Mandy and Seth's Life Information Blog

Big news in the blogosphere

2012-01-22T20:01:00.000-08:00

We've been a little hush hush about it, but that's just the kind of people we are I suppose. I figured it was time to tell the blogosphere (although we just can't get down with posting it on Facebook) that we are having a baby! Due May 28th and it's a girl! We are really excited and busy getting ready. We have a list of names going but I have a feeling we'll be hush hush about that too.

Here is a photo of me at 11 weeks and one at 21 weeks. Pretty cool!

Christmas Time Adventures

2011-12-30T15:25:00.000-08:00

As soon as the Thanksgiving tables were cleared, the Christmas Tree went up.
Mandy's quilt for our new nephew: Nicolo.
We got to visit baby Nicolo (along w/ Dan and Melody) at the hospital the day after he was born. What an awesome Christmas present!
I look really awkward... or maybe I'm flashing some gang signs w/ a baby.
Crum made a nest on his grandparent's couch. He really blends in.
Christmas dinner at Michele's house. It was a crab feast!
The age-old Christmas tradition of Skyping w/ relatives.
Michele loves Crum and he loves anybody who will give him cheese or let him on their lap.
Andrew, Eileen, and Mandy.
Jen and Patrick hosted a Christmas party at their new place in Oakland. It was a lovely party! That's not Patrick though, it's Travis.
We got to see Nicolo one more time before we left. Here he is nice and cozy at home in his new quilt. What an angel.
"What's the pastability you guys could stop noodling around and finish dinner?"
uh-oh.
John, Kaylee, Seth.
Kaylee's new Ark. Trivia question: What's Noah's wife's name?
The Fresno family.
Kaylee and a well-behaved/worn out Crum.

We are back in Long Beach now and getting ready for another awesome year. 2012 is going to be the year to end all years. :)

Babysitting Elsa

2011-12-30T15:21:00.000-08:00

We got to babysit Elsa all by ourselves for a few hours. This was good practice for us, specifically my photo-taking skills... babies move a lot.

Thanksgiving: Long Beach and Fresno

2011-12-30T15:11:00.001-08:00

The '2nd annual RCLB Thanksgiving Feast'. We put three tables together end-to-end. This is the 'kids end' of the table.
And the 'grown ups' end. We had over 20 people total. Very fun and a great success.
So much food...
...and desserts.
Andrew giving a 'fire and brimstone' messages to Matt.
Then Mandy and I traveled up to Fresno where we got to see John, Kate, and Kaylee. Pete and Michele drove from the Bay Area and lots of cousins, aunts and uncles came over to visit too. We're so glad they're back in California.

Hallowhen!?!

2011-12-30T15:01:00.000-08:00

Crum and the pumpkins greet our neighborhood trick-or-treaters.

Halloween family portrait: Medusa, Perseus, and a Crum-sized dragon. Dragons are from Greek mythology, right?

We used up the last of the aluminium foil making my shield... so the battle could be historically accurate...

Theo's First Birthday (Oct.11th)

2011-12-30T14:55:00.000-08:00

Here come the blog updates for the last quarter of '11. Try and keep up. :D

Theo, Crum's best buddy/arch-nemesis, turned one October. Amy baked him a dog cake and they went to town.

Garden explosion!

2011-10-05T21:45:00.000-07:00

So I was skimming through some older blog posts and realized that the yard photos I posted in June are way out of date. Here's what it looks like in October! Crazy how fast everything grows.

We have some spots to fill up from where the gophers killed some plants. And we need to transplant some of the plants getting swallowed by the bigger ones. Hopefully next weekend.

RCLB Elder Retreat '11: Julian, CA

2011-09-13T00:10:00.000-07:00

A few photos to sum up the Revolution Church Long Beach Elder's retreat over the Labor Day weekend. We (The Haaks and San Nicolas families) had a lot of 'vision-casting' and planning to do for the next year, but we also go to spend a lot of time just enjoying each other's company as we soaked in the sights of Julian, a little mountain community east of San Diego.

Julian is 'famous' for it's apples, apple pie, and other apple related products.

Sampling the fares at the local indoor farmer's market. The 'market' turned out to be a bit of a bust, but we did sample some of the hard cider. There's also a quaint little down-town strip that has a gold-rush feel (of course I didn't take any pictures of it...).

We took a hike through the forested hillside on our last day. The storm clouds were forming overhead...

Looks straight out of Tolkien's Middle-Earth. On our way to Rivendell...

...but all we found was the 'Big Lagoon'. Who wants to go swimming?

On our walk back to the car it started to rain. We got a little wet, but the weather was still warm and it was a nice reminder that even in Southern California the summer can come to an end.

Chandon and family: August '11

2011-09-13T00:00:00.001-07:00

A few quick photos from Chandon and family's visit last month. I can't believe I didn't get more photos, especially of the tent in the backyard and going to the beach!

Father, Son, and Crum.

My folks came down from the Bay Area to see the family. We took some time to go to the OC Fair. Channy wasn't too keen on the livestock or the sketchy carnival rides (good for him), but did have a great time in the insect/reptile exhibit. :)

Look at the size of that ox! Chandon was clearly not as impressed as I was.

We spent an afternoon at the park. Here he is trying out his new beanie and a feather that grandpa and grandma brought him from the Santa Cruz mountains. It was probably too hot for the beanie...

On the swings w/ Mandy. We also went to the family birthday party/bbq in Irvine... which I didn't get more photos of, either. But it's all up here (tapping on my forehead). What a fun week! Can't wait to see my boy again. Also not pictured are all the games of candyland and Lego StarWars we played.

Baby Elsa is here!

2011-07-17T23:10:00.000-07:00

Big news on the block, Jeff and Liv had their beautiful baby girl, Elsa Ida McMillan, last Monday. She is such a peach! Lots of hair and chubby cheeks. A bundle of goodness. It is still a little surreal that she is finally here. We love her so much already. We went over today to see her again and snapped a few shots.

Walking with the grandmas! They are in heaven of course. That's a Pepsi in Jeff's hand, not a beer. Don't worry.

Summer Camping

2011-07-17T14:15:00.000-07:00

We just got back from our camping trip to Barton Flats campgrounds, just north of San Bernadino. Greg and Meghan did an awesome job organizing the trip as usual. We took Crum for his first camping trip and decided he was just okay at camping. He mostly wanted to chase chipmunks and birds and other dogs.

Seth relaxing and drawing.
Brian and Dan
Greg and Dan washing the dishes
Gathered around the table for breakfast
Tents and the woods
Me and Meghan
We went on a 5 mile hike during the day on Saturday and this was the view from the end point.

Here we are with our dead dog after hiking to the top of the look-out. Oh wait, here's a better picture of us. He's not dead after all.
We ended up leaving a little earlier than planned due to not feeling well, but it was a fun trip despite being under the weather.

Kaylee's 2nd Birthday

2011-07-17T13:52:00.000-07:00

The following weekend, we went up north to the bay area for our niece Kaylee's 2nd birthday party. Kate, John, and Kaylee live in North Carolina so we don't get to see them very often. Hopefully, that will be remedied soon when they sell their house!

We went up early to help set up for the party on Friday. Here's a cute picture of Kaylee's clothes drying on the clothesline outside my dad's house.

I can never get enough of this view from my dad's back porch.
Horses! Just down the street from dad's house are a bunch of horses now.
I let Kaylee open her presents from us the night before the party so that she could actually play with them. She got a set of plastic fruits, that you can velcro together and a wooden xylophone. Trying to share her toys with Crum.
It was a weekend of willpower for Crum for sure. So many toys on the ground and he can't chew any of them! And a tiny person to jump on and he can't do that either! He did a pretty good job.
Playing the xylophone with uncle Seth.
What a happy little girl!
Crum, taking a break from the willpower challenge. Unfortunately, he's not allowed on the furniture in dad's house!
The party set-up.

Kaylee in her party dress.
The table! Kate did a beautiful job of putting this party together. She made everything match, even the snacks! She made cake pops from scratch too. They were a hit!
I made some flower arrangements for the tables. It's so easy when you have my dad's garden to pick from!
The birthday girl, unhappy about having to eat a cake pop. haha!
I didn't get any actual photos of all the people who were at the party! But I think there were about 30! Great party! Kaylee got pretty tired at the end and chilled out in grandpa's lap, while they inspected a new toy.
Fun to see our families again. Good for my soul.

4th of July BBQ!

2011-07-17T13:46:00.000-07:00

Since we had been doing so much traveling, we decided to take it easy and lay low on 4th of July weekend. We dog-sat our friends' corgi puppy, Theo, as well, so it wasn't as relaxing as we expected! Haha! I forgot how much work puppies are. But it was fun. We had Jeff and Liv and our new friend Lynne over for a BBQ on Saturday. Good summer fun.

Emily and Cliff Ward

2011-07-17T13:18:00.000-07:00

Did I mention it's wedding season? The following weekend, we flew to Denver for our friends' Cliff and Emily's wedding! We had both never been to Colorado, so we took an extra day off and made it into a little vacation. We, of course, tried a variety of interesting beers, since it's beer country out there. Seth was in his element. We didn't get any pictures at the breweries, but we went to Great Divide and Avery. We also ate at a place called Fresh Craft which had a huge selection of craft beers. And then we went to The Falling Rock which was a bar that had a bazillion beers on tap. Not to mention, that at the wedding, the father of the bride had homebrewed all the beer there too! Beer overload.

Besides beer, we did do something I love as well. We went to the Denver Botanical Gardens! It was beautiful and hot!

I took this picture for Liv because she likes alliums, but they were the biggest I've ever seen! Up to my hips!
Seth, in a hobbit doorway, or the entrance to the Japanese garden.
Pretty peonies.
Cooling down in a little prayer hut. These bells on the ceiling were really cool.
Me in the Scripture Garden. We had fun trying to figure out what scripture references all the plants were from.
Yellow columbines. These are the Colorado state flower.
The Rockies! We stopped at an overlook on our way to Boulder to visit the Avery brewery.
And the wedding! It was in a beautiful Catholic church in downtown Denver.
These next few shots are a little blurry, but we didn't want to be "those people" who were flashing it up in the church. Here's Emily with her folks.
Cliff and Emily with the Father.
Married!
The reception was at an art gallery called the Space Gallery. It was cool 3-room building with a loft. Hence this cool photo from above.
Me and Seth
They had a cake pop wedding cake! Delicious!
Dancing
And we cornered them and made them take a photo with us at the end. Great wedding and it was super fun to see our friends that we miss so much again. We are still crossing our fingers that they'll move back to California some day!

