Pokematic's Frankenmuth Labor Day Weekend Getaway

Hey everyone. It's Labor Day in the US and mskate and I decided to have a little get away to Frankenmuth Michigan. I used to go there all the time with my grandparents (both of them) and we went there for a little honeymoon the days after we got married. It's a fun little German community that has the largest Christmas store in the world (or something like that, Bronner's is huge) and 2 indoor water park resort things, and of course, the 2 chicken dinner restaurants Bavarian Inn and Zender's. When I was a kid the big thing was going to the Bavarian Inn Lodge (one of the resorts) and swimming in the pools, playing mini-golf, and enjoying the arcade, and for dinner going to the Bavarian Inn restaurant in the Grimm Brother's dining room for the chicken dinner (or grilled cheese for me) and watching the glockenspiel tell the legend of the Pied Piper of Hamlin. We'd also go to the castle shops in the basement of the Bavarian Inn and go to Bronner's at night to see the light show. Sometimes we would replace the Bavarian Inn Lodge with the Bavarian Inn Haus, which was a cheaper hotel that just had a normal pool and some arcade games, but the fun place was the Lodge. That did change when Zender's bought the hotel and put in an indoor water pack and called it "Zender's Splash Villiage," and we went there 2 or 3 times and it was really fun. We also occasionally replaced the Bavarian Inn with Zender's, which would also have chicken dinners (and kids menus for me) and gift shops in the basement, but it didn't have the glockenspiel show. That was mostly with my maternal grandparents, with my paternal grandparents it was primarily a day trip where we would go to the river place and play at the Bee Bee Arcade, and then have dinner at the Bavarian Inn in the Piper Alcove private room, and when they had wedding anniversary parties it would be at the big party room in the basement of Zender's. Despite being such a "large" small tourist city with lots of attractions, that was basically all we ever did though. When mskate and I went there for our wedding getaway we would have done a lot of other things, but it was still covid so we weren't able to do a whole lot and stayed in an airBNB that was just outside the city.

Anyway, this time we were going to do things a little differently, see a different side of Frankenmuth. Unlike all previous trips, we were going to stay at the Marv Herzog hotel in down town Frankenmuth (the big hotels are kind of outside the main city just due to how big they are), and we were going to explore a lot of the downtown shopping available. One of the main things we wanted to do was buy things for a raffle basket for our church's Octoberfest, doing a Frankenmuth themed basket with things from Bavarian Inn, Zender's, and other places like Cheese Haus and Kerns. Another thing we had to do was take the coocoo clock we "inherited" from my grandma (she's still alive but in memory care and we're cleaning out her house) to the clock repair shop since I know the hands didn't work properly and probably had some other problems (it's the same place they would take it to get repaired). We left mid-morning on Sunday, a little later than we would have wanted (because I stayed up late playing Lego Pirates of the Caribbean due to it being the last day to play on Luna with Prime Gaming), but still made it up in good time. We got up around noon and wanted to eat at the Bavarian Inn, and tried to find parking but since it was Labor Day weekend the place was packed, so we instead went to our hotel. It was before our room was ready but they let us park in the underground parking. I'll get to the details of the Marv Herzog hotel and why it's so interesting when we get our room, for now I'll just say that it's a 38 room hotel and the underground parking structure is like 1 level with multiple but not many parking spots under the hotel, that wasn't very good for our large vehicle.

Now the time is "a little after 12 noon," meaning the 12PM Bavarian Inn Glockenspiel Show has already started. The Marv Herzog hotel is in downtown Frankenmuth, but kind of on the opposite side of where the Bavarian Inn is. I knew it was a long shot, but I wanted to at least try to make part of the 12PM show. Unfortunately for me mskate and I just missed it and they started the German telling of the tale, which is just saying the tale in German, no figures coming out. It wasn't that bad though, there were still 3 other shows that day (3PM, 6PM, and 9PM) and I just need to see it once as part of my tradition (for which I'll give more details later). Seeing that we missed the show we just went to lunch at the restaurant. Even for it being a crowded holiday weekend we were seated really quickly, like I don't think we had to wait at all. We ended up sitting under the Cinderella mural. Mskate had a gluten free chicken lunch with mashed potatoes and ice cream as a substituted side, and I had a bratwurst and sauerkraut lunch with French fries. While we waited we had the special restaurant bread, mskate had gluten free white bread and I had the white bread and fruit bread called stolen bread. I had 3 pieces of each type of bread, and then got some more that we saved for later. I ended up taking the bread and some of my fries home, and mskate took some of her chicken home.

After lunch it was time for shopping. First things first, we're at the Bavarian Inn so we went to the castle shops in the basement. When I was a kid they had a console TV with couches and chairs around it for people to wait (probably men waiting for their wives to finish shopping in my guess, it was always a sports game after all, lol). Times change but they still have the couches and chairs just it's around a flat screen TV (that was showing a sports thing). We didn't watch it, I just wanted to say they still do that. We went to the candy store since it is like the first place, I got a DBZ candy tin and mskate got harry potter fruit snacks, nothing for our church basket though. We passed by the toy store since while we like toys and games and going to toy stores we didn't need to shop there right now. We went to the "everything gift store" looking for Frankenmuth branded things, and while we found some cool stuff it wasn't "quite right, maybe later but not now." We went to the bakery and found some good things; egg noodles like what they serve in the restaurant, chicken seasoning like what they have in the restaurant, pretzel mix, and spicy German mustard that's packaged in a beer mug style jar, all Bavarian Inn branded. We then started on our way back to the hotel with plans to do some shopping as we wait for the hotel to be ready. We went to a gift shop called "Frank's Muth" (obvious name is obvious) to see if there were any good things to put in the basket, but there wasn't (we almost bought "Franks mix" popcorn but that was too expensive, and probably wouldn't have kept that well). We also went to the Frankenmuth Historical museum gift shop but still nothing. Oh well.

Before we went to the hotel we went to the Cheese Haus, a large cheese store. This is a very iconic store, one with a large mouse inside a wedge of cheese as a statue. It sells like every kind of cheese, including their own special flavor of cheddar (which they had out for samples, and it was good), and chocolate cheese. It supposedly is good, but I'm not brave enough to try it. By the location to buy the cheese they also have a cheese fridge with glass windows where we could see the cheddar they were aging (they had some that was over 10 and 15 years old) and cheese sculptures. They also have "cheese accessories" like crackers and wine for sale, and candy and accessories. We got a wedge of Frankenmuth cheddar for ourselves and a Cheese Haus magnet/coaster for the basket. As we were leaving the store we saw the Cheese Haus figurinespiel, a show where they have carved characters come out of the tower of the store and talk about the cheeses from around the world. It was pretty cool, and I'm surprised I never knew about it until now given how much I liked the Bavarian Inn glockenspiel (I vaguely remember seeing it when driving past the store, but never actually watching it). There are 3 very plausible theories about why I first saw it when I was 31 instead of any of the other 26 years between now and when I first went to Frankenmuth; first is that it's a new show and wasn't around when I was 5-12 when the Bavarian Inn glockenspiel was "the biggest thing" to me (a sign suggests it was installed in 2018, and I couldn't find any information online of when it was installed), second is that we never really went to the cheese haus when I was a kid and therefore didn't know about it (we basically went to Bavarian Inn or Zender's, the big resort hotels we were staying at, and Broner's, and never really made it up that way), or my grandparents were so busy and burnt out with satisfying my desire to see go to the Bavarian Inn show and scheduling everything around seeing it that they didn't want to throw in another show to obsess over (Bavarian Inn is 9AM, 12PM, 3PM, 6PM, and 9PM, Cheese Haus is 9AM, 11AM, 2PM, 5PM, and 8PM). When I sent pictures and videos to my parents my mom said "this is the first I'm hearing about this show, I need to see it next time I go there."

