Welcome to 10 more years of erasing Schrenk's emails!!! (Brandon Mass Email)

A salaam alaikum hooligans (if you don't speak the language, that's Finnish for "Whatup Playa?")

Can you believe it's taken me a quarter of 2010 to write this email. Lucky for you it's long enough to make up for it!

So we started the year out with a quick trip to Colorado - sorry we didn't tell anyone about it, but we were only in town for about 45 hours and we wanted to make sure that Grandma and Grandpa had sufficient time to serve as chairs for Allison and jungle gyms for Jordan. While there, though, I got to see a museum exhibit about one of my heroes - I want to be Genghis Khan when I grow up! Did you know that he ate Mongolian BBQ almost every night?! He did some other stuff too, but I didn't pay too much attention to that.

Speaking of bowling, Amy and I have invented a word that corresponds to me bowling on a live action video game. That word is "Wii-Tard". Feel free to use it and the first person to get someone who I don't know to use it in a board meeting I'm attending wins. But come one, everyone who has ever Wii-bowled in their socks on a wood floor has fallen and bruised their hip, right?

Speaking of frogs, we finally took Allison to her first movie. We went to see "The Princess and the Frog" and once again Disney really let me down. I was okay with the concept of a talking frog, the alligator playing a horn wasn't really a problem, and all the voodoo magic was believable but they took it a little too far. Someone from New Orleans who knows how to work hard - now there's a fairy tale for ya.

Speaking of cruises, Amy and I took a quick tour of the Carribean but it took us over 7 days to get done. We left from Galveston, stopped in Cozumel (that's in Mexico, I think), Montego Bay (that's in Jamaica, I think) and Grand Cayman (that's in Grand Cayman, I think) and then disembarked in Galveston (that's in Hell, I think). I could tell you about the sun and the sand, the fruity drinks and iguanas, or all the hotties I was looking at through my reflective glasses while Amy thought I was talking to her about...well, about something. But the real reason I'm here is to talk about midgets. Did you know that they have midgets in Jamaica! I saw one! So there I was (that's Navy speak for "what I'm about to tell you is only about 10% true") and as we were in a bus swinging around these tight mountain roads big enough for two small children at roughly 140 kph (that's about 3000mph, American), Amy at my side trying her hardest not to throw up on all the cheap trinkets she made me buy, when all of a sudden the "Leprechaun of the Tropics" (my phrase - feel free to use) came cruising down the side of the road. And by cruising I of course mean strutting that cocky little strut they do when you walk really fast because you know they can't keep up because they have little legs. There was some other stuff that happened, but it all paled in comparison. Check out www.theschrenks.shutterfly.com for more details and stay posted to theschrenks.blogspot.com for explanation.

Now for the proverbial shoutouts (and Russ to answer your question, I'm pretty sure it's Proverbs 87:6.0223x10^23).

Please welcome Aletheia W - she is surely blessed because she has parents with the brilliance to include me on their Blog. We love the name, we almost picked it ourselves (go K-Sig/A-Phi!!).

Traci, despite forgeting to tell me about the pregnancy, Adalyn is beautiful - congratulations. And anyone with the presence of mind to give the child a middle name of Grace is a genius...pure genius.

I know it's been a long time so I'm probably missing shoutouts by the metric boatload. Focus the anger of this injustice by sending me a quick response (vulgar and abusive language is not required or expected, but will not change our relationship) and let me know how things are going. Feel free to tell me how cute the kids are and how funny you think I am.

What the heck is Coachella?
B