We were pleasantly awoken by a phone call this morning from the famous Craig Helfrich of yesterday’s post.

His message? “Hey Dude, go back to sleep – there’s no school”

HURRAY!

I could sleep in and so could my wife! (Thursday is my day off from the office)

After our sleeping in, we hit up the local Bob Evans with our Helfrich comrades and then it was a shopping fiasco at Wal-Mart. We were supposed to merely be shopping for satellite speaker stands for Craig’s new surround sound, but is that all we got?

Nope.

We did have fun, however, and were finally able to head back to the homestead to set things up.

The Helfrich’s now have 600-watts of pure Surround Sound goodness pumping through their living room. Included in that home-theater are two satellites, a DVD player, a TIVO video recorder, and one of the largest televisions in the United States of America.

Speaking of the US of A, this morning I was singing “My Country Tis of Thee” in the shower.

How’s THAT for random?!

I also “hooked a brotha’ up” with an ALL-IN-ONE remote control that kicks my butt! It’s incredible. From one little remote control with 4-AAA batteries, one can control the WORLD. Well, atleast the Home Entertainment Center at the Helfrich residence.

Tonight’s movie enjoyment: TROY.

Amazing. Review possibly by Friday.

Speaking of movies. FINALLY the day has come for us all to cheer!

Why?

Because there is a trailer promoting the NEW Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory!

Where is this trailer?

Here.

Freaky preview.

I can’t wait!

Tomorrow night we head to Bluffton for our Garrett-Family Christmas. Should be a fun/slippery trip to Bluffton tomorrow after work. Pray for us!

We’ll be back on Saturday evening.

Oh, one more thing. If you’re going to scrape your wife’s car at 10 o’clock in the evening after a day of sleet and now, make sure you carry atleast THREE ice-scrapers, just in case the first two break.

Yep, happened to me an hour ago. Cheap Wal-Mart ice-scrapers.

Note to self: next time, use a fire-breathing dragon to remove ice/snow from the Buick.

When I was in Junior High School back in Rochester, New York, a teacher of mine – “Coach Cooper”, I think it was made “Cooper Bucks” – they were slips of paper – in money-format and we were given them for doing “good things” like getting A’s, and helping in the classroom.

My buddy (and 5th grade teacher) Craig talked about doing the same thing.

I present to you the Helfrich Bucks:

Available in 5’s, 10’s, 20’s, 50’s, and 100’s

Just don’t tell Craig.

In other news, it stopped snowing/icing/raining.

Nothing’s falling from the sky, but the roads look pretty yucky. Warsaw schools already have a two-hour delay, so Jess, Craig, and Lindsay are pretty excited.

I’m suffering from “no BOX” anxiety this evening – I can’t imagine being tired enough to go to sleep. I usually have been drained by forty teens by this time and am just now heading home on Wednesday night.

Jess and I stayed in this evening and enjoyed The Bourne Supremacy. Possible review on that tomorrow for the “archives”!

So part of my wishing for snow and ice has come true.

The whole of Warsaw is now covered in the frozen substance: ice.

It’s awesome!

I did the “manly” thing and took Ben Thompson with me to scrape Jess’ car when they were dismissed from school early this afternoon. When we finished her car we couldn’t help but be useful and scrape about 10-other cars of innocent women who also needed our help!

It was freezing.

Note to self: next time bring gloves and a hat.

Idiots.

So I’m back at the church now with a minimal staff still here with the weather being evil and all. I pulled into the church parking lot which has been frozen solid for quite a few hours and did my infamous donuts throughout the open parts. My Neon rocks!

I’m pretty sure I’ll be leaving here shortly – everything has been cancelled her tonight – which kills me because I really do look forward to my BOX nights with much anticipation.

I hope this ice keeps falling and then piles of snow cover it!

That sounds so wrong to “want”, but really I do!

So we’re in the middle of a Winter Storm Warning. They “say” we’re supposed to get some nasty ice and up to 8″ of snow.

They always talk about these big storms and nothing ever happens – I doubt if it’ll even get cloudy.

This afternoon Ben Thompson helped me set up the new projection screen in the gym – just to make sure we could figure it all out. The church purchased this bad-boy for our Super Bowl Party and some other up-and-coming events that will be taking place.

Check it out:

Honestly – it really is 10′ x 14.5′ – can you imagine how awesome that will be during the Super Bowl?!

I’ll also try and impress you with a fresh design – this is our Super Bowl Party poster (print size – 8.5″x14″)

nice, huh?

You should’ve seen the traffic around me giving me that “weird look” as I photographed this evil thing.