Q-ristmas Time

By Quentin

Greetings, all ye faithful "blog"ites.  Tis the season to be merry and for the one and only Q-Ball (and his round little belly that shakes when he laughs like a bowl full of jelly) to commence blogging as a guest writer. 

To put it mildly, Christmas time is kind of a big deal around Castle Stegmaier.  My brother Dex kicked off the Christmas season with a letter to Santa.  Embedded in his plea for presents is, evidently, a gift for me.  How sweet is this guy??

Permit me to translate: "Dear Santa,  I want a big red airplane.  I have been very good.  I won't hit Q-Ball again."  Wow.

When you're as notorious as Dex and Santa, mailing and return addresses are superfluous. 

Our spy elf, Picklepuss, helped us along by putting up our stockings.  Dex tells me that Picklepuss will watch us throughout the day, fly to the North Pole each night to report our daily activities to Santa, only to fly back to our house in the morning, break in and wreak some sort of havoc.  And we're OK with this?

I have the train stocking.  A perpetual point of contention for Dex, to be sure.

Eating all my candy canes.  Awesome.

Breaking my ceiling fan.  Rude.

Good golly, Picklepuss.  That's just going too far.

We took our talents to Sacramento for a ride on the Polar Express.  Like many others, the Polar Express has become a staple of our Holiday cheer, so the chance to ride on the infamous train was one we couldn't refuse.  True to the spirit of the book/movie, we wore our pajamas and enjoyed luke warm hot chocolate on our round trip excursion to the North Pole.

We like trains.  On an obsessive level.

Matching jammies!

Chit chatting over hot chocolate.  Doesn't get any sweeter than this.  (What's a pun?)

Hot chocolate sugar rush!!!

High-fives out the window of a moving train (ignore poor parenting).

Hanging out the window of a moving train to see the North Pole (ignore poor parenting).

Once a Stegmaier, always a Stegmaier.

Polar Express selfie.

Happy Q-ristmas to all, and to all a good night.

Giving Thanks

By Dexter

Hard to believe it, but Thanksgiving 2014 has come and gone.  As usual, I played host to both families and pulled off a practically perfect Thanksgiving.  We started the day with a fantastic bubble performance, courtesy of me, just like the Pilgrims used to do.

Bubbles as big as yo head (or 10 of mine).

I put together some hand-crafted placeholders for my guests (which doubled as nice parting gifts), just like the Pilgrims.

Kitties join us at the table, just like the Pilgrims.

Head of the table is reserved for The Dex.

Being a Holy Man, I kicked off the feast with an inspired prayer, lifting spirits and bringing hope to humankind.

With Thanksgiving 2014 in the books, The Dex is focused on bigger prey: Christmas 2014!!!  More blogging to come (just like the Pilgrims)...