3-D Printed Bear!

Jack and I were testing a 3-D printer at work and printed a finger puppet bear in the process!

Learning About Warren Buffet

Jack watching the Berkshire Hathaway shareholder's meeting while enjoying hot chocolate and a toaster strudel!

Elle Practices Rings

Look closely and you can make out Elle getting help on the rings at gymnastics practice!

Ready!

Elle's ready for dance show from a few weeks back!

The Delta King

Here is the Delta King's paddlewheel backdropped by Sacramento's famous bridge.

SPAM Snacks

Not a taste test I'm up for. Maybe Uncle Bill can do one!

Tools! Nails! Saws! Wood!

Warning!!!

Jack made this sign to keep young kids - but not Elle?? out of his fort.   Watch out for the wood!

Tahoe!

Jack and I went hiking at Lake Tahoe since he had a day off - note the big water fall (Eagle Falls) behind us flowing into Lake Tahoe.   More pics and videos later!

Jack scores perfect attendance!

Folsom Lake is Nearly Full!

She's slowly begun to drop as they need to release more water to keep the downstream temperature and to prevent ocean salt water from coming too far upstream.

Learning About Maps

Jack researched maps at school and had to make his own!

Elle's Dance Show

The opener!  Whip Your Tail...




The song Elle refers to as "Miles"






Gitchey, Gitchey, Goo

 

Weed Eating Frenzy

Look closely and you can see a startled turkey running away!

Jack Practices his Warren Buffett Oral Report

Here's an early practice session of Jack presenting his oral report on Warren Buffett.  He improved substantially with more practice and did it today at school.  He volunteered to go first.

File Under Things Rick Says...

If you haven't got a dog, hunt with a cat.

Pepsi's 1893 Reviewed!

Our take?   A pretty sweet as in candy sweet soda.  Pretty good all in all.   Likely not worth the $1.50 per can I paid but I'd have it again.   I didn't try the ginger version yet...

The Snow Goose

Jack researched snow geese at school and wrote a 3 page report on them!

Ready for Mother's Day Yoga!

Elle and Mom did Mom's day Yoga at the Spotted  Dog this morning.  Then Jack and I met them and swapped so Jack could take Mom to lunch...where?   at Jack's Urban Eats.

Jack and His Teacher

 

Here's a snap of Jack and his teacher Mrs. Crawley from the open house this week.

The San Francisco Bay

I caught this picture from a recent flight from San Jose to Sacramento...  You can see San Francisco in the upper left portion of the pic...

The "double bow"

It was a "rainbowy" week-end this past week-end.  First we saw these on Friday and then on Sunday we had a little thunderstorm blow through that featured real thunder, lightening and even some pea size hail.  It ended with a full beautiful rainbow.

Ice Cream Freeze!

The kids earned an ice cream at Costco today by helping me in the yard this morning after church.  They insisted on their own even though the things are huge.  It was my job to help each of them with the eating!  

Nordstrom Rack Opening Soon!

Excitement building for some in Folsom with the long anticipated opening of Nordstrom Rack just around the corner.

Kitchen

Here's a good shot of some updates made recently to our kitchen.   The white backsplash subway tile and the new pendent lamp shades.

Scooter!

Jack goes for a quick scoot in the park!

Cakes!

Elle helps Mom make a birthday cake!

The Magic Seed

The Magic Seed
A short story by Jack Tangeman

I found a magic seed.  I planted it.  The next day it was 3 feet wide and 20 feet tall!  The next day, instead of flowers it had money growing on it!

The first day it started dropping pennies, then nickels, then dimes, then quarters, then half dollars and so on.  One day it dropped a seed.  I planted the seed.

Now I had two money trees.  They kept dropping seeds until I had 100 trees.  One tree didn't drop money.  It started dropping this bright crystals.  I was picking up money when I started to get hungry.  I said, "I wish I had some food."  Food appeared immediately.  The tree that wasn't making money was making wishes!

The End

Same Day Delivery! A good thing?

Elle Does the Kitty Cat

  

Here's a snap of Elle from this week's gymnastics practicing the "kitty cat"

Nebraska Plate Struggles Go Viral

  

It is an ugly plate so hopefully the next rev. improves upon it a bit.

The new Interstate 555 - 15 years in the making!

Interstate 555 is finally a non-fiction story after seemingly years of talk.  

Egg Hunt In Granny's Front Yard

The kids got a bonus egg hunt in Granny's yard this year!

