Mr. and Mrs. Kraus Blog

Christmas is coming! It’s December 1, and we just got our biggest snowfall so far this year in Minnesota. Plus, last night we put up a Christmas tree at our place (you can see the snow out the window behind the tree in this picture). And to top it off, my wife and I have watched A Christmas Story twice already. Oh, yes people, Christmas is coming! Lovely, glorious, beautiful Christmas, around which the entire kid year revolved. Well, maybe we’ve seen it three times now…

Now I’ll take a step back and talk about this last Thanksgiving weekend. We had a great time because we got to have lots of turkey dinners (THREE!) and my brother came to Minnesota for four days! It was really great seeing him. His wife took the cold weather really well too, so I have to say to her, props for that.

First, we went to our Grandma J’s house for lunch. It was nice to see Minnesota relatives that we hadn’t seen since my cousin Jacob’s wedding 2+ years ago. Then we went to supper at my mom’s house for turkey dinner number two. Grandparents came to visit there too. I really love talking to my Grandpa Ted at holidays. He’s a very wonderful man. When my dad says from time to time that I remind him of Grandpa Ted, I take that as a compliment.

We did a little shopping then on Black Friday. The wife got some shoes and a purse. But the greatest part was when my bro and I decided to get each other Christmas gifts while we were together! Our wives determined that this was a terrible, horrible idea. But we both got that gleam in our eyes when we realized we were doing it. I got him Super Mario Galaxy for Nintendo Wii, which we played a lot the rest of the weekend. I have to say, it is a great game, and tons of fun. Both of our wives even loved playing that one. He got me an expansion for Guild Wars called Eye of the North. It’s a PC game, which I wrote about in my previous article on Halloween. Also a sweet game. Thanks bro!

Then on Saturday, we went down to see some family in Iowa. Turkey dinner number 3, pump it up! Now, most of these relatives we had not seen for something like 5+ years. I had little cousins that I had never met! And some of my cousins had children too that I had never met. It was really cool to meet them all. One great thing about family members is even if you don’t see them for a few years, when you finally do, it’s like you just saw them yesterday.

We headed back to Minnesota that evening around 5pm, and when we got there we headed straight to the Twin Cities to crash at Aaron’s place for the night. My bro and his wife had to be at the airport Sunday morning by 5:30am and we knew it would be terrible to get up any earlier, so we wanted to be closer to the airport.

Thanks for coming up guys, and have a great Christmas in Florida! And good luck helping Mario save Princess Peach… and the galaxy.

Chad Kraus bro, computer games, holidays, Iowa, Minnesota, Wii

Warning. This blog article is a bit… geeky. Some of my friends, my sister, and myself play a fun game called Guild Wars. It’s an online game where you create a character and take on a world of monsters and quests with your friends. You can be a warrior, ranger, or different kinds of spellcasters. I happen to be a Necromancer/Ranger. What that basically means, is I can cast wicked spells and also shoot a bow and arrow and train animal companions. I told you! This is a geeky article.

Well it was especially fun to play tonight, because there were all kinds of Halloween festivities. The Mad King Thorn (a really tall guy with a jack-o-lantern for a head) shows up every 3 hours and you play charades and get trick-or-treat bags with goodies in them. He stays for half an hour, and when he leaves he gives you a parting gift– a Halloween mask. I guess it’s a different mask each year. This year is was a scarecrow mask.

Above is a picture of my character wearing his scarecrow mask, and employing the help of the Mad King’s guards– giant candycorn elementals. Hahaha… fun times.

Chad Kraus computer games, holidays

Oh boy. Why must there always be a catch? There always is… My two readers know that I have been writing a lot about my beginning experiences with fly fishing. I post pictures of the small fish that I catch, and I’ve always got a big grin on my face no matter how little they are. It’s Memorial Day weekend, so Saturday my brother and I headed to the lake for a couple hours of fishing. I used my fly rod, and he used the conventional spinning reel. Everything was going fine, and we were enjoying the peaceful serenity of the lake, when suddenly I heard my brother yell, “YOU DIDN’T TELL ME ABOUT THE SNAKES!!!”

