Christmas with Family

Today Harry and I got up really early as we had to go pick up a friend (Lydia, who was visiting from Switzerland) as she was going to be joining us for Christmas. She was staying in Hollywood and we had to be at my Mom's by 11am. So we got to Lydia's hotel around 9:30am, which was much quicker then we thought.. there was hardly any traffic. When then headed out to my Mom's in Newport Beach.. again we got there at 10:30am which was much sooner then we expected.. it was very light traffic.

Had a really good visit with my Mom, Step-Dad, and Grandma, along with my Brother, Sister-in-Law and Nephew. We had a nice Christmas lunch with turkey, ham, corn, peas, mash potatoes, gravy, rolls, cranberry sauce and finished it off with pumpkin pie and ice cream. Kenobi managed to stay awake to open a few presents but was out like a light for most of it. Chuck's (my step dad) youngest son Christopher came over to visit and brought his boyfriend Josh.

We enjoyed each others company until around 4pm and then we packed up and headed over to visit my Dad.

Got to my Dad's around 5 and his Christmas dinner was almost ready. For Christmas dinner we had turkey, ham, corn, mash potatoes, gravy, rolls, and cranberry sauce. We had pumpkin and apple pie but forgot to eat it. it was a yummy dinner even though we had the same thing for lunch. I ate light for both meals so I was able to eat both meals.

After dinner we sat down to open presents. Every year my brother and dad go way over board with presents and this year was no exception. It was just crazy.. I am normally that one that will organize the gifts into piles and hand out one at a time and take pictures and video of everyone opening their gifts, but this time there were so many gifts and my brother just handed gifts out like crazy and folks were opening them all at the same time.. it was chaos and I got so few pictures and video this year. :(

But it's not about the gifts it's about spending time with the family... which is always nice. It was fun seeing Kenobi open his gifts. He's now 19 months and starting to understand  Christmas. I got him a bag of 150 plastic balls, as he really loves balls and my Dad got him a bag of 100 balls and soon those were all over the house.. but he was loving it.

It was fun sharing an "American" Christmas with Lydia. She said it's pretty much the same as how they celebrate in Europe, other then the meals are different and the open gifts on Christmas Eve.

All in all it was another exhausting but fun filled Christmas... but I'm glad it's over. I love Christmas but man is it a lot of work.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays

Merry Christmas Everyone. Hope you have a FANTASTIC Day!!!

Christmas Eve

I spent most of the day wrapping presents.. I would do two or three at a time and then take a break so it took me almost all day to wrap everything we had.

Later in the evening Harry and I open our gifts for each other since we spend Christmas day with my family. I think there was only one thing Harry didn't know about and I think I knew everything I was getting. The only stuff we didn't know was the stuff we got from Harry's friend Sandra and her family. It kind of takes the fun out of opening gifts when you  know what you are opening.. especially if you just spent hours before wrapping them up. It was fun because Harry actually forgot a few of his until he opened them... so there were a few surprises. All in all it was a good night.

Tomorrow is going to be a long but fun day. Merry Christmas Eve.

More Screeners

Today besides all the AWESOME Christmas gifts I got more movie screeners. The Way Back, Barney's Version, The Tillman Story and The Kings Speech. I haven't heard of any of any of these except The Kings Speech which has gotten alot of Oscar buzz. But other then that I'm not sure what any of these other movies are about. Hopefully next week between Christmas and New Years I'll be able to sit down and watch of few of these.. I'm now up to 30 movie screeners.. This is has been one of the best years for screeners.

Secret Santa's & Surprise Gifts

Today was full of surprises. We had many delivers from UPS and the post office. First thing I got were some AWESOME Star Wars book from my Guild Secret Santa. The past few years Guild Bryan has put together a fun Secret Santa with the Guild community. Found out my Secret Santa was my friend Liz who I got to meet/hang out with at comic con 2010. Thanks Liz for the great books.

Second to arrive was from my buddy Bryan. He's another person who I have met through The Guild. He is actually a listener of my Knights of the Guild podcast and wrote in every month and we struck up a friendship. He knows how much I love Harry Potter and he got me these really cool Harry Potter ornaments. They are so cool that I'm going to use them year round. Thanks Bryan

Third was another surprise gift from fellow Guildie Jeff Elwell. Again we meet him at last years comic con 2009. He like Bryan was a fan of our podcast and we because friends. He gave me White Christmas 2 disc special edition DVD set. I must have mentioned that it was my favorite Christmas movie and hadn't gotten it on DVD and normally watch it on TV every year. Now I have my very own copy.. Thanks Jeff.

A Healthier Me - Day 131

Today was a surprise day off so I actually slept in to about 8:30am, got up and checked my emails and such for an hour and then went out to workout.

Today's Workout:

30 minutes of cardio on the elliptical
4 sets of 10 on the chest fly for my chest (75 lbs)
4 sets of 10 on the curl arm for my biceps (45 lbs)
4 sets of 10 working on my back (75 lbs)
4 sets of 10 for shoulders (45 lbs)
4 sets of 10 on the front leg press (45 lbs)
4 sets of 10 on the free weight (110 lbs)

Felt good working out, really pushed myself with the weights. Now that I'm off until Jan 3rd it's going to be a struggle to continue to get up and workout first thing.. but I'm going to do my best.

A Healthier Me - Day 130

Another workout day.. once again alarm went off at 6:30am and I fought with myself to get up. Almost convinced myself that I would work out after work and to sleep another hour.. but I knew better and dragged my butt out of bed.

