Easter this year was pretty awesome. I spent yesterday at Grace, helping to usher during the first service and going to second service.
I was most excited about today because I haven’t seen Uncle Leroy since Christmas 2007. So I headed up to Tipton and met up with my Dad and Sharon for Easter Mass. After Mass we heading back down to Indianapolis and had lunch at Steak n’ Shake before preparing the easter egg hunt.
It was fun hiding the Easter eggs. Dad mostly just walked across the yard and dropped eggs everywhere, he didn’t even try to hide them! So I found some creative ways of doing that.
I just loved watching the kids being so excited about doing an Easter egg hunt. Here’s a video and some pictures, I hope you enjoy!
Authorities called off the search today for the Kinnaman family cat and have presumed him dead after four whole days of searching. Patches Kinnaman, affectionately known as Patchkins, Mr. Kitty, and “that damn fat cat,” was reported missing by his best friend, Einstein the dog, shortly after noon on Saturday.
“I was just outside jumping up and down, playing with sticks, and doing a thorough ‘marking’ of the perimeter of the Kinnaman estate when I noticed my compatriot Patches was missing,” Einstein said.
Patches began “working” for the Kinnaman Department of Homeland Security sometime around 1998. Nursing injuries from a previous tour of duty (getting his rear paw stepped on repeatedly), Patches came with a bandage around his hind foot, earning him his famous name.
As a young private in the department, Patches trained under Major Doodles Elwood Kinnaman. His rigorous training included learning how to climb trees without front claws, catching chipmunks, and guarding the homestead from the neighborhood raccoon affectionately known as “El Bandito.”
When Major Doodles died in battle, Patches was promoted to the position of Major serving alongside Colonel Hyden Vulcan. However, due to Colonel Hyden’s health complications, Major Patches took over as Colonel for the Kinnaman Department of Homeland Security shortly after Hyden’s death in 2007.
Under his watch, the Kinnaman estate stayed chipmunk-free and mouse-free. Just months before his disappearance, Patches granted an interview with this very news outlet in which he detailed one of his proudest moments:
“There was one particular time when the Major Doodles and I were guarding the Kinnaman compound. We noticed that our food kept getting eaten, night after night. So Major Doodles and I planned a stake-out. I was just a young private, scared out of my nine lives. Major Doodles took the rear, sitting in Master Kinnaman’s favorite patio chair, while I sat on the roof of the dog house waiting for the perps to show up. All of the sudden, this big fat momma raccoon shows up and tries to take our food, so we just jumped out of her and scared the crap out of that raccoon. We laughed so hard we felt like one of the LOLcatz. Afterwards we drank some warm milk and had the best cat nap this side of heaven.”
Colonel Patches will be fondly remembered, he used up every last one of his nine lives in his final days. In the summer months he would do a security check of the shed while Master Kinnaman would be mowing the lawn and end up getting locked-in until his absence was noticed.
In his final days Patches enjoyed nothing more than sitting on the back porch with Masters Kreig and Eric, taking in the second-hand smoke of Marlboros while having his belly rubbed.
Colonel Patches is survived by his Masters: Ron, Micah, Kreig, Kiel and Eric Kinnaman. Step-brothers include Einstein the Dog, Spot the Turtle, Isaac the Parrot, Milo Tiel, and Petey the Dumb Dog. Cousins include Cheese, Crackers, and Precious. He was also well loved by GrandDad’s bird, Willie Hicks.
He is preceded in death by Hyden Vulcan Kinnaman, Doodles Elwood Kinnaman, and Clyde the Lovebird.
Memorial contributions can be made in Patches memory to the “Felines for the Ethical Treatment of Mice” foundation.
Our Valentine’s Day adventure actually started last week, when us guys (Chad, Andrew, and I) decided that instead of taking one day to celebrate Valentine’s Day, we would take six. What ensued was pretty good times for the girls which involved dividing each day of the week into a school subject (since they’re all in the school system):
Sunday they had Math and needed to solve a story problem for a special prize.