A very aggressive black snake came out of the weeds at the waters edge and darted at him and then sped across his feet and back into the water. I am SO glad it did NOT bite him. What if it was one of these?

A water moccasin. Venomous. Aggressive. Will approach “intruders”. Crap.

I hate snakes. I’m going back to the lake, but I’ll be sporting blue jeans instead of shorts, and I’m going to Bass Pro Shop to buy a knife. I talked to an avid fisherman today who is dating my wife’s cousin, and he said to always have a knife on you.

“Why?” I asked.

He said, “You have to make sure you can kill the snake if it bites you, because you have to take it with you to the emergency room so they know which kind of anti-venom to give you.”

Wow. I have a new-found respect for Florida fisherman. They risk getting bit by snakes of all kinds, sharks, and whatever else is out there, just to experience the joy of their hobby. A couple days ago I just noticed a brown recluse spider crawling close to my foot while I was out fishing. I have been bit by one before. That’s not fun, but it’s a story for another time. I’m not even going to post a picture of one of those wounds because you might lose your lunch. I’ll leave it up to you to search for it if you really want to see it.

Back to the conversation with this avid fisherman though. He started telling me about his experiences fishing on his boat. He had stories about sharks, they all do. That should tell you something. But he also had a snake story. He told me about a sea snake that came at his boat and TRIED TO GET IN TO BITE HIM. He had to beat it down with an OAR! Wow that is straight out of a bad dream. I’m getting a knife.

Oh by the way, remember those other reptiles in Florida that live on the water?

I’m getting a knife.

Comments from old site:

Written by Chad Kraus
Posted: Thursday, June 14, 2007 at 3:56 PM

HAHA! I remember that knife. That was a BIG knife!

Written by Chris
Posted: Wednesday, June 13, 2007 at 3:49 PM

Hey Chad, I think it was you who asked me what kind of knife to get. I assked what are you using it for and you said fighting crocodile. At the time I said a bowie knife, but now that I think about it… do you remember that knife pic I showed you the last time you were looking for a knife? If not, I think I still have it on my computer somewhere.

Written by Lisa P
Posted: Tuesday, June 5, 2007 at 6:37 PM

Hey Chad! It was great to see you guys this weekend. Aaron happened to show me this website when we were comparing laptops at the hotel. Think I’ll add it to my “favorites”! We have a cute website for Nathan - next time we’re on skype I’ll give you the address.

Written by Aaron
Posted: Monday, May 28, 2007 at 8:02 AM

Whoa, can’t wait to see what kind of knife you get. Just don’t bring it to the airport on Thursday. And if you feel unsafe without it, I’ve got plenty of knives you can carry with you while you’re here

Chad Kraus bro, fishing, Florida, holidays

This weekend was great! Not only did we have some fun, but it was very productive for me as well. Sunday was Mother’s Day AND my dad’s bithday, so we spent Sunday morning and afternoon hanging out with the fam. My brother’s wife’s sister just moved in with them for a month, so she was at the party too, plus my brother had just had his birthday on Thursday. So there were lots of reasons to get together and have some fun. It was like “Tanner Family Fun Night” on Full House, only better.

One thing about Sunday at breakfast that I thought was very cool was when my dad talked about his two grandmas, my great-grandmas. He told us stories about them since it was Mother’s Day, and they have passed away some time ago. It was great to hear such nice stories about the beloved women in my family.

Saturday was my productive day. I finished the night off by getting a lot of work done with Aaron on a website for one of our clients. Earlier in the day I had a landscaping project! See… we had experienced some nasty hurricanes in the not-so-distant past, and I have had holes in my landscaping ever since. It must have subconsciously bothered me for quite some time, and I finally did something about it. The neighborhood lawn care guy, Frank, came by and saw that I was busy working away planting shrubs, 16 in all. He helped me out. What a great guy Frank is! Below are some pictures of our work. Enjoy!

You probably noticed that the shrubs I planted are very little. Well, they were cheap! And planting them right before rainy season is perfect because they’ll grow up in no time.

Chad Kraus bro, Dad, holidays, Kraus House