Riding the Cow Train at the Corn Maze

The "Cow" train is a tractor pulling a bunch of plastic containers fitted with seats and painted to look like cows. We all rode it and had a GREAT time!

This looks even better in "high quality" mode. You have to go to YouTube to view that. Put your mouse over the little up arrow at the bottom right which will display a little menu option. Click the menu option which shows you an embed link and url link. Now click on the video. That will open it in YouTube's website. Under the lower right corner of the video is a link called "watch in higher quality". Click that and it will look much better. :)

The Pumpkin Patch

Saturday we went to the Pumpkin Patch on Sauvies Island.  It was a fantastic time!  The main attraction was a giant corn maze.  Last time we went we didn't get all the way through it, but this year we did!  WOOHOO!!

There were several other things, like a hay ride, climbing a pyramid of hay bales, seeing a few farm animals, riding a "cow" train which was a bunch of plastic containers cut out and painted to look like cows, and of course buying pumpkin's.  The weather held off for most of the day.  It did decide to pour down really hard when we were in the middle of the maze.  Fortunately we had umbrella's so we didn't get TOO wet.  It was a lot of fun.  A great way to spend a day.  And the fun weather made for some cool clouds which I had to take pictures of.

We were there for about five hours and on the way home Maddie crashed.  Surprisingly Riley wasn't tired at all.  Marci and I certainly were!  LOL!

A wild bird & poor Maddie

We knew Roxy was a fast dog. Yesterday we found out just how fast. I didn't see it as I was busy playing Playstation 3 with Riley and Maddie was watching us, but I heard Marci's sudden scream at the dogs that told me something was wrong. When I got upstairs she was out of breath saying, "There's a bird in the room! There's a bird in the room!!" All of our birds were downstairs. The windows were all closed. But sure enough, there was a bird on the floor looking very terrified.

Turns out Roxy had caught the bird outside then brought it upstairs to play with. Poor bird! It's a very pretty blackbird and looks like Roxy may have damaged its wing but we couldn't tell just how bad. Marci called our vet and a few other places. Only one would try to help the wild bird back to health, the Audubon Society. However, they close at 5pm and we called at 4:55pm. So we got a spare bird cage and put the bird in it with some water and food, then covered the cage to help calm it. I checked on the bird this morning and it seemed to be fine, looked good, was moving around ok. Marci is going to take it to the Audubon Society today.

THEN, if that bird wasn't enough fun. Maddie burnt her hand on the stove!

Marci had just finished cooking, turned the stove off, and we've told Maddie TONS of times not to touch the burners. She's in her defiant stage now not doing what we ask and decided to see if it was hot. Instead of just touching it, she pressed here hand on it!

Screams, Marci trying to comfort her, putting her hand under the water, Riley freaking out, me trying to help hold Maddie, utter chaos for about five minutes. We got the neosporin and put it on her hand. That helped a lot - partly because it's the pain relieving formula. We also gave her some children's tylenol. Then we put more neosporin on her hand, found some good wrapping stuff and wrapped it up. I'm sure it'll be sore today and look worse than it is. Fortunately it wasn't THAT bad, no 3rd degree type stuff, and kids heal fast. Soon she was wanting to play and talking like her normal self. She went to sleep real easy too.

So quite the night for us! Oh, and Riley was really nice trying to help Maddie laugh and get her mind on something else. At first he didn't know what to say and I kinda got after him because I didn't want him to say the wrong things and make her cry more. But he figured out what to do and say and really helped her a lot. I also talked to him and explained why I was a little short and asked him to leave Maddie alone - and apologized because he was helping. Next time I'm going to give him a chance first, then if what he's trying to do isn't working I'll ask him to stop.

Never a dull moment at our house! haha

Riley's not-so fun day

Yesterday we were getting new carpet - the last carpet showed the seams horribly. The new carpet is MUCH better. I was getting ready to go home when my cell phone rang. It was Riley's school.

They told me he had fallen and banged his head pretty good. He wasn't that responsive so they called 911 and the paramedics were there. They checked him out and he's sitting up, talking to them doing fine. They also had Marci on the phone. Interestingly, the person talking to her gave her a story that wasn't as nice sounding. That person told her Riley had an accident, the paramedics are there and he's ok at the moment.

At the moment?! What does that mean?? That person had Marci all freaked out. I wish she would have been talking to the person who called me.

Fortunately, they transferred my call to a paramedic who told me everything was. He then asked if I wanted to take Riley home, to his doctor, have them take him to his doctor, or just leave him in school. I figured if they are asking if I want to leave him in school then he must be ok. I asked if he had any recommendation based on what he saw and then I accidentally hung up on myself while trying to put on my car seat belt. D'OH!

I waited for them to call back, they didn't, so I finally called them. By now Marci was at school and everything was fine. Marci called my parents as she was driving up to school because she was freaking out because the school person didn't say anything and made it sound really bad. My Mom called me and I told her I had talked to the paramedic and everything was ok.

Got to the school, found Marci with Riley in the car ready to go home. Her heart was still racing which I can understand. I carried him in from the car and sat with him for a bit. I shared some of my silly things I did as a kid, knocking the wind out of myself and coming to with everyone looking down on me, skinning my arm trying to jump my bike over a way too big ramp, etc. He got a laugh out of that. We sat there for a bit then I had to move the remaining furniture for the new carpet.

