Anderson/Hatgidakis/Nelson/Metcalf: Newsletter

Old news: October 2003

Lindsey
10/31/03
Happy Halloween everyone!

Karen
10/31/03
Cool almost cold today. Need to get out the winter clothes. Tristen, I have sent my order in and the check is on its way. Erika is very excited about tonight. Emily is taking her around the neighborhood this year. Erika is going as a singer and Emily as a bee. Very easy costumes this year. Have the candy dish filled and ready. The chimney sweeper is coming this afternoon, so we will be able to have a fire this week-end. Brent took the afternoon off. Working on the kitchen cupboards. Had a leak some where and trying to find it. Looks like a kitchen remodel may be coming sooner than we wanted. The new car is great!!! I love to drive it. Have over 300 miles on it already. Have found out it takes lots more gas than the car did. Have a fun night everyone......

Emily
10/31/03
***HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOHN***

***HAPPY HALLOWEEN***

Ryan, Amanda, Tristen & Teghan
10/31/03
Happy Birthday John!

Happy Halloween Everyone!

Tristen
10/30/03
Hi there. Tristen here. I'm selling some nuts and fruit mixes for Brownies. We get some of the money and I can get patches and prizes. Can you order from me? The stuff to order is on here. Thank you. I only have one week. Email my mom with what you want. Thank you.
Love Tristen.

Nelson's
10/30/03
Happy Halloween

Paul, Lori, Lindsey, and Olivia
10/30/03
Happy Birthday John!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Grandma
10/30/03
Happy Birthday, John!!

Happy Halloween to Everyone!!

The Nelson's
10/30/03
Happy Birthday, John!

Amanda
10/28/03
Hey, my birthday is National Chocolate Chip Day!

Lindsey, check the cool site (because you were asking about this): October is National Caramel Month, and the 31st is National Caramel Apple Day. So have another one! (I am looking forward to December 16th....) --Gary

Gary
10/28/03
Gotta tell an Olivia story. When we were watching Penny take her medicine (she seems to love it -- lapped it up like ice cream), our conversation turned from doggy ailments to human ailments. Livy said, "I hardly ever get headaches or stomach-aches. One time I had a bad stomach-ache, so I ate three grilled-cheese sandwiches and it went away." Turns out, she says, she had just been hungry -- "I forgot to eat lunch that day." "With ya," Livy, not "at ya"! :-)

Amanda
10/28/03
Congrats Erika! I remember you getting an award like that before also, Character Counts sounds familiar.

Lindsey
10/28/03
Hi everybody ~ Me and Olivia are over at Grandma's today and we watched Holes which was very good and then Gary came over for lunch and Grandma made Reubens. I also made caramel apples and we had those as well. Then Olivia, Gary, and I went to Walgreens and got medicine for Penny and she drank it all up and seems like she is doing better. Ceaser is also over and I think she feels a little better when he's around. Not much other news. Congrats Erika on your award! Love the pictures from Texas! Can't wait to see you guys again! What's everyone doing for Halloween??

Gary
10/28/03
Way to go, Erika! You got this award once before, didn't you? Anyway, that deserves a cat!

Good picture of you too. And, great pictures from Texas! :-)

Only 50 days til the third and final film in the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy is out -- and I just heard the running length is 3 hours and 30 minutes! Bring snacks and a cushion!

Karen
10/28/03
Erika received an award at school today. It was for Character Counts -- she got one for Fairness.

Lindsey
10/26/03
The girls look pretty happy to be in that sandbox! We went to Roca Berry Farm last night and they had the Black Forest which was SCARY!!!!! I got so freked out on a lot of it cause people were jumping out at you and then there was "Dr. Blood" and he had a saw thing or something and jumped out at you with it. Then we went on the haunted hayrack ride and that was scary too cause there were people with chainsaws circling the hayrack like right next to you and then they had a haunted house which was pretty good. They had a lot of neat stuff. They also had a bonfire and you could roast marshmellows that they had out. It was really fun! Probably as good as Vala's to me anyway.

