and my mom a turvis cup. I got them some other stuff, but that was the most memorable stuff, and while some of that may sound trivial it's great for them since they love that stuff. After that fun vikingpolak went to get grandma and we just enjoyed some time together. We unpacked her and then had more Christmas fun.

The rest of the day was pretty low key. Once grandma was all in vikingpolak and I did the pickle, a German tradition where the parents hide a pickle ornament on the tree and the child that finds it gets a special present. I contributed the present this year, a bottle of hand sanitizer in a liquor bottle, because I picked up 6 bottles past the peak of covid and they were on sale, and I knew they would be great gag/white elephant gifts since I could wrap it to look like liquor but then it's hand sanitizer. Throughout the day I watched A Christmas Story on TBS, with pieces here and there over the 12 different airings of it. We visited and had dinner. My dad made a beef roast and it was really good. He learned from the best, my late grandma on his side. I can never have enough, there are never any left overs because I will eat and eat. For that reason I always have to go last, because otherwise I would eat half of it and there wouldn't be enough for anyone else. It was really good. After dinner my mom brought out some dreidels and chocolate coins. Sure, we're not Jewish, but that doesn't mean we can't enjoy an old testament game. The last time I played dreidel I was probably 7. After that Mskate and I packed up our gifts and went home. I brought in all the presents and it was kind of exercise since there was a lot.

I might as well fast forward a little to new years. Normally I would make an entire blog dedicated to new years because I either go to a party, but there isn't much to speak of because of covid. Mskate and I went to IKEA earlier in the day and we got a new medicine cabinet, coffee table, night stand, and owl night light (because mskate loves owls). I assembled her night stand and she was really happy with it. I also assembled our coffee table, and had to get a little creative with how to start the holes for the mid layer, which meant making some pilot holes with a nail. Mskate went to bed early and I stayed up waiting for new years. I watched Cool Hand Luke with my HBO trial, and then woke mskate back up 15 minutes before midnight to watch the ball drop. We watched the ball drop, kissed, and lit off a firework I had left from 4th of July.

Now it's new years day, and it was time for the annual Christmas get together with my mom's best friend and her kids. I use "get together" loosely because it wasn't actually "together." Normally what happens is we go to my parent's house, spend 3-6 hours together typically playing some game, get pizza, and exchange gifts. Well that couldn't happen, so we did a zoom call with everyone. It was kind of cool because we showed off our houses to everyone. One of the "kids" is into nut crackers and has a large collection, and his brother is really into these special gnomes and has them around the house. I took this as my opportunity to show off my nerd cave. We talked some, and then it was time to open presents. For this group the gifts are mostly token stuff, like tolberone chocolate and kinder eggs, and maybe some socks. This year we also got some gourmet popcorn with chocolate drizzle and some classic games (like madgab). It was a fun little zoom call. Afterwards mskate and I just hung out a little and then went to bed.

Now for the last event, visiting my grandpa and aunt. Mskate and I packed up the car with gifts and my laptop, because earlier this year I digitized a bunch of VHS tapes for my aunt and I wanted to give them to her this trip. Ultimately I remembered it only 10 minutes before we left and was only able to give her 1/3 of the videos, but whatever I'll do the rest next time. We stopped at mskate's parents house to pick up some wedding gifts before we went to my parents house. We stopped at my parents house just to get caught up and follow them to my aunt's house, and wrap a last minute present. While I've been to her house many times, I generally don't drive so I don't know the exact route. When we got to my aunt's house we pretty much just visited; talking about our work, talking about my cousins' kids, seeing what he's up to, and what not. We had late-lunch/early-dinner of sandwiches, and then it was time for gifts. Gifts with my dad's side are not as elaborate as with my mom's side. I think I got some socks and candy. The main thing is what we got my grandpa. His favorite drink is Schweps Ginger Ale, but it's become rather hard to find in the past 10 or so years. You typically can't find it in grocery stores, but I sometimes find it in drug stores or dollar stores, and whenever I find it I always pick it up for my grandpa. I found a 6 pack somewhere and wrapped it up, and then a week before I found a 12 pack at a Rite Aid (which was the last minute gift). When I set it on his lap he was pretty surprised and then when he opened them up he was really happy. My aunt was also pretty happy since she likes it too. Now for a special present that I've been holding onto since Amazon Prime day. When I was about 8 my grandma gave me some elfwich fudge cookies, and she made a really big deal about them, and for some years later that was kind of a special thing she would give us. When I saw I could get a case of elfwich fudge cookies I knew I had to get them for him. When he opened them he didn't realize initially, but after I said "I couldn't remember if you or Grandma were into these, but I remember them from when I was little" his face lit up because he remembered the good times. My aunt was also happy since she likes them too, because they're good. It's also great because he needs to maintain weight and cookies are a good source of quick calories. We opened up one of the packages and everyone ate about half of the package. A little while after we went home. I unpacked our stuff and then we just kind of rested.