It's now 2PM and our room was supposed to be ready at 3, but we figured we'd try anyway (we needed to drop off our purchases and it could be in the room or in the car). We got lucky and our room was ready early, so we checked in, got our room, and unloaded our purchases. This was good because we needed to keep the cheese and left overs cold and the hotel room had a refrigerator. Now that the food was in the fridge we went to Bronner's. Mskate REALLY likes Christmas and Christmas decorating, so this is like her favorite store. For those who don't know, it's basically all that Christmas has to offer, if they don't have it it probably doesn't exist. The place is sectioned into different areas for every category (artificial trees, tree lights, flags, ornaments by color, ornaments by country, ornaments by profession, ornaments by hobby, ornaments by pet, ornaments by occasion such as anniversary and baby and birthday, religious ornaments, ornaments meant for personalization, Christmas stockings some for personalization, Christmas tree skirts, sports team themed decorations, nativities, Christmas village pieces, precious moments figures, santa costumes, and so much more), so big that there are 3 different entrances. We had some things we needed to get; a little tree for my grandma in her new memory care apartment, an Octoberfest ornament for our church basket, and then see what other things would be good for people. We found a great 2 foot pre-lit tree for her, perfect for the few super special ornaments she'll have at her small apartment. We also found a good Octoberfest ornament in the Germany section of the ornaments. We wanted to find some Bavarian people in the personalization section so we could say "[church name] Octoberfest 2024" but we couldn't find it so we just got a beer stein that said "Octoberfest." We also found some ornaments for friends and family. When we made it to the back we explored the Hummel figure and Precious Moments figure collection. It was pretty cool, and the employee there was able to tell us some more about the figures and show us how they had some molds for the precious moments. It was pretty cool having someone who was into it. After that we checked out and then went onto the next thing.

I'm not exactly sure if this was "the exact next thing," but at some point mskate and I drove up past where our hotel was and went to the Rite Aid that was closing down (because the entire chain of pharmacies are bankrupt and closing down, and everything is on major clearance). We've found that mskate really likes the knock off pedialite electrolyte drink, and when it's so discounted it works so well to stock up on. It's also a good opportunity to pick up on stuff to donate; at some other rite aids I picked up a bunch of baby and toddler things for baby drives, and mskate found some things that she really likes and wanted to give to a parent in need, and I found a can of chili and beans that is great to give to people on the side of the road. Then we found some "purse antacids" (little rolls of them), which we needed since they're good to have in case you need them. We saved like $100 on the discounts on things that we'll use in the coming months or give away to different supply drives. Yay. After the Rite Aid we drove up even farther to see the Bavarian McDonalds that's up in the north part of town. I don't think there's anything super special about it, they just have some Bavarian architecture and a clock tower.

With everything unpacked we relaxed in the room for a little while, and then at 5PM we went down to the evening happy hour. This is when I was able to really explore the hotel. The Marv Herzog hotel is one of the original hotels in Frankenmuth, and that kind of shows with how there are only 38 rooms in the building, and even though it's definitely been renovated since then, it still feels old, particularly with all the rooms having small balconies. The hotel is also kind of themed after the founder, Marv Herzog. He's a famous accordion player and has one of his accordions on display with some other music accessories along with him celebrating Octoberfest and some other cool stuff, and in the convenience shop they had his music on CDs and cassette tape (yeah, cassette tape, some polka loving hipster is going to be super happy when he goes to the Marv Herzog hotel), and in our room there was a little history thing. For those who know the Drurry Inn, Marv was friends with the founder and they implemented a lot of similar things, most notably the happy hour snack times with 2 free alcoholic drinks and food. Drurry Inn typically gives you "real food" like baked potatoes and chicken, but Marv Herzog only offered cheese and crackers with summer sausage and pretzels. I ended up having enough cheese and summer sausage to have something close to a meal with my glass of wine. Mskate and I enjoyed our psudo-meal on the back patio as we overlooked the river. We saw 3 boats as we sat out there, one of which was the paddle boat tour along the river, and the other 2 were smaller things. It was a good little thing.

With dinner done mskate and I went out to do more shopping. We went to a fudge store that had gluten free fudge for mskate. We were going to get 2 things of fudge, but then saw it was buy 3 get 1 free, so we got a piece for each of our parents. I got Michigan pothole flavor, mskate got birthday cake flavor, my parents got chocolate and peanut butter, and her parents got mint chocolate chip. It was a pretty cool store, lots of different flavors. I also got some paper hat souvenirs, one for me, one for mskate, one for the basket. We also went to a country store that looked pretty cool, and even though they had lots of neat stuff the only things we got were a compact mirror for my grandma and a big pickle that can only be found in places like this. For the sake of "event consistency" I'll talk about the other stores we went to, the covered bridge shop and the Zender's basement shops. At the covered bridge shop we found a pocket knife with vikingpolak's name on it (not that, his real name), and we got that for his Christmas present. We went to the Zender's shops and found some seasonings, a vinegarette, and apple cherry butter, all Zender's brand. While in the basement I showed mskate where we had my grandparents anniversary parties, and when we went back up to the main dining room level I showed mskate how they have an old console TV cabinet with a flat pannel TV put in it for guests to watch while waiting. It's a pretty creative way to use the old technology as it has an "old time home feel" but is compatible with modern technology. Here's some video.

OK, now it's time for "what Frankenmuth was to me as a kid," the Bavarian Inn Glockenspiel where they tell the story of the Pied Piper of Hamlin. When I was really little this was easily my favorite thing. It's a show where there are statues that act along with the story as it's being recited, and it's simple enough for a 4-5 year old to follow but not fully understand. I absolutely loved it and wanted to see it as often as I could, with my grandparents building their schedule around seeing the 9AM, 12 PM, 3PM, and 6PM show. One thing that I didn't understand as a small child is that the 2 that were left behind escaped the wrath of the piper, and was sad that they didn't get to be part of the fun, always saying "and 2 were left behind." The funny thing is that the recording is the same it's been for 25+ years, and there's an audio glitch on "disappeared from the city forever." It's just tradition at this point that I watch at least 1 performance. We got there right as the announcer was saying where the figures came from and the bells came from, and how it all works and what the story is. We didn't miss anything. The show was still the same, the piper showed up when Hamlin had the rat infestation and asked for a penny for each rat removed, he charmed the rats and lead them into a river where they drowned, the town was afraid that it was an act of witchcraft and refused to pay, the piper then took revenge by leading the children of the town into a mountain where they disappeared from the city forever, and 2 were left behind. When the 2 that were left behind came out I took a picture and sent it to my family group text as an in joke. If you go you have to see it.

Someone else's video of the full show.

It's now 6:45PM and we're now done with all the shopping for the day and were ready for a calm night. Since we made it back before the end of the happy hour mskate and I each had our second free glass of wine and a couple more snacks and just enjoyed in the room. We just hung out in the room watching some Paralympic coverage and Harry Potter Tournament of Houses episodes on demand. Since the happy hour wasn't "super filling" we had our left overs from lunch (mskate had her chicken, I had my fries and bread, cold since we didn't have any microwave safe dishes, but still good). At about 9PM we went to Bronner's to drive through the light displays. This was something my grandparents would take me to when we stayed over, it's a cool display of snow men, santas, elves, polar bears, nut crackers, and similar Christmas icons, some of which have limited animations like the snowman waving and a flag waving. A lot of the lights are the same things I saw as a kid, which is pretty cool. One of the funny things is if you drive close to the store and roll your window down you can hear the music they're playing. I didn't know they did that, probably because we generally didn't go when it was warm enough to open the windows. After that little outing we went back to the room and turned in for the night.

It's now Monday morning. Mskate and I go down to the lobby and have the continental breakfast. I have one and a half waffles and some breakfast potatoes. There wasn't really much for mskate, so we went across the street to a cafe that has gluten free breakfast sandwiches. It was pretty cool. I want to say the name was like "Coffee Haus," and it had some really cool theming. With sandwich in hand we went down to the shopping district to maybe get some popcorn for the basket, but unfortunately everything opens at 10 or 11AM. That was annoying because it's like 9AM, meaning we had an hour before things started opening up. Oh well, we watched the Cheese Haus Figurinespiel, which was fun. Afterwards we walked up past our hotel and looked at what else was there. We saw some little stores that had apartments above them, so the owners probably lived above the stores. We also walked past the record store, which is only open for like 3 hours on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. It was in what looked to be an old courthouse or something with pillars, so I wonder how they can afford the rent by being open so little. We also walked by the Frankenmuth Brewery, a brewery that seems to have been converted into a restaurant. Might be a place to try out some time. We went back to the hotel and watched some more Tournament of Houses.