Ambur and James Pedro

2011-07-17T12:51:00.000-07:00

I'm a little delayed in posting quite a few fun things we've been doing this summer. What's new. So I'll start in chronological order. On June 18th, our dear friends James and Ambur got married. They are friends from our church down here in Long Beach, but they are both from the Sonora area so that is where the wedding was held. I (with the help of a bunch of friends and Seth) did the flowers for them. You can see more about them on my flower bog. Seth and I left Friday morning and drove up to the flower mart in LA, then hit the road with a car full of flowers and our fingers crossed that the 6 hour drive in the heat wouldn't kill them all.

You can't tell, but all that newspaper in the back is wrapped up flowers.

Success! We made it up there and all the flowers looked great. Now, to work!

Heather and Amanda helping me put together the centerpieces.

24 centerpieces ready to go! We stayed up till 2 or 3am getting all the rest of the bouquets, bouts, etc all done.

Ah, now some time for some relaxing. We drove over to Jamestown for breakfast with our crew of friends in the morning. This is gold mining country and the whole town is very old-timey so it was a lot of fun to poke around in.

I have fond memories of going to Jamestown on a family vacation when I was a kid, so it was neat to remember being here so long ago and it all looking the same now.

On to the wedding! Here is a picture of a bunch of our friends from church that came up.

Andrew, our pastor, and Amanda. Andrew performed the ceremony.

Dressed up.

Ambur and her dad, walking down the aisle.

Ambur and James, all married up.
Oh, here's a centerpiece!
And a bridesmaid bouquet.
Cupcakes! mmmmm
Us again. We had a fabulous time!

It's working!

2011-06-19T21:43:00.000-07:00

The garden, that is. All that spring rain we had really helped get our front yard garden going. Here are some update photos for you to see the progress. We had to move a few things around because they got too big! A nice problem to have.

Hair Today, Groomed Tomorrow

2011-05-21T10:01:00.001-07:00

From mop-flop misfit...
...to looking like that old photograph of your grandpa.
9" long! My goal was to grow my hair long enough so I could be an extra on the Lord Of The Rings set. To my dismay, they chose to film The Hobbit in New Zealand, not LA. ;)
Crumb doesn't usually have googly eyes, I was just messing around in photoshop. That's the sort of thing that long-haired punks do.
Much more respectable. Thanks you Scottie at Razorbacks in Long Beach! Mandy forgot that I had ears.

More footy

2011-05-10T23:04:00.001-07:00

While Mandy is having fun in her ballet class on Wednesday night, I will be starting my soccer league. My team, Bauhaus FC, has our first game this week. I'm looking forward to it! Should be lots of fun and great exercise. Most of us on the team have never actually played soccer in any organized fashion beyond high school PE class... should be interesting... Go #23!

LA Galaxy vs NY RedBulls

2011-05-08T22:40:00.000-07:00

Mandy and I got to go out to the Home Depot Center Saturday evening to see the LA Galaxy take on the NY RedBulls. Surprisingly, this is the first soccer match that I've been to at the Home Depot Center, but it sure won't be my last. It was sort of a field trip event since we were sitting in the section w/ my fellow OC Arsenal Supporters, there to root on former Arsenal great Thierry Henry (14) now playing for NY. And he didn't disapoint, scoring w/in the first 5 minutes. Also on hand were Beckham and Donovan, both very fun to watch. The match ended in a 1-1 draw, even though the Galaxy dominated most of the game. But I'm not here to recap the match, you can read about it here if you're really interested. We were also able to meet up with a couple of the guys from RVCA, apparently they get tickets to the Galaxy on pretty frequent basis, so I will be using that connection through Mandy for plenty more matches this year :)

I've "hacked the Haaks"!

2011-05-03T13:15:00.000-07:00

Shhhh! This is Kate, Mandy's sister! I've hijacked the blog but don't tell them, it's a secret!

On May 3, 2008 Mandy & Seth were married, and shortly before the reception I was informed that I needed to give a toast to the newlyweds after Seth's brother Dan. eek! So I quickly came up with the line from Wedding Crashers "True love is your soul’s recognition of its counterpoint in another" only to realize that Dan STOLE it from me for HIS toast! (okay, okay...he didn't steal it from me, he had it first) So my impromptu speech ended up coming out as a bunch of rambling and lameness of which I pray none of you remember. Was there a video of the wedding? If so I haven't seen it (ahem sister!) but I also pray that my "toast" (or lack of one) was not recorded. I've always felt that Mandy & Seth needed a better toast...

And thus, my reason for hijacking the blog. Today is Mandy & Seth's anniversary!!!

Happy 3rd Anniversary!!

So here is "The Toast That Should Have Been":

Mandy - You are the best sister anyone could ask for. I loved sharing a room when we were little, driving to high school together, flying off to New York with you to check you into college, being your Matron of Honor and so many more memories. I have always wanted the absolute best for you and I know you've found it in Seth. I am proud of the woman you have become and the wife you seek to be. But mostly I want you to know that Mom would be overjoyed with the life path you have chosen and the wonderful Christian man you have by your side to spend the rest of your life with.

Seth - I am deeply appreciative of your dedication to Mandy. With you in her life, I feel like I can pass my "overprotective baton" to you and know that she is being taken care of. I am excited to have you as a part of our family!

To Mandy & Seth!

Cheers!

Love,

Kate

La Mesa

2011-04-11T23:17:00.001-07:00

The new/found dining room table. A few Singer sewing machine legs found by Mandy on Ebay. Shipping cost as much as the legs themselves...

Re-assembly.

Testing out the height before we attach them. Crum supervises from the grass.

A few poses later and the epoxy is applied and dried. Done in our super craft-room/garage/mostly-dust-free-environment.

Placed in the house. Looks great! We can't wait to have friends and family over for dinner parties.

Now it's on to the next project of hanging all the artwork on the walls in the dining room, replacing the curtains and refinishing the chairs. Maybe next weekend...

RVCA art department salsa cook-off!

2011-03-30T22:24:00.000-07:00

That's right, my job rules. The fun and quirky kids of the art department at RVCA came up with an awesome idea... to have a salsa cook-off contest. We all love spicy food and hot sauce and salsa, but none of us had ever really delved into the fine art of making any of it. So, we all chose our secret recipes, spent a weekend concocting them, and brought them in for the taste off on Monday.

Here's a photo of my ingredients, well, most of them. I can't give away all my secrets! I chose a mango habanero salsa for my entry.

Artsy shot of me chopping.And chopping.And chopping. It seemed like hours of chopping. I put in all three of those habaneros and it was hardly spicy at all. Actually everyone had the same problem. All of our salsas seemed to mellow out over night. I wonder why?And this is the closest shot I have to the finished result. I waited until the morning of the contest to add the mango so that it didn't overpower the salsa. Thanks for that advice Andrew!

It was a really fun contest, everyone had a great time participating and tasting. And the best part... I won! Salsa champion!!!!! woohoo!

Bad blogger

2011-03-30T22:19:00.000-07:00

Well, again, life has zipped by and I haven't updated you, our four followers, of what's going on. Apparently, we are really busy doing fun things! I downloaded the photos off our camera tonight and found some gems to share. Here are a few pictures of Crum looking cute, just for fun.

Esther ch.3: Mordecai refuses to bow

2011-02-24T22:59:00.001-08:00

From Esther ch.3. A painting of Mordecai refusing to bow to Haman. Most likely a refusal to bow to a Agagite, not a deity/idol thing. Refusing, as a Jew, to bow to a cultural enemy.

I wold have spent more time on details and such since it's a rather large canvas (16x20"), but the closest it will be seen is from at least 20 feet away. It's an illustration for our Esther series at RCLB. Each week, someone is doing a painting to illustrate that week's chapter. So I went w/ 'mural' detail levels... just trying to get the general feel. Let me know what you think.

Reposted from http://arthaak.blogspot.com/

Project Lawn-To-Garden: complete

2011-02-02T20:17:00.000-08:00

For the last few months we've been involved w/ converting our boring, old, grab-grass lawn into a drought resistant marvel of a garden that would feature lots of California native plants. We heard about Long Beach's program that assists water-conscious citizens, like ourselves (Mandy mostly), and signed up. We didn't make the first round, so we sat on a waiting list for a few months until the program got some more funds and then we got the green-light. Mandy made her blue print which were then submitted and approved by the LB water department and we began in earnest! Here's a shot of the lawn before we started to kill it. Note that it's already pretty brown in spots because we never watered it enough anyway.

We worked w/ Jerry (and Brandon) Stout, who were awesome at working within our budget. Jerry sent Brandon over and his first task was to demolish the little cement path that led up to the stoop and then rototill the lawn.
Next, Jerry came by and based off Mandy's plans, marked out where the decomposed granite pathway would go. We took a trip down to Home Depot and got the plastic divider/separators that we would use to keep the path and lawn from melting into each other.
Here I am digging the trenches and installing the plastic walls that would separate the path from the garden. Mandy helped a lot too, just making that clear... I didn't do all the work.
Next, Brandon came back and put the decomposed granite down for the walk. We could already start to see it looking good at that point. After the DG pathway, we had to dig out the ditches for the new irrigation/water-smart sprinkler system. This wasn't as tough as it looks, our dirt is thankfully pretty soft and sandy to start w/ and since the whole lawn was freshly rototilled, it was still all pretty loose.
Cleaning up and double-checking the trenches before laying down the PVC. ... Yup, it's a ditch...
Our friend James came to help us install the sprinkler system. He's got about as much experience installing sprinklers as we do, but it's always nice to have another hand w/ a shovel. It definitely sped up the process as we were quickly running out of time. Did I forget mention that by this point it was Saturday and our deadline was the next Wednesday?
Backfilling the ditches. We left all the joints and sprinklers exposed so we could test the system and make sure there were no major leaks before we buried it all. Looks good to me, although once you turn on the sprinklers to check them, everything gets pretty soaked which makes the whole process kind of hard to check for leaks.
After several trips to several nurseries, we had all the plants. Mandy, again, used her blue prints and laid out the plants according to plan. Almost there!
FINALLY! A photo w/ Mandy doing some real work. She was the expert gardener/planter. For every 1 plant I got in the ground, I would turn around and she had 3 planted. That's a good thing because at this point it's now Sunday afternoon before everything was finally in the ground. Not pictured is me assembling our new wheelbarrow (that I would need for the tanbark phase) and loosing my cool as it was a real pain to assemble. I had to use the rubber mallet... a lot.
I took the day off Monday and laid down the finishing touch: black tanbark!
...22 bags worth...

