I'm 10 years old today!

Last day of school on my birthday again. 2 years in a row. No phone to show this year but any year now. :) I love to read, swimming 2x a week, doing gymnastics, and still playing chess. I can now do a back handspring with a spotter. I asked if I could go to Hawaii for my birthday but I have a feeling that wish isn't going to come true.

I'm 8 years old today!

I finally lost some teeth this past year. I wasn't sure it was going to happen. I have my adult teeth and I'm no longer required by law to sit in a booster seat. I'm pretty sure my parents though will still have me use one till I'm 9. I've been playing more chess tournaments and have gotten pretty good but more importantly, I can beat my dad pretty easily now. I also started swim team 1 and competed in my first swim meets. I didn't think I would like it but I love competing.

Surge Protection and Faster Networking

Here's a whole house surge protector that you install at your circuit panel and the idea is that it'll protect all of your electrical devices without needing surge protectors at every device. I'm not sure if they really work but it makes sense and wasn't too difficult to install.



Here's all the tools and materials that I needed. Since I didn't have room in my panel to fit a a double pole breaker, I had to buy 2 tandem breakers and make room.



Here's the surge protector mounted to the bottom of my circuit panel box.



Here you can see the two tandem breakers and then the double pole breaker right above them. Since there are two 120V buses in the panel box, the double pole makes sure the surge protector is wired to both of them.



Here's the panel after the install. Ideally you want to place the surge protector breaker as close to the main lines at the top but since I had to mount the protector at the bottom, that's as far as the wires would reach.



Here's what the normal breaker box looks like.



The other electrical project I finished was running CAT6 cable from the network panel to my bedroom TV area. There's already a cable going to the bedroom but not to the right spot so I thought it would be easy to just run a new line. Bought this cable from monoprice.com.



Here's my network panel. I used my fiberglass poles as seen in this post to snake the wire up through this panel and up in the attic. I then ran the wire to the bedroom and snaked it down the wire to the right spot.



This was the hardest part. Fishing the wire out of the wall and through the opening. Luckily I was able to reach the wire without having to cut any holes in the wall. I just had to remove the existing wall plate and junction box.

Twas the night before Xmas....

Zoo lights

We checked out Zoo Lights this year and although it was crowded, it didn't disappoint.


Here's a picture of the kid's and the grandparents. Christy was off to the left as this was the most people I could fit in since I had my prime 35mm lens on and couldn't zoom out anymore.


These lights were all choreographed with music.


Photo op with the komodo dragon. Cole did a research project on it for school this year.





Never too old for the carousel.


The bright butterfly is actually a huge lego construction.

New and Old Friends

We had a new friend visit us in the backyard. We aren't sure but this might have been a baby rattlesnake. We didn't see or hear any rattling but we kept our distance. Although I almost did step on it while working on the pool equipment.


Here's some of our old friends. We love seeing these guys. One of these days I'll get a picture of them taking off from the tree.


Here's his friend. Both were sitting in the tree. A little spooky to see their eyes locked on you. :)

Cree LED Bulb Flickering Problem

I love LED bulbs because they should theoretically last forever and use the same watts as a CFL. However, when they start dying after a year or two, you begin to question whether you should have been buying $10+ light bulbs. I currently have 7 Cree 60W lightbulbs that have issues. 6 of them are the TW series where it's supposed to show true colors. You can tell that type of bulb (on the right) by the purplish color of the glass as well as the larger heatsink fins around the base.

I contacted Cree on their facebook page after seeing so many other people complain about the same issue and seeing a positive response from Cree. So after a few emails, they are sending me all new replacement bulbs and they didn't ask for receipts or anything. They told me to dispose of the bulbs. I thought maybe they would want them back for failure analysis but I'm sure they know what the problem is already.

So thinking it would be neat to reverse engineer the bulb, I was going to take one apart but thought for sure someone has already done this on youtube. Sure enough they have. In the comments of that video, someone explained how most of the failures are due to a loose wire near the base of the bulb. They explained how you can take a flat head screwdriver and dent the metal right near the wire to make a better connection. So considering I had 7 bulbs with nothing to lose, I started hammering away. I managed to resurrect 4 of the 7 bulbs. I'm not sure how long they'll last but at least they are working for now. If you look closely at the bulb on the right, you can see a burn mark where the bulb failed. That is pretty much where the wire is. Most of the bulbs have the wire in the same place.

Now if you get a bulb where the LEDs are glowing dimmly, well this fix didn't work for those. This fix is for when the LEDs are flickering and then completely turn off.
Here's a picture of the glowing LEDs.

I'm 9 years old today!

Today was the last day of school for me. I finished 3 years in lower elementary with the same teacher and now I'm headed to upper elementary with a new teacher. One of these years I'm going to show you a new phone in these posts but until then I'm still swimming, doing gymnastics, and playing chess. I also got a new gear bike this birthday. Can't wait to try it out.

I'm 7 years old today!

So much has happened this year. First, I've gone on a 3 day / 2 night school trip all by myself. I'm practically an adult now. Okay my sister was there too but she doesn't count. Also, I've started playing chess and have done several tournaments this past year. I even checkmated my Daddy in 6 moves. I also got a new bike from Santa that has gears and a suspension. So like I said, I'm practically an adult now.

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.