Monday was History class where we recorded a video for them recalling some of our favorite moments over the past several months.
Tuesday was Art class where we gave them an awesome picture of us three guys for their desks… which according to them, they cannot put on their desks since the frames say “Hugs and Kisses”… please…
Wednesday was Music class where us guys (well, mostly Andrew) wrote them a song to the tune of “Move Along” by the All-American Rejects. We then played Rockband while Andrew mixed our vocals with the karaoke track. Ha ha!
Thursday was English class where Andrew and Chad wrote poems for the girls, I wasn’t in the mood.
Friday was Gym class and we took the girls cosmic skating followed by “Ghetto Putt-Putt.”
This leads us to Saturday, the culmination of the week where the girls were being a little bit sketchy about the plans. Finally we received a text that said, “Meet at Chad’s by 6:30.” We all arrived at Chad’s thinking, “okay, this is nice, the ladies will pick us up and take us out to dinner.” Nope! Instead we got an e-mail, “Gentlemen, In preparation of this evening we thought it would be appropriate to reflect on our friendship Your journey will begin under your feet as you entered your present location. Enjoy your journey, The Ladies.”
This clue seemed pretty obvious to me, as I was standing on the doormat. Voila! Clue number one! The first clue mentioned the following, “Till the one day when the ladies met the fellas. Do you remember that very awesome day? Here you will find your first clue of the evening in Kiel’s special place.”
Okay, now first of all, I don’t have a “special place” and the other guys were perplexed as to why I wouldn’t know where my special place was. I sent Betsy a text for further clarification. The only place we could think of was church, so we were headed on the first leg of our journey!
Chad ponders, “Where is Kiel’s ’special place?’”
So we packed up the car and headed north to Church!
Upon arriving at church we figured that through some connections, the girls might’ve gotten a key to my office. So we went up there, saw the door was unlocked, and unlocked the door to my office… nothing. So I figured the only place they could’ve placed the clue was in the employee workroom. I would not classify this as my special place, but we went downstairs and sure enough, there was another clue along with a CD in my mailbox.
We were supposed to sing the next clue to the tune of All-American Rejects’ song, “Move Along,” instead we just skimmed through it. Here’s an excerpt, “Here we go… And all holding on real tight. Move along, down the hill gotta dodge those trees. And all resting afterwards, chillin’ out, sitting down on the prayer bench. Here we go!” There was only one place this could be, since we had only been sledding once this season and it was at Northview Christian Life Church down the street (because they have some awesome hills).
So we hopped in the car, popped in the CD (which started playing the Friends theme song), and drove down to Northview. Well, we got to Northview and looked at all the benches and didn’t see anything. Now don’t ask us why we did this, but we went ahead and walked down the hill, which was quite a trek, especially in the dark. I used my camera flash as a light and we still couldn’t find a clue. So we started to trek back up the hill where Chad was determined to go back to my car and check the clue again. I got lazy and texted Betsy. “Look under the benches!” So we did…
Checking the benches….
We found it!
Ahhh, sweet victory. What did that final clue say? Something to the effect of, “So no one told you you were gonna drive all night” and “But we’re still cooking dinner and gotta stall for time.” But FINALLY, there was no other clue on this card, so we headed to Faith and Betsy’s where we knew the girls were at.
Even though they had stalled us, we apparently were still early and even though we had brought them flowers, they still made us wait in the car. But when they finally let us in, there was nice music playing, the table was set, and the smell of food was in the air. SWEET! Fortunately they had some appetizers and salad waiting for us…
Yummy bruschetta!
He likes it, “hey Mikey!”
I have to admit that I was starting to get antsy, after all I hadn’t eaten all day and just spent time trekking up and down the big hill at Northview in my dress clothes. But Chad enjoyed his salad… one leaf at a time… and the girls finally brought us some AMAZING fettuccine alfredo!