You wouldn't believe all the compliments I got from our neighbors and strangers walking by the house on how nice the garden turned out. I, naturally, took all the credit for myself (I do all the work!). Actually, the only real plants I could point out as my favorites were the 'grassy-bushy stuff' and the artichoke plant in the middle.
I had to go back to Home Depot in the middle of the day and the lady-cashier asked me if there was any difference between the red tanbark and the black tan bark. I said, "Not that I know of. But my wife likes the color black and what she says goes." She got a real kick out of that... I don't know why...

Here's the view from the stoop, looking out over the mighty garden and out onto the mighty T100! I knew there was a reason we had a truck... (22 bags!)
We got the good news today from the LB water department that the garden checked out and was accepted. Huzzah!

If you too live in Long Beach and want to convert your lawn into a garden, check out the website here: http://www.lblawntogarden.com/

And here's our house in their 'completed gardens' section!!! http://www.lblawntogarden.com/gardens_2010/garden-detail.asp?garden=187

(22 bags!!!)

Theology on Tap or HomeBrew session number 1

2011-01-31T17:26:00.000-08:00

So for the past year or more, I've started to get more and more interested by brewpubs, craftbrew, and homebrew. I'm not the only one because finally, two other guys from my church convinced me that it would be a good idea if all three of us brewed our own beers. Then we could invite some other guys over from the church to taste them and have a little discussion about a particular theological topic.This started early December. So we knew that we wanted to do the theology thing in January, and what little we knew about brewing beer was that it takes about 4 weeks to brew before it's really consumable. So, knowing that I would be gone for two weeks to England in the end of December, we rushed out and got our kits. So the night before Mandy and I flew out to England, Antonio and Andrew came over to start the brews.

The kits. Each one includes two 6.5gallon bucket and a load of tools and brewing book. We each decided on three 'basic' beers: pale ale, amber ale, and a wheat.

Andrew starts the boiling water and malt.
Then we sit down to start reading about just what exactly it is we are doing and some instructions that we might need at some point...
Skip forward two weeks, Mandy and I get back from England, the guys come over and we transfer our brews from the fermentation buckets into our bottles. At this point the yeast has begun working on the malt and hops (wort), so we can get a taste of what the final product is going to be like and can take our ABV (alchohol by volume) readings. Pale=5%, Amber=7%, Wheat=5%. So now we add a simple sugar compound that the yeast will use to create carbon dioxide (bubbles!!!) and bottle it all up. Each batch results in 24, 22oz bottles... except for the pale ale which was apparently sealed incorrectly and leaked a bit during the two-week fermentation period... foreshadowing....?

So the bottles go in boxes and the boxes go in a corner of the garage to sit for another 2 weeks.
FINALLY! The night we've been waiting for: the uncapping. We line up a few bottles and pop open those suckers.

We taste each of the beers and make our notes which we can use for future recipes and brews. The verdict/names we gave the beers that night:

Pale Ale: 'Nature's fruit' or 'Citris Pale Fail'. The leak must have let in some air during the fermentation period and created an unwanted 'cider-like' flavor.

Amber Ale: 'Belgium Amber'. tasted like an amber up front, but a bit less carbonation and almost an alcohol aftertaste, sort of like a belgium.

Wheat: 'Hoppy-Hef'. Tasted like a hefeweizen, but more hoppy like you would expect from an IPA... weird. This one was my personal favorite because it tasted so much like an IPA. I like those bitter hops!

So, about another week and a half after first opening them, we had our 'Theology on Tap'. The beers were tasted by our peers and enjoyed. There were some great discussions that came out of the theological topic of the night too: 'Can you love Jesus well and enjoy beer?' The verdict was very positive and our next TonT might include a few more guy's brews...

I think our next batch will include a pilsner, a dark lager, and a porter.

Our Really Red Kitchen Ceiling

2011-01-31T17:13:00.001-08:00

The story of the Red Kitchen Ceiling:

Here's how it began. A boring old white kitchen ceiling. That brown rectangle you see is where there used to be an ugly florescent light fixture. It wasn't working, so we really wanted to replace it to add some more light to the kitchen. Once we pulled it off, it became obvious that the kitchen ceiling at one time must have been this ugly swamp-brown. Good call to paint it white. Our new fixture was going to be a little smaller than the florescent fixture, which meant we were going to need to paint the ceiling anyway. So what kind of paint do we have just laying around our garage? 'Exotic Red', of course... Here's what the kitchen looked like before, sans florescent fixture.

In Soviet Russia, ladder uses Seth to get taller.
Day one, first coat of paint done. A bit splotchy, but still is already managing to give the kitchen a warm, rosy tint.
Day two/three: Once the second coat of paint was done and dry, I installed the new fixtures. Electrical wiring from the 40's is scary...
But the house hasn't burnt down yet and the lights turn on, so I guess I did something right.

Basking in the success...

English Holiday 1/1/11 and 1/2/11

2011-01-03T16:59:00.001-08:00

New Year's Day, we said our goodbyes to Rob and Natalie, who were headed home to Manchester, and we left for London. Hey look John, it's Harrogate! Once we checked-in to our hotel across the street from Heathrow, we headed back into the city for one final Arsenal match. We fought traffic all the way through London and ended up at another local Arsenal-fan pub, the Twelve Pins. Birmingham City 0 - 3 Arsenal. Fun way to end the trip!

1/2/11: Flat Stanley, who had been travelling w/ us the entire time (he'll probably have his own separate entry all together) helps us check in to our flight. We left London-Heathrow ~noon and landed at LAX ~3:30pm. We forced ourselves to stay up 'til at least 9pm in order to start getting back on the pacific time zone (an 8 hour difference). What an amazing trip! We already really miss all our new friends and want to thank all our gracious hosts who opened up their homes to us and shared the holidays w/ us. It's a holiday we'll never forget! Ta much!

English Holiday 12/31/10

2011-01-03T16:31:00.001-08:00

A beautiful New Year's Eve day.
Moss was everywhere, especially on the stone walls.
Getting ready to do a little bit of rambling our own.
These stairways/doors in the stone walls allowed you to pass from one pasture to another. There were no 'No Trespassing' signs anywhere! Quite a shock, in a refreshing kind of way, for us Americans. The whole area was some sort of national park because of the glaciers that left such an interesting scar on the landscape.

Plenty of trails for the ramblers.
A cave! We climbed up to look in, but it didn't look like it went anywhere.
Looking out over the Dales.
Out of memory! Too many things to takes photos of.
Moss!
The community billboard and bus stop.
An old Methodist church. Nobody was there, but we poked around anyway.
The Falcon in the village of Arncliff, where Emmerdale used to be filmed in the 70's. The place is the Woolpack Inn on the show. It wasn't very glamorous in real life, but the owner was quite a character. We didn't stay long.
6 people in what is probably most comfortably a 4-seater car.
Wensleydale Creamery! Made famous most recently by 'Wallace and Gromit'. Amazing cheese! They have a sample room where you can try a slice of every one of their cheeses. So we did.
The Dale's Viaduct.

We spent the rest of the evening at the B&B to quietly welcome in the 2011. We watched Jools Holand's music show and ate Wensleydale cheese on crackers w/ wine.

English Holiday 12/30/10

2011-01-03T16:15:00.001-08:00

Leaving Manchester for the Yorkshire Dales. Goodbye Manchester, you were pretty awesome.
The Vauxhall was economical, but between the four of us, it just *barely* fit all the luggage.
The B&B we stayed at was in Malham, just east of Settle.
There were ramblers all over the place.
We had to wait two hours before the kitchen would open at this pub. Doesn't sound that long, but as we soon discovered, time has a way of stretching out in the Dales... Friendships and relationships were put to the test as we had nothing to hold us over but bags of crisps and pints.
I specifically told Kurt to hold still for this photo. :)

English Holiday 12/29/10

2011-01-03T16:05:00.001-08:00

A beautiful day for a wedding.
Natalie and folks.
Getting ready for the ceremony.
Making it official w/ the state. A beautiful, low-key wedding. We were very blessed and honored to be invited to share in this special day. Congratulations you two!
Celebrating in style w/ some real Cubans. Delicious and smooth!
Kurt and I headed out to Wigan that evening. We met up w/ some of his gooner friends before the match for food and drinks.
When does a draw feel like a loss? When it's to Wigan Athletic. Well, a point is a point...

English Holiday 12/28/10

2011-01-03T15:55:00.001-08:00

Grey Manchester. Reminded us very much of the Pacific Northwest, Seattle/Portland. Very cool city. We wandered the streets and did a bit of shopping.

At the Waldorf pub. I think we were watching the West Ham game...
Next, we headed over to the B-Lounge were we met up w/ Rob, Natalie, Gemma, and Matt.
Kurt and Rob: BFFs

English Holiday 12/27/10

2011-01-03T15:43:00.001-08:00

There are churches everywhere in London. This one was smooshed up right against our hotel. Not exactly sure who the regular attendance is, considering we're right in the middle of the financial district which basically shuts down and is a major ghost town on weekends and holidays.
English breakfast before splitting up w/ the girls to go our separate ways for the day.
They hit up all the major museums.
Kurt and I wandered the streets a bit directionless. We did make it to the British Museum.
The Tollington, a Gooner hangout before the Arsenal-Chelsea match that night.
Arsenal 3-1 Chelsea. Awesome match to watch in a packed stadium of 60,000+ rabid fans. Mandy and Heidi, who opted out of going to the match had to wander the cold streets because unfortunately most everything was closed down in the neighborhood...