Once things opened up we checked out and went to Bronner's one last time, just because we needed to get a tree skirt for the mini tree and to see if there was any good garland that would be good to hang up in grandma's apartment. There wasn't any garland, but we did find a juice box ornament for mskate since she's all about her juice boxes. With that out of the way we went back to town and went to the river place for some end of trip shopping. Unfortunately they weren't open yet, but right across the street was Frankenmuth Clock and German Gift Co and they were open. I took the clock in and asked if they do repairs. I told them what I thought was wrong and the clock repair man had a look and said "your hour hand is just loose and 1 hour off, just a quick little tighten and it should be good to go." He set it 5 till and said "look around for 5 minutes and we'll see if it needs to stay for repair." This is when mskate and I looked around the store. Now I want you to think of "a clock store," a store that sells gravity powered coocoo clocks, battery powered modern clocks, and clock adjacent things like wind up music boxes. This place is that, wall to wall clocks of all varieties, standing cabinets of music boxes and old time German display pieces, and a couple free standing grandfather clocks. It was so cool. The times on the clocks were all incorrect and different so you don't have a giant blare of coocoos going off at the same time, but whatever. 5 minutes passed and our coocoo went off without a hitch. Since there wasn't any "real work" done we weren't charged, so we thanked them and said we'd definitely bring the clock back here when the time comes when it does need to be fixed. Such a cool store and really nice people, highly recommend checking them out.

It's 11PM and The River Place is now open. We checked the directory and these were the places we wanted to go:

• Zak and Mac's Chocolate Haus
• Tervis
• The Stadium
• River Place Game Room
• Bead Haven
• The Michigan Shoppe
• Sugar High bakery
• Hello Cats and Dogs
• La Crepe du Jour 

We also stopped in Extra Virgin Olive Store, Pepper Place, and Popcorn Wagon Frankenmuth. Based on where we entered we went to Sugar High first. They have a wide variety of gluten free stuff which was good for mskate, and she got the last cake pop. It's a pretty cool store, looks really cool and has a wide variety of baked goods. Zak and Mac's Chocolate Haus was pretty close to Sugar High, and I wanted to go there since one time I got a half pound peanut butter cup from there. Unfortunately they didn't have those peanut butter cups anymore, but they had this automatic piano thing that was over 100 years old, and someone put in a quarter and I got to see it in use.

Next on our adventure was Bead Haven, Extra Virgin Olive Store, The Stadium, and River Place Game Room. Bead Haven was just a little thing to look for beads for friends for life friendship bracelets and a friend who's into crafting to see if it would be a good place for her. We didn't find any beads for next year's bracelets, but we do think it would be a good place for our friend who's crafty. Extra Virgin was an impulse, it was across from bead haven and I just wanted to look inside. I tried 2 of their vinegars and they were pretty good. If I knew what to use the flavored vinegars for I would get some, but I'm not sure what they're used for so I didn't get any. We also went to The Michigan Shoppe to see if they had any good Frankenmuth things for the basket, but alas no. Since we were close to the arcade we went there next. When I was a kid the place was huge, many arcade machines and this giant ball thing where you there are many different things to do with these nerf like balls. I don't really know how to describe it, but it was really fun. It's been downsized by a lot, now just some arcade machines, not that far off from what we find at chuck e cheese, and they don't have the Super Mario pinball machine anymore. If it was still a token system or used quarters and I could get like $1 of fun I would have played some games, but it needed a play card and it was kind of expensive so I'm like "I'll pass." When we went to The Stadium that's where things were successful. It's a "nerd game" store, a place that sells board games and trading card games, and some plushies and comic books. The staff was "what you'd expect" from modern nerds (I can say that because I'm just as much one if not more) and I feel like saying that because 2 video game stores by me are staffed by gym bro looking guys. We bought A Goofy Movie the Board Game, mostly just because we like the music and listen to the soundtrack regularly, and it'll make for a good present.

OK now for the fun lunch, a crepe at La Crepe du Jour. They had all sorts of different sweet and savory crepes available, some more hearty than others. I was going to get a pepperoni pizza crepe but then I saw the Bavarian crepe (bratwurst, sauerkraut, and spicy German mustard). I made my order and watched them make some crepes. It was kind of busy so it took 30 minutes for my crepe to be ready. While I waited mskate went to Cherry Republic and Hello Cats and Dogs by herself. It was really fun watching the crepes get made as there's some artistry to how to spread the batter, crack and spread the egg for the savory crepes, flipping, and folding the toppings in. There was an 8 year old boy watching with his dad, and I'm only now realizing that I was looking at me 22 years ago since I loved watching food get made at restaurants. Once mskate did her shopping we just sat down and played on our phones waiting for my name to get called. The crepe was well worth the wait, maybe it's just my German heritage that makes me really like bratwurst with sauerkraut and mustard, but boy oh boy did it taste good. The crepe base was pretty good and I could tell since the edges didn't have much filling, but when I got to the fillings oh man. Highly recommend.

We're now on the way back to the car. We stop in Popcorn Wagon Frankenmuth to see if there's any gourmet popcorn of interest, but there wasn't. I've had it before and it's kind of worth it, but we didn't see anything that looked good this time. We went to the Tervis mug store since we like their mugs and water bottles, making good gifts for my parents since they use their Tervis mugs all the time and end up breaking or losing it just with heavy use (and even if not it's good to have backups). We didn't find anything for my parents, but we did find a water bottle for mskate and a Frankenmuth mug for the basket. It was quite successful. Then before leaving I went to Pepper Place, a hot sauce store. I went in knowing I wouldn't buy any because I need to finish some of my bottles of hot sauce before I buy more, but it was still good to sample since I know I'll be back and ready to buy in the future. Afterwards my mouth was angry at me for eating the hot stuff, and the drive to our next place was a little uncomfortable.

Before heading home we stopped at Kerns, a grocery store on the way in that has a Bavarian guy holding a large sausage. It's like the first thing you see when getting to the main strip of the city (Broner's and Splash Village are kind of outside the city), so I figured it would be worth checking out. Unfortunately it was kind of "just a small grocery store;" boxes of cereal, cans of vegetables, fresh produce, a butcher counter, and the like. I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't that. There is a cool story behind it though, like it's THE original grocery store in the city, operated by the Kerns family for 4 generations, the cashier's great grandpa was the founder. It's a pretty neat story, and a cool quaint grocery, but it's not necessarily "a destination."

We've now done everything in Frankenmuth that we want to on this visit, so we left and looked at things on the way out. There's a funky looking diner and a cool looking mini golf course right outside the city. I have faint memories of going to a diner with my grandparents that might have been that diner, and though I've played a lot of mini-golf over the years I have a memory that is similar to what I can see from the road. No certainty, but on one of our future trips I can see us going there. We went to Birch Run outlet mall right outside Frankenmuth so mskate could go to Lulu Lemon since she loves those clothes and the outlet makes it cheap. The store was kind of crowded so I found a bench outside and just watched youtube on my phone using the store wifi. Since I wanted a little more after my crepe I went to Wendy's and used my reward points and promo tag to get a free small fry and jr frosty, I almost went to Halo Burger since it's right there but they are so slow and I had the Wendy's rewards so everything was free (and I like free). Since mskate hadn't had lunch yet and we needed gas we went to the Pita Pit that's connected to a speedway. Mskate got her pita and I got gas, and after that we just went home. Really fun trip, and it makes for a great little get away that isn't super expensive. Next time we'll try some other things, like maybe that mini golf or diner, possibly staying at one of the resorts. Well this has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

Oh, and here's ALL the videos since many had difficulty uploading to the blogger server.