Well, that was my Christmas 2020, with some new years too. It had it's ups and downs. The main up was it was the first Christmas with mskate as my wife, and with my new family. The main down was this was the first Christmas without my grandpa. Mskate and I had a really fun time doing a new activity with the city lights, but that was mainly because we couldn't do wild lights due to covid. I still made the best of everything, which is what matters. This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

Pokematic Gets Married

Hey everyone. It's November, time for the BIG day, the day I put my bachelor life away and become a married man. The day I stop being half and join together to mskate my other half. The day I get married, my wedding day. So so much happened coming up to this. I think I'll start out with getting the marriage license, because that was an ordeal. Mskate being between jobs at this time was taking care of most of the paper work before the wedding, and one of the things she was taking care of was the marriage license. She filled out the paperwork online for the county we were getting married in (because that's where our priest said we needed to get it done), but then I got a call at work saying "no, this needs to be done in the county where you live." That sucked, but no harm no foul, we'll just do it at one of the counties we live. Well seeing that she wasn't an official resident of where she was living at the moment, we had to register in the county where I live and she will after the wedding. Unfortunately they require one of us to do it in person, and thanks to covid I had to make an appointment, and appointments were in short supply, and only one person could go (meaning me), and the county clerk is in a big city with colorful characters. On my way in I ran into a gangsta nerd. He's trolling around on his bike, trying to sell his CD, rapping, throwing hand signs, and all that, but he's rapping about biology and throwing up the Spock "live long and prosper." He yelled "Star TREK!" to get my attention, said "hey man, throw up that Spock sign," and when I did he said "YEAHHH boy, I knew you was one of us." After that getting to the county clerk was pretty uneventful; went to the clerk, checked in, waited my turn, saw someone go to the wrong county clerk and get pissed but the officer working security took care of it (even though I was thinking he might have escalated it when he yelled "you're dumb" when the guy said "y'all are dumb" as he was walking away), filled out the paper work, held up my right hand and swore that everything was correct to the best of my knowledge, and then went home.

OK, skip around to the tuxedos. I have a tuxedo vest I wear for my Hareta cosplay that I used in a book report in highschool school (because I convinced my teacher to let me read Pokemon Diamond and Pear Adventures for an independent reading project) and a Pokemon neck tie. Unfortunately mskate didn't really like that, and wanted me to wear a black tuxedo with a bow tie and no vest. Since I don't like bow ties and didn't want to wear black, we were able to compromise on a light gray tuxedo with a light blue neck tie. The dads wore black tuxedos, and my best man wore a dark gray tuxedo. We went to Men's Wearhouse and got measured. It was kind of funny since we all have VERY different body types, and that will come into play later. The tuxedo guy also asked me to write down my email address, and since my handwriting was so bad he had to transcribe it later. They also didn't have a try-on tux coat in my dad's size so they had to grab one from the store floor, and it was blue plad. I REALLY wanted to take a picture and send to my bride saying "we decided to go with a different style," but I knew that would drive her over the cliff and wasn't going to do that to her. When we were checking out they wanted to sign me up for the rewards program since they didn't have my number in the system, but then I pulled out my rewards card from highschool and the guy said "WOW, I haven't seen one of these in years." I asked if they still had my prom measurements but they didn't. 3 weeks later the tuxedos come in, we all went to get our tuxedos together, and while they remembered us they didn't remember who was who, and gave us each others tuxedos, and when we looked at the names we're like "no that REALLY wouldn't fit me." The dad's didn't have the right ties, so we had to wait to get those. My dad's coat didn't fit well either, so he had to wait a few days for alterations to get done. It's funny, for his wedding 30 years ago his tuxedo didn't fit either, and now it wasn't fitting for mine. I guess when my brother gets married we'll see if the trend continues. My dad picked up his tuxedo parts a few days later. When we brought them home my mom wasn't sure where we would hang them, but I suggested hanging them on "the clothes rack" like old times. When my brother was like 12 he bought one of those door frame pull up bar things, but it got a lot more use from hanging clothes on hangers off of it, and it still hangs there to this day. My parents probably would have taken it down if it wasn't so useful for hanging hangers.