After the match, we headed up to Manchester. The GPS took us on the scenic route, which would have been great if it weren't the middle of the night. We arrived at our hotel in Manchester at 4am.

English Holiday 12/26/10

2011-01-03T15:22:00.001-08:00

Boxing Day. There was also a Tube Strike going on this day, which made it a nightmare to get around on public transportation. Mandy and Heidi planning out where they can go that day.
Kurt and I had tickets for the Emerites' Stadium tour.
Arsenal Legend/Tour guide: Charlie George. Very funny and friendly guy.
We also ran over to the old Highbury Stadium, were The Arsenal use to play before the 2006 season. They kept most of the exterior architecture but have taken out the stands and turned it into an apartment complex. The old space in the middle that used to be the pitch is now park. Pretty neat!
Big Ben (the clock, not the quarterback)!
The Eye of London.
Buckingham Palace. The flag was up, so the queen must have been there... somewhere...
Finished the evening at the Three Grey Hounds in SOHO.

Most pubs have these interesting levers that they use to serve their draught beers. And everything is either an Ale, Bitter, or Cider. Most everything is served room-temperature and pretty much everything is between only 4-5%ABV. This was quite a contrast compared to all the Imperial IPA's I've been enjoying lately. I suppose it makes sense to have such a low ABV if you're serving something relatively flat and room temperature, because they're so drinkable there is quite a bit that gets consumed at the pub every night. I was a bit repulsed at first by the flavors although I was determined to only drink the local brews that couldn't be found in the States. I ended up mostly enjoying the LandLord, John Smith's, and the Timothy Taylor Bitter.

Despite the amout of beers that you saw being drank at the pub, I can't recall seeing a single person who was drunk. You really could never drink that much w/ the 7.5-9%ABV microbrews that are so common (and delicious) in the States. 1 pint is usually enough for me for a night, so I prefer it to be full-flavored.

English Holiday 12/25/10

2011-01-03T15:02:00.000-08:00

Christmas Morning! The outlets in the bathrooms of the hotels we stayed at were only for electric shavers, so Mandy had to find the only outlets in the room that would work w/ the hairdryer. Conveniently, the outlets were behind the TV...

It's cold out, but not snowing.

Our hotel, the Apex, was practically right across the street from the Tower of London... which is more like a castle than a tower, really...

We got to enjoy Christmas dinner w/ some real Londoners. Nothing like a home-cooked holiday meal. Delicious!

Kurt's excited about the poppers!

We finished the evening by watching all the British soaps... EastEnders, Coronation Street, Emmerdale, and The Royle Family. Kurt loves those stories. Seriously.

English Holiday: 12/24/10

2011-01-03T14:51:00.000-08:00

Successfully arrived at the hotel after the 10hr, redeye flight from LAX to London-Heathrow. It took us a while to actually find the hotel once we got off our 'tube' stop.

We met up w/ our good friends, Kurt and Heidi. They had already been touring Europe for the past 2 weeks by the time we caught up w/ them in England. We headed out to see what would be open for dinner on Christmas Eve.

Mulled wine.

Ended the eveninging singing Christmas carols at the Shakespeare's Head on Carnaby Street.

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-22T16:03:00.000-08:00

Lord willing, we are off to England tomorrow for our Christmas adventure. Hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and New Years!

Using all of the buffalo

2010-11-28T23:35:00.000-08:00

Being herbivores ourselves, we don't cook much meat in our house. But, seeing as how we had 20 guests for the holiday coming over who are more than likely meat eaters, John brought us down a turkey and so kindly cooked it for our feast. After all the good meat had been sliced off and saved in the fridge, I became determined to get ALL of the rest of it off and turn the scraps and broth into dog food for Crum, since no one else wanted it. In the spirit of the early native Americans, if we're going to kill an animal, let's be sure to use all of it. Here's our 4 hour project in a photo montage. VEGANS! AVERT YOUR EYES NOW!

Here I am, boiling the bones down.

One clean carcass! And a house filled with the smell of turkey. Note the spray bottle on the counter for spraying Crum because he was whining so much in the kitchen.

I left out some other gross photos, but here's the final product! I added in some carrots, spinach, rice, and black eyed peas to the broth and meat and blended it up. My hand is in there for bowl size reference!

Kim had a great idea of freezing them in muffin tins so they were individual size servings! It's working out nicely, but taking my whole freezer. I had to make Seth get rid of his beloved Otter Pops to make room.

Ah, final product being enjoyed (scarfed down) by Crum.

It made me feel better about using all of the bird and it's making Crum one happy dog!

The day after

2010-11-28T23:25:00.001-08:00

The day after Thanksgiving, we wished Dan and Melody a happy 7 year anniversary and they left for a trip to Hearst Castle. Here's family photo.

Crum really enjoyed having us around the house for so long this week. He got extra attention and extra food scraps, despite him being on a diet. We'll start the diet on Monday.

John brought down a cigar he's been meaning to smoke and the last bottle of champagne they still had from our wedding. So, being in southern California and all, we went outside into the wonderful weather, and spent an hour or so being fabulous, smoking cigars and drinking champagne.
I had a puff, just to say I tried it, but I think we all agreed that cigars are gross. The champagne and company were great though! Fun times.

Thankful.

2010-11-28T23:06:00.000-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving! We had a lovely one, the first one in our house! John, Kim, Dan, and Melody came down for the occasion and we also hosted all of our church friends who couldn't go home for the day. I think we had about 20 people! It was so fun to have our family around. We missed my dad and Michele and Kate, John, and Kaylee, but we did get to skype with them for a bit on the big day. Oh the magic of technology! I'm thankful for that for sure!

Here's a bunch of our church buddies crammed in the kitchen.

Squeezed in the living room.

Dan, Mel, and Kim chatting before dinner.

John bbq'd his turkey and put apples inside. I tasted it and it was great!
Must have photo of the food! This is only 1/5th of the counter space that was covered in food. Kim and I made a bunch of dishes for the dinner including: mushroom stuffing (from scratch of course), bourbon sweet potatoes with cranberry glaze, roasted Brussels sprouts with cranberry brown butter, and pumpkin pie. Seth made mashed potatoes, his own special recipe.

And of course, we had about 10 different desserts!

I couldn't find any cornucopias, so I made a stick wreath from found sticks outside and then made an arrangement to set inside it. Turned out pretty.

Hope your day was great and filled with good food and friends. We love you!

New beginings

2010-11-22T22:36:00.000-08:00

As I mentioned, I recently got a new job at RVCA (pronounced rooka)! I spent almost 4 years at Quiksilver in the Tony Hawk department and loved it, but it was time for something new. If you aren't familiar with RVCA, check out what they do. This is one of those companies that I love everything they do, and am so excited to have the opportunity to work here for the next chapter in my life. I'm in the art department now as opposed to the cut and sew design department at Quik. I'm learning new things everyday and loving it all! And I am blessed to work with really cool people too!

Halloweena ballerinas

2010-11-22T22:20:00.000-08:00

Like I said, we aren't good bloggers. Here's the update from Halloween and it's almost Thanksgiving. Sigh. Anyhow, I recently got a new job with a different company (RVCA) and as my parting gift to me, I somehow convinced my Quiksilver coworkers to dress as ballerinas for the company Halloween party. This is the awesomeness that ended it up being:

I had to make the boys tutus "extra long and fluffy" in order for them to wear them.

And, like so many other crazy pet owners do on Halloween, I dressed up my dog in a matching ballerina costume. He looks uncomfortable. (Don't worry, I only made him wear it for the photo, and took it right off).

Such neglect

2010-10-29T18:35:00.000-07:00

Let's face it, we aren't good bloggers. Sigh. So anyhow, we need to fill you in on what's been happening with us as of late. It's way too hard to post everything we've done since my last post, so I'll just give you some highlights and promise to be better at keeping up. Double sigh.

Okay. In September, we went to the Santa Barbara area for the wedding of Nate and Kristin Dreesman which was absolutely lovely! Thanks for inviting us, we had a blast.

Dan and Melody looking sharp!

Seth and Kevin having good times

Then, Jeffy had a birthday! He decided he wanted a rock star themed party, so the costumes were pretty amazing. Seth went as David Bowie (Ziggy Stardust era) and I went as Siouxie Sioux from Siouxie and the Banshees. Jeff was Angus from ACDC and Liv was Ace Freely from Kiss. Good times!

We Like Flowers!

2010-06-18T09:59:00.001-07:00

Liv and I are launching our freelance floral "business" blog today! Please visit us at www.welikeflowers.blogspot.com. We went with the obvious name after throwing a few fun ones out there, but we wanted something straightforward that didn't limit the style or event that we would do flowers for and we just said "You know, we like flowers. We want to do this." And so it begins...

If you need any arrangements or a florist for an event and are in Southern California, you give us a call! We're pretty cheap and have a lot of fun ideas. We're keeping our day jobs but would like to take on a few projects and we'll take it from there. We're super excited!

Summer hair

2010-06-08T14:50:00.001-07:00

As you can see, my hair was getting out of control! It's pretty much a curly mess of a bird's nest when it gets past a certain length. And, since summer is upon us, I decided to get a drastic new hair cut! I went to my new friend Jaime at the Toni and Guy salon in Newport Beach. She also happens to be my dear friend Paula's daughter. It was such a fun experience! I haven't had my hair cut in a salon in so long, so I had a good time. Here's before:

And after! Sassy!

More plants

2010-06-08T13:44:00.000-07:00

I planted a few more plants in the front planter bed. Our lovely neighbors Sharon and Todd gave us some plants as a welcome to the neighborhood gift. One of them is the plant in the middle here with little yellow flowers. It's some sort of scotchbroom but I can't remember the name now.