Pokematic goes to the 2024 Men's Gymnastics Competition

Hey everyone. If you haven't been following, after mskate discovered that we can go to the men's gymnastics meets at University of Michigan for free we've been kind of into going to the events whenever we could. When she found out that the 2024 finals competition would be at Ohio State in Columbus (a place with many fun memories), we decided to go to it as well even though this cost money. It's still not exactly my thing, but it's not very expensive and it is a fun thing to do with the missus. I tried to do a meet-up with Bio since he's not exactly prohibitively far but he was busy, thus is us when it comes to scheduling. Hopefully one day the Peanut Butter Podcast can do something in person, but this wasn't the day. We got a Hyatte Hotel in the area we like to stay in when we go to Columbus (cheap hotel and right by Level One Barcade). This was the first time going to this hotel, and I think we decided this will be our go-to hotel in the future when we go to Columbus, mainly because it has breakfast. Since there was also a restaurant in Dayton mskate likes that was closing down we decided to also make a stop at Dayton before going to Columbus and make an entire adventure about it. It was shaping up to be a big thing.

I took Friday off and we started our journey at about 8AM. The drive down was pretty uneventful, basically I just showed mskate the rout I would take whenever I went to see her when we were dating. I wanted to take the exact exit I knew and took every time but she wanted to take the exit she knew. Getting back was kind of fun, first time we had been there together in a long while and a lot of memories came back. We ate at the restaurant and it was OK, it's a sandwich shop themed after aviation (do to the Wright Brothers and their airplanes) and I like them but they aren't like special to me. I had a ruben I think and mskate had a roast beef sandwich I think. Mskate had a lot of fun though and really enjoyed going there one last time. I kind of tried to get a souvenir but they didn't have anything we could take. Oh well, she still enjoyed herself. We also went to the small grocery store that mskate used to go to all the time to get a couple of things. Main thing I remember getting was a small bowl of the homemade chili to have over the weekend. Mskate was really happy to do those things as that was "Dayton to her."

OK now it's time for my points of interest, the media stores. For those who don't know Dayton at one point had a pretty large number of places to buy videogames and comic books, and while they're kind of down to just Second and Charles and Game Swap (not stop, swap), it's still pretty fun. We did drive by the one store that was killed by covid to see if they returned (they didn't), and while going that way we drove by the old South Park Elementary where I got my picture once.

It's now some kind of medical place, which makes sense since the last time I was there it was being converted to something. The first place we went to was 2nd and Charles. I immediately went to the clearance section to see if I could find anything good. Unfortunately not but oh well. I looked around for the videogame section and I had some trouble finding it. I walked around the books and had fun, but I was looking for my "geek stuff." I eventually found my way to the comic book section and looked through the non-Marvel/DC section to see if I could find some good finds. I managed to find some Incredibles comic books for cheap so I decided to pick them up, and I needed to find a gift for IRA and he's on a power rangers kick at the moment. I found some mighty morphing power rangers comic books and picked them up for him. I did find the videogames and went through the PS2 section. I found a couple of games but not a lot that I already didn't have or was out of my price range. They don't do plastic bags at the store so when the cashier asked if I needed a reusable bag I said "no thanks, I have my own" and pulled a grocery bag out of my pocket.

With 2nd and Charles done we went to Game Swap. It was a little difficult to get to mostly because I forgot the name (kept calling it game exchange and mskate couldn't find one within a close distance). We decided to just drive to the restaurant in the strip mall where the store was in, and then I'm like "oh yeah, it's Game Swap." Funny thing with this, when I went to the PS2 section I was "like the guys in The Big Bang Theory at the comic book store going 'got it got it got it.'" I described it to my parents that way and they were like "lol." I found like 2 games I didn't already have, and then decided to look at the VHS section (because they do home video media as well and have a pretty neat VHS section). I was mostly looking to see if I could find an old Wrestlemania tape or something like that for IRA; he doesn't have a VCR, but it would have made for a neat display piece. I unfortunately didn't find a wrestling tape but I did find Strange Brew for a good price, which will make for a great gift for vikingpolak since he really likes that movie, and I found this Aladdin figure in a VHS clamshell style case for IRA. Before checking out we walked around a little and mskate kept asking "do you have the thing to play that, how about the thing to play that, what about that" when pointing to different cartridge games. I said "yes I do, it'll be easier for you to just ask me what I don't have."

Now that we had finished our fun in Dayton it was time to go to Columbus. It was like another 45 minute drive from where we were. We got to the hotel and checked in no real problems. It was a pretty nice room, there was a kitchenette type thing (there was like a "real sink" next to the coffee maker and fridge, and it was completely separate from the bathroom), and the TV had this interesting input thing. I didn't have anything to try it out with (didn't bring my HDMI cable for my laptop, didn't bring a PS2 to test the games I might have bought), oh well.

We had some time before the event so we went to a strip mall area to get some things we forgot. I don't remember what it was specifically, but I ended up picking up a can of ravioli at the Kroger to have for dinner instead of the ramen I brought. It was also just a thing to explore, because the strip mall had a real mall type thing, and it just so happened that there was farmer's market craft show thing happening. There were a lot of things that I forgot about (homemade soap, beef jerky, and bread, I think), but the main thing was this special macaroni and cheese that mskate really liked and so we bought a kit, and then there was a pickle vendor and if it wasn't for the REALLY long line I probably would have gotten something (I'm pretty basic when it comes to pickles, just dill and salt, but I would have supported a small business and been a little adventurous if there wasn't like a 10 minute line). The macaroni sauce needed to be frozen, and we weren't sure we could keep it frozen because mini-fridge and cooler (thankfully it would still be good for a week once thawed), but I turned the fridge to max which kept it frozen, and later when I covered it with ice in the cooler it stayed frozen as well, yay. A little ahead of myself in the story, but I would have forgotten about it and wouldn't have filled that thread. Before going to the meet I went down to the lobby where they had a microwave and made my ravioli in a paper coffee cup. It wasn't exactly easy to make well, but it was good enough to fill me and easy enough to make in a hotel.

Now it's time for the first event, at least to us since there was a thing in the morning that we didn't go to. We got there fairly early and were able to sit in the front right behind the audio visual tables. Mskate was able to see the spotify playlist they had, it was like "mens gymnastics 2024." Mskate tried to find it but couldn't find it. It was REALLY cool being so close up, we were like right behind the floor routine and pomelhorse. It was pretty fun. When UofM was walking by us on entry we cheered for Fred and we think he remembered us. It was a pretty crazy event since they had all 6 things going at once. Here are some of the pictures I took.

Now for some concession fun. Mskate went to get some food (because she didn't really have anything from before) and ran into a former Olympian. She was kind of upset she didn't have a marker with her, but oh well. Later on I got funnel cake fries. The funnel cake fries were interesting, it's funnel cake but not in the full cake, instead it was strips of funnel cake that were french fry size and shape. Still very good.

After the meet there was still some time left in the night, so I went over to Level One. I got mskate back to the hotel and situated for bed, and then I walked over. When I left I expected a little bit of a walk since the other hotels were close but not super close, but this was actually really close; I walk over a small hill and boom it's there. I got a pong and went over to the games. Like always I played Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Turtles in Time, because that was what Wheels Inn was for my brother and we sunk so many tokens into it. Seeing that the game is free to play, I always have to play the game from start to end. Next time I go I need to do something to measure how many times I die and need to press the "add credits" button, just to see how much I save by just buying a drink at this place. I also played some Tetris and got decently far from what I remember. I think I also played Donkey Kong Jr. on this time there, and it wasn't as easy as it is on the NES, I think. Still always a fun time, but I was getting tired and so went back to the hotel to get ready for bed and the following day. On my way back (or maybe on the way there) someone complemented me on my hat which felt good even if it was a little weird (it was night and I was alone). I also saw someone puking behind the dumpster, stay classy greater Columbus area.