He and I sat in the other room reading books, watching tv, playing games, etc. He was doing fine and I couldn't even see the bump on his head anymore. Oh, forgot to say. Sounds like he tried to jump over a basketball, stepped on it instead and did a face-plant. I'm surprised there wasn't any bleeding or anything worse. Just a scrap on his elbow. So the rest of the day he was his usual normal self. We wouldn't let him run too much because we didn't want him to fall again. But he was fine, didn't show any problems or anything.

At night he said he didn't want to go to school because he wasn't feeling good enough. I asked him if he really didn't want to go because he felt silly for what happened and didn't want the other kids to laugh at him. He hesitated, then said yes. Both Marci and I reassured him that wouldn't happen. Marci told him that his teacher called, said she sat the class down, asked what happened, and that everyone was hoping he was ok. Heck, we had the Principle and Vice Principle call too! After some talking, he agreed he really did want to go to school, he just felt silly for what happened.

So it was quite the day for him - and us, especially Marci! But he's fine, no problems. Whew!

One more thing. Maddie was soooooo cute! She tried to give Riley stuff to make him feel better, brought over a blanket in case he wanted it, turned on a light for us, etc. Then she because jealous. She walked into something on purpose, didn't really hurt herself, but grabbed her head and said, "Ow! I hurt my head. Can you please hold me?" LOL! It was funny! After a few hours when Riley was feeling fine, they were back to playing together as usual.

Kids eating dinner

Me: Riley, Maddie, are you hungry?

Kids: YES!

Me: Maddie, what do you want to eat?

Maddie: What's Riley eating?

Riley: Fruit Loops!

Maddie: I want Fruit Loops too!


So the kids are having Fruit Loops for dinner. LOL!

Wow, real customer service!

Yesterday we stopped into Starbucks to get the kids some hot chocolate. Two Jr. High aged girls were in front of us. They were $.85 short and Marci said, "Here's $.85." No big deal, it's just $.85. They of course were grateful and said "Thank You!"

Marci placed her order and when she tried to pay the guy behind the counter said, "No, your order is on me. That was very cool of you to help those girls out, you just don't see that anymore. Thank you!"

WOW! Amazing! She certainly didn't do that to get free hot chocolates. It's nice to see someone still understanding what customer service is about. Wow!

Good Roxy!

For a little while now we've had a mouse living in our kitchen. We've seen it a few times, quite cute. We've tried to catch it humanely, no luck, the mouse was just smarter than us (or I should say me, which isn't too hard). It wasn't really causing a LOT of problems, not getting into our food or anything like that. Just not a good thing to have a mouse living in your kitchen.

The other morning Marci came into the kitchen to discover the mouse. On the floor. No longer mobile. No longer among the living. And there was Roxy looking up at her, smiling happily as she began playing again with her new toy.

No more mouse in the house. Good girl, Roxy!

Yes, it's a fire, call the Fire Department

I'm out for my run this morning around 5am. It's a loop I found around my neighborhood that's exactly 1 mile which I run 4-5 times. I turned one corner and smelled smoke. It's been cool, raining, someone probably had a fire in their fireplace. Ran by the same place for mile #2 and the smell was stronger.

"I hope that's just a fireplace...".

Mile #3 and the smell was really strong. I looked around and saw a small fire burning close to the Jr. High.

"Well, that doesn't look right."

I walked over cautiously. It looked like a bonfire and I didn't want to bother people who were there and might suddenly come running at me or something. No one was there and what was burning looked like a garment bag hanging on the chain-link fence. There was some shrubbery ("Ni!" sorry, bad movie reference tangent) that was also starting to burn.

Grrr! Stopped my run, went home, got my cell phone and ran back to call 911. When I got there I noticed a dump truck there.

Me: "Hi! Did you call the Fire Department?"

Him: "I just called it into my boss. Looks like it's dying down, so we didn't think we needed to call."

Me: "Um, I think we should. I ran by hear earlier and it looks and smells like there's some plastic in there. That won't die down easily. And the shrubs are starting to burn. I think it would be best to call the Fire Department - better safe than sorry."

Him: "OK, I'll call my boss back and tell him to call the Fire Department."

Me: "Thanks. I'm not trying to be rude, but I can just see this thing getting out of hand and the little fire quickly growing to a giant fire, burning these big oaks and threatening the houses. Like I said, better safe than sorry. Thanks again!"

As I walked away I heard him telling his boss to call the Fire Department. I was worried they wouldn't do it. When I got home I fed the birds, did a few other things, then went upstairs and looked out a window. It had been about 15 minutes since I left him and by now I should see the Fire Department there.

Yep, there was the engine putting out the fire. Whew!

When I first saw the fire, I was upset because it ruined my run. Plus I didn't want to hang around until the Fire Department got there, and maybe even after because I had stuff I needed to do! But then I reminded myself that I need to do the right thing and that's to call it in. If I were late to work they would completely understand. I could see how easy it is for people to just ignore and not want to get involved. That was weird. It sounds like I debated it for a long time, but really it was only about 5 seconds.