Erika
10/26/03
After I saw the picture of Tristen & Teghan in the sand box I thought that Teghan will look like Olivia when she gets older.

Gary
10/25/03
A project report from the Lone Star State!

Lindsey
10/24/03
Today was my last day of the quarter and then I get next week off so I am happy!!!!!!!!!!

Lindsey
10/24/03
I agree as well--the Halloween game was way too hard, but it was a good idea.

Yeah, it was basically a "Who Am I?" but with only ONE question instead of ten. But you didn't help things, Lindsey, when you picked a costume that nearly EVERYBODY thought was Livy! :-) Next game should be a little easier, at least for some of you: Sometime between Halloween and Thanksgiving, I will put up a "Friends" trivia game. Could it BE any more fun?? --Gary

Amanda
10/24/03
6 years ago today you Lincolnites had the big storm, and last year it was snowy there, and Sioux City... Where is it this year? Global warming.....

I say the snow comments as it is 90 degrees here right now. YUCK!

Karen
10/24/03
I did lousy on the Halloween costume guesses too, hard to know who anyone was! Hey Ryan if you get to instruct outside the base, let me know. I have to take CPR every 2-3 years for preschool. Had our "fall festival" party at preschool today -- NO halloween celebrations are allowed. Even had one parent keep their kids home because they thought there might be some mention of halloween -- geez.... I called for the pay-per-view game too, $29.95 plus the price of the box, no way -- radio for us. Much cooler here today, only in the 60's and colder for the week-end. Loving the new car - putting lots of miles on it -- up to 135 now :)

Grandma
10/24/03
I agree the Halloween game was a toughie, pure guesses on my part, and a lot of them were wrong. Our temperatures are supposed to fall this weekend into the upper 40's and 50's. Sounds good to me. The pay for view ballgame won't have me for a customer, it is $29.95. Ridiculous!! I hope they lose their shirt. NOT the Huskers!! A quiet week here, brought in a few plants for the basement and now it can freeze. Penny seemed a bit better yesterday, was running in the house and followed me out the front door last night, Sleeping in the sun this morning.
Hope your truck is not needing any fixing so you can enjoy the weekend, Ryan.

Amanda
10/24/03
That was too hard. The fact that 5 wrong won is not good. I love my costume though, I want it in real life! We have set record high temps here all week, mid 90's. Its disgusting. And because of the heat, our water sources are drying up even more, and we just may run out of water. Apparently tonight a cold front is to move in and bring 60's. What's up with the pay per view game? What is the price? And who gets that $? Radio will be on in our house...

Ryan
10/24/03
Holy Cow! I know I guessed at some of the Halloween costumes, but I didnt think I did that bad. As I'm typing this message its 1230 in the morning, I have a CPR Instructor class that I'm attending. Once I get my certification I'm going to contact the American Heart Association and find out if I can give classes outside the gates of Sheppard. There was some miscommunication with myself and the class instructor so I had to stay up late to develope a PowerPoint Presentation for tomorrow and study for a test. Wow I'm going to be tired, talk to everyone in the morning! THANK GOD ITS FRIDAY!!!!!!!

Gary
10/24/03
Ah, at last the unbearable suspense is over! Find out who wore what to the Halloween Party! :-)

Ryan
10/22/03
Glad to hear that the Nelsons got a new car. I would be glad to trade my truck for anything that I dont have to work on. I love my truck when it runs, but when it doesnt holy crap. I changed my clutch and when I put it back together the darn transmission started to leak. So I had to work on it some more last night. That truck is more trouble then its worth and the only thing keeping it on the road is me. I'm really happy for the Nelsons and seeing all the pictures of the farmers market and stuff makes me wish I was home right now, and the game being on pay-per veiw. Come on now!!!

Gary
10/22/03
Okay, okay, I can take a hint -- the "Halloween Party" was too hard! The costumes seem obvious to me, but then I get to see the answers! :-) Only six people (Amanda, Grandma, Emily, Karen, Lindsey, and Ryan) have sent in their guesses so far. If anybody else wants in, please get your guesses to me today or tomorrow. I will post all the results on Friday.