Jack's new "cozy chair"

The bunny left Jack a beanbag!  Interestingly enough, the bag appears to just like another one we have.  It was such a hit we needed two so it was a gift for Elle too in a sense.   He also got yet another small Star Wars lego set and a HexBug.  

Elle's new dress!

The bunny left Elle a new dress - among other things including a bunch of Zootopia minifigures!

The Basket Hunt

It didn't take long for them to find their baskets!

Model Train Enthusiasts

Here Jack and Grandpa play with an electric train. A gift from Jack's other
Grandpa. Turns out the "model train enthusiast" label has applied to both!

Happy Sunday!!

Elle Balancing!

Water from Folsom Dam

Jack and I went for a hike to get a cool view of the water being released from Folsom Dam.  We've had enough rain over the past few weeks for them to need to reduce the water levels in Folsom Lake for the first time in 4 years!

Jack Made Brownies!

Nice evening for a picnic!

We had a plumber in to work on what seems to be our monthly sink leak issue in the kitchen.   The weather was pretty incredible so the kids dined on McDonalds in the back yard!

Jack Studies his Pocket Watch

Cool one of Jack

This was from Elle's party in December

Elle Loses Her First Tooth

Elle lost her first tooth at school this morning!

Steven Tyler channels Janis Joplin

Got to attend a Steven Tyler (and the Loving Mary Band) show last night. As you might expect, they mostly played classic Aerosmith stuff but also did a few covers from the Beatles and this one from Janis.

Jack Gives Skiing a Try!

Steph took Jack skiing Friday - in lieu of work and school :)

Drone Video!

Here's a short little drone video I took.  Look closely and you spot me and our house!

Sandcrawler Progress Volume 2

Jack continues his progress on the sandcrawler and started working on the wheels.  They are pretty cool and include an elaborate turning mechanism.

Wheels done... retractable front panel done!

Starting on the walls next!

Only a few bags remain...note the AT-AT in the background!   And the orange Diary of a Wimpy Kid book.  He has all 10 of them now and has read each of them twice already!   I've read one myself.

Lunch with Jack!

Jack was student of the week last week so we were invited to come eat lunch with him.  Fortunately it was "chicken and waffle" day so I got treated to the following:

Cheese quesadilla was the other option but I followed Jack's lead.  That explains the salsa though which I selected before I knew what the entree was!  The chicken wasn't bad!  The waffles weren't great however.

Jack was a bit confused in having us around I think.  The teacher told us he was excited that we were coming but he didn't really act like once we were there!

Locked Out!

A couple of weeks back Steph tried to open the door leading into the garage and the knob wouldn't pull the latch in all the way meaning we were effectively locked out of the garage.   She managed to pull the latch in and open the door with a super thin screw-driver (which we kept in the house - not in the garage obviously!)

We messed with the door hardware a bit and it seemed to work until it did the same thing a few days later.   Steph managed to open it again and off we went...until it did it again.

The third time was the charm and we couldn't pull the latch in.  Fortunately, the garage door was open so we had access to our tools.  We pulled the knob off but couldn't pull out the core.   After trying Steph's old tricks we were left with only 1 option.   Brute force.   Some of the results of that are below...after about 20 minutes we got it out!

One of the stars of breaking the lock was an old hacksaw blade from the famous "Mr. Spain" collection.  It was brand new despite being probably 40 years old.  I opened it and between the hacksaw blade, a dremel and a strong pair of wire-cutters we got in!  Mr. Spain and Dad would have both been proud!

Sandcrawler Progress! Volume 1

Jack got the Sandcrawler from Santa for Christmas and work has underway for a few weeks now! Here are some progress pictures after the first couple of bags... More to come!

Jack's Match versus Orange Crush

Jack had his first true wrestling match against a kid from another wrestling club last night. Three rounds with a referee, etc.   Orange Crush came to town and they didn't have a ton of wrestlers so Jack was a little lucky to get a match.  The opponent had wrestled previously so that worked in Jack's favor...but the opponent was a good 15-20 pounds heavier than Jack so that worked against him.  See the pic and video below.

In the end, Jack was declared the winner and clearly had more points!

Santa Found Us!

Catching up a bit on the blog, and life in general for that matter, this week-end.  Nice to have a day with nothing really planned!   

Anyway here's a picture of the hearth on Christmas morning before the kids got after it!  Jack's primary score was a Star Wars Lego Sandcrawler while Elle scored a Disney Princess Sofia castle and Peppa and George Pig.  They each got (which seems to be a tradition at this point) a small animal at the top of their stocking.  Jack a Minecraft Ocelot and Elle a Rainbow Dash My Little Pony.