When I was leaving for work there was more weirdness. I passed a police car. Eh, no big deal, they often roll with a fire. I pulled onto the main street and noticed another fire engine and police cars around a small housing development next to the school. Wow! Another small fire! I passed yet another police car after that. Looks like someone was messing around, might have a little arson going on.

From what I saw, nothing was damaged. The fire's were set away from buildings and everything. I'm not sure WHAT was burned, I'll have to check the local news websites.

Weird morning, but glad I was ready to do the right thing.

Marci 2, Rich 0 - and that's a good thing!

This weekend we were working in the yard a lot. We bought a bunch of rocks (which is a strange concept - buying rocks...) to make a path and had lots left over. We placed some around one area of the house then decided we needed to get some border stuff. These are plastic brick looking rectangle things that have two stakes you hammer into the ground to keep them in place.

First Riley wanted to help hammer them in. I was tired, it had been a long day, and I was afraid he'd miss a lot and break a stake or something, so I said no. Marci told me to just let him have a try. I said no and told her why. She said that was silly and I should let him try. Again, I was tired, got mad, a few more dumb conversations went on and I threw down the hammer saying, "Fine! He can hammer one in!", which bounced over and hit Maddie's leg - fortunately for me, not badly, just a little tap. She was more surprised than hurt. Ya, that was pretty stupid of me to get so mad and do something so freakishly stupid. So I let Riley hammer a stake in.

He did a great job! I was now mad because I got so mad at something so dumb and I was quite wrong, he wasn't breaking them or causing any harm. That was really, REALLY stupid of me to not let him at least try it. So we finished all of them where I would pound in the first stake and he'd pound in the 2nd. And it was fun doing that together!

Marci 1, Rich 0.

Then Maddie wanted to try. I again said no because it would be too hard for her. Marci again said to let her have a try. I didn't want to, but saw how wrong I was about Riley, so let her have a try (while grumbling about it). In this case, it WAS too hard for her, she just couldn't swing the hammer hard enough. BUT, when she saw it was too hard, she was ok with not doing it! That shocked me. I thought she was going to throw a fit and want to keep doing it even though she couldn't. Nope, she was now fine with just watching.

Marci 2, Rich 0.

Moral of all this for me was that even if I'm tired, I should let the kids try things. Sometimes they will surprise me with how well they do and how well they act. Mostly, I shouldn't act like a 3 yr old and throw a hammer at the ground - I was lucky no one got hurt. At first I just wanted to finish it quickly, but I ended up having a lot of fun with Riley helping me.

Man, I hate it when I'm so stupid. Thankfully I have Marci to keep me in line. ;)

What did I get myself into?

Last night was orientation for Cub Scouts. At first Riley didn't want to do it. Then he found out some of his friends are going to do it so he wanted to. The kids went off to do some fun things and the adults stayed listening to what Scouting is about, costs, etc. I remember having a lot of fun in Scouts and thought Riley would enjoy it too. I also remember many times not wanting to do things, but as a kid, I never wanted to spend more than 5 minutes on something, got bored quickly, and never liked to do anything that required work. LOL! Fortunately I'm older now and think I can help Riley have fun.

At the end they said while they will take all of our applications, they need to have someone run this group, this Den of kids. Until they could get someone, they wouldn't be able to do anything. Then they asked if anyone there wanted to do it. After no one raised their hands, I raised mine. My mind was screaming, "Are you crazy? You barely have enough time to do anything NOW! Stop it! Put your hand down!!" But it wouldn't go down and my mouth enthusiastically said, "I'd like to do it!"

So now I'm going to be the Den Leader. What did I get myself into?

Riley & Maddie at the Dentist - and a quick run to the vet

Yesterday was a very long day. Both Riley and Maddie had major cavities and had them fixed. I was talking with the dentist to try and understand what we have been doing wrong that would give them so many cavities and he said he'll go over all of this in the follow-up visit. But it isn't any one thing, rather a bunch of things together.

First was Maddie at 6am! I got up at 4:30am to get her there on time. Then took her home, got Riley and brought him back. For both of them, because of their age and the amount of cavities, they said it would be best to put them out. This involved a shot in the arm that put them out in about three minutes! I mean it was fast! They were hooked up to IV's while they did the work, then I held them while they woke up. You know everything is perfectly safe and fine, but dang it, they are YOUR kids and well, you just can't help but be worried something will go wrong. Fortunately I had my laptop with me and was able to get online to do some work to take my mind off of it. ;)

Maddie took the shot fine, though she did crumple up her face and start to cry a little. But I comforted her and soon she was out. On waking up she was fine, just wanted to sleep. They wanted to make sure she was able to respond to questions before we left. To help her feel better when she woke up they had me bring a blanket of hers, something familiar. I also turned the Backyardigans on my laptop so she could have some familiar sounds - I'd say something to look at but she wasn't interested in looking at anything. She woke up fine - she told me she wanted to go home - and slept on the way home. Once we got home she didn't want to lay down, she wanted to sit with Mommy and have a drink.

I took Riley and he was mad. Not because he was going to the dentist, but because he was hungry and not allowed to eat. They couldn't have anything past midnight. We felt bad for him but I explained if he had something then his tummy might get upset and he would throw-up all over himself and the dentist. He agreed he didn't want to do that.