I bought the purple flowers at Rodger's Gardens in Newport Beach with Liv a few weekends ago. I got the idea from Sharon's garden and I've been looking for it for a while now. It smells like licorice and attracts butterflies!
And here's our lavender, mint, and gardenia. Still looking good! Not dead yet! The mint is even bigger now and about to take over this little space. Good thing I love mint! I need to look up a good mojito recipe for the summer.

Crum's 1st Birthday!

2010-06-08T13:38:00.000-07:00

June 2nd was Crum's 1st birthday. Seth wouldn't let me throw the dog a party for fear that I would become a "crazy dog lady" so I settled for making him a party hat and putting his bowtie on for a few pictures. This series of pictures makes him look like the hat is weighing his head down and he can't hold it up anymore! haha! It was only on for a minute before he tried to get it off and eat it. Happy birthday Crummy!

Kelsey and Jake

2010-06-08T13:19:00.000-07:00

Well, as usual, I am way behind in updating the blog. We went to our good friends Kelsey and Jake's wedding in early May and I'm finally putting up the pics! It was a really fun and beautiful wedding in Encinitas, CA. Enjoy.

Liv and I did the flowers too! We were really pleased with how they turned out. And most importantly, so was Kelsey!

They had a candy bar which was so fun! Everyone got to fill up cute bags of candy to go. Seth ate my whole bag so he now owes me some very hard to find candies. grrrrrr.

And instead of a cake, they had pretty cupcakes! They were delicious! What a great wedding!

Anniversary fun

2010-05-09T15:52:00.001-07:00

As usual, I'm a bit late keeping you updated on our whereabouts. Anyhow, we had a fabulous anniversary weekend celebrating our 2nd year married. First, we planted some new plants in the front yard. I was very excited to harvest my first batch of compost from my composter and use it in the garden. It took a lot of sifting to get all the critters out, but finally, I ended up with some really good looking compost!

I bought a few plants at the Armstrong garden center here in Long Beach: creeping rosemary, mint, lavender, and chocolate mint! Seth and I tilled up some small patches in the front planters and mixed in the compost.

So far, the plants are still alive and they look like they might work here!

Then, Seth took me out to a swanky restaurant, called the Sky Room in Long Beach for dinner. It was sooooo fabulous! We had a great time. The building was built in the 1930's and has a lot of it's original art deco molding and architecture. They have an elevator attendant who wears a tuxedo and a top hat and tells you historical facts about the building on your way up to the top! So fascinating.

We even got dessert! MMmmmmmm...

The waiter took a terrible picture of us in the restaurant, so we took one ourselves at home. It was a fun night.

Two years!

2010-05-03T22:33:00.001-07:00

5/3/2008

Crum's new work-bed

2010-04-27T12:40:00.000-07:00

When Crum isn't chasing around basketballs, he spends most of his time sleeping by my feet on his new bed. He used to sleep most of the day on my lap, but it makes typing difficult and I have to get up to talk to people all throughout the day.

A birthday to remember!

2010-04-19T23:07:00.000-07:00

Well, thanks to my swell husband and my fab friends and family, I had a terrific 30th birthday! First, my dad and Michele came to visit us on Thursday night. We went to King's Fish House for dinner and the food was really great. So was the company! Thanks for making the trip down to see us.

Then, Saturday, Seth and I tidied up the house before the party most of the day. I didn't get a final count, but there must have been at least 40 people at the party! I felt loved. It was a really fun gathering. Alicia, Hanan, and Nate came up from San Diego and Janette drove up from the boonies that she lives in too! It was such a special treat. (Jana, Nate, and Matt eating cupcakes!)

My dear friends Jana and Matt, of Jana's Fun Cakes, made me the best birthday cake! It was sooooo me! Literally. My face was on it. haha! And some leopard print, bats, and green icing on the cupcakes. What more could I ask for! It was so tasty too. You should hire her! Thank you thank you thank you! Also pictured below, my friend Jerod made me a homemade pinata in the shape of a sleeping bat! So cool! He couldn't make it to the party, but we forgot to crack it open that night with all the jabbering I was doing. So, another excuse for a party presents itself!

Thanks to everyone who came out and to all that couldn't make it but sent me birthday wishes. I feel truly loved. 30 is going to be a great year!

Oh yes, and Crum had a great time at the party too. He liked all the attention he got, but he didn't like his party bowtie I made for him as much.

Crum At Work With Seth

2010-04-13T13:05:00.000-07:00

Crum helping me out around the workplace. By 'workplace', I mean basketball court. By 'helping', I mean chasing the flat ball around. :)

oh, where have we been?!

2010-04-10T20:01:00.000-07:00

Well, apparently, we aren't good bloggers. We have left you all (the 4 followers of this blog) waiting in suspense for months! Well, here's a quick re-cap of what we've been up to the last 3 months. (Ugh, has it really been that long?)

February was lovely. Seth's birthday and party were super fun.

March was fun-filled. We went to New York for a bit of work and a bit of vacation. We got to spend some quality time with Heidi and Kurt and Ruben and Jessica. We miss them.

We also got to go to my cousin Heidi's wedding at the end of the month in Fresno. It was a great opportunity to see my side of the family and made me feel very refreshed.

On a sadder note, my grandmother, Faie Holt, passed away that same week and is now home with our Heavenly Father. We stayed the weekend with my cousins Doug and Annalaura so that we could go to the funeral on Monday. Although the passing of a beloved family member is awfully hard, she is in a better place now and not suffering in this earthly body anymore. For that, I praise the Lord.

After that, we rushed home Monday evening, repacked my suitcase, and I hopped on a flight to Milwaukee, WI for a day of meetings for work on Tuesday and Wednesday. Then, my friend Heather, who lives in Chicago, picked me up and we hung out in the windy city for the next few days! What a fun treat! I took a few vacation days to see her and it was so fun.

We walked all over the place, ate cupcakes, went to some beautiful gardens, visited the Art Institute Museum, and then she surprised my with high tea at the Drake Hotel! Thanks Heather!

Now that it's April, we are having another great month. This weekend, Liv and Jeff finally got to move into their new house which is only 6 blocks away from our house! Moving is always a chore, but this move was so fun and we had lots of help and good friends and food. And the drama involved in their house hunting has made this move that much sweeter. Congrats to you both! We are so happy for you.

Next week, my dad and Michele come for a visit and my 30th birthday happens! Much more fun to come.

oh, and p.s. we got Crum a giant mustache toy which is pretty hilarious.

Happy Birthday Seth!

2010-02-09T14:51:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was my (Seth) b'day. We had a nice relaxed evening w/ the life group. We're having the real party this Friday. But I wanted to show off the sweet cupcake my work got me. It's from Sprinkles, Vegan Red Velvet.

Frank tells me that the original Red Velvet recipe calls for a little bit of blood, which is where they would get the 'red' coloring from. I find that hard to believe.

The gin update

2010-01-13T13:19:00.000-08:00

In case you are all wondering, we tasted the gin experiments. Some were good and others, not so much. The winners: apple/pear, cucumber, and clove! The losers: rosemary, lemon peppercorn, and the olive/jalepeno. That one needs another try because the only problem is that I put way too many jalepenos in and it was unbearably spicy! Might be good in bloody mary mix, but with seltzer, it is undrinkable. I might try vanilla next.

The big 3-0

2010-01-11T15:31:00.001-08:00

This year, I (Mandy) will be turning 30! I'm feeling like such an adult! I saw a friend that I hadn't seen in a while the other day, who is also turning 30 soon, and she had a fabulous idea that I'm stealing. She made a "30 things to do before I turn 30" list. What a fantastic idea to celebrate life and get make yourself do a bunch of fun things! Since I only have a few months, I decided to make mine "30 things to do in the year I turn 30" so that I have more time to space them out and make it a memorable year. Now, all I have to do is make my list. If you have any great suggestions, let me know. So far, the list includes such items as:

1. Go to Catalina Island

2. Go wine tasting in Temecula

3. Buy real Native American moccasins

4. Open an Etsy store (since everyone always asks)

That's not all I have, but there's a taste for you. Let the suggestions pour in! Seth suggested "bungee jumping out of an airplane". No.

'In the Throws of Winter' or 'Just Had to Share'

2010-01-09T09:13:00.000-08:00

Today's newspaper...

Southern California is really roughing it. Our children will ask, "What's are these 'seasons' you speak of?" On the other hand, it means I have no excuses to not rake and mow the lawn. I'm thinking this calls for a round of disc-golf.
Crum being weird at my folk's house back on Christmas. Perched on the footstool under the table.

I'm usually so good at remembering to take pictures...

2009-12-31T18:24:00.000-08:00

But these past few months, it's like I forgot we own a camera! I guess I've been too busy enjoying life to worry about taking photos. Anyhow, we had a lovely Christmas (I have no photos of course) up in San Jose with our families (minus Kate, John, and Kaylee who enjoyed an NC Christmas with the Wilkins!). We drove up to San Jose on the 24th just in time for the Christmas eve service at Mountain Bible church, then dinner and games with the Haak family. Christmas day, we drove over to Michele's house for dinner with her, my dad, John, and Kim. We brought Crum with us and he got to play with Michele's dog Casey, who was not amused. We got to see their vacation photos from Israel, Jordan, and Egypt. It sealed the deal for us, we have to go to Israel! We spent the next few days enjoying friends and family. We even got to see Eileen and Jim and their new baby Andrew, who is such a well mannered cutie pie. It was a great refreshing trip full of joy.

Here's Seth and Crum with our little Christmas tree -

Crum is "helping decorate" -

Pre-Christmas crafting. Crum is "helping" me again -

And here he is just being cute -

Since I have forced time off at work, I've been trying to get to some of the projects around here that I've been putting off. One of them is infusing gin with various natural flavors! I started these a few days ago and they take a week of infusing, so I will let you know how they turn out. Flavors include: apple and pear, olive and jalapeño, rosemary, lemon and peppercorn, clove, and cucumber.

Abbreviated Fall update

2009-12-10T20:01:00.000-08:00

Fall is here! And it's already nearly winter. We've had a busy month-and-a-half since our last Halloween update. We've welcomed a new member into our family, Crum, the frenchie pup, have been visited by our friends Kurt and Heidi from New York, celebrated Thanksgiving, and celebrated Liv's 30th B'day. You can read better descriptions of those events from the people themselves: Powers and McMillans.

