Sorry I haven't updated for a while. Miles was deer hunting last week so I didn't have computer access other than work.

Not much going on here. Trying to get ready for the holidays. My parents are coming up for Christmas. They actually have to leave on Christmas but it will be good to see them for a couple of days. They are excited to see our house.

Saturday night I went to the Dierks Bentley concert. I hadn't been to a concert for almost 10 years so it was a lot of fun. Dierks was very good and extremely sexy. Miranda Lambert, his opening act, was also very entertaining.

I am watching the Pack play Seattle right now. Green Bay is ahead 7-0 right now. We'll see what happens.

So I was reading my hometown newspaper today and came across a letter to the editor. The writer had been out to dinner with her family. I have posted some of the letter below. It was written by Kara Mullen of Wichita, Kansas...

I had a horrible experience in a family diningestablishment. My 2-year-old had been well-behaved the whole meal, but was getting tired as we waited for our two younger children to finish. He grabbed some silverware and began to bang it, so we gently took it from him and told him no. He began to cry. He had been crying for just seconds when a woman approached him from behind, grabbed his shoulder, got directly in his face and shouted, "No, you can't do that!"

Okay. As a parent reading this letter really got under my skin. We have been to many restaurants with Emily. If she starts to get really unruly, we remove her from the restaurant. A couple of times I have had to leave Wal-Mart because she's been screaming at the top of her lungs. I know that the public did not pay good money to listen to my kid cry.

However, the part that bugged me was not that the kid was crying. It was the fact that some woman thought she had the right to touch someone else's kid. I don't care how noisy the kid is, you DO NOT put your hands on someone else's kid. Bottom line.

I guess if I had been the diner, I would have gently spoken to the parents and let them know that their child was disturbing my dinner. I'm sure they would have been more than cooperative at that point. But when someone touches their kid, don't they have a right to get upset?

Loyal readers, what would you have done in this situation? Do you have any words of wisdom for me next time my kid starts crying?

So last week I went to a wedding. Not really an unusual occurence, however, this particular wedding was quite interesting compared to the weddings I usually attend, and was a stark contrast to the wedding we attended only the week before.

Wedding #1 was my boss's daughter's wedding. The reception was held at the fanciest hotel in town. The invitation instructed us to select our dinner choice. When we got to the reception, there was an envelope with our name on it. This envelope included a colored leaf indicating our dinner choice as well as some "instructions" on the evening. Waiters in white gloves served us our meal, there was wine at each table as well as a lovely centerpiece which I took home at the end of the evening. If I had to guess, I would say the total cost of the wedding was close to $50,000.

Wedding #2 was Miles's high school friend. This wedding was at a church, with a dinner immediately following. The reception was held in the poleshed on the family farm. There was a buffet set up which people ate all through the night. The beer was being served out of a beer trailer, which if you've never seen that means it's a big trailer that holds a lot of kegs. The tapper is on the side of the trailer. There were a ton of people there. I wore a pair of casual khaki pants, although I could have worn my pajama pants and nobody would have noticed or cared. The second wedding was much more relaxed and really was a lot of fun. I would say they probably spent $3500 on the entire day.

People say that weddings are so expensive these days. Are they expensive because we have convinced ourselves that we have to have certain things on "the big day?" Whether you spend $100 or $100,000, the end result is still the same. And spending a lot of money does not guarantee the marriage will last. The statistics show that nearly half of all marriages end in divorce.

I guess the point to this rant is just that you don't have to spend a lot of money to have a fantastic time. Put your priorities and your effort into the marriage. A wedding is a day, a marriage is a lifetime.