Transportation day III

It's that time of the year again, Transportation day at one of the local churches. This year both kids were able to make it which was a first. We missed the helicopter landing this year because of swimming lessons. Lauren feels right at home in the driver's seat of a school bus.


Another photo of Lauren in the driver's seat. This time a brand new garbage truck. She looks way too happy behind the wheel.


Cole getting his picture in the Fire Engine...


...and moving truck....


...and police car.


No rides this year but the kids got to pet the horse.

Flight Festival

Mesa had a Takes Flight Festival this past weekend so we decided to check it out. Cole and Lauren stopped to ride the airplane.


Lauren is posing with her butterfly that she decorated.


Cole loved flying the paper airplanes and helicopters.

Big Benny

Intel recently hosted a family day to check out "Big Benny", the largest land based crane in the world. They are using it to build their newest factory.


Lauren and Cole are checking out the large trucks.


Here's a shot of the entire crane. It's pretty impressive, especially up close.

Old timer

Cole is really good about getting haircuts and has made the transition
to the barber so easily. I guess it helps they were showing Nemo.

Styling

That time of the year again. This time Lauren requested marshmallow
flavored fluoride.

Happy Chinese New Year

Happy Chinese New Year - Year of the Dragon. Just happened that Lauren was riding the dragon at the zoo today.


Cole enjoyed his carousel ride too.


After the zoo, we had some dim sum to celebrate the new year.


These are Cole's favorite. He could probably have eaten all of them.


Lauren is eating some shrimp on a sugar cane although this was about how much she ate of it.

Right way vs wrong way

I finally got around to replacing the door sweep on the front door. The previous owner had a plastic sweep on there that he probably bought from Home Depot. Since the door is larger than 36", he actually bought 2 of them and then cut one to fit. Needless to say this is not the correct way to install it. First, it should be all one piece and second, it should be metal and not plastic so it doesn't warp in the sun.


Here you can see the replacement sweep. I had to order this off the Internet since Home Depot doesn't carry metal ones larger than 36". This time it didn't take too long since I've had experience replacing them in the old house.

Rocketship

Despite the fact that this looks like a rocket ship, it is not a toy. It's a blower for cleaning dSLR sensors. It's very similar to those nose bulbs the hospitals give you for your newborn. You squeeze it and it blows out air. Our photos had 2 distinct spots on certain photos.


Here you can see the dust on the sensor. You can capture this by adjusting your aperture to 22 and taking a photo of a white background. The 2 large dust particles were causing our spots.


Here's the after picture with most of the spots gone. There are a few more but normally you'll never see those in photos.

Climber

Lauren loves to climb the rock wall at the YMCA. Cole unfortunately has to wait another 1.5 yrs till he can climb it.


Here Lauren is "repelling" down although it's more like getting lowered down.

Appliance repairman

If I ever have a problem with something I own, I just google it to find the solution. More often than not, someone has had the same problem and has already fixed it. Our washer was giving us some problems and googling it pointed me to check the drain motor filter.


Sure enough one of kid's socks slipped between the drum and the door and made its way down to the drain motor. I also found some loose change and seeds. The kids love collecting seeds.

All dressed up....

for the nutcracker.

Twas the night before....

Shopping break

Bad idea

For the parents that can't say no. :)

Holiday traditions

Start of the holidays

Eggnog and Jim Beam whiskey.

Intel Winter Wonderland

Every year Intel puts on a winter wonderland where Santa comes to visit and they have all sorts of crafts and projects for the kids. Here Lauren and Cole are waiting to get some balloon animals from one of the many clowns.


Here Lauren is decorating her cookie. Cole decorated one too but wasn't too interested in spreading the frosting. He was preoccupied with eating the sprinkles.


"Seriously, when you asked if I wanted to make a crown, you didn't tell me I had to dress up. My facebook peeps better not see this."


"Now this is just ridiculous!"


"Finally a non dress up craft table. Wait a minute, is this a bracelet?"


Lauren concentrating intently.

Multitasking

Someone has been skipping naps recently. However Cole couldn't stay
awake even during his haircut.

Weekend Plumber

Our plumbing fixtures in the house definitely needed some upgrading. Here's one side of our kitchen sink. In addition to the plumbing work I did this weekend, Cole was doing a bit of his own plumbing.



Even worse was the garbage disposal side. The food would get stuck on the bottom of the rubber piece and start to stink. Even scrubbing it wouldn't remove the food/mildew stains. Needless to say, it was time to upgrade the strainer baskets and the rusting garbage disposal.



Here you can see the matching strainers for both sides of the sink. We had these in our old house after remodeling our kitchen so I bought these off of Ebay and efaucets.com for pretty cheap. The strainers are made by Mountain Plumbing.



Here's the new garbage disposal drain. It has a built in stopper too. Previously we didn't even have a stopper.



Can you tell which one is the new one? I bought a Viking 1 HP garbage disposal as a scratch and dent closeout. It's much quieter and performs a lot better than the previous Whirlaway model. In case you are in the market for a new garbage disposal, I recommend reading this thread on the best garbage disposals.



Another problem that plagued all of the faucets in our house was leaky cartridges that then rusted the hardware leaving stains on the counters.



Here I changed out the faucet to a model that the previous homeowner installed in the rest of the bathrooms. It's not the best quality but it gets the job done until we remodel the bathrooms.....sometime after the kids go to college.

Easy TJ's soup

We made this Tomato Lentil soup after tasting it at Trader Joe's. It's really simple and surprisingly very good. Just heat up the soup with the lentils on the stove and serve with sour cream (plain Greek yogurt for a healthy substitute) or Parmesan cheese.

Happy Halloween

We carved pumpkins again this year and the kids helped out a little more by scooping or attempting to scoop out the pumpkins. In the end, Daddy carved both pumpkins.




Here's Cole as a firemen and Lauren as a witch. They really enjoyed trick or treating this year and even managed to say "Trick or treat" a few times.