I couldn't get a hold of all the photos we've taken over the past weeks, but here's a sampling:

Visiting Grandma Holt in Selma (that's near Fresno). She's a firecracker, ornery as ever!

And here's Crum! He's a nearly 6-months old and quite a handful...

He may look innocent, but he's probably thinking about chewing something or how to get in trouble next. He goes w/ me to work about 2 days a week, any more than that and I wouldn't get any work done at all. Everyone loves him there.

Halloween, my favorite time of the year

2009-11-07T21:23:00.000-08:00

I think I actually like Halloween even better than my own birthday. It's so fun to get silly and dress up in whatever you want for a day! AND eat a ton of candy and not feel guilty. This year Seth and I went as Batman and Catwoman. But not the new one, the old 60's Adam West TV show style Batman and Catwoman. For pulling these together in a week, I think they turned out pretty fun! Next year, no spandex. We got to wear them to Seth's work party and at our house on Saturday. We had Liv, Jeff, Matt, Jana, Kelsey, and Jake over for food, scary movies, games and handing out candy. Apparently, our neighborhood is a hot spot for trick or treaters. We went through 12 lbs of candy (6 bags!) in 2 hours! whoah!

Jeffy's 8 year old birthday party!

2009-11-02T23:38:00.000-08:00

Jeff turned something over 3o this year so we pretty much stopped counting and had him an 8 year old's birthday instead (by his request!). We had pizza, finally got to hang out with Henry (Mark and Karen's adorable baby, who made me want one), played Butts Up at the park, and ate cake at the Puka Bar (I suppose that was the adult part of the evening). It was a thoroughly enjoyable evening. Happy birthday Jeff!

I was trying not to flash in Henry's eyes so this is blurry, but you can still tell he's really cute!

Butts Up - see Liv's blog for rules -

And the confetti cake with marshmallow icing at the Puka Bar! mmmm yum!

The birthday boy!

Dan and Amber's wedding

2009-11-02T23:03:00.000-08:00

Our friend Amber has to be the most stunning bride I've ever seen - she wore a red dress! Amazing! Everyone was shocked but not surprised, because she's just that cool. She looked so beautiful and unique. Dan and Amber asked their guests to wear red and black attire and almost everyone did! it was such a neat addition to their wedding. Everyone looked like they belonged there. It was a great party, lots of wonderful people, dancing, great food, and best of all a great celebration of Dan and Amber. So many personal touches and neat style details! Kudos to a great wedding!

The dress -

So cute! Their flower girls had little black angel wings and red halos!

Dan and Amber cutting the cake. Even the CAKE was red and black-

Seth and I enjoying the reception. Red wine seemed the obvious choice for a drink. Note the cool birdcages on the tables!

Cliff, always looking ready to do something important -

Jim and Aaron, buddies -

Alex and TeeTee, relaxin' -

Emily and Cliff, drinking fake white Russians, also now known as the Colorado Russian -

Ryan and I - masks were provided at all the place settings!

And before the wedding, we got to have our fun friends Cliff and Emily, some of our favorite people, stay with us for the weekend! They live in Colorado now so it was a nice for them to have a break from the 20 degree weather and visit the beach on a day in the 80's. We miss them. (BTW, Seth is standing on a hill and in the foreground, he's not that giant!)

San Diego weekend

2009-11-02T22:35:00.000-08:00

Wow, we have really slacked on the blog updates. My bad, I was hoarding the camera with all the photos. Anyhow, here's the recap of what we've been so busy with lately.

The first weekend of October, Ma and Pa Haak (John and Kim) took all of us kids (Daniel, Melody, Seth, and me) to San Diego for the weekend to see the last of the Giants baseball games of the season. The boys went to 3 games and the girls went to 1 game (thanks John!). We also went to Balboa park, the San Diego zoo, stayed at a rad hotel, ate great food, celebrated the Haaks 30th wedding anniversary, randomly stumbled upon a children's ping pong tournament, saw cousin Josh, and got to visit with our dear friends Nate and Hanan. phew! it was a jam packed a super fun weekend! thanks!

The night game we went to at the Padres stadium:

I was enjoying these skittles a lot so i took a picture of them (mostly for Heidi's sake):

Melody and I with our pink friends, the flamingos:

My favorite - the jaguar! She was swimming a lot:

A hippo named Otis, also a mighty fine swimmer:

The rad hotel I was telling you about - the Hotel Indigo. It's pet friendly!

The boys in front of the greenhouse at Balboa park:

John showing the scale of these giant leaves!

It's not every day you run into a ping pong tournament!

http://arthaak.blogspot.com/

2009-10-15T10:41:00.000-07:00

I've decided to create a new art-blog. I'm hoping I'll update it more frequently than my actual website: www.arthaak.com. The idea is that it's easier to update these blogs than it really is to update the website... we'll see. I have two posts up already! Should be updated frequently, mostly likely w/ sketches done at work on sticky-notes while I wait for files to export.

http://arthaak.blogspot.com/

My Christmas present, my birthday present, my anniversary present...

2009-10-08T19:58:00.000-07:00

Is this little guy. Coming special delivery via the Powers at Thanksgiving. I think I might explode in anticipation and glee.

Souffle surprise!

2009-10-02T10:56:00.000-07:00

I like cooking without rules. I don't use cookbooks or recipes much, but love to make things up as I go (unless I'm cooking with Liv and I humor her rule follower side by only tweaking the recipe a little bit). Wednesday night, Seth had to work late so I decided to make something fantastic since I had the time. So, I chopped up all the veggies we had in the fridge, threw in some eggs, cheese, and little bit of sour cream, seasoned, and tossed in some jalapenos for good measure. Baked at 400 for 25 minutes and voila, Souffle Surprise! (I name everything I make "__Surprise" because I never know what I'm making until it's done). It turned out quite tasty, if I do say so myself. And I creatively used up all the perishables in the fridge before we leave town for the weekend. Success!

"Wedding cake is my favorite kind of cake!"

2009-10-02T10:52:00.000-07:00

That's what Seth says every time we are getting ready to go to the next wedding. He's been in hog heaven this past month with 4 weddings! He had 3 pieces at Matt and Jana's wedding! That's just one of the many reasons I love him.

More Wedding Bliss: Matt and Jana

2009-09-22T15:03:00.000-07:00

'Tis the season. Last weekend was Matt and Jana's wedding. Mandy and Liv volunteered to use their skills toward creating all the flower arrangements for the wedding, that included all the table pieces, bouquets, and boutonnières. They went up to the flower mart in LA on Friday morning and were busy working on flowers all day long. I think the one thing they wanted most by the end of the day was a real work bench:

I helped by heating up some frozen pizzas on the BBQ and watch the Giants beat the Dodgers. I also guarded the flowers as the arrangements began to spring up all over the dining and living rooms:
We drove up to Camarillo the next day, for the wedding. It's beautiful there, just inland of Oxnard and Ventura. Lot's of vineyards and farms. We quickly set up all the decorations and rushed over to the hotel to clean up a bit and change into our wedding clothes. It was pretty hectic, but it all turned out looking great:
The bride and the father of the bride:
Cocktail hour after the ceremony and before the wedding dinner:
The food was really good, especially for buffet-style wedding food. Everyone helped Matt and Jana celebrate the occasion by dancing the night away:
Sending off the newlyweds w/ a gauntlet of sparklers. Extra points for burn marks ;) :

Palm Springs!

2009-09-22T11:08:00.000-07:00

Two weekends ago, we headed out to Palm Springs, for our friend's, Scott and Fallon, wedding. Here we are backing out of the driveway Saturday morning, ready to hit the road!

Beautiful skies awaited us. It was really hot though, at least 105 F. A/C is a must. What do you know, there are quite a few palm trees in palm springs:
The wedding was at one of those really nice 50's/60's modern houses in what we learned was the 'nice neighborhood'. A really neat, modern style design. A lot of these places are for rent all summer long, their owners have enough sense to only return to the desert in the winter:

There was a pool in the backyard that I was sure people would be falling in to. No one fell in accidentally, but one or two were pushed. There was a lot of swimming going on this weekend:
The ceremony:

Staying cool with a beer. We look much too pasty for this place, you'd think we flew in from Seattle, not socal residents:

The food was catered by a local mexican restaurant. It was very good! They also rented the restaurant's mariachi band, which was really neat. I've never seen a mariachi band with a harp before:
The sun finally went down and this made us very happy, because the temperature dropped at least 15 degrees, so it was only 91 F...:

Not a great picture of Dan and Celena, but this was their second wedding of the day. They really did have a fun time, though:
Cupcakes instead of wedding cake. These ones were pistachio flavored:
Hanging out at the bar with what looks like a nude groom. Scott is crazy like that, but who are we to argue, it's his wedding...:
We returned the next morning for brunch and swimming. Mandy and one of the Boston Terrier pups that were running around. This is the 'social' one:
Passing the Pee-Wee Herman dinosaurs (the statues, not the retirees ;) ) on our way home from the desert:
Fun times! We're definitely going to have to make another trip out to Palm Springs again. The motel we stayed at, the Desert Riviera (not pictured), was really awesome. Super friendly staff, all family run and very accommodating. What a great experience!

Labor Days

2009-09-22T10:59:00.001-07:00

Labor Day weekend, we had a BBQ on that Monday in celebration of all the hard work we've been doing around the house. Here I am putting up the new curtain rod in the art/craft room to try and control the afternoon heat that room collects. I think the new 'black-out' curtain helps some, but the main problem is that single-pane sliding glass window right there that faces the southwest and turns that back room into a greenhouse.

A small gathering of friends sipping Mandy's homemade sangria in the shade of our monstrous reed-avocado tree. Delicious!
Some of our friends got creative and played beachball-volleyball over the low-hanging, low-voltage electrical wires that hang between our house and the garage.
Jerod was the lone casualty of the day. He cut his hand jumping over the chain-link fence between our yard and the neighbors. He was chasing down the beachball. I think he'll be ok, his wife's a doctor.