OK, jump ahead to the day before. We had our rehearsal at the church and that went off...with a few hitches. First the fun stuff though. Remember my waving dancing man from my bachelor party? Well my parents set it up again outside the church, for fun. Mskate was more than a bit worried that I wanted it at the church on the wedding day, but I assured her it was just for the rehearsal, and she was OK with that. The most eventful thing that happened when going through everything was when mskate's dad brought her to the front and our priest said "take his hand." I took both of his hands and started holding them, and asked "OK now what?" Apparently I was supposed to shake his hand and take my wife's hands, but we misunderstood and took my father-in-laws hands. It was kind of funny. Going through everything went ok, but our videographer wasn't there and we needed him there to do some tests (make sure the stream could be seen, and that everything could be heard). He got there 15 minutes after we started, which was basically when we finished. We still did some tests, but my aunt who was doing the test wasn't at the right link, and sound wasn't coming through, and some other challenges, but we got it worked out.

After the rehearsal we had the rehearsal dinner. Because of covid we didn't have a REALLY big thing, but we had about 20 people there, and that was good because a lot of the people that came weren't going to come to the after glow the day of. I was able to get caught up with my college friend, and I wore my pink wig. If you don't remember, I had pink hair for my aunt's wedding back in college, and then I wore the same wig for my cousin's wedding. Because it's "unusual," I told the story to everyone that was there. PepperBC and her family understood immediately, but no one else really did. We also tried doing the waving dancing man inside, but the ceiling was too low and it didn't work, for which I also explained to everyone. The kind of "full circle" of this was the dinner was at the same restaurant that we had my uncle's luncheon at. After dinner I went to say goodnight to mskate and give her one last kiss as single people. I then spent the night with my parents and was ready for the next day. I was able to sleep, unlike my godfather on his wedding eve night.

OK, now is the big day. My parents made me breakfast, and we enjoyed some time together. Mskate's mom dropped off a special present that mskate got me; pokemon cards and cookies. Since it's easy for boys to get ready, I said "I want to watch 3 stooges with my dad and brother." Back when covid was at it's peak lockdown in my state, and I was at my peak depression with the lockdown and moved back in with my parents, every night my dad and I would watch 3 stooges or some other comedy (and because I have the ultimate 3 stooges collection, we weren't going to run out any time soon). So to commemorate my final hours as a single man, we watched the stooges. After some stooges we started to get ready. I put on my tux, dad and vikingpolak put on their tuxes, and my dad took some video on my phone in the style of our home movies. He was giving commentary, saying "OK, it's [the date] and the day of [Pokematic]'s wedding, how are you feeling?" It was fun making videos like we did in the past. About an hour before the limo showed up my groomsmen showed up, and at some point my parents set-up the waving dancing man. After they got ready we took some photos, but they were sparingly because I hate taking a lot of photos; one or 2 with each group of people is OK, but not hundreds of different poses and such. The limo showed up at about 11 and we got in. Mskate didn't really care for the whole limo thing, so my group was the one that got to take it to the church. Zeldamaster93 and I reminisced about how this was kind of like prom, and IRA and vikingpolak hadn't really ridden in a limo before, so it was new to them. When we got there I put my face mask over my eyes to make sure I didn't see mskate before the ceremony, and my boys did a good job of coordinating to make sure we didn't see each other since she was taking photos outside the church with her family and party.

When it was safe the limo driver took us to the front of the church so I could walk out into the vestibule, and I basically stood there and greeted people as they came in. We had 44 people attend, and I directed them on where to record well wishes for us. Z-man was going to do our wedding video, but since he's an amateur and would have used my equipment, we went with my friend who does this professionally, but we still wanted to include him and since people weren't going to be congratulating us in person we gave him the job of filming people congratulating us to watch at a later time. Another fun thing one of our loved ones came up with is to have people write their names on wooden hearts and put them in this big display heart, so I helped direct people there. I know, "my wedding day, I shouldn't be working," but this was the only way I was able to interact with my wedding guests on my wedding day; it wasn't "I was the only one that would do it," it was "I wanted to do it." Our videographer showed up and got everything set-up, and I watched him set-up some because I like that kind of stuff. Also, since the "bride prep room" was close to the men's room, when I had to use the bathroom I put my mask over my eyes and had my brother guide me to the bathroom. I made a bit of a show of it, because it was comical and I wanted to be "star of the show."

