My new rig...

I am trying to figure out a way to ride it to work in the morning!

One Eyed Mama

I went to the eye doctor after having not been there for THREE years! And of course, my close up vision is going because of my age! So I am trying those mono vision contacts. One contact for distance and one for reading. It's a little freaky but I think I might be able to get used to it.

Another crazy purchase....

I went to the drug store this morning to get Gracie some cold medicine and I saw a lady purchasing:

* Back pain heating pad
* PMS medicine
* 8 full size hershey chocolate bars

It was so alarming that I chose a different check out line! I was afraid of her....very afraid!

Dr Seuss Wedding

A friend of mine got married this weekend I think she has the most orginal and BEST vows ever:

Our vows (inspired by Dr. Seuss's Green Eggs & Ham)
Gary:
I will love you on the sea
I will love you on the 14th tee
I will love you here & there
I will love you anywhere
Joni:
I will love you every day
I will love you come what may
I will love you & I know why
I will love you 'till I die
Gary:
On the sea, near the tee
Joni:
Every day, come what may
Together:
I will love you here & there
I will love you anywhere!

Is this work?

I was leaving work on Friday nite at 5 pm and there in the lobby are two guys sitting on the couches drinking some beer.....another reason I like working here.

Who Knew by Yahoo!

Yahoo! has this cool new original video content called "Who Knew". It is based on what topics people are searching. I am hooked: Here is the latest about sneezing:

http://whoknew.news.yahoo.com/?nc

What is this....the xGames?

While the girls were building ramps in the front yard, the boys were building them in the backyard!

Dork Dog

I got Ahi a new harness because hers always gets lost and it makes me so mad when I have to hunt for it at 5:30 in the morning. Everyone thinks she looks like a dork in it. I think...."who cares...she is a dork!".

Baker Girl

A few weeks ago, Gracie made this cool cake all by herself! She got the idea online and then changed it to make it her own!

Sporty Girls

Gracie and all her girlfriends are super sporty. Here they are jumping on the jumps they made themselves with scrap wood and Jim's screw gun!

Succulents

My friend Cindy has introduced me to the world of succulents and cacti. Her sis in law bought me a chicken pot in Mexico and I have waiting for time all summer to be able to plant in it. Finally this weekend I had the time!

Gracie did a pot of her own while I worked on mine. Hers actually looks better than mine!

So now instead of having flowers that look good for 3 weeks, I hope my succulents will look good for months!

Grocery store thought provoking incident

I was going into the grocery store yesterday and there was a guy walking out with:

* 3 cases of water
* 3 cases of toilet paper
* 3 fresh peaches

Wonder what was up with him???

Lunch

ROASTED BROCCOLI

Heat oven to 425



4 to 5 lbs of broccoli, cut up into medium size florets (I use 3 bunches)

4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced

Olive oil

1 ½ teaspoon kosher salt

½ teaspoon pepper



Mix above together with about 3 to 4 tablespoons of olive oil. Roast at 425 for 20 to 25 minutes.



Lemon zest and lemon juice from one lemon

3 tablespoons of pine nuts

1/3 cup fresh parmesan

2 tablespoons fresh basil cut up



When broccoli is done cooking, toss with the remaining ingredients, above. I add a little olive oil to the lemon juice and lemon zest mixture, seems to make the lemon spread around better.



Recipe calls for a total of 7 tablespoons of olive oil. I use less to decrease the fat.

YUM!

This weekend...

There was a good reason we all overslept this morning (see previous post)...we were exhausted! This weekend we had a soccer tournament for both kids which meant 8 soccer games! All in a city 45 minutes from us so we were gone the whole weekend, only coming home to sleep.

Gracie's team came in 2nd place after double overtime and a shoot out! The team they played was a higher level team and for our girls to do so well was AWESOME! They are warriors. Squirrels....but warriors!

We also had to do Jim's video application for Out of the Wild. He has been working on the video for a few days, but he needed to do it over and over to make it sound not so forced. The video itself is quite an adventure. We used the garage as a "studio" and Marty was the director/producer/beer drinking partner. He had to talk about who he is, why he wants to do the show and what his challenges will be. It has to be less that 5 minutes and has to show his personality. That is HARD to do if you are not used to being on video.

The video needs to be done by the end of today. So tonite we will be doing some videoing of the spud gun to put at the very end of the video!