Now it's Saturday, the day of the big event, but not quite yet. We start the day with the continental breakfast, which was pretty good. We ate in the little TV nook of the lobby which was kind of interesting. Most of the morning was just kind of spent hanging out in the hotel room. I remember watching a lot of Boomerang since the hotel had Boomerang, which was neat because hotel cable is generally pretty limited and Boomerang is (or at least was) a high package cable channel. For lunch I think I had my ramen, which I accidentally made a mess with. Coffee maker ramen, put the water in the coffee maker, put the ramen ingredients in the cup, turn on the coffee maker and seep the ramen, easy right? Well no, I forgot that the noodles take up space in the cup, so I poured a mostly full cup of water into the coffee maker and let it sit, and then after some time I notice that the coffee cup is overflowing. I unplugged the coffee maker and cleaned it off, and my ramen ended up still being good, just next time I need to do things a little differently.

Anyway, it's now about noon and Level One is open. I go to the arcade very soon after opening and order a Bowser's Secret Potion (or something based on Bowser). This time I play a different Konami arcade game from my childhood, The Simpsons Arcade Game. This one was at the Little Caesar's owned arcade, Caesarland. I remember watching the demo screen and 16 bit rendition of the theme song for probably 10 minutes, good times. This one we actually did manage to beat a couple of times when we had birthday parties, because kids would rotate in and out based on how many tokens they had. I played through the whole game as Bart just because, but regularly brought in Lisa so we could do the team up attack, and when going against Mr. Burns I brought in the whole family and would do the team up attacks and control 4 players at once (since just 1 joystick was needed per group and I have 2 arms). I think I'll add Simpsons Arcade Game to my "I have to beat it every time I go" routine. A new game for me was the Konami X-men Arcade Game, which is basically like the Simpsons and TMNT arcade games (side scroller beat em ups, bosses health is indicated based on how fast they blink, halfway through there's a double boss), but with X-men characters and a special "mutant ability" attack that uses health but is super strong. I played as Wolverine (because he's cool and got the most movies for better or worse), and beat that game as well. Really fun. I played Frogger and Burger Time after that, and a Cabela's light gun hunting game. I also played Klax at one point, a game I have for the NES. Unfortunately they had a fair number of games out of order this time, like I don't think the Area 51 game was working and I know Punch Out wasn't working. Oh well, it was still a pretty fun time.

Now for the big final event. We had a little trouble finding a seat even though we got there pretty early. We ended up sitting where the families sat and got front row seats again. It was really fun sitting so close. I'll share the pictures of the events later, but now it's time for some stories. Someone in the audience brought disposable film cameras (because retro or something) and wanted the gymnasts to take some pictures with it. I guess I forget how old I am because I'm watching these guys struggle to figure out how to use a disposable film camera, and everyone that I know knows how to use disposable film camera because we all had them on vacations. There was also one gymnast who climbed up the side of the bleacher wall and went to the bathroom or something up in the audience. Mskate and I are just sitting there and he pops up in front of us and climbs over the railing. I'm like "he-allo." When he came back I asked if he could sign something for us while he was up here with us. He said sure and signed the program. We also had Fred sign our sign for him, and he struggled a little to throw the sign back up at us.

With the events over it's time for the award ceremony. It was pretty fun watching everyone get their trophies, especially with everyone "standing high jumping" onto the podiums. All the awards were awarded by major Olympians and similar high profile people I didn't recognize (but mskate did). It's funny, one of the moms of the contestants was complaining about how long the ceremony was taking. After everything as we were walking out mskate wanted to get Khoi to sign a sign (since she also roots for him). We were walking out and he was just kind of hanging out, so we asked if he would sign the sign and he said he would, and because we got his attention another fan came up and asked for pictures. The great thing about the gymnasts are they all enjoy the minor fame they have right now (and likely won't have again), so they all are very appreciative of fans and will take time to engage.

We got back to the hotel and I could have went to the bar since there was still some time left in the night, but I was tired and I just wanted to watch Boomerang and surf the web. Normally I'd go into more details, but there's not much else to say, so I'll just go to Sunday now. We had continental breakfast and packed up the car for check out. As I said earlier, we were unsure if the cheese sauce would stay frozen, but the mini-fridge kept it frozen as did covering it in hotel ice for the trip home. We found a mass in downtown Columbus which went well. They were kind of old school and communion was given by mouth while kneeling down, only experienced that 2 other times so it was kind of neat. After mass we went to a restaurant thing that mskate and her mom went to when they were at figure skating nationals. It was kind of hard finding the parking structure since there was a lot of construction happening. There must have been a major event happening because the parking structure was going to be $20 for the day, but the restaurant place validates parking so it was cheaper. This place was pretty cool, it was basically a bunch of different little restaurant things of all sorts of different genres all in an open space, kind of like an open market. I ended up getting a barbecue bowl (rice and brisket), but then went to a Polish food place to get some food to satisfy my Polish heritage. Also, the people running it were immigrants and I had to say "I'm also Polish." The cashier guy that was taking my order didn't understand I was saying "I'm also Polish" when I told him my name (and I think I ended up accidentally flirting with him, lol), but the owner exclaimed "that's Polish, you're Polish." Also, the parking validation, it ended up making our parking free; we were expecting to maybe have to pay a couple dollars because normal fair was $4 for 2 hours and we were there only like 1 hour, but it was free. The only regret is that I didn't see the restaurant featured on Diners Drive Ins and Dives, and after checking out their menu I would have found something to eat. If/when we go back to Columbus we'll go here at least once and then I'll get the Triple D restaurant.

After that we just drove home and got ready for the week to come. It was a really fun time, and if the next place is going to be close enough again we'll go again (I think it's going to be at U of M, which is just a day trip for us). This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

A Saint Patrick's Day in Ann Arbor Gymnastics

Hey everyone, wow I wasn't expecting to go back to Ann Arbor so quickly, but here I am going on Saint Patrick's Day. Before the story, I just need to start out with some initial stories. We went to mass like we normally do and our priest mentioned corned beef in his homily. This had me thinking "I should make some if I can find it." After mass we went to the grocery store to pick up a few things and they had corned beef on sale. Yay. I picked up a pack and some crock pot liners and when we got home I got it started for when we get home to be ready after the day out.

This time because there was some more planning, mskate's mom joined us since she's also into gymnastics. When we got to Ann Arbor it was about lunch time and I said "we need to go to Blimpy Burger." Yeah, after seeing it on Tripple D and going there myself, every time I'm in Ann Arbor I need to go to Blimpy Burger. It's just so good, and a good value. I had fried broccoli like normal, they had the pumpernickel bun so I had that for my bun, and I decided to try a fried egg as my hot topper this time, plus lettuce, pickles, onions, and banana peppers for my cold toppers. Mskate and her mom got their burgers on lettuce bowls, mskate having tomato and pickles, and mom-in-law getting onions and ketchup I think, and a side of french fries. Mom-in-law as very impressed with the flavor. I said I think it's the seasoning of the grill. Really good.

After lunch we went to the meet. It was pretty crowded at the sports complex because there was both the gymnastics meet and a baseball/softball game happening. I let mskate and mom-in-law out and went to find parking. I was expecting to have to drive around for a long time, but I got lucky and found a spot not super far away not long after the women got out. This time the freebie was a poster of the team and coasters. It wasn't as cool as the cape, but still good to have free. We were able to sit front row to the floor routine area, which was great. Mom-in-law made some posters, one rooting for Fred and the other just saying "lucky wolverines." The show was pretty good I'd say, I'm not a sports fan so I wouldn't know. I did manage to get a lot of good pictures, including the guy who offered me a chicken nugget. Between the events UofM was throwing t-shirts, and mskate and I went to area where they were throwing the shirts. We brought the lucky wolverines sign and that got the attention of the person throwing the shirts and we won one. Yay.

Right at the end is when things got really bad. On the high bar, the final event, one of the competitors missed the bar and fell flat on his face. Falling isn't exactly uncommon from what I've gathered, a lot of people fall during the warmup, some people fell at meet, and they have all the mats to lesson the fall, and they always jump right back up. Not this time, he was not moving, all the emergency responders jumped and went to him. The music was turned off and everyone was silent, complete absence of sound. Really scary. He did get up and walked to the physicians office. I'm sure he went to the hospital afterwards, and the competition let an alternate compete. UofM ultimately won, which was great for them.

