Last 24 hours

• Fri night -attend school poetry and song presentation. Boyz did great!
• Sat morning - Christine drives off to Bakersfield for her cousin's baby shower, I make breakfast for the boyz and clean the kitchen
• Late morning - Jacob and I head out to the garage to work on his Science Project, we are building a trebuchet designed to lauch water balloons over 100 feet
• noon - Make lunch
• 1pm - leave for AWANA - Spark-A-Rama (AWANA Olympics) - the boyz did great and got 2nd place
• 3pm - grocery store
• 3:30PM - hardware store for more wood and bolts for the trebuchet
• 5PM - friend's hose for dinner (thank God for the Riley family!)
• 8:30PM - got kids in bed.

Today was so fast and I am tired! All I have to say is: "My wife is my hero!"

Is the baby coming today?!

Last night my wife and I attended our first LaMaze class. Before we went to bed I inflated the birthing ball. This morning I was greeted with that question from my oldest son as he was holding the birthing ball. He had a huge smile on his face and a look of excitement.

What a fun time!

Pulling out teeth

Jacob is loosing teeth so fast. He lost one top tooth a few days ago and the other top one is ready to go.

In the middle of one of his construction projects he pulled out a tooth while trying to tear a piece of tape by biting it. The funny part is this was a bottom tooth, he still had the loose top tooth. So he was set on getting this pulled and wanted to try the STRING method.

I tied some dental floss to his top tooth and he walked around for a while playing with the string and tugging on it, but it eventually slipped off. Of course he wanted to try it again. This time I decided to do something slightly different.
I tied the string to the top tooth, and then took the other end of the string and tied it to his right arm. I knew he would eventually forget that his right arm was bound to his tooth and he would pull it out himself. It turns out that 2 minutes later he lost his tooth whem I threw a toy to him to catch.

What memories! Now we get to enjoy the 'TH' lisp he will have for the next few weeks.

Back from Colorado!

What a GREAT trip! 1,500 miles and 8 days later - and so much has happened!

Let's start from the top:
2 days (and 2 Guayaki enrgy shots) to colorado (stayed in St. George)

Played in the hotel pool - messed up shoulder real bad

Had a mechanic in Salina tell me I had 'tire separation' - yeah he saw the CA license plate and thought he could trick me out of some cash. Man I was pissed!

Made it to the Ranch in Colorado - long drive but work it!

Fishing! Nathan Caught his first fish.

Riding 4 wheelers

Surprise Wedding shower for my cousin and his new wife.

Killer Collbran July 4th parade (kids got LOTS of Candy!)

Entered Jacob in the local July 4th Rodeo. He won 2nd place riding sheep and got a check for $55

Shot guns (My .306 rifle is dialed in!)

Watched fireworks

Watched more fireworks and helped kids light sparklers until about midnight.

HUGE Bonfires everynight

Big sunburn on my neck

Kids played with their cousins - athan lost his voice yelling so much.

Drove to Mesquite (1 Guayaki energy shot)

Stopped in Vegas Monday and took the boys to 5 different casinos (Excalibur, New York New York, MGM, Mandalay Bay, & Luxor). Saw the White tigers, statues, lights, mini-statue of liberty, & rode the tram.

Drove to Bakersfield and had dinner with MiMA (pronounced Mee Maw) - she is my mother-in-law - great dinner good stop

FINALLY GOT HOME!

Got our Tax return! Woo hoo!

And now I am still trying to switch gears and focus at work!

Monkey Boyz!

My boyz love to climb trees. I joke with them and tell them if they spend too much time in the tree they will grow a tail.

Nathan actually walked over to some people at the park and told them to be careful when they climb trees!

Movie Night

So about every two months Travis and I try to put together a MANly movie night. Previous movies have included:
Gladiator, Alien vs. Predeator, Alien, Aliens, Iron Man, The Hulk, etc - the last movie we upgraded our office for Blue Ray as well.

Now my wie play in the orchestra so about once per month she will come early with the boyz and we hang out in the office and watch a movie together. Tinight we watched Back to the Future.

What an adventure! It has everything boyz love - cool machines, a bully that gets beaten up, an electric guitar, lightening, guns, a pretty girl, and of course skateboarding behind cars!

Throughout the whole movie Jacob was asking about what was hapening in the movie - he aso would do reality checks of whether or not time travel is possible.

We have watched all kinds of good boy movies together (especially my oldest): star wars (the original 3 of course), all three Lord of the Rings (Legolas was his favorite), ET, and Karate Kid.

I am still not sure how I am going to top this last movie night the next time my wife is in orchestra!

1. Making Mo-hawks during bathtime
2. being shot at from pretend guns across the kitchen
3. Saving my son who is 20 feet up in the air, stuck in a tree
4. Chasing naked boyz around the house
5. the tickle monster
6. Story time
7. Wrestling in the living room
8. Scaring my boyz when they walk around the corner
9. Building a treehouse

These are some of my best memories with my boys. I love being a father.

