The Kleiber Family Timeline

Author: James Dad

  • Inside Christmas Decorations 2021

    As usual the bulk of the Christmas decorating inside was done in the living room. We enjoy watching movies with the Christmas lights on so what better place could their possibly be to decorate. In the 1990’s we used to do parties in the basement but stopped that at the turn of the century.

    Stockings were hung and gifts under the tree as we wanted the place to look nice in case Santa paid us a visit. This year we pulled out a few of the “old” Hallmark decorations from the 90’s and added them to the trees that were displayed in the living room.

    Our new kitty “Hoot” had a blast, exploring all the new and wonderful wonders she was seeing this Christmas (her first).

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  • Christmas Eve 2021

    Christmas excitement was already building as the family made a few stops during the day for some last minute Christmas shopping. James dropped off a chicken lunch at Grandmas and then we were ready to watch some Christmas movies and order out some food.

    We were surprised at night that there was a firework show which was really cool and everyone went outside to watch. The temperature was relatively warm for December, about 45 degrees in the evening and 55 during the day.

    We took some pics of the front of the house and settled in to await a visit from Santa as midnight approached.

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  • VIP MINI CAMP DAY 2021

    It’s great how James and his VIP camp friends get together every December and this year was no different. The VIP Mini Camp Day was held at Skore Lanes in Taylor where everyone got to bowl to their hearts content. Lunch was served at 12:30 which consisted of pizza, fries, pop, and cookies and afterwards games were played with prizes.

    Of course the main attraction was seeing friends that you have not seen since the summer. James had a blast and came home with some school supplies for his next semester at Wayne County Community College. A great time was had by all this Christmas Eve Eve and James and his family are now turning their attention to Christmas as this was Dad’s last day of work before the holidays.

  • Collin Street Bakery Fruitcake

    About a week earlier we had seen the end of a documentary about an embezzler who stole 17 million over years from a bakery in Texas that made fruit cakes, supposedly the best fruit cakes in the world. We decided to order one and it showed up on schedule so our plan was to watch the whole documentary while we ate some of the fruit cake. The documentary was called “Fruitcake Fraud” and was on AMC+.

    The documentary told the story of a family owned business that began losing money and they could not figure out why, turned out it was a well liked employee who was doing the stealing over about a decade or so.

    The fruitcake was awesome and we enjoyed the documentary, perhaps a new tradition for us will be eating the Collin Street Fruitcake.

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  • Lincoln Park Christmas Fantasy Land Movie

  • Christmas Fantasyland Lincoln Park 2021

    This year VIP camp set up a special visit to Fantasyland in Lincoln park and it was the first time James and his family saw this Christmas display. It was two levels of decoration and many of the displays were tributes to popular Christmas movies. One of the rooms upstairs were a couple train displays, HO and O scale. I could not help but ask if the train people knew Mr Nick. To my surprise they had pictures of him on the wall and said he was a founding member. Mr Nick was James Dad baseball coach at St. Alberts and put on huge train shows at St. Alberts for decades.

    James got a free picture with Santa so he took advantage of it. He also got to see his friends from VIP camp so it was really a beautiful evening all around.

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  • Power Loss and a Trip to Frankenmuth 2021

    Sunday began much differently than it ended but its these unexpected surprises that sometimes make the best fun. After dropping of some goods at Grandma’s the family returned home and found out a car accident had caused a power failure throughout Dearborn and Dearborn Heights. With no power at home we decided to take a little road trip to Frankenmuth for some last minute Christmas shopping.

    As one would expect, the place was crowded with lines outside of Bronners just to get in and a 2.5 hour wait for chicken dinner, but the family was not deterred as they spent a few hours shopping at the mall and even had a chance encounter with a Christmas hero of Dad… No, not Santa, but the Grinch!

    A great time was had by all as we listened to the Lions win their second game of the year and lots of Christmas music.

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  • Dads Birthday 2021

    Dad had a great time on his birthday, although Hoot knocking out a couple Christmas lights and trouble with a new Iphone did put a slight damper on things. Dad got some great gifts including a corpse incense burner and an animatronic that is a little bit different and is sure to put a little scare into people next Halloween.

    As is traditional on Dads birthday, a trip to Boneyard with extra ribs and extra wings provided the perfect Birthday dinner. After that, the entire family enjoyed cake and ice cream as bowl season began and college football was once again playing on the television for the first time since Michigan won the Big Ten Championship almost two weeks before.

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  • Hoot Movies

  • Hoot Fitting In Well With the Family

    Hoot certainly keeps us on our toes but in general she is fitting in very well with the family. The other kitties are tolerating her very well and actually caught playing with her from time to time. James and her are always together building different kitty toys for her to play with.

    Hoot does enjoy getting into just about everything she can. She is pure energy and everyone loves her, even when she is causing trouble.

    Hoot is not a finicky eater and seems to enjoy everything we feed her, where the other kitties only like seafood in gravy platters. However since Hoot has been eating other type of meals, now they are too so if this continues we will be much better off finding food that they like since they will like it all.

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