His shot was much harder. He saw the needle and did NOT want it! Then as the drug took affect he was shaking his head trying to clear it. It was harder to sit with him, but I just rubbed his back and told him I was there and everything was ok. Waking up was really hard. They had me come back to help hold him so she could get the IV out of his hand. He was groggy, disorriented, and couldn't see well. They made a comment about how strong he was - I had troubles holding him too! ;) Sitting in the wakeup area was tough. At first his vision was blurry and he was dizzy. It was tough to comfort him but I did my best. I also had Backyardigans on again as he likes them too (hey, just because you're 6 now doesn't mean you can't like Backyardigans). His vision got better and he wasn't dizzy but he kept crying because his mouth felt funny and he wanted to go home. He also wanted to know what was going on and what happened and why they gave him a shot and why they put something in the back of his hand and a bunch of other things. It was tough to get him to be calm, but with lots of big deep breaths, he did. He had some water which helped because his mouth was really dry.

I could tell he was feeling better because he was getting mad at me. See, we told him the day before that after this was over he could get the new Lego Indiana Jones for Playstation 3. He also saw an X-Men game for Playstation 2 that he wanted and well, we're softies, wanted him to feel good and be distracted during his recovery, so we said we'd get that for him too. He was mad because I told him I was going to drop him off at home and then go back out to get those games - he wanted to come with me! LOL! So we both went and got the games. He was tired and slept a bit in the car, but once we got home and got the games in, he was fine.

Oh, and while they were cleaning his teeth, his bottom front tooth came out! They gave it to us so we could have him put it under his pillow for the Tooth Fairy. He's happy and excited about having a tooth gone.

Both recovered great at home. Maddie took about a four hour nap, Riley just played quietly. After Maddie woke up around 6:30pm, both were awake and wanting to play - run, jump, all the usual stuff. No pain for either of them, I hope that continues this morning. It was quite the experience for all of us. We did use this as a way to get Riley to brush better though. We told him, "Do you want to go through that again? No? Then you need to brush EXTRA EXTRA good." He agreed with that. He doesn't remember anything of what happened other than the shot and waking up, kinda.

Fortunately for both, all of the cavities are in baby teeth - heck, all the teeth in their mouth are baby teeth and will fall out. So all those fillings they have will be gone. We're going to really work to keep them from getting more.

As we were all getting ready to go upstairs, we heard a yelp in the other room from one of the dogs. We figured they were just doing their usual playing. Roxy and Tiffany came running out and as I turned around I saw Zoey with a sad face and her right front paw up in the air. I picked her up and it was sensitive to touch. She was also shaking. We had one pain pill left and decided to be safe. So at 9pm (remember, I woke up at 4:30am and had no nap), I took her to the emergency Vet in Tualatin, about a 30 minute drive. Dove Lewis is closer, but we've had some no-so-great service there and never had anything bad at the Emergency Vet Clinic in Tualatin.

A super fantastic vet came to look at her, he was awesome!! He couldn't find any problems with the foot itself, no broken bones, no punchure wounds from teeth. We put her down and watched here walk. From the way she was walking - putting her foot down solid then not being able to put any pressure on it - it looked like a shoulder sprain. He said sometimes dogs play rough and slam into each other, almost t-boning each other. I told him yep, that's our dogs. ;) No reason for x-rays he said, because x-rays work only for bones, they don't tell much of anything for soft tissue damage. More pain meds and I was told to watch her to see if she starts putting any pressure on it. If things don't get better in a few days we need to have our vet look at her.

Poor Zoey was hurt, not feeling good, and shaking like crazy, it was hard to calm her down. And her tail was between her legs a lot, I felt sooooo bad for her. We weren't there long which was good, and she slept in the car on the way home as I pet her. Took here up to our bed so she could sleep next to Mommy - everyone wants to sleep next to Mommy so Daddy never gets to. LOL!

Got to bed at midnight and am very tired today. A really long day with lots of emotions. I'm very mellow today which just might be a good thing, I'm feeling like if I put my headphones on I'll be able to focus very easily and get lots of work done. ;)

Starlight Parade 2008

Another year, another fun Starlight Parade. A few drops fell as we were standing there waiting to get going, but thankfully that was all. It was actually a little humid and muggy when we were marching - at least to us it was. A fun time and my lips are still sore two days later. LOL!

Friday is the Concert in the Park (formerly the Festival of Bands), and Saturday the big Rose Parade. Right now it looks like we might get wet Friday but be dry Saturday with mild temps. That sounds like perfect marching weather.

I didn't take a LOT of photos from the Starlight Parade, but I'll take a lot more at the Rose Parade which I'll post this coming weekend.

Riley's Birthday

Wow, Riley is now 6! Where does the time go? We had a family birthday, and one with his friends at Safari Sam's. He had a great time at both, and loved getting presents twice. LOL!

Click the photo for more pictures.

He's really had a great time in Kindergarten. Every day he looks forward to going and has a lot of new friends that he wants to have over this summer. That means we have to get busy and clean the backyard up.

6. Wow, just doesn't seem like it's been that long. And Maddie turns 3 in another few weeks! Need to take more photos and video so they can be embarrassed when they are in high school. haha

What a weekend.

