Tony Brewer

Most of the toys that I played with as kid were action figures.  I loved the Power Rangers, the Ghost Busters, and of course GI Joe.  But I also really enjoyed playing with Brio trains.  When I was a kid, the first computer games were coming out and those were fun, too! My parents bought me an Etch-a-sketch but I think they played with it more than I did!  I got tired of that one pretty quickly!

And of course, I loved musical toys, the toy pianos were great! Not as great, however, as the toy pianos of today’s toy companies, like the one from Smart Builders!  That is one cool little piano for a kid to play with!

Over the years, I think that most toys have gotten more expensive, but poorer quality.  The amount of lead in the paint on so many toys from China is scary!  I do like the electronic games and toys, though, especially the magnetic ones like the toys from MagNext.  I think building things with their magnetic catches would be a lot more fun than the old fashioned tinker toys!  And their magnetic Mantis race cars look totally awesome to play with!  In fact, I’m thinking I should pick up a few of them to keep here at our place to entertain kids when they come over for a visit!

I was really surprised earlier today when some friends dropped by for a short visit and brought some fruit cake with them.  They swore up and down that it was “good” and made locally.  Well, I have never had a fruit cake that I liked so it was with great trepidation that I put on the kettle and served up some tea and coffee and sat down with my friends to share some fruit cake with them.  To my surprise, it was pretty good.  I actually ate two pieces of it!  So I have to say that fruit cake has gotten a bad rap over the years; some of it is pretty good!

With all of the difficulties that the big mortgage companies have been having, and the bank troubles and poor economy on top of that, the housing market has not had an easy time of it.  Prospective home buyers are often unsure whether they will be able to get a mortgage on the house that they would like to buy.  That’s where the Colorado Mortgage link from the clicksmart.com comes in to help those prospective home buyers in Colorado.  The mortgage company(ies) that you find on that link are ready and able to help the people who have found their dream home in Colorado to get the money they need to buy that house.

As we were taking down the Christmas tree ornaments, Teri and I were talking about our New Year’s resolutions.  One of the resolutions was to try to spend more quality time with our respective families.  Yes, I mean as a couple; I don’t mean that she goes to visit her family alone, and me visit mine alone.  I mean together.  Teri has a large family scattered around the country, and I like to travel, so that’s fine with me! 

We are planning to visit one of her aunts on the Jersey shore this coming summer.  We like to go there in the summer for a variety of reasons.  First of all, it’s cooler up there than down here in the summertime.  Taking a Jersey Shore beach vacation on the Summertime is also a great time to visit the top New Jersey attractions because you don’t have to worry about being too cold to enjoy yourself, and more attractions are open.

One of our favorite attractions is Morey’s Piers.  Their water parks are a lot of fun!  When we go up to that area we use their website to find hotels in Wildwood because it is so convenient to find them that way.  Teri went to their website today to check out the hotels and found out that that they are currently running their annual holiday sale on discounted tickets to their water parks until January 9.

Today Teri and I took down the Christmas tree and stashed it back in the basement until the next time.  It’s kind of a sad routine; taking off all of the ornaments and wrapping the delicate ones so they don’t break.  It’s also a huge challenge putting them all back in the boxes so they fit!  Rather like a game of Tetris!  I don’t know how Teri manages to remember which ornament goes back into which box so that they all fit!  Me, I’d like to just dump them all in a jumble in one big box but Teri would have a fit, telling me that they will get broken or scratched or fibers pulled and ruin them all.  So I just humor her and help as best as I can!  Tomorrow we’ll work on taking down the house decorations and packing them away too.