Tracking finances...bye bye Quicken

I was probably one of the last users of Quicken but I'm finally giving up on it. I'd always upgrade to the new version when I bought Turbo Tax (am I one of the last Turbo Tax users?) Anyway, I've migrated to mint.com for asset tracking purposes....made by the same folks but does about as well with no screwing around with linking accounts that never seemed to work with Turbo Tax.... Speaking of finances if every year performed like 2012 retirement actually wouldn't seem so far away! Here are the various personal rates of return on various groups for year. 401k: 14.3% Intel Contribution: 10.5% IRA: 16% Not too shabby but needed after some big decreases in the prior few years.

Jack's "First" Bike

When Jack turned 5 we told him his main present would be a new bike - but only after he learned to ride without training wheels.   The day has finally arrived.  We took him to the bike shop and he picked out a 20" Specialized HotRock bike.

He loves the new bike and while it is a little big for him now, he can still ride it and it will be a great bike for him to grow into.

Hostess Twinkies - Last Holiday Box Style!

One of the neatest Christmas presents we got last year was one of the final box of Hostess Twinkies. The box even featured a holiday theme.

Flight Test

I found a remote control spy plane in the deep discount bin at Target. The Air Hogs Hawk Eye equipped with a digital still camera and video camera originally sold for 50 to 80 dollars. I picked it up for 17 bucks. When my pal Mullins visited for the Super Bowl recently, we took her out for a test flight. It was a little too windy for a stable flight, but we still had a lot of fun and got some good footage. Special thanks to my neighbor Jim Stevens who helped me out by retrieving the plane off of his roof. Special apology to my neighbor Jim Stevens for nearly cutting his head off with the plane!

School Picture Time - Dress Up Style

Jack dressed as a doctor, a race car driver and a cowboy? Which is your favorite?



Where's Elle? She wanted nothing to do with it and cried the whoe time so no pictures of her this time :(

Bye-bye Whiskers, Bye-by Whiskers!

Happy (Chinese) New Year! The Year of the Snake!!!

Jack colored this guy at school and did a very nice job in our opinion! Happy Chinese New Year!

If You're Happy and You Know It!

One of Elle's favorites and Jack likes it too! (he's still trying to master all the words :) )

Wrestle-mania!

Super Bowl 2013

The food theme for Super Bowl 2013 between the San Francisco 49ers and the Baltimore Ravens was "Gone to the Movies". The menu featured movie candy and popcorn, Rotel dip (aka movie nachos), giant movie style super pretzels, and a variety of other appetizers and beer to round things out. Needless to say there were a lot of leftovers.

Hiking

We went to a local nature preserve this morning and had some great family time.  We wore Elle out as evidenced by her having one of the best naps she's had in a couple weeks.  Jack was tired too as evidenced by his crankiness before bed.  Too bad we can get him to nap any more....

It was another good opportunity for me to try the new camera.  I came away with some decent shots though I discovered a couple of my settings weren't ideal after the fact.  Oh well.  A learning opportunity.

Spotted!

I was in the field behind our house taking random pictures and testing out different settings on my new camera.   I tried some action settings - continual focus on fast moving objects with 6 shots per second on some passing cars.  One dude spotted me mid-shoot!

A Review and a Tribute

Yuki has been the most popular pooch on this blog by a long-shot as he made his appearance on numerous product reviews. What better way to say good-bye to this faithful pooch than through another review. In this case, RC Ten.

RC Ten is skippable...While I do like RC Cola and am happy we have it as a fountain drink option as work, I'd just as soon mix RC and Diet RC to achieve a blend with 50 calories and better taste.

As for Yukon, you can't make an offer on him because he was a priceless pup.

2013 Winter Show

Jack and Elle performed in their school's annual winter show last night. It was another music-themed event with Jack's class performing to Elvis' Jailhouse Rock. Jack was kind of in the back so didn't get many great shots...

Elle was placed in a feature spot in her class performance of Britney Spear's (You Drive Me) Crazy and was arguably one of the top performers.

Notice a picture of Elle on the pink wall too!

As an aside these are the first pictures made with my new Christmas camera...

Need a Reason to Visit France?

Shorter versions of this are floating around but I recommend immersing yourself in the full effect for ~3 minutes or so.   It makes me want to visit France to witness this grand feeding of the hounds in person!

A Funeral for a Friend

Erin's Dad helped me send off my old buddy Yuki this this morning. We buried him on the farm down by the pond. It's a final resting place I think he'd like. We'll probably put some kind of stone over his grave in the spring. Goodbye old friend.

Goodbye Yuki

I lost my best buddy Yuki today. He was great dog who led a fantastic dog life. Yuki died in his sleep this afternoon. Even this morning, he was still acting like a puppy. We'll all miss you Yuki. Here are the last two pictures of our friend, taken over the last couple of days. R.I.P. Yuki 2000 - 2013.

How To Train Your Dragon!

We won tickets to see the How to Train Your Dragon live show and went this morning. Jack loved it and even Elle warmed to the dragons after a while.  The special effects were great with huge life-like dragons walking and flying around.

Puff The Elf Says Goodbye

Puff, the name of our scout elf sent by Santa each year after Thanksgiving, left a number of friends upon his departure this year. (he leaves on Christmas Eve night in case you didn't know). He also left a note for the kids indicating he felt sure Santa would be coming to their house and encouraging them to continue to be good listeners and sharers...

Snow Time

We took a quick trip up the hill to let the kids do some sledding (and introduce Elle to the snow).  At first she was a bit leary of the white stuff....

But eventually learned to enjoy some mild sledding...

 



















Jack had a bit more fun...