Getting home was pretty easy. We had our corned beef for dinner and it was quite good. I put some sauerkraut on it and mixed some German with the Irish. That was a great way to finish a generally good day. Hopefully the gymnast who fell is doing well, I don't know if there's any updates due to privacy reasons. This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

Pokematic's Dolls and Gymnastics in Ann Arbor Adventure

Hey everyone. Little backstory, mskate is into American Girl Doll and Gymnastics, and I'm into Diners Drive-Ins and Dives. On Saturday March 2nd all 3 of those things came together in Ann Arbor Michigan. In one of the nearby cities there was a major local American Girl Doll sale where multiple people were selling parts of their collections. Not to far away in Ann Arbor there's Crazy Jim's Blimpy Burger, a small burger place that was featured on Diners Drive-Ins and Dives. Then at University of Michigan, the state college that's in Ann Arbor, there was a men's gymnastics competition between them and Oklahoma University. I'll get to all this in a moment, but first I'd like to thank my sponsor, good luck. Have you ever wanted to live an interesting life, one great for being an influencer type person like myself where you have things to talk about online? Well with good luck you can get this. Go to the good luck store and mention pokematic, and you can get a fun life so you can make blogs and vlogs like me. Jokes aside, lets get into the story.

OK I'll actually start out with a funny story from earlier in the week. Mskate was taking care of my grandma on Thursday and without her around I decided I was going to see Madame Web because it seems like it might be leaving theaters soon (because it's bombing hard) and I like the Sony Spiderman Universe. I didn't tell her I was going to the movies because I didn't think it was that big of a deal, and it wasn't known when she'd get home so she might not even notice I left. Like a responsible theater goer I silenced my phone before the movie started. About an hour and 10 minutes into the movie I decided to check the time on my phone because I forgot my watch at home, there are 12 missed calls and multiple missed texts trying to figure out where I am (my brother in law asked if I died). Apparently mskate was freaking out that I wasn't home and thought something bad happened, so she called my mom asking if she knew where I was and called her dad to try to figure out what was going on. I didn't mean to cause problems, I just wanted to see a movie. That was funny.

OK, now for the main story. Mskate found an American Girl Doll swap meet about this time last year that we missed out on, and kept it in mind to make sure we didn't miss it this year. I'm not much of an AG fan but I appreciate the neat dolls and the stores as seen in my vlogs to the Columbus store.

We got there pretty close to when it opened and started looking around. Mskate wanted to get the Christmas outfits and Addie books, and maybe some other things. There were many venders of different types. Unlike things like craft shows or flea markets where everyone is kind of "a professional seller," there were some people who were like professional sellers and some that were just collectors that are leaving the hobby. Basically it was everything American Girl had to offer, mostly clothes and accessories, and a number of playsets and dolls, but some people had the books and one person had a bunch of empty boxes for sale. One of the venders was a former employee of the Columbus store that was selling display model dolls and an employee apron she picked up when the store was closing (because it's unfortunately closed now). I almost bought one of the store display dolls that was mounted on a piece of display wood since I love "store things" (I have a "thank-you for shopping at blockbuster sign," a family video "free kid's movies" and "new releases" sign, a Chuck-E-Cheese table topper, various display stands, and some other things), but as I said I'm not super into American Girl Dolls so $50 for something that only has some attachment to and interest in is not really worth it. It was pretty fun. skate found some books and outfits that interest her, and I found a toy camera and can of almonds (the same brand that Mskate really likes). After the first purchase we didn't have a bag, so I pulled out the grocery bag I keep in my picket and used that for our purchases. She got one of the first outfits from the 90s and a christmas dress (don't remember which doll it's for though).

Now that the American Girl Doll sale was over, we went to Crazy Jim's Blimpy Burger. Part of the great thing about Tripple D is that it spotlights restaurants that aren't like 5 star and super expensive, but are still very good and successful (it's not like a "bar rescue" or "restaurant impossible" where the restaurant might be bad again by the time that the episode airs, or completely out of business, making them a "safe pilgrimage"). Then there's the other great thing that the featured restaurants are all over America, and I've started keeping a list of restaurants in places I might go to one day. One of the restaurants on that list is Crazy Jim's Blimpy Burger, a burger stand in Ann Arbor Michigan. This isn't the first time I've been there (vlog below), but this is the first time they had pumpernickel buns (and I love pumpernickel bread when I can get it on special occasions). On their bun options they have pumpernickel listed, but they didn't have it the other 2 times I'd been there. Anyway, it was great. I had a triple with cheddar cheese, grilled onions, grilled banana peppers, grilled salami, lettuce, raw onions, and pickles on the pumpernickel bun. Mskate had a double with pepper jack cheese and grilled mushrooms on a bed of lettuce. Definitely not healthy, but REALLY good, definitely recommend. On the TV for customers they had food network on (as I think they always do), and it just to happened to be Triple D; it wasn't their episode, but it still was Guy.

>

And here's the vlog from one of my other times.

While we were on our way to Blimpy Burger, mskate looked into the gymnastics meet. She knew it was a gymnastics meet happening but couldn't figure out how to buy tickets. While we were at Blimpy Burger mskate figured out it was a free event so we just had to go to the arena. We drove to the arena and found parking while finding our way to the arena entrance. Apparently UofM gives out free souvenirs at every event, and this time they were giving out capes. The even cooler thing is the seats were unassigned, and we were able to sit right up close to the floor routine mat. Mskate wanted to sit up higher but then I said "babe, when are you going to be able to sit almost front row again?" so we sat right close to where they do the floor routine. I'm not into gymnastics or sports in general, but I do kind of enjoy watching things in person and stadium energy; I have no energy watching alone on TV or online, but if I'm watchin in person surrounded by excited fans I have some energy. What was really cool is I got a picture with the Wolverine Trooper.

The event was pretty cool. I got a lot of videos and pictures of the competition, specifically the competitors that mskate and her mom like. What was really funny is they steadied the rings for the ring event using a crutch. I also saw some pretty wild falls, which was interesting. They also gave away t-shirts between events, and while we didn't win them I did take note of how they did the tight roll for throwing, and learned how to do that for when we travel since it will make it better for packing (less space).

Good news is UofM won, which made everyone very happy. After the event the entire team was signing autographs. I had them sign the picture they were giving out, and mskate had them sign one of the capes we got. I was able to get the picture signed faster than mskate, mainly because I was willing to hold my arm above the children that were taking a long time to get through the line. I ended up getting pictured and ending up on the U of M website in my yellow shirt and puffy jacket and blue jeans (school colors) as I'm reaching over children to get the autographs of the team.

Protected picture of me in the crowd.

It was quite a fun and full day. Sunday was pretty basic, just went to church, got my hair cut, cleaned my shower, and my kitchen faucet decided to break so I got the replacement and called a plumber. It should get fixed on Tuesday. Yep. Well this has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

Pokematic's Christmas through New Years Vacation (with a little Thanksgiving and Advent)

Hey everyone, time for my annual Christmas blog, and this year I'm throwing in New Years and Thanksgiving for a little extra fun. First I'll start with Thanksgiving, which was pretty basic. Mskate and I went to my parents and we had thanksgiving with the family, then we had desert and accordion playing. The next day IRA and I went black friday shopping, but the most interesting part of that was IRA woke mskate and I up at 4:30 saying "it's time for shopping it's time for shopping." Why, because everyone was empty, didn't have the same craziness as last year. When I went back to work there were people talking about how the news was all ready to interview people like they did last year but there wasn't anyone out. It was fun enough, we still bought a fair amount of things, but nothing to write home about. This is why I didn't do one this year; I'm sure I could have woven an entertaining story, but I just didn't feel inspired this year. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas Mskate and decorated for Christmas, wrapped gifts, and I did a 12 days of Christmas puzzle advent calendar. It was quite fun and I framed it quite nicely where it'll make a good decoration in the years to come. Given how busy we were and how short Advent was this year Christmas came pretty fast. Because it went so fast we almost didn't do the county lights this year, but we did after work on like the 21st, and we did it with my grandma and mom. Since it's a drive through exhibit thing we wanted to take her to it for a year or 2 now, but kept forgetting. She really enjoyed it.

