Happy New Year! (Let us in! Let us in!; Let us out! Let us out!)

Okay, so now it's 2008. I didn't make it up until 12:00. (I think I'm still recovering from Christmas - yeah that's it). Alex didn't either. Of course, Alex goes to bed at the same time every night, no matter what. Neither rain, nor sleet nor dark nor dark of night can keep Alex awake at bedtime. So it was Joel, Emily and Caleb -who was at a Youth thing at church until 1:00. I can't even stay awake longer than my kids. When I start falling asleep earlier than Alex, I'm really going to start feeling old!

We went and saw Enchanted (cute movie). By the way, it gets more and more difficult to see a family movie when the kids ages range from 5 to 14. One side wanted Water Horse the other would have been more than happy to see National Treasure Book of Secrets. We checked out pluggedinonline.com and then compromised.

Joel watched Illinois get pummeled by USC in the Rose Bowl while I took a nap, and then Emily just had to have a calendar for the New Year (Don't ask me why - I do not know. She certainly didn't get that particular interest from me. I don't usually know what day of the week it is even with a calendar). So, we went to Wal-Mart (sigh). We had a little bit of trouble getting out of the front door. We couldn't unlock the front door. It was very cold (ok, well cold for us - like 42 at that point). S o, we fiddled with it for a bit and then we figured we'd pick up some WD-40 and oil the lock when we got home and of course - voila - it would work like a charm. So we all tromped out the back door, made the pilgrimage to Wal-Mart and back bring the calendar and the WD-40. We sprayed it in the lock and ... nothing happened.

We spent the next hour and a half dis-assembling the doorknob - because we decided we'd just trade the front for the garage door (same key). Not nearly as easy as it looked. The whole thing ended up involving power tools. We had to cut the interior workings out of the front door and replace it with the garage door knob. By this time the temperature had dropped to 36 (and I don't care where you're from - that's cold!) and we've got the front door and the garage door open. Joel keeps saying "Any other night of the year, this wouldn't be so bad". So now we have a front door that's normal, but we had to block the doorknob hole in the garage (I wasn't worried - anyone who tried to get into the house through the garage would break a leg just trying to get to the door) and Joel has to pick up a new doorknob after work to replace the one we pilfered from the garage.

What a way to begin the New Year!