Eating one leaf at a time…
Amazing fettuccine alfredo
After dinner we had “indoor recess” which included a game of Jeopardy based on our friendship. Andrew came in first (by choosing all the highest categories), I came in second (even after answering some questions wrong), and Chad came in third. Once we finished Jeopardy, the girls sang us the songs that were on our “clue cards” (probably because we were so hungry we failed to sing them).
Well, what can you do after such an exciting day? The girls were very gracious and didn’t make us watch a chick flick (I don’t mind chick flicks) and instead we watched Traitor. It was a good movie and at the end the girls gave us a gift bag with a picture of the three of them… AWWW. I still think our “Hugs and Kisses” frames were cuter, but you know, they were very well decorated and we give them an “A” for effort.
Chad, Andrew and I have to agree that having three dates on Valentine’s Day is SO much greater than having just one. Faith, Steph, and Betsy, you three are completely awesome and the three of us guys are lucky to have you in our lives.
So yeah, that was our Valentine’s Day (or Week) adventure!
So my old boss at Marsh left me a message when I went to pick up the flowers for the girls, “Dear Kiel, how do you keep track of three girls?” Ha ha! Love you too Rita! And thanks to David and his staff for doing an awesome job on the flowers!
If you didn’t read my post about “V-Day History Lesson for the Girls,” let me recap what’s going on. The girls told us over a month ago, “guys, don’t make any plans for Valentine’s Day, we’re doing something for you.” Well, as Chad would say, “SA-WEET!”
But honestly, these girls have been amazing friends to us, so we decided we wanted to do something in return. Instead of just doing one thing on Valentine’s Day, we decided to spread it across several days leading up to Valentine’s Day. Since they all work in the school system, we divided up each day by subject. On Sunday the girls had to go to a web site we set up and figure out a story problem, if they got it right, they received a special prize. Monday was history class where we sent them a video (you can watch that here) of some of our favorite memories from the past several months.
Tuesday was art class. And it was semi-difficult because we couldn’t really figure out what to do. So I grabbed my camera and we started taking pictures. We originally wanted to get some costumes and have our pictures “professionally” done at the Wal-Mart photo studio, but then I remember that I despised Wal-Mart and the costumes were too expensive.
We had a lot of fun taking pictures. I had the camera on “continuous shoot” mode, so the camera would actually take five shots of us at a time as opposed to one. Little did I know that Andrew was moving his head slightly with each click of the shutter. So, I decided to have fun with it and we got the following result that you see to your left.
It was good times and we wanted to share with you some of the pictures we took, so enjoy!
Many of you may not know that I have a great group of friends: Chad, Andrew, Betsy, Faith, and Stephanie. For Valentine’s Day this year, the girls thought it would be great fun to treat us to a surprise date on Saturday night. Not to be upstaged, we guys decided that we would celebrate Valentine’s Day all week long. After all, why should our love for the girls be confined to just one day?
Since the three girls all work in the school system, we have divided up each day into a subject. Sunday was Math where the girls had to answer a story problem. We gave them a web site address and they had to answer correctly to receive a special present from us.
Today is “History” and well, us guys are sentimental. So we put together this 10 minute video for the girls to watch of our favorite memories from the past year. So Faith, Betsy, and Stephanie, watch this video and take notes, there will be a test on this later.
And don’t worry, the next few days have a few more surprises in store for you.
I was most excited about today because I haven’t seen Uncle Leroy since Christmas 2007. So I headed up to Tipton and met up with my Dad and Sharon for Easter Mass. After Mass we heading back down to Indianapolis and had lunch at Steak n’ Shake before preparing the easter egg hunt.
Authorities called off the search today for the Kinnaman family cat and have presumed him dead after four whole days of searching. Patches Kinnaman, affectionately known as Patchkins, Mr. Kitty, and “that damn fat cat,” was reported missing by his best friend, Einstein the dog, shortly after noon on Saturday.
When Major Doodles died in battle, Patches was promoted to the position of Major serving alongside Colonel Hyden Vulcan. However, due to Colonel Hyden’s health complications, Major Patches took over as Colonel for the Kinnaman Department of Homeland Security shortly after Hyden’s death in 2007.