It's wedding season

2009-09-03T18:24:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, we drove up to San Jose for the first of 4 weddings we are attending in the next 6 weeks. Phew! This one was my friends Cindy and Daniel from my old church. Henceforth, I got to see a lot of old friends from church at the wedding that I haven't seen in years. It was a really fun wedding and so beautiful! It was held outside at Daniel's dad's house in the foothills. Daniel just happens to be the brother of one of my best friends in the world, Heather Cain. Her husband Brett owns his own landscaping business. He did all the yard renovations and it looked amazing. You should hire him. But back to the wedding, Cindy looked beautiful and Daniel looked dashing. It was a great party and a great way to spend a weekend celebrating with them for their new life together. Thanks for inviting us!We also had a secret mission of delivering our favorite dog up north for the week. Chloe was great in the car and especially loved sniffing the parking lot at In-n-Out when we stopped for dinner. I miss her when she's not around and she's not even my dog!

Parables of the Lost Sheep, Coin:

2009-09-01T13:06:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago, I was asked to teach the sermon at our church. We are currently going through the Parables of Jesus. My theme that I really wanted to get across was "Remember the Forgotten". I think this is something that I need reminding of daily, and I think we could all use this reminder. It's so easy to get caught up in showing love to our best friends and our favorites and the people we deem 'worthy' of loving, but really it was Christ's mission to love those that deserved no love but needed it most. So we aught to follow his example, humble ourselves and love all equally.

[Matthew 18:10-14 / Luke 15:3-10] “Parable of the Lost Sheep/Coin”

You can watch or listen to it here: http://www.revchurchlb.com/podcast2

It's the 'Once Upon a Time: week 7' sermon. If you have problems streaming it (need to talk to Andrew about his video-compression settings), then try downloading it on a fast connection. Thanks to everyone who supported me with their prayers.

Camping/Disc-golf '09: Lake Casitas

2009-08-26T14:09:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, we made our annual camping trip with some of my friends from work. We usually base these camping trips off of disc-golf courses that are nearby the camp grounds. This year, we chose Lake Casitas, near Ojai, in the mountains above Ventura. We left on Friday, around 5pm and arrived at the camp site a little after 7. Just enough time to unpack, set up our tent, and cook some dinner (veggie-brats). Ryan is excited we made it!:

Our tent is the one w/ the maroon top. We can easily fit our queen sized air matress w/ plenty of room to spare. Good to know, in case we can't make the mortage payments:
Nothing like cooking faux-hotdogs over a camp fire. The weather was beautiful. Not too hot and not too cold. No one is even wearing a sweatshirt here:
The real reason we go camping: for the disc-golf! The DGer's: Megan, Greg, Ryan, Aaron, and myself:
Greg's assortment of discs. I use about a quarter of this number of discs. Basically, discs are a lot like regular golf clubs, you have your drivers, midranges, putt and approach discs. And all those discs have different weights and properties: some fly really straight, some hook, and some slice, but in disc-golf, we call it heiser and anheiser. I tend to use overstable discs, because I throw my drivers with a forehand style, like a third baseman throwing to a baseball to first base. The rest of the group mostly just throw backhand, like throwing a frisbee on the beach. Greg does a little bit of both, depending on the shot. Forehand tends to start left and float to the right, backhand is the opposite, right to left. More info:

The course was a bit overgrown, but that makes it fun. During the springtime, there would be water under this bridge. Thankfully, we had no water hazards to deal with this time:

Action shot of Greg:
The goal is to get your disc in the metal basket w/ the flag on it. It has chains to help knock down the disc. This was an all par-3 course (they mostly all are):
Hole 3 had a neat little obstacle. The tee starts you out under and a little behind this tree, so you have to throw your disc out from under a branch and over a hill, blind to the basket:
Plotting out the best route to the basket... how do you avoid those two trees?:
Throwing my disc across a gultch. The basket was on the hill on the opposite side, about 350 ft. away:Throw it real far! I was having a pretty good day w/ my new Champion Wraith:
Adding up the scores after 18 holes. I believe Greg had a 61, Ryan and I tied with a 63, and Aaron had a 67. A very close game:
We had so much fun in the morning, that after a break and visit to the water-park, we did another 9 holes that afternoon!:
Just put it in the basket. Sounds easy enough...:

I improved my score on the front 9 by 2 shots. Woot! Here I am wearing that Portland shirt again, when I am clearly not in Portland, nor anywhere near it...:

Surprise attack or shoulder-massage:
We played 'Pass the Pigs' and 'Mexican Train':
Saturday night we had veggie cabobs and s'mores. Mmmmm......:
The next morning we packed up and headed out. What a fun and successful camping trip. I think I brought back about half a pound of dust and ash in my sinuses. Time to hit the Neti pot. Can't wait for our next camping/disc-golf adventure! Thanks for organizing it all, Greg!

North Carolina: Part 2

2009-08-24T13:57:00.000-07:00

Friday morning (6:50am, 8/7/09), John dropped Mandy and I off at the Amtrak station in Raliegh. We caught a train down to Charlotte. This is not the train we rode:

In Charlotte, we got to spend most of the day hanging out w/ Chandon before Chandon's grandparent (my folks), Kim and John, his Uncle and Aunt, Dan and Melody, and Great-Grandma, Pat, arrived. We then drove up to Black Mountain, near Asheville. It's a small town in the Appalachian mountains, near the North Carolina and Tennessee border. Chandon showing off his card tricks:
Chandon and I hanging out on the front porch, killing some time:On Saturday, we visited the local nature center and zoo. There were some grey wolves, bobcats, foxes, and birds. There was also a small petting zoo. Chandon still doesn't like petting the goats, but they were friendly:
Before the birthday party on Sunday, Aunt Melody gave Chandon, my dad, and I haircuts. He was very patient, I believe:
John and I got him playing some baseball. Here he is switch-hitting. Looks like he just hit a little ground-ball... either that or I just underhand pitched a ball into the dirt a foot infront of the plate and behind him. Let's just go w/ the theory that he got a bloop single batting lefty...:
Holden (Chadon's little brother), Chandon, Jessica (Chandon's mom), and a mountain of presents. They were for the two boys to split:

A kid after his father's heart. Gotta keep practicing those art skills, fill that sketchbook:

Grandma Kim reading to Chandon. I think the book was about a little boy who finds a dinosaur:
Monday, we did some driving. First we looked at Mt.Mitchell. Chandon's Great-Grandma Pat and Mandy:
Stopped at one of the scenic overlooks. Mandy and Chandon are searching for 'detective Donald' in a book that is a blatant search-and-find 'Where's Waldo' rip-off. For shame, detective Donald, for shame:
After looking at Mount Mitchell, we decided to go to the top of it. Luckily you can drive the whole way except for the last 150 yards, where they force you to walk... Fun fact: Mt. Mitchell is the tallest Mountain east fo the Mississippi River. Topping out at 6,684 ft., it's pretty measily compared to our westcoast mountains. Interestingly, because of the 'extreme' elevation, the tops of the mountians in North Carolina have an ecosystem and vegetation that is much more like Eastern Canada than North Carolina. I look lost as I sport my 'Portland' t-shirt:

Chandon: the tallest person east of the Mississippi:

I think Chandon's highlight of the weekend was the chocolate ice-cream bar:
Relaxing at the Bed-and-Breakfast in Black Mountain. Humid, but not nearly as humid as Raleigh. We even saw lightning bugs!:
Tuesday, it was time to drop Chandon back off w/ his NC family. Here he is playing one of his new LeapFrog 'educational' video games while Holden watches:
Trying out BOTH capes that Mandy made for he and Holden to share. Up, up, and away!
I guess that wraps up our North Carolina '09 adventures. It sure went by fast! For more photos, go see Mandy's complete collection:

Ch.1: Kaylee

Ch.2: Chandon

North Carolina - pt 1 Kaylee, Kate, and John

2009-08-18T18:08:00.000-07:00

We were lucky to get to go on our annual trip to North Carolina (thanks to the Haaks) again this summer and even luckier to extend our trip to see Kate and John and our new neice Kaylee. We had such a great time relaxing and watching Kaylee's every move. Here she is sleeping. This is mostly what she does.

And an awake shot in the car seat.

Getting a bath and a shampoo.

She really WAS enjoying this, even though she looks skeptical in this picture.

Seth looks so gigantic next to her! They had fun together.

Sleeping again, looking adorable.

Seth drew a mural for Kaylee's nursery room and we spent a few days painting it.

On our last day with them, we went to the North Carolina Museum of Natural History (I think that's what it was called!). This was the first day kate used her new baby sling and Kaylee seemed to enjoy it the whole day. John got yelled at for pushing an empty stroller up the escalator, we saw some dino skeletons, missed the butterfly exhibit by 10 minutes, and learned that North Carolina has the most naturally grown carniverous plants in North America! An eventful day and we learned a lot about North Carolina's flora and fauna.

Of course, we took a picture with the bats.

And it wouldn't be a trip to NC without a crazy rainstorm in the middle of summer. Here's the view from their deck on a hot rainy day.

We had a fantastic time visiting them. I can't wait to see them again! It was good for my soul. I miss them.

Kaylee is here!

2009-07-10T14:40:00.000-07:00

For those of you who don't know yet, my sister Kate and brother in law John had their baby girl! Kaylee Sue Woertman. Born June 28th, a whole 3 weeks early! All healthy and wonderful and beautiful. After a stint under the tanning booth lights at the hospital, she's home and happy. Kate is doing great as well. We are very excited to be an aunt and uncle now! woohooo! We're going to visit in August and I can't make the days go fast enough to get there.

Isn't she soooo cute!