OK time for Christmas Eve. First I'll start with it being REALLY foggy around where everyone lives. This made things rater interesting. Mskate and I packed up our car with all the gifts we were giving away and overnight stuff for the 2 days we'll be staying at the in-law's house. The fog was kind of cool on the drive up, kind of like a Halloween atmosphere. We dropped off all the overnight stuff and divided the gifts between who we were giving them to (my grandma, her family, and my family). I did the dividing while she settled in with the overnight stuff. We also visited some with her family, and then went off to the McDonald's by my grandma's.

For those who might be new to the blog, when I was little and we do the gift exchange with my grandparents, we'd all go to the McDonald's that's a block away and then Santa would come while we're eating lunch. To this day we still go there because it's part of the tradition. Now for the silly fun time story of this. I have the McDonald's app which means I can get free food and discounts while also getting points for future free food and discounts so long as I log in. However, I don't know if it's my phone, how I use my phone (normally I have location and mobile data turned off, so connecting can take some extra time), or just the android app, but it regularly crashes or becomes unresponsive whenever I try to use it. IRA also wanted the Kerwin Frost adult happy meal toys, so we got 2 of those for the family members that wanted chicken. We also got my grandma a happy meal; mom said "is it just so you have the ebay inventory toy," and I said "no, it's that but it's also just enough food for her and it gets apple slices for mskate." I'm going through the app trying to maximize the savings while the family is saying "I'm hungry." I eventually get us saving quite a fair amount of money with the discounts. It ended up going really well, and VikingPolak was able to get a free McChicken with the points since he still needed some food after everyone was done. We also got some very interesting chicken nugget toys with the Kerwin Frost box.

With McDonald's eaten we went to her house and exchanged gifts. It was primarily everyone giving grandma gifts and her giving everyone else gifts. We got grandma a bunch of snack foods, a build a bear outfit, a cinderella doll to go with her micky and minnie doll, and some other things. She gave me Krabby Patty Fruit Snacks, Duckman the complete series, a pokemon puzzle, lemon cookies, Dragon Ball season 3, Perfect Blue on steel book, hazelnut wafer rolls, goldfish, highlander on 4K, young justice season 3, a yo-yo, burger king gift cards, a reindeer ornament, a spongebob magic towel, hot chocolate, a meat stick and cheese pack, and a wooden puzzle marble run. This is a high level model that is fragile with a lot of pieces, definitely not for kids. Mskate got hair clips, popcorn, 2 hairbrushes, a disney mystery box stuffed animal (it was pumba in the shape of a pretzel), socks, a Lizzie Maguire mug, fruit snacks, gluten free cookies, jelly beans, milk chocolate truffles, smoked guda spread, a glitter star tree topper, bath bombs, crayola hat, hair ties, harry potter fruit snacks, an Anna from frozen magic towel, hot chocolate, and peppermint peeps. All the while we had the Arendale Yule Log playing on the TV, it made for a nice festive. After all the gifts we made it to church. While on the way I got some great video of the flog.

Video is uploaded with creative commons attribution, click here for details (youtube rumble)

After mass we had dinner, pizza I think. We then said our goodbyes and went to mskate's parent's house. When we got back we did some additional gift exchanges, I got some pokemon mega blocks and a mcdondald's gift card I think. Mskate got a peanuts christmas display thing, some ornaments, and a starbucks gift card. We also gave Delilah some gifts, peanut butter filled cow hooves and jerky treats. We gave her one of the peanut butter cow hooves when they had to put Duke to sleep earlier this year, and she was happy to have more of them since she really likes peanut butter. The rest of the night was pretty calm, I watched A Christmas Story on TBS as part of my tradition, and made some jokes on twitter about how it was my tradition. Having watched the first airing in full I didn't have to drive my families crazy with "I have to watch A Christmas Story on TBS." What was great was I was able to shower during the commercial break and miss nothing. Yay.

OK it's now Christmas morning. IRA is super excited (bragging about how he only slept for 2 hours). Before I get to the fun stuff, I need to explain/remind a thing about my father-in-law. He's notoriously hard to shop for, either thinking that what you got him is too low of quality or thinking that you spent way to much on something. I have cracked him though, what he needs are household items he doesn't yet have and doesn't realize he wants. We ended up getting him washing machine cleaner, gaffers tape, 3 different bird feeder feeds, pet stain cleaner, and a novelty sign that says "forget about the past you can't change it, forget about the future you can't know it, forget about the present because I didn't get you one" (we had him open that last). He liked all of them. For Delilah her final present from us were pawstruck dog bone treats. She REALLY liked those. They were a little big for her but she loved jumping on it and biting it and breaking off crumbs she later licked up. I think I won Christmas for the dog (at least for now, more on that later). From them I got more pokemon mega blocks (specifically the pokeballs that make for great desk decorations, IRA had them stacked together since they link together on the top), a pikachu children's model (I think I'll do a "model review" where I give Crash a friend), pokemon puzzles, a tin of breakfast blend tea, a buckees shirt, a Naruto mug with Naruto socks, a new polo work shirt, a Naruto shirt, more McDonald's gift cards, a lego parrot, gum, life savers candy, a stuffed snorlax, and a stuffed dragonite. IRA picked out the Naruto stuff because when we went to Disney I had ramen twice, and he associates ramen with Naruto and not "I can make my own food/broke college student." Oh well, I like Naruto even though I haven't watched it in a long while. Mskate also gave me some things here. She gave me a gourmet cookie that she bought from someone at church and a hot sauce variety pack. I gave her her presents from me the day after with my parents. She got peeps, Harry Potter legos, a calendar, stationary, a saint a day book, a harry potter shirt, a harry potter mini backpack purse thing (similar to loungefly but not that brand), cheese knives, American Girl Doll accessories, a starbucks gift card, jelly beans, a phone protector, high quality markers for art things, candy canes, a stuffed Harry Potter and Hermione, a stuffed Winnie the Pooh and Piglet, and stuffed santas. We gave IRA various nightmare before christmas things and volume 1 of invincible. It was a great day. I don't remember what we got mom-in-law, but they were things she liked. There's also this funny chocolates we got. It's a company that makes Easter chocolates and they did Santa and his reindeer, but I swear the reindeer were just the bunny mold with antlers on the ears in the foil.

Now with gifts over we went to get mskate's aunt from 2 blocks away. When we got her in we gave her her little gifts from us (rice krispy treats). She really liked them. We had breakfast and all went well. Now for some of the Delilah story, she was going absolutely crazy with the bone thing, running around everywhere, digging in her dog bed, and general hyperactivity. After breakfast aunt's daughter picked her up and went to their next activity. She also brought over her dog Edison, a big dog that they gave some big rawhide treats to that were too big for Delilah. The dogs ran around together and had a lot of fun. I don't know if they knew each other before this, but they enjoyed each other it seems like. We rested for a few hours before going to my parents. I watched A Christmas Story on TNT during this time (because TNT aired it on the odd hours and was a different channel). It was fun.

It's now about 2PM, time for my parents party. We got there before everyone else, and then mom and grandma got there. We helped grandma into the house and got her seated. After Mrs. G joined us we did coloring cookies; one Easter we got my grandma these coloring book cookies with edible markers and we found it's a food and activity my grandma really likes (it's the only thing she eats really quickly). We got her the cookies on Christmas Eve and we did them on Christmas day, with some extras for her to do at a later time. We were going to use the different markers from other times but we lost them. Oh well, we'll get them another time since this is going to be a thing we do with her for a while. After the cookies we did oplatke, a Polish tradition. Mskate and I got the oplatke from our church since ours does it, and it was fun. We did it at our little gathering and dad and vikingpolak did it with our grandpa and aunt. It was a fun little time.

