Who are the presents for??? Me!

Elle is in the phase where she thinks all the presents belong to her!

Santa Indeed Has Come!

Christmas Morning Report - The Bait and Switch

Jack received a note from Puff the elf in his stocking explaining his number one gift - the Star Wars Lego Republic Gunship - had fallen through.


























Here he reads though note and tries to internalize the impact...

Visions of Sugar Plums!

Got this shot at the zoo last night...

Singing at Church

They had "children's time" at church last week-end where they brought down all the kids to sing a few Christmas carols...



Both Jack and Elle were included though pretty hard to see them....

Elle's Big Birthday Gift!

None other than....

Now this is a Cool Company up in Canada! WestJet Airlines gets a Grade A

Elle Turns Three!

A few recent quotes.

A few days ago on a walk upon seeing a black and white dog..."look - a panda bear"

Being tucked in on her birthday..."is my birthday over"


Elle and Jack made a gingerbread house with Mom!

She dressed in birthday attire for school - including her hat!

Elle scores a Hello Kitty scooter from Granny!   And loves it

Cold in CA? Watch Kimmel

Similar reaction in Northern CA though we tend to get slightly harsher temps and storms.   There was, in fact, real snow this afternoon out our house.... just a flurry.

Elle at the Disney Store Castle

Elle can't contain her excitement in the Disney store princess castle....

Brrr! Sacramento is NOT Supposed to Be 11 Degrees Colder Than Muskegon in December!

 
 
 

 And even a chance for snow on Saturday....

Our Visit with Santa

We saw Santa early this year as I guess he has a pretty busy schedule. It turns out, actually, that Santa is quite in demand and will be spending a lot of time before Christmas in San Francisco at the famous Ghiradelli Square.

Elle was still a bit leery of the plump elf and couldn't be talking into sitting on his lap. She did, however, cautiously run up to him in order to accept a candy cane. She now declares that she'll sit on Santa's lap on Sunday.

For the first year ever, Jack did not ask Santa for a wallet! Rather he asked for 1. The Star Wars Lego Republic Gunship 2. The Star Wars Lego Count Dooku's Solar Sailor and - since Elle was was too scared he allocated one of his three items for her. He asked Santa to bring Elle a dollhouse.

Christmas Time is Here...Again!

Jack got it right on his poster he made for school last year.

He thought Christmas was about: Love...Giving...Family....Hugs....Friends....and finally Puff the Elf. He pretty much nailed it.

My "Black Thanksgiving" Trip to Target

We finished dinner, finished most of the cleaning and the guests left.  My problem?  I was too full from all the food so going to bed didn't resonate.  What else to do but go to Target!   Here's how it went down and my observations.

10:30pm - Arrive at Target.   It looks busy.  Fortunately JoAnn's wasn't open so there was still pretty reasonable parking options...

10:35pm - First sign that this was NOT going to be a regular trip to Target.  No carts available.  Had I known that I would have grabbed one from the parking lot.  Oh well - less to buy.  Steph had actually given me a grocery list!  Not to be tonight.

10:40pm - You hear tales of the crazy folks who make a full day of Black Friday.  Well they come out for Thanksgiving shopping to!  as you would likely suspect.  These ladies were in full on matching footy pajamas and had set up a central, monitored hub that the kept ferrying stuff back to.  I obviously had to be discreet when capturing their shopping zeal.

10:50pm - I encounter a line in the electronics section. Inquiring, I learn it is the "Apple" line where customers hope to get Gen-1 Apple Products at ~$75 discount. There seems to be very little movement in the line.

10:55pm - I had one target (no pun intended) item I was looking for and finally found it. Sold out :( But they did have a nice substitute available that was slightly more spendy (but also a door-buster bargain) so I went with it. Another observation - there were tons of employees there. One I heard complaining he had worked a 14-hour shift the day prior. Here's one employee busily restocking Legos with the "Apple Product" line in the background.

11:00pm - In line to check out. I was somewhat stunned to to see the check-out line. The had set up switchbacks between the cleaning type aisles. I was tempted to opt-out and leave my items behind but I knew that a single queue, multi-server line was extremely efficient so decided to wait it out. Fortunately, the weaving took my right by the Windex so I picked up two bottles including a hard to find vinegar based bottle - that was perhaps the highlight of my trip! It took about 20 minutes to check-out. Based on my experience of this first "Black Thanksgiving" it will definitely be back. Target seemed to be doing a gang-buster business and my guess Wal-Mart was the same way.