This last weekend was some fantastic weather, the kids loved playing outside in the new pool. We went with my Mom to the Leach Gardens. They had a dinosaur thing going on which the kids enjoyed. It's a beautiful area on SE Portland right next to Johnson Creek.

Got some work done around home, and sat in the hospital emergency area for four hours Saturday night. Marci sprained her right ankle and just to be safe, we went there to make sure it was just a sprain. We greatly appreciated my parents taking the kids until midnight! Marci's doing fine, her ankle just hurts and she's feeling frustrated that she can't do much around the house. Both of us were starving by the time we picked up the kids. We were about to BBQ when she hurt herself and hadn't eaten anything. Thank goodness Taco Bell is open late! ;)

Sunday she relaxed and watch the kids while I mowed the lawns, water the new plants, finished installing the new ceiling fan (see previous post), ran some errands (Maddie came with me and had a nice nap - she immediately fell asleep when we got in the car), helped get dinner for everyone, took Zoey for a walk, got the sprinklers working again (it's the time of the year to turn them back on), failed to fix the portable DVD player after Maddie decided it needed more salt and pepper, and a bunch of other things. I tried to get Maddie to sleep so Marci could get to bed early and she didn't get to sleep until 11:45pm! I tried everything, but she was just awake.

Even though I'm tired this morning I feel really good about getting so much accomplished, with the ceiling fan being the big one. And the Leach Gardens were a lot of fun - I had a chance to make a few more panoramic - or rather multi-image - photos. :)

I didn't burn down the house!

We have two ceiling fans in our living room. They are nice, but the remotes never worked well and they don't provide a lot of light. A few weekends ago we finally got a new fan to replace one of them and just a light to replace the other. Really, there was no reason for two fans in the room. One of those things that sounded like a great idea when we were building the house and nine years later has us scratching our heads. haha

This last weekend *I* actually took out the old fan, installed the new one and it worked! Turned off the power, took down the old one, matched up the wire colors with the new one, put it all together, turned on the power, crossed my fingers and the fan started spinning around nicely. I gave out a little Tim Allen grunt of accomplishment. ;) I'm no electrician by any means, but being able to do that myself made me feel pretty good.

Next weekend, the new light will go up.

Happy Mother's Day!

We cleaned around the house, did some shopping, and tried to give Marci a break to do whatever she wanted. Unfortunately she had a headache and didn't feel that great. :(

In the afternoon we went to my parents for homemade pizza (Riley enjoyed helping with that). Maddie fell asleep on the way there and slept through dinner, waking up just as we were done. Then ice cream and opening presents. We all had a lot of fun.

Since Maddie had a good late nap, we knew she'd be up late (11:30pm she finally fell asleep!). Again, it was Mother's Day, so I told Marci, "Nope, no discussion. You go to bed early and get plenty of sleep, I'll get Maddie to sleep." Fortunately she was quiet and let me sleep between Backyardigans' shows. LOL!

NEW CAR!!

Sunday we traded in our Honda Pilot for a Honda CR-V. It's AWESOME!

We were planning on trading in our Pilot in a year or two for a CR-V, but decided now might be a better time with a trip to Reno coming up, a trip to the beach later this summer, and who knows what other trips, and gas prices going up. The Pilot is a wonderful vehicle but with the CR-V we'll get 5-10 more miles per gallon.

It's a beautiful black car with beige interior. It's got pretty much every bell and whistle except navigation; navi was like $1500 more and we already have one we can mount in the window that works very well. Heated seats, dual climate controls, XM radio (free for 45 or 90 days, not sure if we'll keep it), a sun roof (WOOHOO!!!), and a bunch of other cool stuff. Unlike the Pilot, it doesn't have a DVD player in it. So we bought a set that hangs on the back of the headrests, one for each kid. You can play one DVD and watch it on both, both can play their own DVD's, and one can be playing a DVD while the other is playing a game. This means for our trip to Reno, Maddie can watch what she wants and Riley can be playing his Playstation 2.

The best part of this was the experience of purchasing the car. It was FANTASTIC!!! By FAR the best experience we've ever had getting a car!

Late last year when I learned what the 2009 Honda Fit would look like and decided I wanted one of those instead of the 2008 model, I contacted the internet sales person at Hillsboro Honda (formerly St. Johns Honda). I told her I was only interested in the 2009 and wanted to get my name on top of the list since I knew they'd be a hot item. Since then I've exchanged numerous emails with Pattie Brown and we went out to meet her once at some special event they were having.

This last Friday we started exchanging emails about the CR-V, figuring out what we wanted, how much we wanted our payments to be, etc. Sunday morning she said she had two cars like that and we were on our way. She was just the greatest. Very friendly, made us very comfortable, no pressure, definitely NOT your typical car sales person. I mean this person is someone you'd invite to a party, not someone you'd want to run away from as fast as you can and then take a shower to get rid of the slime.

There was one funny thing. The finance guys first estimate was $1.24 OVER what we wanted. Now $1.24 is not that much money and we certainly could have afforded that, but that's one of those things that makes you feel like someone is trying to make a point, that THEY are in control, not you. She saw that, turned around and told him, "Come on. Let's not be silly about this. $1.24 over is just crazy. Get rid of that." And he did. When she took the job she said if she couldn't be honest and no pressure she wouldn't do it. They all laughed at her and thought she'd be gone in a month. Last year she was the top sales person in the entire company. That's ALL Larry Miller dealerships across several states! Gee, what do you know, honesty and no pressure works. Go figure!