Today's Workout:

1 hour of cardio on the elliptical

Doing pretty good 3 days in a row of working out.. it's a struggle each day but I'm doing it. As for eating better that really has taken a back seat since the holidays and I started my new job. I really need to focus in the new year on eating better. I can workout all I want but if I don't team that up with eating better I won't lose the weight I need to lose. Already failed my first goal.. can't fail another one. :(

Most Romantic Song Ever

I was digging through my CDs recently looking for my Buffy "Once More With Feeling" CD and came across my Moulin Rouge CD and decided to upload it to my ipod. I remember really enjoying the movie and music. I knew there was this one song that I totally LOVED and after looking at the titles realized it was "Come What May" I haven't stopped listening it since.  This is quintessential love song, this is the kind of love that everyone dreams of having someday... it's perfect.

KOTG Microcast #21 Quest for the UK

We have a special announcement for Fans of the Guild in the UK. Take a listen to this skype call with the one and only Felicia Day for all the details.

Link to The Guild on UK Itunes http://bit.ly/iaXVj2

Thank you again for all your support, we do this podcast because we are fans and more importantly for the fans.

thanks,

Kenny

Other Important Links

• Knights of the Guild Feeds/Downloads http://knightsoftheguild.com
• Knights of the Guild Daily Blog http://knightsoftheguildpodcast.blogspot.com/

Good Things About The Rain

VIEW FROM OUR BACKYARD

As much as I hate driving in the rain it has it's benefits. One thing it's replenishes the water table and as many of you know we use a well so that's good to know we will have plenty of water for the year. The second thing is the green everywhere. When it rains the hillsides get this thin layer of green moss/grass and it's just beautiful. 9 months out of the year we get to look at a very brown landscape (though still beautiful) it's drab and with winter rains we get green and then spring brings pretty orange and yellow weeds.. but they're pretty :)

A Healthier Me - Day 129

Well it was a struggle to get up today, I actually didn't get up at 6am and reset my alarm for 6:30am and really considered pushing off working out for when I got home. But I know how I am and I'm normally exhausted by the time I get home and wouldn't have worked out. I've done that too many times so I forced myself to get up and get out there.

Today's Workout:

30 minutes of cardio on the elliptical
4 sets of 10 on the chest fly for my chest (75 lbs)
4 sets of 10 on the curl arm for my biceps (45 lbs)
4 sets of 10 working on my back (75 lbs)
4 sets of 10 for shoulders (45 lbs)
4 sets of 10 on the front leg press (45 lbs)

Had a really nice workout, struggled with the cardio but the 30 minutes flew by.  I hadn't done weights in over a week so it was nice working with those again. This may sound vain but it's nice looking in the mirror and seeing the results of all your hard work. My upper (chest & arms) and lower body (legs) are starting to look really good.. it's the middle (stomach) I'm just not seeing any changes... that's seems to be my toughest part.  But will keep at it and I know in time I'll start to see the stomach shrink.

A Healthier Me - Day 128

Wow.. only worked out two days last week.. that was worse then the 3 days the previous week. I'm hoping after the holidays I'll be able to get back into my 5 day a week routine.

Since it's Monday I weight myself this morning 205.5

Today's Workout:

1 hour of cardio on the elliptical

Bad news I didn't lose any weight, which I kind of expected with my lack of working out.. but good news is I haven't gained any weight and will all these Holidays goodies I'm very proud of that. I know now that I will not hit my goal of 200 or below by the end of the year :( but come January I'll set some new goals and work my hardest to accomplish them.

Wash Away That Gray

BEFORE

AFTER

Tonight I dyed my hair. Over the years the gray has gotten worse and worse and prior to this I have only used that "Just for Men" but it washes out in a few weeks and wham you suddenly have tons of gray hair again. This time I used some kind of lady hair dye that I hope will stay in longer. I plan on doing the blond tips again but my hair needs to grow out a bit more for it to look good. One thing I did notice with my hair dyed you can notice my balding top more because the hair is darker and my skin in light.. oh well at least the gray is gone for now :)

It's a Eureka Christmas

Was finally able to sit down and watch the Eureka Christmas episode and I LOVED IT!!!!

Eureka has been one of the very few TV series that's been consisitant with great episodes. It's in it's fourth season now and I can't think of one single episode that I wouldn't love watching again. Each season they really manage to change things up. First season was the experiement gone wrong and though they still do those episode through out the other seasons they are not the focus of the season. Each season has a very well woven storyline that goes through out the entire season. And with season four they really went all out and changed the past which altered the future.. some major things have changed now and I thought they would revert things back but with it's mid-season finale it looks like this is the new Eureka.

Now with this Christmas episode it was a stand alone episode and was so well done, it was funny, heartfelt, had some action and was just another example of how good this series is. The Eureka Christmas episode will be a new yearly viewing along with White Christmas.. it's an instant classic.  Can't wait for the second of Eureka season 4 next year.

Christmas Party in the Hollywood Hills

Though the weather was horrible and it was raining cats and dogs Harry and I wouldn't have missed Gary and Steve's annual Christmas party. They live up in the Hollywood Hills in a beautiful house overlooking Los Angeles. It's always an adventure getting up to them but with the rain it made it even more adventurous. We got there about an hour late and the party was in full swing. It's always nice going to parties like these because we get to see alot of our friends that we don't get to see as often as we would like. I forgot my camera so I didn't take any pictures :( but we had a fun time. Great food, wonderful friends and some extremely fun games. It was, as always, a fantastic party and night... great way to end a roller coaster of a day.