Christmas Eve with the fam

Drove up to Trevor and Loans for a quick family get together for Christmas eve. We got the kids some great bow and arrow sets.

Here are all the girls

and the whole family picture

and all of these pictures were taken with Chara's new SLR camera. Its quite nice. expect some awesome pictures from us now. And Chara got me a new iPhone. Its very fun as well.

Merry Christmas everyone.

Company Holiday Party

Yes its true i don't work for a company now, but we have a tradition that the "old school" DivX employees get together for our traditional old school party like we did 8 years ago. This time it was back on the same beach where it was held 8 years ago. Beautiful day in December and just a bit cold.

Here is the gang that could make it. A lot more kids now.

and check out that sunset. not a bad drop for a fire and some smores.

december nights

one of my favorite things about christmas is 'december nights'... every year ben and i head to balboa park, where we enjoy the museums, some international food, some christmas decorations, and some hot apple cider.. this year trevor and loan came down to join us - and we met up with our pal stacey and her cute kiddos..

loan, trevor, and ben all bundled up and ready for fun..


loan enjoying science at the science center..


our christmas card this year - complete with borrowed kids

kettle corn - yumm...

This just makes me wish i had a little french child

cutest thing ever. can't stop watching it.


Once upon a time... from Capucha on Vimeo.

I would just have them tell me stories all day


from: http://thesisterproject.com/smith/si-jetais-la-cigogne-if-i-were-the-stork/

Bedroom/Bathroom remodel update and the bright red shower from hell

Project update: Still kicking ass and almost done.

Here is Keaton helping by laying on the piece of drywall i laid down to cut. She is feeling a bit neglected these days and is resorting to these tactics for attention. too cute.Shower pan is done. thats the concrete shower floor. Also all concrete board is up on the wall and the seams are sealed.
Now i get to seal the whole shower to make sure it doesn't leak with this pink pepto bismol looking stuff.
and it goes on hot pink and dries bright red
Here is the bright red shower from Hell. Its ready for tile and be finished. just need to finish texture and painting the ceiling first.
and Chara helped me put in the new window. its amazing how much better the new windows look than the old ones.
And i grouted the new bathroom sink counter top the other day. Its looking really good. almost done with that too.
all the drywall is up and done. just need to finish mudding and sanding to get it ready for paint.

Then its paint, tile and carpet and we can call this project done. getting close now.

Turkey Trot

Before all the thanksgiving Nerf gun wars and eating of too much fun we did the Oceanside Turkey Trot. Its a 5k downtown Oceanside on the beach. The weather was perfect as it just stopped raining long enough for us to run. We had a great time and will be doing it again next year. Here is a great picture of me and the left top part of Chara's head.

a thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat

for thanksgiving this year - we headed up to the sisters in LA - and had an awesome dinner and got a chance to celebrate isaiah's birthday..
i sent ben to buy isaiah's present - and ben came back with a bunch of nerf guns - which ended up being a big hit. the kids as well as the adults were running around shooting at each other - it was a fabulous time.. at one point it was war - and all the kids were running around trying 'get' uncle trevor - and trevor was running around defending himself with a wiffle ball bat, and a nerf bat - i was cracking up..
the nerf war of 2008


because it was isaiah's birthday as well as thanksgiving the theme was pirates/transformers/kung fu panda
here deborah and i were pirates - ready to eat our turkey

to relax after the war and dinner - we watched a movie..
uncle ben and deborah watching kung fu panda -

more thanksgiving fun

isaiah and his auntie kai - enjoying some mario cart -

dance party

uncle trevor and kelly ann

auntie loan and noah tearing it up

it's all fun and games till someone loses an eye

today is the second time i had a pt who came to the ER with an injury from playing the wii... apparently it's an epidemic..

poker party fun

this weekend we headed up to my brothers for some poker party fun.. we had good food, good people, and lots of fun.. it was a great way to spend a saturday night..
ben rockin trevors new oakleys - getting ready to 'bring it'

dano and gil concentrating on thier games

at some point in the night we busted out loans cotton candy machine..

the fam

the black hole

growing up in my household, if you misbehaved, you had to write sentences... my mom often choose bible verses for us to write about a hundred times or so.. one of my moms favorites came straight out of the book of philippians 'i will do all things without grumbling and complaining' - with as many times as i had to write that verse over and over - you think i would have learned by now..
but poor ben had to remind of that sentence multiple times today - because on average i complained about every 3.5 seconds this afternoon.. (in my defense we are two months into a project that ben said 'shouldn't take that long' - and this weekend the santa annas and all the construction dust created the perfect storm for my sinuses - and my allergies went into over drive..)

here are some more pix of all the fun:

ben tried to hang a door about 9 times with no success.. we kept measuring and remeasuring - eventually we even bought a new door thinking that the old door must be defective - which was not the case.. we finally called our friend kevyn who came over for reinforcements.. kevyn figured out that we had a rogue 2x4 - which was not straight, and was causing all problems.. so big thanks to kevyn for saving the day..


ben putting up cement board.. good times..


me doing the most thankless project known to man.. to me - this is my least favorite job.. ben had me 'mud' in some nail holes from the dry wall he hung, and then i had to sand them over - and mud them again... it was very dirty - and dust got everywhere..


so after spending a couple hours helping ben - i realize that i should not complain.. because he has been working on this project non stop for the last 8 weeks - and i realize that next time overtime is offered at work - i am totally taking it - and paying someone who knows a little more about construction then i do..

Bedroom/Bathroom remodel update

I'm taking lots of pictures, just not posting them sorry

Progress update: I'm kicking ass

Drywall is up. Chara helped me tape and mud. she is also very conscious about plumbers crack
its starting to look like real walls and stuff

Started the shower panwaterproof membrane is down and drain is installed
next comes the cement board on the walls. trying to do an elliptical curve in the piece above. those are tricky
shower niche in the wall
niche finished off
our shower valve
thats it for now. shower walls are almost covered. next is to finish the shower pan and finish up the dryall with sanding and such. so much fun.

california dreaming..

i hate to brag but - the weather this weekend was fabulous.. it was sunny and 91 degrees both saturday and sunday - ben and i took advantage, enjoyed, and headed to the beach both days.. gotta love california..

double duty

ventured out in the rain this morning and voted (someone had to cancel out bens vote).. no long lines as expected - the only delays were due to people who don't normally vote not knowing how things are done..

then headed to day two of jury duty - and was promptly excused.. - apparently most lawyers don't want ER nurses on their jury...

so today - i have done my civic duty x2 - and now i am ready for a nap..

go vote....right now

go vote

right now

get up

go outside

go to your polling place

and vote






unless you live up in the mountains and you know your vote doesn't count anyway.

food and friends

for the first time in months all of my girls had the same day off together.. so we headed to an amazing restaurant by the beach and had an awesome lunch..
i really miss these gals - and am so happy that we got to spend some time together..
mis amigas

tis the season

just another reason why halloween is so awesome..

I voted today

now Chara is threatening to make me sleep on the couch.

New window

nothing is easy with this project. This window especially caused me to say some bad words.

Here is the old hole for the shower window.

Here is me making that hole bigger.cutting stucco is super messy too
nice new big hole.
luckily i have the best neighbors in the world and Don showed up at just the right time as my wife ditched me to go shopping. Don and i put in the window. Here is Don's hand
and the window installed.
i need another day off already.