OK, time for the main event. My parents lined up with me and walked me down the aisle. I know it's not exactly "traditional," but I wanted to have my moment with all eyes on me; I didn't want to just "start at the front of the church." vikingpolak walked down with mskate's matron of honor, and then looped around to walk our grandma down the aisle. Now for the big thing, the big reveal. When I saw mskate, I was blown away. She looked absolutely amazing, and you could see me say "wow" on the video. When new dad handed her off, he shook my hand a lot and welcomed me to the family. It was a good service, and was a good "happy event" since the last big thing we had there was my grandpa's funeral some months earlier. At the end we had our recessional, looped around to sign the marriage license, and said hello to some people. The funny thing is our ceremony went kind of up to the normal mass and some regular people were starting to show up. Later when we were looking at the hearts there was this group of 4 people that none of us recognized, and we later found out that some of the regular mass people thought it was something for the church and signed a heart. It's ok though, the more the merrier. Mskate and I were the only ones to take the limo to the afterglow, and we shared some champagne provided by the limo. Since there was still an hour or so before the party started, we took the long way to her parent's house, and took a tour of the neighborhood. Normally this is when couples would take a bunch of wedding pictures, but we agreed to not do that because it would ruin my day (I don't like taking pictures, and I don't like the kind of pictures people take now adays). We did stop at her parent's house and took some pictures with their dogs, and it was just until we got a good picture with them, so that was good.

The afterglow was a fun little thing. It was a house party at her friend's parent's house, who apparently like to host parties. Considering they have 2 pinball machines in their basement, I understand why. We basically just went around and visited with people. Unfortunately for me there wasn't a ton of dancing or buffet dinners, but it was still pretty good. My best man and her matron of honor read some speeches before dinner, and we catered individual meals. Back on my Tennessee trip I  picked up a limited run bottle of wedding cake moonshine, and I could never find the right opportunity to open it. My wedding day was the best time as any, but unfortunately we forgot about it in the hustle and bustle so my parents just brought it back to their house. Even though we didn't have a big dance floor, we were still able to have our first dance and mother-son and father-daughter dances. First was my mom and I, then mskate and her dad, and finally our first dance as husband and wife (I know, not traditional, but we used the dance to end the night for us). My mom and I practiced our dancing every time we saw each other, and we had a great dance, then mskate and her dad had a dance, and we had ours. After our dance we said our goodbyes and went to our hotel. On our way in some people congratulated us, and it was fun being on the receiving end since I've congratulated complete strangers in the past. We didn't know that this hotel gives wedding couples a welcome stack package, so that was a nice surprise.

In the morning we went to her parents house to open our wedding gifts, and that was fun seeing all the great things people got us. It was like Christmas a month early. After the wedding gifts we started out for our little honeymoon to Frankenmuth. This was going to be fun, because while mskate hadn't been to Frankenmuth before, I used to go multiple times a year with my grandparents on both sides (Dad's parents would be day trips, Mom's parents would be weekend get aways), so I was able to show her all the stuff. What was different for me though was staying at an air BNB. Whenever I went with my grandparents we always stayed at one of the hotels, either the Bavarian Inn Lodge or Zender's Splash Village, but for multiple reasons (like covid stopping a lot of the hotel activities), we had a nice little house off the high way. The house was far enough away from the road to not be too loud, but it also made it hard to find the house. We unpacked our stuff and got settled, and started our first night at Frankenmuth.

