There's a Dragon In Our House

We heard something interesting the other night. We soon found ourselves in the middle of a dragon hunt! See if you can hear it.

Thanksgiving Vacation

We finally had a vacation this past thanksgiving holiday. Not only did we uphold the yearly tradition of going to the Great-grandparents for the holiday, but we hit up Disneyland and Legoland!

We went to San Diego and hung out with the Grandparents first. We went to Legoland with them, and grandma took all the pictures. We haven't gotten any of the pictures from her yet, so sorry, no Legoland pics.

The week of Thanksgiving, we got a hotel right across the street from Disney. Here we are at the IHOP the morning of the big day.

The very first ride we went on was Roger Rabbits wild ride. Right when we got in line, they announced that the ride had broken down. Nice way to start out the day... :-) Everyone started getting out of line. The operator said it might take 20 or more minutes to fix. Funny thing was that the wait time was about 20 minutes according to the sign. We decided to wait it out as we would have been in the line for that much time anyway. Everyone except one other family left the line. So we had fun running up and down the queue line while waiting. I also got to see the repair guys come out of the wood work and run some diagnostics on the ride. So of course I was entertained as well. Here is the fam right after the ride. Lizzy didn't appreciate it very much.

We hit up It's a Small World next. That, by far, was the hit of the day. We went on it twice, even though the wait was not the shortest. The weather was pretty good as well. The sun was out for most of the day, and in Southern California, as long as the sun is out, it's a nice day to be outside.

At night, it got a bit chilly, but due to our last theme park experience, we were prepared for the cold. Lizzy had so much fun all day that she actually fell asleep. She's asleep in this picture. We didn't want her to fall off the back of the stroller so we tied the arms of her sweatshirt to it. It worked pretty well.

Only one day in Disneyland, after that we went to Joshua Tree to the Great-grandparents for Thanksgiving.

Our kids did a great job on the way home. Last year Zach cried for about 5 hours of the car ride. This year all three did a great job. We kept them excited with being able to set up the christmas tree when we got home.

Best Halloween Ever! (Weather Wise)

We've never had such good weather before for Halloween. It made trick-0r-treating perfect!

I have to say that Lizzie's wings ended up working perfectly! You never know what 90 Volts AC and a nerd for a father can do to a kids costume. :-) She loved her glowing wings. When it got dark, it was really easy to keep track of her.

Just an update..

I was going through our photos lately and noticed that most of them were of house projects. We were missing the important photos of things like our kids growing up, so I thought that I would take a few of them.

Today for homework Zach ran an experiment...which melts faster ice or ice cream. What do you think?

Here are our results:

The ice won.

And finally Peter got the one thing he has been dreaming about for years. He is now a licensed Master Electrician. So if you ever see this in our home you can rest assure that it was not approved by him. :)

Quick Survey

Just wanted to get peoples opinions.

What smart phone should I get? And why?

Make way for progress!!

I had another tree cutting party about 3 weeks ago, but lost the camera shortly after that. Well, we just found it, and here is the climax to our tree cutting adventures!

Phase 2 Pour

The second phase of our concrete effort happened as planed, I just haven't had a chance to blog about it yet.

So, here we go:

It started at 5:30 AM (Thanks to those who came out to help). Sorry for the fuzzy pictures.

It went pretty smoothly, for the most part.

Trying to level off 10 feet of concrete vs. 4 is a lot harder.

But in the end, it looks pretty good!

Now all that's left is to pull off the forms from the patio, and re-level the dirt.

UNEXPECTED DEATH IN THE FAMILY

Today was a sad day. We lost a long time member of the family. She's been with me for almost 13 years. I first picked her up while doing work at the rink, and as a rouge electrician. It was one of the first handheld models that had the hammer drill feature. In her prime, this thing could drill through anything, w/out even breaking a sweat.

We (I) will all miss her very much.

Fortunately over the last 13 years, she's had a few offspring. I think we'll just have to pick one of them up, to make the loss a little more manageable for the children.... :-)

http://www.dewalt.com/tools/cordless-drills-hammerdrills-dcd950kx.aspx

I love my tools...... :-)

Phase 1 Pour

The day started at 5AM with our concrete showing up 5 minutes early at 5:25.

For the first few minutes, I was a little stressed, but we got into a rhythm and things really started going well.

Lots of care and attention to detail, but everything progressed smoothly.