It took us a total of four hours, but it didn't seem that long because she made us so relaxed and comfortable. So if you're in the market for a Honda, click this link and you won't be sorry. You'll get the best deal you can and even if things don't work out, you'll love the experience and come back again.

Oh, and the kids were amazing! They played together nicely, the dealership had some things for them to do, and they really were wonderful. One of the cars in the showroom had a ton of balloons in it. Pattie let them toss all the balloons out of the car, then they put them all back in. Maddie was leaning out the window and Riley would hand them to her. The last 30 minutes was toughest and Maddie crashed in the car about two minutes after we left. But we couldn't have asked for them to be any better.

Ah, that new car smell....

It was Arbor Day at our house this last weekend

This weekend was beautiful weather so we decided to work in the yard. Sunday we bought and planted three trees and two shrubs. The Sherwood Rotary was selling them for $10 each! $50 for all of them! We stopped by Home Depot to get some other stuff and saw a tree similar to one we just bought for $70.

Lots of digging, getting hands dirty, trying to watch kids at the same time. LOL ! Marci did a fantastic job weeding and planting some other flowers around the place. Riley also helped by planting several flowers, including some strawberries. And playing with the hose spraying it straight up in the air and letting it "rain" on him. haha

Hopefully I'll get the photos posted to Flickr soon.

Lots of stuff to post

Man, I've been REALLY bad about posting. Lots of stuff to post since the last time. I'm going to try really hard to do it tomorrow morning. But a quick recap: We now have a Vizio 52" HDTV hanging on our wall, new carpet, Johnnie has left us, Zoey is loosing weight, we had an amazingly great weather day and bought an eight foot trampoline, having fun watching American Idol (David Cook is going to win!), Maddie & Riley are a lot of fun as always, and I have the BEST wife in the world! For my Birthday, she bought me a Playstation 3! Now we have a Blue-Ray DVD player AND a very cool game machine! Riley and I already finished our first PS3 game, Uncharted. It was a blast!

Anyhow, I'll post more later. Be sure to checkout our Flickr page for photo updates.

Guitar Hero & Riley

Tonight a friend of ours came over so I could help her with her Unix homework. After, she joined us playing Guitar Hero on our Playstation 2. She plays it a lot and is better than all of us.

But for most of the time, Riley was playing the game with her and going extremely well! Sure, he failed several times, but he also completed the song many times and did great with the rhythms! We were really amazed watching him hit all the right notes. It's not only hitting the rhythm right but hitting the right colored key on the guitar.

Well done, Riley! WOOHOO!!!!

GPS fun

I found a new use for our GPS. On our way to dinner last night Maddie fell asleep. Riley said he didn't want to go to the Burger King playland by himself and we decided to get some pizza. I called in the order and they said it'd be ready in 25 minutes.

Hmmm.... It wasn't going to take me that long to get there, more like 10 minutes, maybe 12. "DING!" An idea!

I looked up Pizza Caboose on our GPS and set that as our destination. It gave me a route and said we'd get there at 5:25pm. WAY too early, had to be 5:40pm. SO, I started taking side roads letting the GPS recalculate our route AND arrival time.

That was fun and cool! The GPS not only helps me find where I'm going but now I can use it to help me not get to a place too early - or too late!

New Bikes and Enjoying the Great Weather

Last year we tried to take the training wheels off Riley's bike, but he had a really hard time and wanted his training wheels back on. Marci and I agreed the problem was the bike. It looks like a motorcycle, specifically a chopper with long front forks. It's really cool, but hard to balance on. We decided we needed to get him a new bike. Since the weather was so fantastic, we decided to see if we could find one. He picked it out because he liked the wheels. It's maybe just a tad big for him, but by summer he'll be taller and able to ride it without any problems.







Maddie also got her first bike. Like Riley, she picked it out. She wasn't too sure about it and didn't ride it that much, but she does like it and loves to sit on it in the house. She can ride the tricycle just fine (which surprised us because we didn't know she could do that!) so we're sure she'll be riding her bike soon.













We've also had some incredible weather for the last several weeks. It has been sunny or partly cloudy with the highs between 58 and 63! Talk about Spring fever! It was so nice one day that we decided to head to one of the kids favorite parks and play for awhile. They really had a lot of fun.












Oh, and as you can see they have new jackets. We were at Sears, the kids saw these and just HAD to have them. That's ok, the one's they had were getting to be too thick and heavy. They both loved them and were wearing them everywhere. In this photo I asked Maddie to smile. You can see she is definitely Riley's sister. LOL!

Riley's feeling better!

He had 3/4's of a grilled cheese, a big bowl of vanilla ice cream, some cookies, lots of Squirt, and is feeling a LOT better. Earlier in the day he needed me to carry him to the bathroom, and just a little while ago he walked there. Now he's telling me he's bored and wants me to play with him. I think after a good nights sleep he'll be fine tomorrow. Whew!

