A Contest

A momentous event occured in the Walls household today. Suzy and I have moved Daniel's bed into Sammy's room. It is something that we have talked about fairly regularly over the last year. For various reasons we have put it off, but we wanted to do it this summer, before Daniel starts school in the Fall. So far it has gone great. Okay, it is now 8:03, and we just put them down 3 minutes ago.

So, what is the contest? Glad you asked. We have decided to offer a 25$ gift certificate at Amazon to the person who correctly guesses how long this lasts. By 'lasts' I mean we move the boys into separate bedrooms again. Suzy and I are not eligible. Put your guesses in the comments. If you can't comment, email your guesses to us and we will put them in there for you. Guess whatever you want. One week, ten years. It is totally up to you. The winner will be the guess that is closest, without going over (in honor of Bob Barker retiring). Good luck, and let the games begin!

A Great Idea

I have come up with a great idea. Well, actually I came up with this idea the last time I suffered from a bad head cold, but this latest cold that wreaked havoc on my poor sinuses reminded me once again of my great idea.

My great idea is this... drum roll please... invent a drug that blocks your sense of taste and use it for weight loss. I kid you not. I think it is a great idea! I went for about 10 days without being able to taste a thing and let me tell you it definitely takes away any desire to eat. I ate only to stop any hunger pangs. There was no enjoyment and I had no desire to overeat. And since a low-fat cracker tasted no different than a cookie, it was easy to make a healthy choice.

Although I think a drug like this would do wonders to take off the pounds quickly, I don't think it would become popular because, well, it really sucks not to be able to taste. To see a Krispy Creme doughnut and know what pleasures it holds and then take a bite and taste nothing can become quite depressing over time.

I have to say that I am so glad to be able to savor the sweetness of a strawberry once again. And chocolate, oh, chocolate... I just couldn't do without that taste. But if you really want to drop a couple of pounds quickly, go out and catch yourself a nice big sinus infection. Trust me, it will do the trick.

Today's Ride

Part of the adjustment that we are making as a family is that I am no longer going home for lunch. For ten years, all of my time with RCK Controls, I have gone home for lunch. Now with Daniel in school Suzy needs our van to pick him up in the afternoon. That means that I am carless. That also means I need to find things to do during my lunch hour.

Today's adventure for me was to go on a long bike ride. I was hoping it would be about an hour, but it ended up about 90 minutes. My boss, who is an avid rider, suggested heading up Pomerado Road. I gave it a shot, and have tried to document my journey through a Google Map. I don't know if this will work, but here goes: My Route

I'm Back Baby

Despite Suzy's lack of faith in my motherboard replacing skills, as you can see, we are back. Maybe not better than before, but certainly not worse. The kind folks at Dell sent me the replacement motherboard, and it took me about two hours this afternoon to pop it in and run it up.

But wait, you ask, why are you home this afternoon? Why are you not at work? Thank you for asking. Today Daniel went to his first day of Summer School (sick yesterday), and Suzy has gone off to pick him up. Normally Sammy would go with her, but he has succumbed to the bug that has been ravaging our household. I am coming to realize that it is only a matter of time for me. I will fight the good fight, but I fear that there are no winners in this battle, only survivors.

At least it has given me a chance to hone my computer repair skills. The other good news for us is that our new computer (a father's day present for me, what a wife I have), has been shipped and even as I type this it is on its merry way south from Riverside. I am hoping that the big Dell box will be waiting for me when I get home from work tomorrow.

Trouble on the Home Front

There's trouble afoot at the Circle K. Okay, I admit that is a bit of a dated reference. We here at the SanDiegoWalls household are going through a bit of a rough stretch. Suzy and Daniel have been hit hard by a bug that is dwelling in their respective skulls. Daniel wakes up in the middle of the night screaming that his brain is broken. He describes the pain as, 'My brain is being squeezed out the back of my head.' Suzy, on the other hand, is having a hard time falling asleep at all. She has a brutal cough, bad sinus problems, and just a general bad time. Sammy and I, so far, have escaped. I don't know how long that lasts, but hopefully until the other two are better.