Happy Thanksgiving!

"It's Thanksgiving' as performed by Phoenix Elementary in Folsom

Celebrating Thanksgiving with Jack's Class

The class performs "Mr. Turkey" and "I'm a Little Indian"

As Christmas approaches so do the Funny Sweaters...!

The Wrap on Soccer - Year 2

 Jack's soccer season wrapped up this week and it was a good season for him and the team.  Most of the team remained from last year and progressed quite a bit. 

Jack emerged as one of the fastest kids on the team and one of the most defensive minded players.  He also seemed to develop a "pass-first" mentality over the course of the season.

While he still had his moments he progressed nicely year over year and already says he'd like to play again next year....

Happy 11/12/13 Day!

The Harry Potter Mouse Wizard?

Here's a cute snap of Elle from Jack's Harvest Festival!

Fluffy Snow Dessert!

Fluffy Snow Dessert!

It is almost a certainty that this place will be "going soon" as well.  Maybe I'll get to try one before it fades into oblivion!

Turkey Time Already!

In grand tradition, here's a gobbler I shot (with a camera, not a gun!) back in January...

Granny's Visit

Kids are having lots of fun with Granny visiting.  Halloween was fun - pictures coming - but they everyday comings and goings from school are too.

Picking up Elle from school!

Fun misbehaving at dinner.

Here are Jack and Elle's "school" costumes.

This is Jack's class pumpkin from school. Obviously, the girls won the coin flip on pumpkin color!

Jack and the Dangling Doughnut

At this week's Harvest Festival Jack encountered dangling doughnuts.

He ultimately conquered the doughnut.

Elle, on the other hand, quickly lost interest and just grabbed the doughnut and stuffed it in her mouth!

A Girl and Her Horse!

Elle has taken a liking to the horse Granny made for Jack several years ago.  She keeps him in a stall in the dining room and takes him out riding on occasion.

Regeneration Tour!

It was a great show with lots of highlights.... here are but a few captured from around the web and through my own lens.

Howard Jones closed the entire show with a fresh interpretation of Things Can Only get Better.  Worth the 9 minute watch!  (BTW this was filmed at the show were attended but by someone with a press pass - we were a few rows back)



Here's another video of Men Without Hats (actually just one man at this point) doing their famous Safety Dance.



And Berlin and Erasure were equally good singing lots of hits!

Yahoo! A New Bowl Game. Welcome to the Camellia Bowl

Fall Fun!

Here's a nice snappy of Happy Elle in Apple Hill.

And a happy Jack at the Pumpkin Patch - on Bubba!

And  rare one of our whole family!

Intel Rocks Thriller

Last year some folks on my team led the Halloween festivities for the Folsom site. They did a great job.

Candy Corn flavored M&Ms = Avoid!

I did not like these at all. They were sweet to an extreme and had a strange flavor. If you really want to mix the flavor of candy corn and M&M I suggest you do it naturally by grabbing one of each and popping them in your mouth. The Candy Corn flavored M&Ms are to be avoided!

Odd Temps?

These temps this morning struck me as kind of odd for Fall...

The New Bay Bridge!

Here's a shot as we prepare to cross the new segment of San Francisco's Bay Bridge.

Got a Free 2 Hours? Enjoy the Counting Crows!

Counting Crows posted a recent video of one of their shows this summer in Sydney.


Show actually starts around 10 minutes in....

Jack and Dad Take a Trip!

Jack and I had our "trip of firsts" that included his first major league baseball game where we saw the Giants come back to beat the Rockies.   Jack had fun at the game as the Giants do a great job of making the park kid friendly with cable cars, slides and other play areas.

We even watched a little baseball!

We then end to Nebraska (via Kansas City :( ) and got some good cousin time in while also catching Jack's first college football game! Sadly a UCLA victory that left the Husker faithful somewhat up in arms

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The game wasn't the typical "sea of red" as Nebraska had designated new black uniforms be worn and fans were asked to follow suit. That, of course, was a boon to the t-shirt shops!

Jack enjoys a Giants Dog!

Here are a few stray shots from the trip
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After the baseball game, we went to Fort Mason in San Francisco which offers some great views of Alcatraz and the Golden Gate! We even discovered something even more rare...free parking!


The new basketball arena which has sparked a whole new area of development in Lincoln. We found stumbled across a great ice cream place in the hay-market!

 

Here we are in our Wal-Mart attire as the luggage still hadn't arrived from Omaha.

 

Whoa! Jack!!!  The train is coming.