Hope its not a sign....

We ALL overslept for Drew's first day of high school today!

We woke up at 6:44 and carpool arrives at 7! So we had to change our plans quickly. I ended up taking Drew to school and we would have been there in plenty of time....if traffic around the school was not a TOTAL disaster! We had to sit thru the lite 4 times at the bottom of the hill.

He got out of the car 1 minute before school starts so he was going to be late. However, so were the hundreds of people behind us stuck in traffic!

Hope this is not a sign of things to come.

Out of the Wild

Jim is applying to be on the show Out of the Wild on the Discovery Channel. She her for more info: http://pilgrimfilms.tv/casting/otw/

Here is his application:

Dear Discovery Channel and Out of the Wild,

I am inspired by my children. I am the father of two great kids who have both been diagnosed with Dyslexia. They are smart. They are hard workers. And, they struggle every day to do the things in school that other kids take for granted.

I want to be on your show because I want to show my kids how much they they inspire me and that hard work and putting your mind to anything will get you there. We've watched your show (and a lot of other Discovery Channel shows) as a family and we always talk about how much the volunteers are struggling and how they just have to “buckle down” to get through their tough spots. Just like the volunteers, my kids have to try hard, study hard, put in extra time and sometimes they still are in a tough spot, but eventually they will succeed. Applying for this show is my challenge to myself to show them that hard work does pay off.

Here's a little about me and what I do in my spare time when I'm not a doing construction work:
* I'm a former NCAA div 1 football player from Oregon State (inside linebacker)
(1984 to 1989). Don't let the beer gut in the pictures fool you, I used to be "da man"!
* I hike, camp, snowshoe, backpack, and snowboard all the time with my family in California.
* I'm a fisherman and hunter (picture of my latest kill attached -- it's a 22 pound wild turkey).
* I'm a hero to my family and friends when it comes to finding lost bunnies, unclogging clogged pipes, rescuing people from motorcycle crashes, saving people from overturned sailboats and driving kids to soccer practice.
* I've invented several “you-didn't-know-you-needed-until-I-created-it” items like a spud gun (potato grenade launcher), the Coleman crapper (perfect for long camping trips when you need to go #2), homemade crab pots, deluxe chicken palaces, excessive water features for our yard, etc.
* I can bake pies like nobody's business. Apple cranberry is the best!
* I've been married to my vegetarian wife for 20 years and sadly she has never tasted a single fish, deer, crab, pig, turkey, bear, dove, squid that I have ever brought home.
* My weaknesses: I can't spell to save my life (thank you spell check) and get the total creeps from snakes.
* Our family's pets include, a frog, hundreds of tadpoles, a labrador, a chiweenie (she is in the pic with me with my spud gun – her name is Ahi Wasabi), a beta fish, a tarantula, chickens, and a newt. And no, we don't live in the boonies, we live in a residential neighborhood in San Jose, Ca. (AKA Silicon Valley!)
* My son says that I can fix anything in the house in 15 minutes, but it's really more like 5 minutes and 10 minutes of adding "improvements."
* I'm 6'5"; my 14 year old son, Drew, is 6'1"; and my 10 year old daughter, Grace, is 5'1". We are super tall, except for the aforementioned vegetarian wife….must be the lack of meat!
* My other favorite Discovery Channel shows are the Deadliest Catch (We were all bawling like babies for Captain Phil, RIP Phil), River Monsters (I want to try catching some of those beasts!), Man vs. Wild, Survivorman (but he's not on any more), and of course Dirty Jobs (because it makes me happy that other people get dirtier than me in their jobs).

I would love the challenge that your show presents. Just give me a chance to show you my spud gun in action!

Best,
Jim

A girl and her Muncle

This is a darling pic of Gracie and Marty. Gracie calls him her "Muncle" a cross between Marty, Monkey and Uncle! She is lucky to have him in her life as a caring, supportive and FUN Muncle!

Who knew those day care providers would stick around so long and now take care of our doggies!

Vote Early and Often

Don't forget to vote for Daisy Mae so she can win a doggie vacation and dog food for a year! You can vote once a day until Aug 26. Go to this website and see her jumping off a 12 foot high rock and vote!:


http://family.go.com/dogs-life-contest/dogs-life-playful-pooches-category/super-dog-30440/

Employee Foundation

I am doing another round of reviewing proposed grants for our employee foundation.

