Life restored to normal

Our Tivo HD unit died recently. There's nothing that puts the kids faster into a whining mode than telling them they can watch TV but not have one of their shows available. Here I purchased a 2 terabyte upgrade off of Ebay. There are a few aftermarket sites that sell hard drive upgrades such as Weeknees.com. There price was $400 for a 2 Terabyte HD. Instead I looked at Ebay and found several "reputable" sellers that were selling them from anywhere between $111 to $150 for a 2 Terabyte HD. I bought mine from this seller.



Replacing the HD is quite easy. You need a torx screw driver but after removing the cover and then another 8 screws, you put in your new HD and then reverse the process. The HD came with instructions on how to do the install.


Here you can see the old 160 GB HD and the new HD. Our HiDef recording capacity went from 20 hrs to 320 hrs.

Super blender

We recently bought the Blendtec blender at Costco after seeing their roadshow and special pricing. Here you can see one of our fruit and spinach smoothies. This is by far the easiest way to feed Lauren and Cole veggies.


Here's the after picture. After having seen both the Vitamixer and the Blendtec at Costco, it was difficult to figure out which one was better. Both are extremely expensive and both seem to make smoothies, ice cream, soups, etc. very easily. If you want a good comparison, check out this comparison site. There are a ton of YouTube videos and sites that compare them as well. One big difference is that the Vitamixer won't fit under your cabinets on your counter whereas the Blendtec easily fits. The deciding factor for us was the price. The Blendtec was a little cheaper and had an 8 yr warranty from Costco.

Poor baby

Cole got croup last night. It was also the first time we have broken
our rule of not letting the kids sleep in our bed at night.

Big Bugs

We recently checked out the Big Bugs exhibit at the Desert Botanical Garden because who doesn't like big bugs as well as it was free with our Phoenix Children's Museum membership.

Lauren and Cole sitting for a potential Christmas card picture although it was much too hot for them to sit still. This was probably the best picture from all the shots.

Pest Control

Saw this owl on our neighbor's chimney. You can easily hear them at night.