And TA DA!! A wonderful looking sidewalk. (oh if it was really that easy :0)

Phase 2 will happen Tuesday or Wednesday, I have a little more prep work to do. We'll see how patio pouring goes. :-)

Thanks for the pics babe!

Lots of hard work

Here is an update on our 'small' concrete project.

First off, you'd think that 16 tons of gravel would take up a lot of space. Well, not really, when you plop it on an acre.

Here is where our curvy sidewalk will meet the new patio. Oh, so we bought that dump cart in the picture, and it's been a total life saver. Best wheelbarrow ever.

This part of the curvy sidewalk is ready for concrete, finally!!

I still have a million pounds of gravel to spread out for the patio, but then it will be ready as well. I'm shooting for an August hoe-down with the fam, on our new patio.

My Turn...

I was reading our blog and noticed that Peter has been the one posting things lately. Well, now it is my turn.

Zachary ran his first race this last weekend. I think my favorite was watching him come towards the finish line. Sometimes I wish my eyes could be a camera, so that way I could catch the perfect picture. As he came near we rang our ranch triangle and held up his sign. He was grinning from ear to ear. I love that kid!

Regarding the sign: A week previously I told Zach that I needed to make him a sign. Something that said "Go Zach, Go!" He then commented that the sign should say "Run Chicken Little, Run!" Seriously.

My Excavator And Me!

It's always a wonderful weekend, when you get to operate a machine. The best money I've spent in a while.



We are working on adding a patio and curvy sidewalk around our house.







Track-hoes are my favorite type of construction equipment and I've always wanted to try operating one with the joy-stick type controls. This isn't exactly a full size track-hoe, but it had the joy-stick controls. It was so easy and fun to operate!

No, this isn't a picture of our neighbors red car, it's a picture of where one of our trees used to be. We got adventurous with the excavator and transplanted a tree.



We hope it lives.



If you have any recommendations on how to help a tree take to it's new home, let us know, we don't want to loose it.

Fun Times

Just wanted to post a few pics of our fam, and what we've been up to lately.

We finally got around to putting our winter attire away, but of course, as soon as something is going to be 'put away' it's way cool to play with again.



I got a delightful surprise for Fathers Day. It's a great addition to my trains. Thanks babe!



Hayley is quite the goof. She gets a kick out of almost everything.



If you ever wonder what will happen if you park your car on a little hill, leave your car in neutral and don't put the parking break on, well, I can tell you.

Luckily, our neighbors telephone pole saved my car from diving into the ditch in their yard.



The same night as my 'Unoccupied accident' (above) I found that you can take out a lot of aggression by busting up concrete. It was quite a work out, especially sense that little bit of sidewalk to nowhere was 8-12 inches thick.



Oh, and if you're wondering how to sleep better at night, you can ask Hayley. She apparently knows just the right position for a good nights rest.



:-)

My Amazing Wife

Zach recently had his birthday, and I wanted to gloat about the amazing effort Em put into his day.

A bit agoA few months/weeks ago, we asked Zach what kind of cake he wanted. He promptly informed us that he wanted a 'Lightning McQueen' cake.

So what did em do? She Googled how to make a Lightning McQueen cake, read up on a few things, and kazam! Zach had the cake he requested.





The best part is for a few days prior to his B-Day, Em was showing me some of the cakes she found online. They all looked pretty crummy, either the wrong colors, shaped funny or out of proportion. So I was assuming Zach would get something similar to what Em had been going off of online.

However, at 2:30AM, the morning of Zach's B-Day, she woke me up to show me the finished product. I was amazed!

The best part is that it tasted good!!! Non of that concrete tasting Fondant that you get with most wedding cakes, she used a marshmallow Fondant and that made all the difference!

The rest of his birthday went off great! He had a soccer game, which a lot of his friends and family came to, and then a great party.

Thanks to all those who came and/or gave him gifts on his special day.

I believe Peter thinks I am crazy when I go check on the kids every night. But besides knowing that everything is alright in the world, sometimes you can get a pretty good laugh. For example tonight. I first ventured into Liz's room...


She was gone, missing. I search the floor, the corners, no Liz. My next thought was that maybe she was hiding in my room. I'll check later.

Then I went into Zach's room...


Gone. Okay they were up to something. (Note: No pillow.)

Well I found them shortly after...


Apparently waiting to sleep on the top-bunk, ended today. I especially like the elbow in Liz's head. I know how she feels. ;)