Tadych.us

Another shovel down

I work my equipment hard. Too hard I guess.

Wednesday passed the half way point of winter, and as of last night, I have broken two shovels while moving snow around this winter. Both of the broken shovels had plastic scoops, and the scoop broke off, partially still attached to the handle. bummer.

That leaves me with 3 shovels left for whatever else winter throws at us. Hopefully I can make them last, and then re-invest in shovels next winter. Maybe you can help. What shovel type do you recommend?

Zombie Hunt = Indoor Fun

I invented a little game at our house that the boys occasionally play. I call it Zombie Hunt. Wanna play? Following are some of the basics of how we set this up in the Tadych house.

1. Go out to Google images, and do a Zombie search (here is an example of one search I have done). This part you have to use your good parenting skills. Probably do the search initially without the kiddos around, in case you find something that is, well, let’s just say, “too much.” I like to find Zombies with a white background.
2. Find and copy your images, and paste them into a text document (like Word or Pages or whatever your flavor is). I usually size them about a 1/4 to a 1/2 size page per picture. Our game currently has about a dozen zombies, but some zombies frighten some of the kiddos more than others, so they rotate in and out (again, be a good parent, know your kiddos limits). We also name our Zombies, currently including “James Bond”, “Eminem”, “Selena Gomez”, and some other generics too.
3. Now the fun begins. Someone hides the Zombies while the hunters are preparing for their attack. It can be a mom or dad, or one of the kiddos, or a team. I like to mix it up and take turns (everyone can be the hiders and the seekers).
4. Announce the Zombie Invasion! At our house, the Hunters usually have Nerf guns and are fully loaded. The new Christmas Bow & Arrow might come into play also (Don’t worry Tom, we are talking about the one for little guy, not the ones for the big guys). Oh, and you don’t need the Nerfs. You can use anything when hunting Zombies, even just your eyes (maybe safer that way).
5. Once all the Zombies are found, the round is done. If you are interested in turning it into a game with scores, then tally how many Zombies each kiddo found. after all the rounds, tally it up. I don’t like the score option, as it takes away some of the camaraderie of surviving a Zombie Invasion.
6. If the game is getting stale (which it does after a couple of days), go back to instruction 1 and find some new Zombies.

Enjoy and share, and if you give the game a try, let me know how it goes.

Big # 9

Happy Birthday Gus!

new iPad

Rett is playing on my iPad this morning as I am working on the computer. I updated it to the new iOS 7 2 days ago, but this is his first time playing on it since then. Here is how things went…

Rett: Dad! This new Search is pretty cool.

Me: Yeah? How?

Rett: You can search from all the screens [as he swipes to different screens, pulling down the search menu]. And you don’t go this way anymore to Search [he bounces the screen to the left]. It’s faster this way.

Me: I agree. Good job! [thinking it took me 4 hours to find search, and he found it in five seconds]

You just gotta love kids and technology