This time I am reviewing 9 of them - 5 large grants (up to $40,000) and 4 small (up to $5000) grants. This is such a humbling experience for me. It makes me realize how many needy people there are in this world and how fortunate I am and it makes me realize what great people there are doing work to help the needy! It totally makes you put your life in perspective.

Sure, we all have challenges -- but they are challenges that we can overcome with relative ease because of our educations, our finacial resources and the support of our loved ones.

We are truly blessed.

Kibbie

Here are some pics from our backpacking trip.

The trip was awesome. But brutal uphill on the first day. We went about 7 miles with the last three being uphill! Straight uphill! And we were at about 7000 feet so you could totally feel the altitude. We would walk about 5 to 10 minutes and then have to rest for a minute.

We had a camping spot right on the water and it was a huge area. We had one spot for the bedroom, one for the kitchen, one for the library and one changing area behind a giant rock!

It was funny that we had this huge forest and all nine of us slept right next to each other. I guess we felt safer in a clump! And we had piles of rocks strategically placed around us that we could use to throw at bears if they showed up...which they did not.

The weather was perfect. Warm enough to swim and dry off without a towel.

The hike out was really easy which was nice after that brutal hike in.

All in all - a great time!

The day after backpacking...

The day after we came back from backpacking, we went out on the boat and spent all afternoon swimming and fishing. At one point we were anchored and jumping off the boat. I saw a boat close to us that was catching fish and I was all bitter because I NEVER caught fish in that part of the lake.

So, I decided to try again....and I caught this HUGE blue gill! The biggest blue gill ever caught!!!

Back from Backpacking

We have returned to civilization and are happy to say that we were not eaten by bears! I have lots of pics to post but have been super busy with work and getting ready for the school year and dental appts and physical therapy appts and blah, blah, blah!

But I don't want to forget to post the best one liner of the whole trip:

After listening to Drew whine for about 30 minutes about how Marty forgot to pack pepsi's in the after backpacking cooler, Mr Cindy finally said to Drew: "Don't be a Nancy....Drew!" It still makes me giggle every time I think about it!

I just wonder why it took almost 15 years from someone to come up with that line. Mr Cindy is brilliant!

Dumb Dog

This afternoon Drew had the dogs out front and wanted to put them back in the house. So he walked with them up to the front door and rang the doorbell so that I would open the front door.

Upon hearing the doorbell ringing (while standing outside on the front step) Ahi barked! Dummy didn't even realize that you only bark at the doorbell when you are INSIDE!

I think I could hear Daisy saying...."you idiot!"

Bear Mace

I went out at lunch today to buy bear repellant spray for our backpacking trip. Basically it is bear mace and is to be used as a last resort on a bear that is not going away. I checked it out and it cost $53. I thought that was a little steep and decided that since we had never seen a bear where we were going that I was safe not to get any. And Jim supported my decision by saying we would have an army of people to throw rocks at a bear so we would be safe.

BUT...then I came back to lunch and my boss told me the story of Jack Hanna being charged by a bear and using the spray!!! I decided that was an omen and I will be buying the spray RIGHT AWAY!

Check it out:

http://video.search.yahoo.com/video/play?ei=UTF-8&fr=slv8-tyc8&fr2=tab-web&p=jack+hanna+bear+attack&vid=0001929588890&dt=1280278856&l=164&turl=http%3A%2F%2Fyts.video.search.yahoo.com%2Fimage%2F376866ac1&rurl=http%3A%2F%2Fcosmos.bcst.yahoo.com%2Fup%2Fynews%3Fch%3D4226714%26cl%3D21106844&tit=Jack++Hanna+vs.++Grizzly+%2C++source%3AABC++World++News&sigr=11skktjst&newfp=1

Vote for Daisy Mae

Daisy Mae has been entered in a contest to win a vacation and dog food! Please go and vote for her -- vote early and often....you can vote once a day!

http://family.go.com/dogs-life-contest/dogs-life-playful-pooches-category/super-dog-30440/

Swim Times

Just did an analysis of Gracie's swim times for the season and these are the best ones of the season:

25 yard free – 15.92 -- smokin' fast!
25 yard fly – 19.65
25 yard breast – 24.71