Busted Truck

So on Moving day the O/D (Overdrive light) on our 2002 Ford Explorer start flashing rapidly and it shifts funny.

I had the mechanic who is a neighbor to our office diagnose it and the solenoid on it is toast. The parts alone are $355. What a bummer. He mentioned that since the vehicle has such low mileage I could call Ford customer service and ask about some financial assistance. So I called, 1-800-521-4140 and spoke with a support rep there.

She said they 'might' help me, but I wouild first have to tow it to an authorized Ford dealership who would need to diagnose it. I already spent $140 on the diagnosis. Theoretically speaking, if I paid to get it towed to the dealership, paid for an additional diagnosis, factored in the more expensive labor for repairs at the dealership and Ford gave me that parts for free, I would break even with the estimate of letting my local mechanic take care of the problem.

Talk about frustrating. So for the past 5 days, we have only one vehicle and I have left my wife stranded at our house with 2 busy kids! I just pray this $800 I need to spend is the last of our car problems for a while.

My First Snow Cave

Going to the snow this weekend with my family allowed me to fullfill a childhood desire, to build a snow cave. While my brother and I were trying various ways to actually create a snow shelter, I kept thinking about a recent Popular Mechanics article where the authors took a 3 day survival class out in the dessert. It said the first three days are when the majority of lost people are found. During these three days, the state of mind of the lost person usually determines if they survive or not.

Back to the snow cave: It took us about 2 and a half hours to build one, and we cheated - we had a shovel. Having no experience we learned alot and I would like ot think that I would do well in the first 72 hours.

First we decided to build it against a hill. This would make it easier providing one of the walls. We dug out a hole and then compacted the snow around the hole terracing it as you would if you were laying a foundation for bricks.

Then I began to compact snow away from the shelter and used the shovel to cut out compacted snow bricks. This sounded like a good idea, but the snow was very dry and the bricks kept breaking in half. Also this still did not address how we would be able to 'lean' the walls in the center and have them arch like the ice bricks in an igloo. After we built the walls up about four feet, it really became obvious that arched walls would not work.

Version 2.0 - my brother thought that we could still use our walls would then fill it with snow until we had a nice mound. Then we could compact the snow on the top and dig it out. This worked good, as we had plenty of snow uphill to shovel - but I was looking for something faster.

I climbed to the top of the hill and we built a large snowball. We rolled it around until it was about 4 feet in diameter (and weight a few hundred pounds!) and rolled that down the hill. It grew to 5 feet in diameter and delivered a ton of snow (it also broke down some of the walls we made previously).

A few more minutes of moving snow boulders and shoveling loose snow created quite the mound. Digging out out was the easiest part.

After we finished, we found ourselves scared to allow my kids to go in. There was easily a few hundred pounds of snow that made up the roof. My brother walked along the top to test how easy it would colapse and it held up.

In the end, our shelter was about 3 feet wide and 3 feet tall. Of course, you still need something to keep you dry since the floor is all snow and ice.

After our challenge, I decided to search the internet for recommendations on building a snow shelter. I found a video of someone in Finland doing the same thing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jNFy0MKyqY

Other Snow Shelter links:
http://wildwoodsurvival.com/survival/shelter/snow/index.html

Cubby Bear

My son is in Cubbies, that is his age group in our Church's AWANA program. Each Tuesday night, the teacher draws a child's name and that child gets to take Cubby Bare home for the week. Well we left him in Bakersfield on our way home from my uncle's funeral (http://www.gjfreepress.com/article/20071109/OBITUARIES/71108014). My mother-in-law mailed him back to us, but with this holiday coming up, AWANA does not start for another week, so Jacob gets to have Cubby Bear for three weeks.

Anyway, cubby bear comes with a little journal that kids use to write what they did, and parents help out by taking photographs. Since we have Cubby Bear for three weeks, I helped make some eleborate pictures of Cubby's Amazing adventures.

As you can see, Cubby has been travelling to Europe and Egypt. Meanwhile I have been teaching my 4 year old how to use PhotoShop.

Jacob the Wiz

I posted a while back about my oldest son's ability to use tools - 9 months ago he took the doorknob apart on his own with my screw driver, three months ago he was helping me rotate my wife's tires and was wielding the impact gun himself. Someone has been unlocking the shed and our gate, today I learned that he knows the combination to all our padlocks and is the cuplrit!

What an exciting challenge he has turned out to be. This kid soaks up everything I teach him like a sponge and of course learns plenty of things on his own. Today his most recent experiement is to make his own drinks. Today it was milk and juice.

Personal Website

So I FINALLY updated my personal website. It is so inconvenient as compared to Blogging! The important part was updating the photo gallery - of course now with Flickr that is easier to do as well. Anyway, take a look at my photo gallery, I love my family and this is how I get to show them off!

I made this gallery with Adobe Photoshop album. I love this program! Unfortunately it no longer exists. Adobe has now bundled its features with Adobe Photoshop Elements 5.0 - I think I needc to upgrade and give it a shot.