Now for the other part of the party, where my dad and brother came back from aunt and grantpa's. Normally grandma's long time friends with the accordion come over but they had to stay healthy due to an upcoming surgery. Oh well, we still managed to enjoy ourselves, just a lot of talking. We had dinner ham, rolls, corn, green beans, and sweet potatoes. Mom didn't serve the ham on a very good plate, it was pretty shallow resulting in me spilling the juice on myself. It was a good dinner. After dinner we had desert with IRA and mom-in-law joining us. Grandma gave IRA a minions magic towel, and he made his when he got it. Since he's a bit of a doof he activated his towel by soaking it in water, and then bringing it out sopping wet to show everyone. I cleaned up the water he was dripping everywhere. Mom-in-law also brought over a dancing snoopy toy that she got for Christmas to entertain grandma, and I showed her a dance she could do to dance along (hold her arms up in front of herself and do windshield wipers). It was a fun time. When we were done we got grandma all packed up to go home, and went back to the in-laws. Delilah was still very excited, and dad-in-law figured there was something in the new bone that was making her all crazy. Apparently she didn't sleep much that night.

Now it's the day after Christmas, Boxing Day if you're Canadian (which I'm not). Mskate's dad got fed up with the paw struck treats so he threw them out. Delilah was looking around sad that she lost her treat toy. I later dug them out to give to Edison since his dog-mom causes a lot of trouble, so causing her some trouble wouldn't be that bad (he got pretty excited as well, but he just liked the new toy thing). We went to my parent's house and set-up the gifts. We gave my dad a lot of peanuts stuff (peanuts hot chocolate, the Charlie Brown and Snoopy show complete series, 4 TV movie set, and a pop-up card with the Christmas special scene where Linus says what Christmas is all about), and some cooking things I think. We got my mom brownie mix (she really likes to make brownies), bath and bodyworks soaps and lotions, gift cards, and some other things. We got my brother a flash light, shirts, an amo box, beard wash and conditioner (that we got from bed bath and beyond in the bankruptcy sale), and some other things. I got this peanut butter cup and chocolate trailmix insert mix (really good), a game called "nice buns," a squishy stress ball thing, a spongebob puzzle, spiderman across the spiderverse, a slinky, Crash 4 it's about time, pickles, sunflower seed kernels, katamari, spongebob socks, a ruby tuesdays gift card, a taco bell gift card, uber gift card, slide wistle, and a rubix cube key chain. Mskate got dominos, gluten free cookies, an american girl doll play set (a truly me doll she's naming Noel), bath bombs, lotion, and a warming unicorn. Mskate and I got matching Disney shirts, so we know what we'll wear next trip. We also got Disney 100 happy meal toys, a collection process we worked on when it was in restaurants and we are only missing 3. This is also when I gave her my gifts, The Aristocats on Bluray with the Disney 100 slip case with Marie on it (she loves Marie), and Miracle on 34th street. After all the gift giving and breakfast cinnamon rolls and bagels we watched an episode of the Charlie Brown and Snoopy show. It was REALLY funny, I picked a winner. After that we gathered up our stuff from both houses, and went home. For the next many days I was just working on finding places to keep all our new gifts. One thing I need to do is find a place in the curio cabinet for the happy meal toys that are basically just figures.

The days between Christmas and New Years were pretty chill. For the most part I organized our new presents and rested. 2 days before New Years Eve we went up to mskate's parent's house so she and dad-in-law could see The Polar Express in IMAX for his birthday, and IRA and I went to see The Boy and the Herron, the movie the Hayao Miyazaki came out of retirement for, reopening Studio Ghibli just to make (though basically that just meant that the people that made Studio Ponok went back to the old offices since they made their own studio after Ghibli closed). It was a really good movie, even though it had a lot of "Ghibli old lady face" and "Ghibli fluids," along with some "Ghibli frog face" if I'm not mistaken (3 elements of Ghibli movies I don't care for). I'll be making a review at some point. Since the theater we went to was close to where Cousin M lives IRA and I stopped by after the movie for an impromptu visit. We talked for maybe an hour just catching up, which was great since we didn't see him at Christmas. Then the day before New Years Eve we had a funeral for one of the scout moms from my old Boy Scout troop. It was sad but it was great seeing so many people I haven't seen in over a decade. Since she was so involved in the troop (regularly being an adult leader on camp outs and driving us up in her 15 passenger van (the memory I shared in facebook that made the sons smile, and I shared in the "write down a memory"). So many people from my old troop came, so many people I remembered but didn't recognize (I said "who am I not recognizing" but when he said his name I would remember instantly). After the funeral the luncheon was held at the VFW post that we would regularly partner with for blood drives with or hold banquets at. One of the VFW men recognized me from 12+ years ago, which was so cool. It was just a regular troop reunion, and the good thing is since mskate and I grew up in the same area she knew a number of people and wasn't "I don't know anyone, stick with me and don't socialize to the full extent with your old friends" like I imagine many spouses would be in situations like this. About halfway through before one of the sons had to leave we took a picture with all the old scouts that were there including the old scout masters. Just a great little thing.

Now it's New Years Eve, I had some ebay packages to mail so I went to Meijer for the authorized USPS shipping location. While there I did some shopping and used some coupons while also buying on sale Christmas stuff (primarily chocolates, but also a dog sweater for Delilah next Christmas). I basically got everything for 50% off, yay. Then after my shopping I went to Wendy's and got one more free Jr. Frosty (got mskate a small vanilla diet coke and I had the frosty). Then it was time to go to our camping friend's New Years Eve party. Our contribution to the party was a meat and cheese tray, plate of cookies, champagne, fireworks, and board games. The food went over very well, and the champagne was great for the New Years toast. The game we brought was the Nice Buns game my mom got me for Christmas, and it was a really fun game. The goal is to get 3 sets of 3 cards of the same color (9 total) before your opponents, while also avoiding the "fishy buns" which prevent you from making a set, while rolling dice that determine how many new cards you can get and if you can get rid of your fishy bun if you have it, and while there's a lot of chance with the drawing of cards and rolling of dice there's also a lot of skill with how the players play the dice and cards. We had one game that went on for about an hour because we got really into strategy of how to play the dice and cards, and played it 2 or so other times. It's a really fun game and will be bringing it camping. Since my godfather and his family weren't going to be there for the ball drop I lit off some of my fireworks for my godbrother around 10PM (the others would be done at midnight). He's still young and doesn't have the "backyard shows," so he was yelling "you need to call the fire department, I've never seen up close fireworks." My godfather was a little nervous about this since he's been to some irresponsible backyard shows, but he also knew I was responsible and safe. I lit off 3 in the drive way while he and my mom stood at a far distance, and he thought they were really cool. I'm sure there's going to be some "can we do fireworks like [Pokematic] did" and there's going to be things like "no, that's a thing only specially trained people like Mr. [Pokematic] are able to do on New Years and the 4th of July." Mom also took a photo of me with the firework and said "you're just like [you're uncle who would light off the fireworks when we did 4th of July parties 20 years ago]." We all just hung out until about 10 minutes to midnight, and then we started getting ready for the ball drop. I popped the cork on the champagne into the back yard and poured as many glasses as the hosts had, and everyone that wanted some got it. I also jokingly told the hosts "send one of your kids to find the cork in the morning." We counted down the ball and toasted the drinks. I lit off the remaining 6 or so fireworks for an audience of about 5 people. The fun thing is I bought this kit and box of tanks about 7 years ago and have been gradually lighting them off 1-4 at a time over new years and 4th of July at my house, and with this it's now about done (still have some small ones and tanks left, but "the show pieces" are all done now). Now it's time for me to get a new kit since everyone really liked them (and hopefully I can get some on sale now that new years is over). Shortly after the fireworks it was time to go home.

So there you have it, my Christmas and New Years 2023 extravaganza (with a hint of Thanksgiving and Advent). It was quite a great time. It was also quite an eventful 2023 (which I'll recap in another blog). New Years day is the last day of my break (which went very quickly), and will be populated with various "get ready for the work week" stuff (and maybe some sales to get more fireworks). This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

Oh and here's Steamboat Willie, hosted by me on this blog (not linked). I can do so because it is now 2024 and Steamboat Willie is now public domain.