First thing first, I wanted to drive mskate around the city so she could see all the stuff and we could figure out what we might want to do. Granted, I've been here probably 50 or so times, but it was generally just a few key places (Bavarian Inn restaurant and castle shops, Bavarian Inn Lodge/Zender's Splash Village, Bronner's Christmas store, and River Place), and there's more to the city than just those places (like a sausage place, a leather store, a cheese store, many other artisan gift shops), and even if you don't go in places a lot of stuff still has Bavarian-German architecture (like the McDonald's). I gave her the grand tour, showing her the places I knew and would like to stop at, and went to the fun center of the Bavarian Inn Lodge and took a little walk down memory lane (I used to stay there with my grandparents a lot, and the fun zone still has a lot of the same attractions I enjoyed as a child). While exploring the city we found this little wool shop that was kind of away from everything. We didn't get anything, but it was still kind of cool to see. We also stopped at the Cheese Haus where we picked up some cheese. I'm not a big cheese connoisseur, I put Kraft singles on my burgers and basic mozzarella on pizza, but mskate is really into cheese, so this was kind of good for her. This place was cool, they had basically every kind of cheese imaginable, and it was like, "the real deal." This wasn't prepackaged, mass produced, blocks and slices; I'm talking "cuts off the wheel" kind of cheese. You know in classic cartoons where the mice would have the red wheel of cheese with a section cut out? This was that kind of cheese. We decided to pick up some classic smoked cheder. It was a little expensive, but it was our honeymoon and we were going to treat ourselves. Plus, it was REALLY good. Like, I have never had cheese that sharp and rich before; it was worth every penny. Speaking of penny, I also got a smashed penny.

After the Cheese Haus, we went to the river place shops. I didn't have a lot of places I wanted to go there, but it's still fun to walk around. We went to the fudge store where I bought a giant peanut butter cup the last time I went. I didn't buy one this time, but it was good to get out of the cold. We also stopped at this beef jerky shop, one I haven't been to before. Mskate got a jerky stick and I got a jerky making kit. After the jerky store we walked around a little more and went to this toy shop. Nothing super exciting, except for when we left we saw a group of goth teens with the full black clothes and what not; one girl even had these 4 inch platform shoes. Our last and final stop was the store that used to be BeeBee's arcade and fun center, with this giant ball thing. It's now a t-shirt store, but there's still a small arcade in the restaurant area. I wasn't planning on playing games, mainly just wanting to look around and sight see; but then I saw it, a pinball table. Not just any pinball table, a very special pinball table, the first pinball table I ever remember playing. The same pinball table that was at the pizza arcade my grandparents used to take me to when I was really little. The pinball table that played a key role in making me the pinball fan I am today. Super Mario Bros pinball. It has been over 20 years since I last played this table, and I HAD to play it. Just look at how happy I am.

While I normally never pay more than 50 cents for a game of pinball, I happily payed the 75 cents to play this table. It was pretty awesome playing this again. When I was little I used to just mash the flippers while I hoped to hit the ball around the colorful table, and now as an adult I actually tried to play the table with some skill as it was intended to be played. I was still taken in by the colors, and mario characters talking. It was quite the nostalic rush, and I might have been able to last longer if I wasn't so distracted by those happy memories. After the game I still had 1 token left, so I looked for a game that could be played for 1 token. I found an arcade multicabinet that could be played for 1 token, and I played the arcade game I'm probably best at, digdug. I think I made it to level 8 before I started losing lives, an made it to level 12 before I got the game over. Fun fact, I actually made it to the kill screen of digdug when I was a teenager; it was a GBA port and required many continues, but I still made it to the kill screen.

After river place we went to dinner at the Bavarian Inn. I wanted to go in at a special entrance. See, there's this one entrance that is a 100+ foot ramp to the castle shops in the basement, and the railing along the ramp is kind of this long track that stretch from the very start all the way to the end. Since I carry around bouncy balls and no one was around, I put one at the top of the railing and followed it as it rolled all the way down. Immature, I know, but it's fun. After that little bit of fun we went to the restaurant area to make a reservation. I didn't really care which dining room we ate in, just that it wasn't a long wait. We ended up eating in the fairy tale room, which was really cool since that was the room we always ate in with my grandparents. I was able to tell mskate about all that fun times I had as a child. Now the Bavarian Inn is known for their fried chicken dinners, and when I would go with my parents and grandparents that's what they would get, but I don't like chicken and mskate's allergic to gluten, so I got sausage lunch and she got fish lunch with gluten free bread, even though it was dinner time. It's kind of important to specify, because they have different menus for lunch and dinner, because dinner means you get a bunch of sides (Bavarian noodles, pasta salad, and cranberries if I remember correctly). Since my grandparents are REALLY into food (as you can see here), the last time I was there they completely lost it when I said "I was going to get the lunch portion instead of the dinner portion."