Grandma
10/21/03
Nelson's, a really neat looking car! Bet you will love it, and the extra room. Great day of shopping, I'd say. Had a really fun weekend with the Hatgidakis clan, even tho' we stuck pretty much around home, we had a good time. I am tired today, tho' it must be this summer rerun we are having. Leaves are really falling with this wind today, so suppose that will be the next job.

Karen
10/21/03
It is a cool car, just trying to figure out all the gadgets on it. Definitely not a minivan, I refused to buy one of those. No, Emily will NOT be driving this for quite awhile! The old Prizm was traded in -- still a good car, just getting lots of miles on it.

Gary
10/21/03
Cool car indeed. But did I understand right? Emily gets this car and Karen and Brent get the old one...? Way to go, Emily!

Speaking of cool cars, check out the new site for the Simpsons "Hit & Run" game. (Be sure to watch the movie clips to get the full effect!) It's already out for the PS2 and Xbox and whatnot, and the PC version will be released three weeks from today (November 11). Is it just me, or does this look like big-time fun??

Amanda
10/21/03
Very cool car!! You will love it, and best of all, it's not a MINIVAN!!

Karen
10/21/03
Brent and I went shopping this week-end and this is what we bought!!!

Gary
10/20/03
So on Sunday we all (except for Livy, who had a previous engagement) went to the Sheldon Art Gallery for a little culture. And a little was all we got, as their current display is thin and disappointing. (Though Lindsey found a painting by one of her favorite artists.) After a brief stop at the Nebraska Bookstore, we headed to the Dairy Store on the East Campus for some ice cream. Then that evening we got a pizza, played some "Friends" trivia, then watched a little TV and made it an early night as Marsha, Sam and Anna planned to head back to MN first thing this morning. Fun weekend!

Oh yeah, almost forgot: pictures!

Ryan
10/19/03
I'm glad to hear everyone had fun. My day was spent putting a darn clutch into my truck. I missed the first half but was able to watch the second. Awesome game go Huskers. Amanda, Tristen, and Teghan hung out and watched Daddy Day Care. By the way what the heck is a SPANAKOPETA!!!!!!!!!

Spinach pie (Greek). This isn't Marsha's recipe (I just found it the web), but I'm sure it's similar. Maybe Marsha could put her version on the recipe page...? --Gary

Gary
10/18/03
Whew! Big long day today! Started out with an early morning trip to the Farmers Market (minus Olivia, who was at a birthday party sleep-over the night before). We ate, I think, at least one of everything there -- yum! Between Farmers Market and game time at 11:30 there were a few shopping trips and such-like. After the game (and during the game for some of the less enthusiastic football fans) there were more shopping trips -- including PetCo! In the late afternoon there was a long walk over to the East Campus -- but no ice cream, as it turned out everyone left their money at home. Then in the evening some of us watched "Bend It Like Beckham." And all day we snacked on sliced Italian beef, some roast pork, potato soup, some great marinated vegetables, and a dried-fruit-and-nut tray, plus a dee-lish spanakopeta that Marsha casually whipped up during the first quarter of the ball game. At the end of the day, all the girls headed over to Paul and Lori's for a sleep-over. Tomorrow (Sunday), the Sheldon Art Gallery. P.S., I do have photos, but may not get them up here for a day or two. I'm beat!! :-)

Karen
10/17/03
Sorry we wont be able to make it to Lincoln this week-end. Have a lot of things going on tomorrow and decided not to come. Wish we could be there too -- have fun everyone :)

Understandable. Traffic will no doubt be crazy tomorrow, too, because of the game. I'll try to put updates (and pictures) on this page. Stay tuned! --Gary

Gary
10/16/03
Hey, here's a quick report for the non-Lincolnites: Marsha, Sam and Anna arrived today around 5; Grandma put a great meal on the table; then we just watched TV and laughed a lot -- with Sam running the remote, which meant we saw waaaay too much MTV and BET. Tomorrow, I think Livy and Lindsey are coming over, and I heard talk of a trip to the mall. Saturday is the game, which should be fun -- this is Homecoming, and the displays are already taking shape on lawns of fraternities and sororities.