Poor Riley

We've had this cold thing going through the family. Last night on the way to dinner Riley said his tummy hurt. At dinner he just wanted to curl up and lay his head on my leg. Then he fell asleep. When we got home he went right to bed. He's got a fever and doesn't feel good, but he's resting nicely and drinking fluids.

Poor guy. Hopefully he'll feel better by Monday because he really loves going to school.

Flight home from Boston

LONG flight back. A big head-wind made the trip 30 minutes longer, so 6 hours!

As they were pushing the plane back from the gate in Boston, we heard a "bang" and the plane jerked a little. Found out they broke the push-back bar. Had to push the plane back to the gate so a mechanic could make sure the plane was ok. We all sat there with our fingers crossed and after about 10 minutes, everything was ok. Whew!

When we were about an hour and a half into the flight, the pilot gave us the "Welcome and thanks for flying with us... blah blah blah" speech. At the end he said, "And right now in Boston it is snowing heavily and visibility is down to less than a mile." Oh man am I glad we got out before that hit!

It was a uneventful flight, which is always nice. One odd thing for this whole trip was I had the entire row to myself on each flight! That was soooooo awesome!

I rented one of the movie players Alaska Airlines offers for $10. It has a bunch of movies in it as well as tv shows, sports, music video's, and a bunch of other things. I watched "3:10 to Uma" and "The Seeker: The Dark is Rising". Both were really good and they certainly made the flight go faster. I started watching "The Darjeeling Limited" but ran out of time. It was a bit odd, but I was into it enough that I wanted to see how it ended. Oh well, maybe I'll rent it sometime.

Overall it was a really great trip, I got lots of great ideas for the users group and had fun chatting with friends. I just wish I would have gotten more sleep. My body is still not recovered and not fully functional.

Rich's Trip to Boston

Oh man, what a wild trip. I'm in Boston (actually Bedford, a suburb of Boston) for a meeting with all of the Progress Software North American Users Group Presidents. I do this every year about this time. Had a great first day and a super steak dinner.

Normally we meet in mid-January, but this year we had to change it. I usually fly out on Alaska, there's only one flight out (Portland to Seattle to Boston) so I fly out the day before. I couldn't do that this time because Riley and I were going to the Monster Truck show Sunday (yesterday). I found a flight that took me from Portland to San Francisco to Boston (on the red eye) which allowed me to take him to the Monster Truck show and still get me here in time for the meeting that started at Noon.

Everything started fine, got to PDX on time, plane left on time, simple no problem flight to San Francisco. Then the problems started.

First, I had to leave the security area to go to another terminal and go back through security. A minor hassle, but it was made a little more of a problem because I had a Sprite in my backpack from Portland that I forgot to remove. TSA wasn't happy about that. They weren't rude or mean, just not nice. Sprite got thrown away and I was on my way. Found the gate only to see the plane was delayed an hour and a half - instead of leaving at 11:30pm I was leaving at 1am!

Great.

Downloaded the photos from the Monster Truck show, looked at some other photos, was going to get online but SF wanted $9.99/day and I wasn't about to pay that. Why can't everyone be like PDX and have free wireless?? Then I started watching Family Guy on my Playstation Portable. That was fun but I had a hard time staying awake.

Finally we boarded. Luck was with me, no one else was in my row so I had all three seats to myself. I stretched out and slept. Next thing I knew I heard the pilot saying we were getting ready to land. I remember some bumps, but mostly I slept really well. A bumpy landing, but nothing bad.

I made my way to the shuttle area and of course the transportation I arranged wasn't there. I figured it wouldn't be. Called them and was told I gave him the wrong flight number. I told him that's the number that was on my ticket. Whatever the case, he couldn't have someone there for another two hours. I couldn't wait. Found a taxi. Asked if he knew how to get to the hotel (showed him the address) and of course he said, "Sure, no problem!" After we get on the freeway he's calling his dispatch asking how to get there. ARGH!!! I ended up showing him the way when we finally got closer. He was nice, just clueless on driving. I swear I thought we were not going to make it, that we'd end up in an accident the way this guy was driving. I really was surprised I made it.

Got here and my room wasn't ready. ARGH #2!!!!! I told them I just wanted some place to shower before my meeting started. She was nice and found me another room that was perfectly fine. Got my shower and got to my meeting on time. From there on everything was great and I had a super day.

A major pain getting here, but I stayed calm and kept a cool head, and left plenty of time to get here, so everything was fine. I get to leave tomorrow, my flight gets in at 11:44pm. A long couple days, but worth it. Now I'm going to get a good nights sleep so I'm awake tomorrow. :)

Chocolate Festival

Sunday we went to the Chocolate Festival. Last year was so much fun we had to go again this year. It didn't seem like there was as much chocolate as there was last year. But this year they added a 3rd building, so maybe there was and just wasn't in the main building.

One thing they DID have was the worlds largest truffle. After it was made and weighed, they took ice cream scoops to it and gave out samples. WOW! It was AWESOME!! We hit there first, had a bunch of other stuff, then hit it again before moving to the other buildings. And they gave us HUGE samples. We tried a few other chocolates in the other buildings, but nothing was really all that exciting. A lot of places had flavored chocolate, very few had just simply chocolate - milk, dark, etc.