On top of that Daniel is supposed to start summer camp tomorrow. We thought it would be a good idea to send him to some of the summer school programs at the school that he will start at in the fall. Tomorrow the Science and Exploration week starts, but unfortunately he will miss at least the first day.

To top if all off, my Dell died. To be a bit more precise, we think that the motherboard has gone to where ever motherboards go in the afterlife. I chatted with Dell support today and they are sending me out a new motherboard. So, if you send us an email over the next few days, odds are I am not going to get it. I will be checking the walls.dan at gmail.com account, or my work account would work, but our standard home email address is done for the short term.

East Coast Trip 2007: Accommodations

Back to the East Coast Trip memories. When planning this trip we definitely were considering how we all (five adults, four children, two cats) would fit in one house. The last time we went to visit Jeff and Cassi they were talking about moving. More than talking actually. I think that we did cruise through some neighborhood possibilities when Daniel and I were there in 2006. Well, soon after we left, Jeff and Cassi made the plunge for a new place, a place so new when I looked it up on Google Maps it was a dirt lot. Nice house Jeff, it doesn't even exist.

Well, it turns out that Jeff and Cassi have great taste in houses because it did turn out to be a beauty. A huge place in a wonderful neighborhood. The kind of place you dream about when you are starting a family. Plenty of room for the kids, a nice park nearby, lots of kids living nearby. In talking with Jeff during the pre-trip planning stages he mentioned that there is a room upstairs near where the boys would be, or we could have my mom stay upstairs and Suzy and I could be down in the basement. The basement was finished, and had its own bathroom. I immediately piped up for dibs on the basement apartment. Nana could deal with the boys if they needed something, I had visions of a little vacation get-a-way for me and Suzy.

A quick story, so that I can remember it twenty years from now. The house has a main floor, an upstairs (bedrooms) and a basement (big kids play area, another bedroom). Sammy somehow lost track of the other kids and I saw him head upstairs. I paid attention and I saw him wandering up and down the hallway up there. I went up and asked him if everything was okay. He looked a little confused, and said, 'Where's the basement?'. I took him back down to the main level and showed him the door the leads down to the basement, he was very relieved and thankful. It was then that I realized that Sammy had never been in a house with a basement before. The whole concept was a bit foreign for him. By the end of the trip he had it mastered, though.

Back to the accommodations... The three boys were initially going to all sleep in Alex's room. I thought that would be fun for them, and was willing to put up with a little goofing around in the name of cousinly fun. I think that survived two nights. Sammy just couldn't handle it. The idea of having two buddies in the room with him just drove him to complete distraction. He couldn't bear the thought of sleep when there was so much fun to be had. This discovery, combined with the fact that Alex was feeling under the weather, led to some unusual and particularly dynamic sleeping arrangements. Daniel would be in Nana's room to fall asleep, I would lug him into Alex's room when they were all asleep. Daniel and Sammy would be downstairs in the play room, Daniel would be in our bed downstairs while Sammy was in the play room and Alex was in his room. By the end of the trip I was pretty tired of carrying around a heavy sleeping child and gently laying him down without disturbing him or any other small sleeping forms nearby.

All in all it worked out well considering the conditions. Poor Jeff and Cassi had to make a trip to the emergency room in the middle of the night for Alex, unfortunately it was closed. Thankfully the boys, and Suzy and I, slept through that incident. Jeff and Cassi have a beautiful house that we are looking forward to invading again sometime in the near future. And Suzy and I learned that our plans for the boys sharing a room starting this summer might not go as smoothly as we thought.

Next up... Road Trip!

