Spooky spiders

Halloween arrived early at our house. I found this black widow spider by our garage door. You can tell it's a black widow by its distinctive red hour glass. We also had a black widow at our old house.

I'm 17 months old today!

I can't believe I'm another month older. I started in a new school and have begun my Montessori journey. Actually this is the same school that Lauren goes to so it's been a lot of fun riding together to and from school. She loves showing me off to her class like I'm some kind of pet. I've started using real cups so no more sippy cups for me, although for some reason Mom and Dad don't trust me at home just yet. I wonder why....

Road Trip to San Diego

Lauren had a week off from school so we decided to make a road trip to San Diego. Here are some of the cool boulders along I-8.



Here we approach a border patrol checkpoint and this time they seem to have some pretty high tech equipment. My guess is they are running people's license plates but who knows.



Here we stopped at La Jolla to see the seals (you can see them on the rocks). Lauren was very excited to play at the beach and even brought her bucket and toys.



Finally Lauren and Cole got to play in the sand. We went to Torrey Pines State park and only stayed about an hour or two.



All was well until Cole got a bunch of sand in his eyes.



Lauren loves riding the carousel. Cole was more interested in the gems. This carousel is at the seaport village. The carousel in balboa park has the added game of grabbing brass rings and throwing them at a target as you go around. I didn't know they had this but I can't wait till next time.



Cole and Lauren playing a little at Sea World. They needed a break to just run around.



Shamu 1 and Shamu 2



Here Cole is pointing at an airplane. The hotel we stayed at (you can see it in the back) was the Courtyard Marriot at Liberty Station. It's ranked as the #2 hotel in San Diego and consistently gets good reviews. The hotel has plenty of free parking, is close to restaurants, and is extremely clean. Plus it provides endless entertainment for kids as the airplanes fly overhead. :)



Endless entertainment at the Spanish Village Art Center.



One great fresh seafood restaurant we found by accident was Mitch's Seafood at Point Loma. We were checking out another restaurant when a couple said that they had gotten great clam chowder from Mitch's just a bit further down. We decided to check it out and were glad we did. The place is no frills but the food was great.

I'm 16 months old today!

Where to begin this month. First I can now talk. Okay I might be exaggerating a wee bit but I can say Yes, Dadee, Momee, ball, shoes, bubble, uh oh, cat (sounds like ack), and socks. I also have 3 molars which explains all the uncontrollable drooling going on. Another skill I learned is that if I start screaming at night, Daddy will stay in the room with me. He tries to sneak out but all I have to do is just scream and he comes right back in to soothe me. :)

I'm 15 months old today!

I've said my first word, "Yes", this past month. I've also started taking swimming lessons with Mom or Dad and I just love it. Yeeesss!

Backyard pests

Found this snake in our backyard. Most likely harmless except if you are a mouse.


Found this scorpion in our house. The cats got him. :)

July 4th Traditions

As you can probably tell from the photo, we went to our old HOA's July 4th parade and picnic. Here is the event from last year. Although we don't belong to that HOA anymore, we'll probably be visiting the event every year. Luckily for us, we can attend as guests of Grandma Pennie and Grandpa Chuck. :)


Here's Lauren catching some air.


Lauren is waiting patiently for her turn.


"That was it? Even Cole could go down this one!"


"Ah this is more like it. Blue Crush! With a name like that, it had better be good!"


"I wasn't scared. I always close my eyes."

New LowE windows

Right before the summer, we replaced all of our windows and sliding doors with new LowE glass. The picture above was taken after only the top windows were replaced. Notice the green tint on the top windows versus the brownish tint on the ones on the bottom. The LowE glass that we specified was Cardinal 366 using a Superspacer for the spacer technology. For dual pane windows, the thing keeping the panes apart is called a spacer. The spacer can conduct heat so a lot of new windows use what they call a warm edge spacer(a non conducting material). The new windows make a huge difference in the house. I measured up to a 20 degree surface temperature difference between the new LowE and the old bronze tinted windows.


One of our large tempered windows spontaneously shattered the day after being installed. Unfortunately the window proceeded to crack and fall to the ground shortly after this picture was taken.

I'm 14 months old today!

I still haven't said my first word yet. Technically I've said many words but they mostly all come out as dada or da. It doesn't bother me too much since Mom and Dad usually overcompensate and give me more of my favorite snacks. I also took my first swimming lesson this past month. :)

Smile!

I'm 13 months old today!

Sorry for the delay. I know I'm a few days late but how was I supposed to know my parents wanted to wait till I get my first haircut. Actually I think they were busy with friends visiting and actually forgot my monthly birthday. That's okay because I had the best 13 month birthday gift and her name is Emily. She is so mature and is almost 4 years old. Best of all, she thinks I'm so cute.

Thanks Mom!

My parents finally decided to take me to get my first haircut. They took me to Snipits which is the same place they took Lauren. One day I hope to take my kids there for their first cut. Just kidding. Can you imagine me being so lame? The real reason is I won't have any say in the matter.



Here's my after picture. Luckily my mom doesn't subscribe to the shave it all off camp. This haircut is sure to get some pinched cheeks.



I wonder what toy I'm going to get with this. Hmm maybe they'll just let me keep this thing.

I'm 3 yrs old now!

And here you thought I was done having my picture taken. I couldn't let Cole have all the fun. So much has happened over the past year. The biggest thing was finding out I'm allergic to peanuts. We also moved to a new house and I started in a Montessori school. I'm also totally potty trained. You'd think because of that, I would have gotten my new iPhone but sadly no.

Block walls

Another thing on our list of home improvements was to stucco our walls. Here you can see the walls before the stucco but after I had our painter apply some dry lok to prevent water seeping through. You can also see the orange stucco that the previous home owner had done.


Here's the after. We stuccoed over the orange stucco because the finish wasn't the same as the house.


Here's another view of the orange wall.


After picture.


Before


After


Here's all the pool equipment open to the sun.


Here's the wall to hide and protect the equipment. The brown stucco is because they touched up those areas with stucco from my neighbor's walls. My neighbor had the foresight to have them color the stucco whereas I didn't know that was even an option. We have to paint the house anyways so not a big deal.


Here's the tight opening to get in.

Dark chocolate dipped strawberries

Happy Mother's Day!

More storage never hurt anyone

Our new house didn't have any garage cabinets so that was one of the first things on our to do list. Once you have cabinets, you can't really go back. This time around we used advancedgaragesolutions instead of spacesolutionsaz. They basically have the same product except advancedgaragesolutions has adjustable shelves in every section and includes a shelf in all the uppers. Plus they were a little cheaper.



Here's the before picture.



Here's the other bank of cabinets. Overall we have 25 feet of cabinets plus a 4 foot workbench.


Here's the before picture.


Here you can see some of my handy work to wire an outlet at the work bench and upper cabinet (for future under cabinet lighting).


Finished picture of the electrical.

I'm 12 months old today!

That's right, I've hit a major milestone. I have satisfied 1 of the 2 requirements to sit forward facing in the car. The only requirement left is to weigh over 20 lbs and I'm just 6 oz shy of that. I can't wait. With all of the real food I'm eating now, I'll be sure to pass that threshold any day now.

No bars at home....

Every since we moved we haven't had good cell phone coverage at home which is a problem when you don't have a land line. AT&T recently released their 3G Microcell ($150) which provides 3G service in your home and routes the calls through your Internet connection. We've had it for a month and so far so good except sometimes when making a call we hear the other person pickup without hearing the phone ringing.