Only a handful of people -- Amanda, Emily, Karen, Lindsey, and Ryan -- have sent in their Halloween Party guesses so far.... Have you??? :-)

Amanda
10/15/03
Anyone know when the first Simpsons for the season is on? We were thinking it was always around Halloween time. And we are looking for the Charlie Brown and other Halloween specials on ABC or CBS or whatever. Have fun in Lincoln everyone!

The Simpsons start the new season on Sunday, November 2, with another "Treehouse of Horror" episode (guest star Jerry Lewis as the father of Professor Frink). As for Charlie Brown, my search didn't turn up a date for this. Maybe it hasn't been scheduled yet...? --Gary

Gary
10/13/03
Morning, everybody -- couple of announcements here: If you still have our old web address bookmarked (www.windstream.net/~ga55637), you would have noticed a re-direct page sending you to our current web address (home.windstream.net/ga55637). If you haven't updated your bookmarks yet, you should soon as I don't know how long the re-direct page will be up.

Second announcement: This news isn't quite as thrilling as it would have been before Saturday night's performance, but anyway -- next Saturday's game will be televised, at 11:40 am on Fox Sports Net. So there will be big-screen football at Grandma's this Saturday!

Donna
10/13/03
Happy Birthday Ryan!!!

Amanda
10/13/03
The Halloween party was hard!! And Happy Birthday Ryan, we were gone all day in Ft. Worth so I didn't get my birthday wish on here.

Hatgidakis Family
10/11/03
Happy Birthday Ryan!!!

Paul, Lori, Lindsey, and Olivia
10/11/03
Happy Birthday Ryan!

Grandma
10/11/03
Happy Birthday, Ryan!!

Nelson's
10/11/03
Happy Birthday, Ryan!!

Gary
10/10/03
OK, Halloween-heads, I've gotten costumes from everybody except Brent, Erika, Lori, Paul, Sean, and Zachary -- so if you foot-draggers want to play, please get your costumes to me this weekend. I'll put up the guessing page next week. Should be fun -- there are some interesting costumes lined up!

Lindsey
10/10/03
That cat costume on the front page is just a little disturbing, don't you think?? :)

I'm wondering how they got the cat to hold still while they painted it.... --Gary

Donna
10/10/03
Emily, what a beautiful smile! Congratulations!!!

Amanda
10/10/03
Today's costumes are freakier. That big fluffy poodle seems to be made for this job. And Emily it looks great! I opened up that picture and Ryans sisters saw it (Metcalfs are here for a long weekend) and they said, "she has Sean's smile" I guess that's a compliment! :)

Grandma
10/9/03
Great smile, Emily!! Aren't you glad they are gone?

Gary
10/9/03
New photo from Sioux City! (Good for you, Emily!)

Karen
10/9/03
I will try to get a picture of Emily, been telling her that everyone would want to see the results. She is taking the whole day off. Her appointment isn't until one, but we need to do some shopping before. Perfect fall weather, almost all the leaves have changed. Yesterday they really came down. Erika has a field trip to the Art Center this afternoon. We took the kitten to the farm on Monday, seems to be happy there. Hey any plans yet when the Hatgidakis's come down. Still not sure if our schedule will allow a trip to Lincoln -- hope so...

Amanda
10/9/03
We have GOT to see a picture of Emily. I know she hates the camera (as do I, girl, I understand) but I can't wait to see it, how exciting, I will never forget the day I got mine off! And you are lucky, mine weren't off until AFTER I got my first drivers license! That picture I had to live with for 4 years!

Amanda
10/8/03
Gary Tristen didn't get anything from you, but that could be partly my fault, I use Parental Controls for her email account and for some reason I didn't add you to her safe list for email. It has been fixed though now! Thanks! Same with Lindseys new email address, but she & I already talked about that!