Bachelorhood

I am a bachelor for the week. The boys and Suzy went to Portland to visit Suzy's sister and her family. My first act as a bachelor was to spend my lunch break yesterday at Fry's Electronics (100 ft ethernet cable, awesome!) and at Performance Bike Shop (new bike pump, new odometer, pedal straps). Yesterday afternoon I was not looking forward to going home to an empty house so I stopped off and picked up a large sausage pizza from Filippi's. I am conducting an experiment, how many consecutive meals I can ring out of that one pizza. My hypothesis was six. Wish me luck.

Since I didn't go home for lunch (standard operating procedure) I went on an extended bike ride with my co-worker, Tony. We headed north for half an hour and turned around. The nice thing about going north for us is that we get to ride through Miramar Marine Corp Air Station, and on the way back a jet flew over us on its way in to land. It couldn't have been more than 100 feet directly above us. The sound was deafening, and the spectacle of having the sky filled with this plane was amazing. A very cool end to a good ride.

Suzy and the boys get back Saturday. I might need to order another pizza. Maybe pepperoni this time...

School's Out

Well, school is out for us and our summer has officially begun. Yes, Daniel and Sammy had their last day of school today. Daniel had his last day of Preschool. I am a little sad, though we will still be going to Teacher Laurie's summer school and I have the whole summer with the boys.

The kids had a fun day making hand prints and recording their height and weight on their last day of school. After snack they had ice cream sundaes with a cherry on top. YUM.

This summer will be very busy with an upcoming trip to Oregon, visits to Tutu and Papa's house and a much awaited trip to Hawaii. In between we will be having summer school, swimming lessons, vacation bible school and all the other fun stuff you do in summer. We will be busy, but I am going to enjoy every minute of it.

Our Garden

Last week one of the Moms working in the boy's preschool told me about a conversation she had with Sammy about our garden. Sammy said how much he loved his garden and went into detail about all the yummy things he picks and eats in the garden. I have to agree with Sammy, I love our garden. This is my favorite time of year in the garden. The flowers are flowering and the fruit and veggies are just asking to be picked and eaten ripe from the vine or branch. Sometimes we can't even eat the stuff fast enough. It is probably a good thing we have a small backyard or we would be overrun by tomato, zucchini and pea vines. Two of our favorite this year are the blueberries and baby tomatoes. If you have never had a tomato picked fresh from the vine then you are missing out. And I have about 5 beets the size softballs in my fridge that I have no idea how to prepare. June in the garden is truly the best.

San Jacinto Mountains: Day One

Yes, I am back from my backpacking trip. Yes, I survived. And yes, it was an amazing time. Seven women, four days and one mountain.

We started out in Palm Springs where we took the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway two and one half miles up into the San Jacinto state park. The tram ride itself was quite amazing. As it rose 5,873 feet into the air the floor rotated so you could get a 360 degree view of the landscape. Although I could have done without the swinging motion each time we went by the supporting towers, a little too reminiscent of the sun wheel ride at Disneyland.

After lunch and some backpack adjustments we set off for Tamarack Valley where we would spend our first night. On our 2.6 mile trek to our first campsite we met one of the park rangers, Chris, who asked to see our permits. Chris was quite surprised at our planned route up, over and back around the mountain, about as surprised as we were to learn Chris was a woman, not a man. Not only did we learn from Chris that the day ahead of us was going to be hard, we learned that water was going to be sparse.

After a couple of miles of uphill hiking at a high elevation, we were all relieved to drop our packs at our first campsite. Chris had recommended staying at the Andesite Camp as it was near to water and deers often hung out nearby. Although I was not able to find the water, I did run across two deers in my search.

I had felt pretty good on the hike in, but about an hour after reaching our campsite a major headache came on and I was extremely sleepy. I am guessing it was the altitude. It was only 6:00 p.m. and I could barely keep my eyes open. We had fondue for dinner with bread and apples and chocolate for dessert.

Once I had snuggled down in my sleeping bag under the moonlit sky I began to feel much better. It was very cold outside, but I was warm and cozy in my bag. Slowly the stars began to come out. The stillness and silence of the nighttime forest settled around us and I slept.