I still keep my funny stories there too. That is the only bad thing about a blog, it is linear - posts can be sorted in group but there really is no good way to post stories, goals, and beliefs without them getting buried.

RealEstate Ponderings

My wife and I love where we live, but to me renting is a kind of stress. Knowing that my landlord and up my rent or decide to retire here at any time gives me feeling of instability. Our rent is really cheap, so with the price of Real Estate being so expensive here, I guess I will be exchanging the stress of rental instability for financial instability since it will cost so much more.

And of course, being a tech guy, each place we look at I wonder if the property can get broadband internet.

What my wife and I really want is LAND more than a house. I would love a place for a little garage/shop and also want a large corral for a steer, horse, and/or goats.

I have no idea what the Lord has in store for us but looking back I can see his hand actively involved on the events of my life.

Accomplishing the Impossible

I was determined to accomplish what most of my peers deemed impossible. The more difficult it sounded, the more stubborn I became. after I got the plane tickets, there was no turning back. I was going to fly myself and my two boys to Colorado as a sole parent.



I was most concerned for my sanity, my wife was most concerned that I would lose one of our childeren at the Phoenix airport.


Truth be told, I am MOST blessed with how well this trip went. Flying there Jacob was FULL of questions and Nathan was a b it scarred and was glued to my lap on the plane.





As a dad, I could not have asked for a better opportunity to have quality time with my kids - we read so many stories together and rode on the 4 wheeler and got to vist much of my extended family.






We had countless amounts of fun: finding snakes, playing with new toys, and visiting family.

On the way back home we were all exhausted. I have no regrets from taking this trip and hope to do special men things like this again with my boys!

Poly Canyon - Lost Architectural Treasures

What an amazing experience. Our family went on a walk to Poly Canyon - after about three quarters of a mile form the entrance is an arch made of stone - apparently a senior project - that draws your attention. Underneath is a sign listing over 15 more projects so we decided to take a look:

Poly Canyon shows just what is possible when you combine skill, art, and passion without the focus being on profit. Creativity and possibilities spring up that you never imagined.

The first structure you see (after the arch) is what looks like an artistic staircase, created from cement. It is hard to explain and I do not have a picture, but imaging a spiraling staircase each step curves upward away form the center to also be the wall.


Next was this amazing sail tent created in the 70's. It is in almost pefect condition still held taught by its steel cables.


My son's favorite structure was the pirate ship, the bow sticks out from the hillside allowing you to look to the creek 30 feet below.


Other structures include complete furnished houses including: bridge house, shells house, and modular house (not shown). The names might not be impressive but the ideas were.

Bridge house is covered with windows, and for a senior project, I was surprised to find it equipped with a water heater and air conditioning. I definitely found my self wanting to live in these structures when they were in their prime.

Unfortunately as you look at the house projects you can see windows broken out from vandals and the once complete houses are now a danger to the vistors. Bridge house, vacant, plubming now broken, and wires exposed, is still powered. I could hear the transformer to the AC unit humming.

Shell house was the most impressive, this one picture of the inside does not do it justice. Every outer wall is made of glass, one third of which are broken. This house is complete with a kitchen, loft, and family room. I have never seen anything like the way this house was put together. Each room literally FLOWED into the other.


On our way out we saw other structures that our kids were excited to climb.
Despite the dangers of mixing broken down structures and curious kids, we had alot of fun. While leaving I found myself inspired by the visions of past college students but also saddened by the current conditions of them.

These projects are probably the most difficult challenge these students faced in their lifetime. With creativity and passion only a young adult could have it was amazing to experience such uniqueness.

I love my family. Going on outings like this sure make the hard work I do during the week worthwhile.

Jacob the Wiz

So today my three year old ran into our bedroom saying, "I wanna check my e-mail!"

Talk about surprising! What is a 3 year-old doing with an e-mail account anyway? He is always busy playing with my tools or pretending to. Just a month ago he was taking great interest playing with my screwdrivers, giving my wife a break keeping busy. She was on the chair relaxing and to her surprise he handed her the doorknob!

This kid is definitely an engineeer in the making.

I am supposed to be a network administrator, on the edge of technology, and it appears in about 8 years my oldest son is going to show me how to hook up our on-demand fiber-optic cable to our virtual reality 3D TV.

Using a Computer

So I sold my parents a laptop. Previously, they have been attached to an old desktop for the last 10 years - what an antique!

I know they are not the most computer compatible, but I told them that at the BARE minimum they had to be able to take it out of the box and plug it in before they call me for help. It could not be any eaiser, all the calbes are color coded, if you can paint by number you can plug in a computer.

True to their promise they did not call me until after they got it plugged in and powered up. They got stuck at the WELCOME screen. My mom could not figure out how to click the next button. After several minutes I figured out that she would put the mouse over the next button and press the 'Enter' key rather then click with the mouse. My patience was waning!

One the other extreme, I have a 3 year old who navigates on our home computer like a pro. He plays all these kids games on pbskids.org.

When it comes to tech support I must admit, I have less patience with my parents than with my clients. So at the office we have all agreed to provide computer support for eachother's family.