We had a great time and left feeling like we had eaten our years worth of chocolate in one day! haha Pictures will follow sometime in the next day or so.

Snow this week

We had two fun days with some snow. Monday it was more icy than snowy. The strange thing is my parents are at about 200 feet and had more snow than we did at 336 feet. But that changed on Wednesday when we had lots more than they did. Thankfully it still melted early so driving wasn't bad at all. It was pretty while it lasted though. And of course Riley was not happy that it was gone so quickly. haha Here are two photos.

Monday. I took several photos and stitched them together, then did a little processing in Photoshop to give it this neat look.

















Wednesday. Again I took several photos from Maddie's room and stitched them together to make this panorama.

Portland Auto Show

update: Photos are now on Flickr.

We went to the Auto Show today. Nothing terribly exciting or thrilling. Some neat/cool cars, some blah cars, and a lot that were nice. But the kids really had a great time. We let them get in as many cars as we could. They wanted to sit in every car and we were getting tired after only making it through about a quarter of the show. I got some good photos of cars and them in the cars that I'll post to Flickr sometime soon.

We did have fun going through the Motorcycle area. Riley and Maddie had a blast sitting on the ATV's. We went into the everyday motorcycle section and within 10 minutes had horrible headaches. They had a DJ playing rap-ish type music with HUGE bass that was way too loud and just didn't sound good. We couldn't talk normally, had to raise our voices and it was just not fun. I really wanted to find someone in charge to tell them how horrible that was, but decided it wouldn't do any good, that one person wouldn't matter and they'd just say, "Ya, they were some old farts who don't know music and motorcycles." Well, the kids had fun anyhow.

The exotic cars were fun, though you couldn't sit in them which sucked. I mean sure, I'm never going to own a $300,000 car, but it would be fun to at least sit in one. Oh well, it was a fun day. Now we're just waiting until Sept when the 2009 Honda Fit comes out so we can get one from Larry Miller Honda - dealing with Pattie Brown the internet sales person who's AWESOME!

Don't Watch Me...

Maddie has really gotten into dancing. She used to just sit quietly and watch the Wiggles, Doodlebops, and other shows. But now she wants to dance to the music - and she's started singing some of the words.

The other day I was watching her dance. She saw me, stopped, and said, "Don't watch me, Daddy." I said ok, turned away, then turned back. She caught me and said it again. But with a smile. Recently she was at my parents and did the same thing.

So that's her new thing now. Dancing to the music, but you can't watch her do it. LOL!

Fun with Riley at Wunderland

Last night Marci and Maddie went to go spend some time with her sister. This left Riley and I to find something to do. We started by playing in his room and having fun with cars, then left for Wunderland.

It was great because it was almost empty. we didn't have to wait for a game to become available. We played a few games where you get the tickets you can exchange for stuff, but spent most of our time (and money) playing driving and shooting games. The driving games were ok, but the shooting games were a blast!

They were two player games where we worked together to fight the bad guys. When I'd die, I'd quickly feed four more nickels into the machine so I could keep playing. When Riley would die, I'd hand him my guy and feed more nickels in so he could keep playing. We spent most of our $10 in nickels on those games. It was a great time!

We got a few tickets, but not enough to get anything. Riley said next time we need to get THREE bags of nickels - one for the games where you move the giant claw and hope to grab something, one for the shooting games, and one for the games that give you tickets. LOL! Talk about a really fantastic time.

Marci said she and Maddie had a lot of fun too. They went to Ikea, but only had about 30 minutes to look around and they might go back Saturday. That's fine with Riley and I, more time for us at Wunderland! :)

Another icy morning

More ice this morning on the drive in, though not as bad as yesterday. Well, not as bad weather-wise. This morning we couldn't see the ice - black ice - so people figured, "I can't see it so it must not be there," and decided to drive fast again. Yesterday people were respectful and kept a safe distance behind me. Today I had people right on my tail all the way to work. Watching the news before I left I noticed more accidents today.

Yo, moron's, just because you can't SEE the ice doesn't mean it's not there! geez...

Icy drive in

This morning there was some ice on the roads. It wasn't that bad, but after listening to the news and walking on our street, I decided to wait an hour before leaving. Instead of leaving at 6:15am, I left at 7:15am.

Our street was pretty icy, but I managed to get out. Several times my brain would say, "This is stupid! Turn around! Go home and wait until it warms up!" I would have to remind my brain that the side roads are always the worst and I was reserving the decision to drive in until I was on a main road. My brain wasn't happy about this until I got to the main road. It was MUCH better. When I finally got to a very busy road, it was pretty much all gone, just a few patches here and there.

Whew!

The most surprising thing to me was people behind me were actually at a safe distance! Normally I've got at least one person on my butt really close, but this time everyone stayed back. Very weird. Could Oregonians actually be learning how to drive in bad weather? Nawwww, I must have just had some freaks behind me. haha

I have Play-Doh in my diaper!

Maddie was running around this morning saying, "I have Play-Doh in my diaper". I thought she meant she had a poopie diaper, calling the poop Play-Doh. Nope, she had taken a full jar of Play-Doh and put it in her diaper alright. Why? Why not! hahaha

p.s. A Christmas recap post will come soon, photos are on Flickr.