Ah! That explains why it didn't bounce. I'll send it again. --Gary

Amanda
10/8/03
I think the last message was from Lindsey written TO Amanda.

That was my guess too, but it was definitely signed "Amanda." I will change it. Lindsey, let me know if it wasn't you! :-) Amanda, did Tristen get a message from me, about 9 this morning? I sent one then but I just realized I never got a copy myself. (I have my program set to copy me every time I send a letter, so I know when they arrive.) Maybe I'm having the same trouble Donna is.... --Gary

Lindsey
10/8/03
I have been sending Tristen e-mails and stuff like one that I sent to Teghan and nothing came back to me saying that it wasn't delivered so she should have it!

Donna
10/8/03
I know why I stopped sending emails to Tristen and just about everyone else from this website. I get error-- MNO site could not be found. I just tried to send her one now and got that same error. I had that problem with Sam, Anna, Emily and Erika too. I don't know why that happens, but I use the hyperlink so you would think it would be fine.
Amanda send me an email from Tristen's address and I will reply. It usually works when I do that.

Does anyone else have problems when using the email links on our contact page? They work fine for me, but if there's a problem I will try to figure it out. --Gary

Amanda
10/8/03
Tristen just asked me why she never gets email and I told her she has to write people too. But then she said she can't really write that good, but she would try. I looked at her inbox and it has been over a year since she got an email (October 2, 2002), that one was from Donna. So, if anyone wants to email her send it to Tbailey414@msn.com. Thanks!

Maybe you could sign her up for an email newsletter for kids. I found one just now that arrives every week and is full of activities, jokes, puzzles, and coloring pages you can print out. It's very season-oriented, so you get special stuff at Halloween, Christmas, etc. It's based in England, so you might get the occasional "colouring" instead of "coloring," but it looks like it would be worth it -- i.e., free! It's called Activity Village. --Gary

Amanda
10/7/03
Ryan quotes that ol Murphy's Law a lot. And that cat on the front page, the fish one, is grossing me out a little. Its a little freakish.

Wait til you see Friday's..... --Gary

Gary
10/7/03
Interesting article by Howard Fineman on the MSNBC site about the California recall vote and possible outcomes, including effects it could have on the next presidential election in 2004.

Amanda
10/7/03
Actually it is an issue with the center being in Dallas. It is 2-3 hours away and mail to and from there only takes one day, like Omaha and Lincoln, and yet, they have me returning my DVD's to Houston, 8 hours away! I wrote to them about this and they responded with a lame answer, and I wrote again, further explaining myself but I never got a response.

Amanda
10/7/03
We on the other hand aren't as impressed with Netflix. We have been with them for two months, therefore paying them $43.20 and have only gotten 12 movies, which would have cost us $51.00 with Blockbuster. Sure, we can't watch a movie daily, which I assume (and hope) Gary can't do either, but we certainly have watched weekly. The problem is shipping. It takes too long. Especially for me to return it to them. I send back a movie on a Monday and they don't get it until Friday, therefore making it impossible to get my next movie by the weekend. We may cancel due to the shipping issues. Which partly is the USPS (which I adore anyway) but Netflix needs to get on the ball. Wal-Mart does this renting now, $15 a month. We aren't considering, but I did see it, Netflix started something big!

Yeah, if to-and-from shipping is a problem, then the value of Netflix goes down, to be sure. Y'all must have a pretty laid-back postal service in the Lone Star State; your nearest center is Dallas, like, what, two hours away? My movies have to go back and forth from Minneapolis -- three times that distance -- yet I can put a movie in the mailbox on Monday, and have a replacement in Saturday morning's mail. And no, I don't watch a Netflix movie daily; my average is one Netflix DVD every four days. (Which is nothing; heck, I can watch three movies on a Sunday!) And yes, Netflix did start something big, because they are being copycatted. I just found out about a new service called GameFly which is basically Netflix for video games. (In fact I think it may be an offshoot of Netflix; their webpage layout and design is almost identical.) --Gary

Gary
10/6/03
OK, here I go again, but I can't help myself: I love Netflix! I just did the math. I've been on board with them for two months, which means I've paid them a total of $42.70. In that time I got 31 DVDs from them which, if rented from Blockbuster would have cost $131.75! Plus, many of these DVDs I wouldn't even have been able to get from Blockbuster, and others would have been "edited" by them.... Netflix rules!