Pros and cons

2009-07-04T16:27:00.001-07:00

Home-grown cherry tomatoes, fresh off the vine. We threw them in our pasta sauce and it added an amazing touch. So good! I thought this plant was a goner for sure when we moved it from our old house, but it seems to be doing just fine:

MOLES!!! We're hoping they just go away. But we're grateful they're not gophers...:

RCLB Project Passion

2009-07-04T16:01:00.000-07:00

Most of you know, Mandy and I are active members in our church, Revolution Long Beach. One of our big focuses as a church is community outreach, so quarterly, instead of meeting for service at our regular time/location, the church goes out and does a 'Serve Sunday'. We've been focusing on one of the more urban neighborhoods near downtown LB. The idea is to go out and pick up trash off the sidewalks and in the gutters, offer to do some yard work, and try to connect on a personal level to our neighbors through tangible acts of service. Then, we have a big, free BBQ in the park where we invite everyone from the neighborhood to come and join us. Free food is a big draw, especially on a sunny Sunday afternoon. Here we are getting ready to go out and clean up the streets:

Action shot:

Guard-dog on a roof. He was a noisy little guy:

One of the groups bringing back trash they've collected:

Some of the neighborhood kids trying to teach us how to dance while we wait for the food:

BBQ time! 175 people fed in 45 minutes. We didn't realize the turnout would be so large. Next time we could easily double that amount. People waiting in line were calling up their family members to come down to the park. We could have fed more, but we ran out of food...:

Playing some hoops on the world's slipperiest basketball court. It was seriously dangerous and I have no idea what the parks and rec people were thinking when they painted that court...:

A fun/long day and we were able to put our new truck to good use when we hauled off all the bags of trash that our groups had collected that day. Who says you need to go to far-off lands to be a missionary? :)

Car-Swap

2009-07-04T14:50:00.000-07:00

Mandy and I have realized that with all this work around the house, we really needed to invest in a truck instead of borrowing Jeff's every weekend. So we decided to sell the Passat for a used truck. I was thinking either a 50's-70's era Chevy (easy to fix) or a 90's Toyota (long life/dependable). Fortunately for us, my folks suggested that we trade the Passat for their truck, a Toyato T100 (my old truck). Good-bye Passat:

Hello blue T100. We're signing the paperwork on the hood, it is a work-truck afterall. Check out the hutch in the back, too. Already puting the truck to use:

The deed is official:

We met about half-way between the Bay-Area and Long Beach, along interstate 5, at the Harris Ranch restaurant/visitor's center. I have a hunch that Heidi would have hated this place, cow-hide on EVERYTHING!

Warming up the House

2009-07-04T14:32:00.000-07:00

My folks came down the weekend of our housewarming party to help us w/ some of the finishing touches. It was a last-minute trip, so we were super excited that they could help us celebrate the new house, in-person. Some of the images after we had finished hanging the pictures. Oh no! The house is haunted! Wait, that's just Mandy moving faster than our old-timey camera can capture...:

Our tchotchke collection:

The living room:

Some bathroom shots. Mandy refinished that cabinet herself:

The art/craft/sewing room. Still a work in progress:

"Friends" encouraging Mandy's little gnome obsession...:

Fresh Lunch!

2009-06-29T14:04:00.000-07:00

We've had fresh nectarines in the office for the past few weeks. I've been eating them every day w/ lunch. Nom-nom-nom. So good!!

The weather has been beautiful here the last two weeks and so much has happened. I need to get ahold of Mandy's camera because there's so much to blog about! Hope this leaves you hungry for more...

Soul Night Dinner party

2009-06-10T17:56:00.000-07:00

Last Friday, we finally made our Recipe Club dream come true with our first theme dinner party - Soul Night. Everyone brought a dish of southern style comfort food. It was such a success! We were all stuffed beyond recognition at the end of the night. I made mac and cheese with a heart attack inducing amount of cheese in it - 2 pounds! Don't judge me Heidi.

It had green chilies in it as well as a pinch of habenero tabasco sauce. Mmmmm. Here it is in the pot -
And then I made a peach cobbler because that was the most southern dessert I could think of.
Mmmmm. I actually prefered the peaches in their sugar sauce to the actual end result, but it was pretty tasty. I put brandy in it which always makes things better.
I wrote "Soul Night" on the cobbler!
Here it is in all it's ooey gooey overflowing goodness.

Jan brought bourbon and peach snapple as his beverage of choice and let me tell you, it's a delicious combination! you should try it sometime.
Here's Erika and Zach making the biscuits. They were delicious!
Liv is making the catfish.
Enjoying company in the kitchen. Somehow the party always ends up in the kitchen!
Seth, Jared, and Jana waiting patiently for dinner.
The table enjoying our dinner. Jeff made collard greens, Erika made a drunken black eyed pea stew, Zach made the biscuits, Liv made the fried catfish, I made mac and cheese and peach cobbler and sweet tea of course(thanks to Kate's recipe), Jana made the mashed potatos, and Jared and Karen made the strawberry shortcake. What a feast!

June gloom

2009-06-03T10:35:00.000-07:00

So, this is the third summer that I've lived in southern California, and I'm still taken by surprise by the "June gloom". It gets really overcast and cloudy and even rainy in June down here. It's 90 degrees in December, but in June it's cloudy and in the 60's? So strange! Anyhow, I am liking how the grey clouds look with the purple flowers that are blooming on the jacaranda trees so here's a picture from our new neighborhood.

Cookin' with gas now!

2009-06-03T10:33:00.000-07:00

We got our new stove on Monday and now we can cook again! Yeahhhhhhh!

First meal made on the stove. Delicious!

Camping!

2009-06-01T10:29:00.000-07:00

So, the new house didn't come with a stove and we don't have the gas turned on yet anyhow, so last night we got creative for dinner and used our camping stove! Thanks Pommerencks! It is coming in quite handy.

Seth setting it up in the kitchen:

He moved it next to the screen door so we didn't get carbon monoxide poisoning. Smart!

Voila! The fanciest camping dinner I've seen in a while! Delicious!

Street art

2009-06-01T10:27:00.000-07:00

New swine flu art in LA. thought it was worth taking a picture.

Moving day

2009-06-01T10:20:00.000-07:00

We have officially moved out of the old house and into the new house! We thought it was going to be a pretty painful move since we have a house full of stuff, but turns out, people love us and we had 15 friends come help us move! it only took 2 hours! it was amazing! thanks to everyone who came and helped! we appreciate you.

Before:

During:

Jeff and Andrew, two of our muscliest friends!

Kelsey and Amanda are looking frightened by the art room. Jake looks ready to tackle it!

For a moving day, it was pretty fun! Thanks again!

Seth's summer hair cut

2009-06-01T10:19:00.000-07:00

House updates

2009-06-01T10:16:00.001-07:00

In case you haven't seen the updates, here's what we've been doing to the house:

Tiling the bathroom floor -

Refinished the floors and Kim and John painted our walls -

There are lots of little things as well, but those are the most noteworthy updates.

Toothbrush Timer App: FREE!!!

2009-05-26T09:58:00.000-07:00

Most of you know I co-created an iPhone App: Toothbrush Timer. Well, we've now decided to make it FREE. No more excuses for not downloading it and brushing your teeth for the correct amount of time. :) Currently, we're number 30 in the Healthcare and Fitness 'Top Free Apps' category. Woot! Our goal is to crack the top 20.

P.S. We're now in the new house. I'll post a full length blog w/ photos on that later.

The Gnome King's abduction

2009-04-22T16:38:00.000-07:00

This morning, we came out of the house to find that the Gnome King was missing! I've deemed this one the Gnome King since he's the grandest of my gnome collection (and we just watched Return to Oz). He's about 8" tall and has a solar powered lantern in his hand! My dad gave him to me for Christmas, which makes it even more sad. He looks like this:

If you've seen him around, let me know. There was no ransom note, so I'm assuming foul play from the drunkards who walk past our house a lot at night. Good thing we're moving soon! Hopefully the rest of my gnomes will be safe at the new house. R.I.P. Gnome King, wherever you may be. And to the hooligans who stole him, I shake my fist at you. You are mean.

On another happy note

2009-04-06T13:36:00.001-07:00

I got summoned for jury duty! I'm so excited! I've never been called before and I've always thought it would be fun. Yeah for civic duties!

And so it begins...

2009-04-06T13:05:00.000-07:00

After getting our keys, we jumped right into our first home improvement project: scraping off the popcorn ceilings. Here's Seth taping up the floor coverings, getting ready for the mess.

I've always loved gas masks.
Before - very popcorny:
After - this picture makes it look like we didn't do anything, but really, all of the acoustics were scraped off and now it's just the drywall showing. Next step, texture and paint the ceiling.
All dirtied up. This was the smallest of the rooms and we only did one! yipes! lots of work ahead of us. But it was fun!

It's official

2009-04-06T13:01:00.000-07:00

We got the keys to our new house (in Long Beach) last thursday! As my dad said, now we are real tax payers!

:)

2009-04-01T22:24:00.000-07:00

Happy April Fool's day!

While neither of us have anything against Wisconsin, per say, I think we're both pretty content with Long Beach. Especially the weather. Fun to joke, though.

All joking aside, I'm still pursuing a career change to professional disc-golf. :D

EXCITING NEWS!!!

2009-04-01T11:21:00.000-07:00

I'm super-excited today to announce a major event in our life! After a lot of thought and consideration, Mandy and I have come to the decision to move.... to Lannon, Wisconsin! You're probably all thinking, "Wow! That's awesome! Why Lannon?! Where is Lannon?"

Well, it's an easy choice, really. It's a suburb of Menomonee Falls, which also happens to be the headquarters of Kohl's!!! This is mostly so Mandy can really get into the "Kohl's Kulture", plus the seasons will be fun! We looooove snow and temperatures that dip into the negative!! There's actually quite a happening Wisconsin scene, it's the new New York, as far as the fashion industry is concerned... well, that's what I've been told. The entire youth and skate industry is really adopting this whole diary-farmer attitude and look. Anyway, it should be a blast!

While Mandy will be plenty busy soaking in the upper-mid west aesthetics, I'll have plenty of time to pursue a new career on the PDGA circuit. I know it means that I'll have to spend most months of the year on the road throwing a disc for a living, but I we believe that this will be an awesome step forward, in both our personal and proffesional lives. Plus, just think of all the awesome Innova swag I'll get!

So long to the West-Coast! Wisconsin here we come!! Wooooo!!!!

;)