"But [Pokematic], if you get the dinner you get the butter noodles, and the cranberries, and the pasta salad."

"Yes, and I don't like any of that, but if I get the lunch I get French fries which I do like."

God bless them, they were probably thinking I was worried about price, but it really was because I wasn't going to have them spend more money in order to get food I wouldn't eat. Back to the story, we did get the really good bread and soup, and it was really good. After dinner we were able to watch the Glockenspiel with the story of the Pied Piper of Hamlin (can also see that embeded here). It was about 4 minutes before the show started, so we cut it really close. She enjoyed it enough, but it was mostly for me. After the show we went to the castle shops. She enjoyed looking around, and we bought some fudge from the fudge shop and tried to buy some gluten free bread from the bakery but they didn't have any. Now that it was dark I took her on the lights trail at Bronner's. Bronner's has this great light display that's run year round, where they have different Christmas and winter lights, some with 2-3 frame animations (like a waving snow man and toy soldier with a waving flag), and she really liked it. After the lights we went back to the air B&B, and we had a little trouble finding it because off the highway an long drive. We watched Monster's Inc on a DVD we brought, and then went to bed.

Now it's time for our 2nd day, this was our Bronner's day. We had breakfast with snacks my mom packed for us in a goodie bag. We got to Bronner's right before they opened an got in line. We were some of the first people in and mskate was just in awe. I've been there many many times and it just kind of "is" for me, but she's never seen a place where ornaments as far as the eye can see, all organized by different categories. We of course had to get a "first Christmas together" ornament, but we also needed a nativity and some gifts. Our families all have "painted family ornaments" of 3 inch spheres with our names on them, and now it was time to get the spouse ornament to officially join the family; a [pokematic] ornament for her family an an [mskate] ornament for my parents and grandma. She also needed to pick up some gifts for her friends and family. We were looking in the pet section and she found an ornament that looked almost exactly like her family's dog, so we got one and got it customized with the dog's name. We also found some Disney stuff for her friends, and a nativity for us. I don't remember a whole lot of other details about it, but primarily we just kind of looked around and took in all the atmosphere while we waited for our ornaments to dry. Around noon time we went to the food court thing and I had a soft pretzel with cheese. After we saw everything but still had time to kill we just kind of went to the theater room and I watched hulu while she called her mom to talk about how cool Bronner's was. Once the ornaments were ready we picked them up and did some stuff to ship some of the gifts to her friends so they can ship professionally packaged instead of our armature packing.

Since Bronner's kind of tired mskate out we went back to the house and just relaxed for some hours. Mskate took a nap and I watched the Monster's Inc bonus features and played the TV plug and play game the air B&B owner supplied. It wasn't super awesome, no NES classic or even a genesis flashback, but it had 6 different Atari-like 4-bit games and it kept my attention. It had burger time, which is always fun. It was also fun revisiting the Monster's Inc bonus features, because the last time I really looked at them I was only interested in the part that was "for monsters," which is the bonus features that appeal to children with sing alongs and games and such, whereas the "for humans" is the behind the scenes and making of stuff which appeals to me now as an adult. When it came to dinner we were going to go to Zender's, the other famous restaurant in Frankenmuth, but the wait was an hour and after looking at the menu we realized they didn't really have anything we would eat, so after looking around the basement shops (because they also have basement shops), we canceled our wait list and went to the Bavarian Inn. I think I had the sausage lunch again, and she had grilled chicken lunch. I had an adult hot chocolate, which was really good. Check it out.

For desert we had the ice cream, and I made sure we got the little plastic toppers that they include so we could have a little memento. That night wasn't super exciting. The main thing we did was download some episodes of Suit Life of Zack and Cody when we had wifi at the restaurant and then watched them together before bed. The next morning wasn't super exciting. We had breakfast at the house again, and packed up all our stuff. We did what we had to to check out and then we went on our way back to our condo. I carried mskate across the threshold and we were greeted by a fun thing my mom set-up. She put these paper flowers on our stairs up to the unit (it's a 2nd story unit) with cards saying a story as we begin to start our lives together. It was really sweet. It was a really great long weekend. Sure, I would have enjoyed a more traditional big event with the week long honeymoon I saved all my vacation time for, but this was a crazy year and we did the best with what we could. Well, this has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.