Merry Christmas!

Signs of growing up

Lauren elected not to wear any sunglasses during her last visit to the dentist again. This makes it two times in a row now.


Cole on the other hand still wore them. I didn't get a shot of him in his shades but here's one before his x-rays.

Real world education

We've been very impressed with the Montessori education but you have to love the snack that the students served us during our observation and parent/teacher conference. Glad to know they are teaching the finer skills of making good coffee.

Tragedy at the local "Zoo"

We were cleaning up the garden and stumbled across this. We believe this was one of the chuckwallas that lived in our backyard.


We aren't quite sure what happened but believe he got trapped beneath our garden cage and then literally burned up.

3.5 year old project finally completed

After 3.5 years, we finally completed our photo gallery. The actual process took about 5-6 hours not including picking the photos. I wish I could tell you Cole was jumping for joy but rather he was just trying to get in the shot.


Here's the before photo.


All the frames finally getting opened. Luckily none of them were damaged.


We used wrapping paper for our templates to finalize on the wall design.


Here's the final design.


Now with the real thing. I only had to redo a few nails to get the spacing right.


Here's the final version with pictures and all.

Local Zoo

No need to travel to the zoo to see some reptiles. Here's one of the chuckwallas that lives in our yard.


And new to our yard is a Sonoran Desert Toad. This is the first time we have ever seen toads in Arizona besides the zoo.

1st big scar

Cole unfortunately banged his head during basketball camp and required some stitches. This was a doozy. His first time getting stitches. Reminds me of the scene in Lethal Weapon 3 where they are comparing their scars. Hopefully this will be his last.


Here he's waiting for the doctor to stitch him up. They applied some numbing gel instead of giving him a shot. The only thing is you have to wait 30 mins before it numbs the area. I think I'll take this option next time too.


Here's the end result. He had about 2 stitches and then the rest was glue. Hopefully it won't scar too badly.


You can tell he was feeling much better because he couldn't help himself on the way out.

July 4th Tradition

Is that time again where we go to our old HOA 4th of July Picnic celebration. Here you can see the Fire Engine cooling off the crowd.



Cole is enjoying the snow cones...


...and Lauren enjoying collecting the cicada shells.



The kids are waiting in line for the water slides. Amazing how times have changed and they are the smallest ones anymore. Here's Cole in line 3 years ago. Here's Lauren in line 5 years ago.


Lauren still closes her eyes...


and same for Cole.


Lauren participating in the hula hoop contest. I also participated in the parent contest but didn't last long enough for anyone to take a photo. :)

WARNING: Graphic post - Clogged drain

Every year or so, the water in the sinks drain very slowly. Inevitably the issue is hair getting clogged in the stopper mechanism. I've seen these stick drain cleaners for a few bucks so I thought I'd try it. The old way would be to remove the p-trap and clean out the drain with an old toothbrush.


Here you can see what I fished out. Overall the tool works pretty well. All I had to do was fish out the hair and clean off the stick. Total time was ~5 mins versus the old way of ~15 mins and there's no need to get a bucket, remove the p-trap, clean the drain, empty the bucket, etc. It's so easy, the kids might enjoy "fishing" out the clog.

Faking it?

I picked up Cole early last Friday because he wasn't feeling too well. I checked in on him while he was "resting" and spied him watching TV like this. He doesn't seem sick or maybe this was making him feel better. :)

Cool shades

Cole is trying not to smile.

Summer reading fun

If only all moments could be this quiet and peaceful.

Smart water controller

Here's my latest upgrade to the house - Solarsync for Hunter irrigation systems. It's a smart controller for the water irrigation system. It basically measures the sun intensity and adjusts the watering amount automatically. It also will shut off the water if it has rained recently. The one thing it doesn't do is adjust the watering intervals. It only adjust the amount of time the water is on.


I ran the wire behind the gutter so you can't really see it except for the small transition to the down pipe.


In order to get the snake the wire to the controller, I bought these fiberglass poles that are used for snaking wires. Picked these up at Harbor Freight tools for $8 which is a lot less than if you were to buy them from Home depot.


Here you can see the tip of the pole. I've attached the wire to the end so I can pull it up through the pipe.


Here you can see a close up of the pole in the pipe. Thanks to Chuck for helping snake the wire too.

I'm 8 yrs old today!

I finally lost some of my baby teeth including my two front ones as you can tell. I'm dressed in my PJ's because it was Pajama day at school today. I'm also sporting some of the handmade jewelry I received for my birthday. I still love reading and would have finished the Harry Potter series if my parents didn't regulate which books I could read. I just read the 3rd book in the series and finished it in about a day. I still love my stuffed animal doggie and if I could have one wish, I'd wish for a dog despite being allergic to dogs.

Wood's best friend

Cole accidentally broke the drawer front to his Ikea desk. The desk didn't cost much but it seemed a waste to have to buy a whole new one. So instead I bought some wood epoxy and repaired it.


Here's the epoxy in the chipped out area. You just mix the two different parts of the epoxy to activate it and let it set.


Here's the epoxy after sanding it down so it's smooth.


Our exterior door frame started to get some water damage and dry rot. I had some estimates to fix it and originally I thought you could just replace the damaged wood pieces but it turns out that you have to replace the entire door frame. One of the guys suggested to use epoxy and then paint over it and replace the door frame after the whole frame gets worse.


Here's a picture of the epoxy before any sanding.


Here's after sanding (not the best job) and paint.


You can buy this product at Lowes but not Home Depot.

I'm 6 years old today!

This is a big birthday because I can finally say that I'm potty trained with the exception of a few accidents here and there. I can also say that I've learned to ride a bike without training wheels. I can't believe my parents started potty training me before I was 2. I showed them who's in charge. The only milestones left are learning to drive a car and going to the prom which I heard you have to dance with girls. I can do without that milestone.

Not a kid anymore

Lauren opted to skip the sunglasses at the dentist this time. She's growing up. Here's one of her previous visits.

Tucson Spring Vacation Trip '15

We recently took a short vacation down in Tucson. The first stop was Kartchner Caverns which is about an hour past Tucson. Cole is being his silly self.


Lauren and Cole fit through the holes. They could become cave explorers.


After the caves, we went back to the hotel so the kids could hit the slides and pool.


The next day we checked out the Pima Air and Space Museum.


Lauren and Cole standing in front of a MiG-29.


The kids were playing some game and started becoming more interested in that than the planes.


The next day we went to Sabino Canyon. It was the first time we had been there and we were wowed by the desert scenery which isn't easy considering we live in Phoenix.


Lauren smiling at the end of the last tram stop.


Lauren and Cole were playing by the stream passing through the canyon.


Luckily the water was just a trickle.

Finally learned how to ride a bike

Cole learned how to ride a bike last weekend. This picture was from the weekend before where he tried without training wheels for the first time. What finally put him over was pretending to hold his bike while running along.

The Next Bobby Fischer?

Lauren's 2nd chess tournament.

Scavenger

Cole recently found a lot of change under a coinstar machine so now he's checking for money everywhere we go.

Milestone

Finally after 10 years...