Erika
10/6/03
Hey Gary what about me???? I haven't sent in my costume yet :)

Ooops!!! Actually, I thought you had sent one in last week, but today when I started to work on the Halloween costumes page I couldn't find it. Then I saw that I didn't even have your name on the list -- as you noticed! So I wrote you a note about it earlier today. (Check your email!) For the rest of this week I'm going to be doing Pet Costumes on the front page; so we'll probably do our costume guessing-game next week. Get your costume in by then! And sorry I left your name off the list!! :-) --Gary

Gary
10/6/03
Today is the first Monday in October, so your summer is over and it's back to work if you're a Supreme Court Justice. Anyone...? Okay, here is some other judicial news that may or may not affect you: It seems that Kay-Bee Toys got slapped a little in court recently for some mildly deceptive pricing practices. The result being, they have been ordered to take 30% off everything in the store for a whole week (on purchases of $30 or more). So if you have a Kay-Bee near you (there's one in Lincoln at Gateway), here's a chance to do some early Christmas shopping. Kay-Bee is not allowed to promote it or advertise it as a sale (except for in-store posters) so you won't hear about it on TV or see it in the papers. I just called the Lincoln Kay-Bee -- it's for real, and it starts today. Here's a news article on the court case.

In other news, costume choices for the web-page Halloween party continue to arrive: So far costumes have been chosen by Amanda, Anna, Emily, Gary, John, Karen, Lindsey, Marsha, Olivia, Ryan, Samantha, Teghan, and Tristen. Which means Brent, Donna, Grandma, Lori, Paul, Sean and Zachary will get no treats when they show up -- unless they act soon!

Emily & Erika
10/5/03
We were going shopping today, and we saw a little kitty under the car. We gave her some food and milk she ate it all, and slept on the porch all day. We thought we would take her to the pound if she was still there in the morning, but instead we thought she would like to live on the farm with our aunt Marcia. We decided to name her Kenzie, and right now she is sleeping in the garage, and tomorrow she will move to the farm!

See the photo page for pictures!

Lindsey
10/5/03
Been pretty quiet again on the webpage! So what's everyone doing for Halloween?

Gary
10/3/03
Okay, on tap so far for the web-page Halloween party are Amanda, Anna, Gary, Karen, Lindsey, Ryan, Samantha, Teghan, and Tristen. If your name isn't there, that means you haven't picked out a costume yet. C'mon, it's easy! And remember, if you're not wearing a costume, you don't get any treats....

By the way, starting Monday: it's Halloween Costumes Week--for Pets!

Karen
10/2/03
Perfect fall morning. Temps are in the 20's, frost on the grass. Went out this morning to take Emily to school, and across the street in the tall corn stalks came three deers. Wish I had the camera :)

A beauty here this morning too. No frost yet, but the leaves are starting to turn in places. October rules! :-) --Gary

Gary
10/1/03
Ahhh, October -- best month of the year! Except for the occasional blizzard and week-long power-outage.... Our morning temps are down in the 40s, Amanda -- furnace weather!

So who's booked for the webpage Halloween party, you ask? Well, so far the people who have picked out costumes are Anna, Gary, Karen, Lindsey, Samantha, Tristen, and Teghan. Here again are some costume sites:

5) Lillian Vernon --> if you're at work, turn your sound down for this one: spooky laugh when you open the page!

Just pick a costume, tell me where you found it, and you're done!

Amanda
10/1/03
Happy October! It's beginning to feel like fall here, this morning only 52, the lowest yet this season, it feels great!!