News 2005

January 1, 2005

Happy New Years! Not much going on here as usual. We got out for our New Years ride. I was a little nervous about it because it was Graham's first ride on the back of the tandem. He did a really good job and seemed to be enjoying himself.

January 22, 2005

We had a nice ride yesterday. Went to the naval air station and then stopped at campus to get the power supply to Scott laptop that he left there on Friday. As I was waiting with the bikes, I was thinking what a nice day it was and how it the first time we had rode without much wind. Of course the wind picked up as we were getting ready to leave and it was a head wind too. Oh well.

Our table finally showed up yesterday too. They were supposed to deliver it on Friday, but didn't show up. We never did get a reason why. I called after the ride Saturday morning and asked where it was. They finally showed up with the table at about 1:30. It is nice, but looks really big to me. I guess because we have been using such a small table for a while. It will seat 6 with the leave in it. So we have all of our new furniture now. Next I'll probably get a table of some sort for the foyer, but that will have to wait for awhile. I think a play area for Graham is next on the list. Thanks to my parents we now have plates. They gave us money to buy something for the house for Christmas and I thought that was the best use for it.

Graham starts preschool tomorrow. I am excited. I don't know about him. He goes 5 days a week for 4 hours. He went to the doctor to get his paperwork signed on Friday. He got 4 shots then and goes back on Thursday for 3 more. He'll be caught up then. He wasn't very happy about the shots. We'll see how Thursday goes.

A few weeks ago I was lying on the bed reading and Scott came to lie beside me. When he was climbing on the bed he caught my toe nail with his knee. He didn't rip it all the way off but it was close. After a couple of days it finally looked like it was starting to heal and was infection free, Graham, in his enthusiasm to give me a hug and a kiss, stepped on my foot and ripped it off completely. It has finally stopped bothering me but it is still unknown if the nail will grow back.

January 24, 2005

Graham hasn't said much about preschool. He had ravioli for lunch and played with a boy in a red spiderman t-shirt. I couldn't get anything else out of him. The first thing he said to me when we got in the car was "I don't want to take a nap". I knew that they had the kids lie down for a while in the afternoon (the place does daycare too), but I thought that was after we picked him up. I guess I need to figure out the schedule. We can take him in a little bit earlier and pick him up earlier if necessary to avoid nap time.

I signed Graham up for soccer today. That should be really good for him. I think that they will start in the next few weeks. They play at the soccer fields that are close to the house so it shouldn't be too big of a deal to take him to practice and games. It might cut into our biking time. We'll just have to deal with that.

I decided to make gnocchi for dinner tonight. Scott and I really like it. I had a recipe that seem pretty straight forward. I baked the potatoes and put them through the ricer. I then mixed in the flour and salt and kneed like stated. I wasn't really sure how to get them shaped correctly, but I did my best. When I got the next bit of dough to shape it was really sticky. It seemed the more I tried to make it not be sticky, the stickier it got. So I ended up with this sticky blob of potato gunk on the countertop. When Scott came home he tried his hand at it, but it just wasn't going to happen. Needless to say, we went out for dinner. Scott found some hints on the web and I'll try again. Hopefully I'll have better results next time.

February 5, 2005

Graham had his first soccer game today. I think he had a good time except he was upset at the end because he didn't get to kick the ball into the net. We tried to explain to him that he needed to get in and try to kick the ball. He ran around a lot, but didn't really seem to know what was going on and what he needed to do. I am sure that he'll figure it out at some point and if he doesn't that is OK too. As long as he is having fun. After soccer he want to the neighbors to play for awhile. It is nice to have some other kids in the area.

Scott received a grant from the university which is very good. He get some money for the summer and a couple of students and also some equipment money. He is buying some souped up laptop with it. I am sure that it will be very nice for him to have a new one. His is just about to the age where we would have replaced it anyway. Now someone else gets to pay for it.

It has been cool here for the last week or so and I finally decided to turn the heat on to take the chill off the house. The heater just blew cold air. It hadn't been turned on since the inspector looked at it so it was very suprising that it didn't work. We called the builders and got it fixed the next day. I just wish they could get the shower fixed.

We bought a few trees for the yard. We won't plant them until March or April though. We got orange, lemon and a grapefruit tree. We have also decided what we are going to do in the front bed. I think that it will look quite nice. We'll probably start putting that in in March. We just need to pick out a shadow tree for by the garage. We'll probably get a sycamore or maybe a myrtle. Scott has been working on the design for a play area for Graham. Hopefully we will start building that soon.

February 13, 2005

Dear Cycling Diary,

Wind blows.

S, G, and T

February 10, 2005

A conversation:

Scott

You need to have a shower to get the sweat off from soccer practice.

Graham

The sweat is all gone. The sweat disappeared. The wind blew it off. It came in the fireplace.

February 23, 2005

We received a nice house warming gift from our friends Sui-Ling, Alex, and Alexis in New Zealand. They are Happy Hens and are made in Portobello on the Otago Peninsula.

Saturday the shopping bug hit us. We bought a Camelback for Graham to use on the bike, a surround sound system, and a network drive server. Scott got all of the speakers installed except for the one that goes in the middle in the back. We will have to run more speaker wire for that one. We only have hook ups for 2 in the back. After realizing that there were 3 switches to turn on the subwoofer, we have that working now too. The Camelback was tested out on our bike ride on Sunday. I think it was a hit. Of course we had to stop for a pee break, but we didn't have to stop everytime Graham needed a drink. The wind still blows. The network drive was an exercise in frustration as usual, but I finally realized that it was running Samba and I could mount it with that. The windows machine still can't see it, but that isn't very important at this point.

March 6, 2005

Graham had a soccer game on Tuesday to make up for a game that was cancelled. He scored his first goal and was really happy. He was a little bit more aggressive and actually got in and tried to kick the ball. I think that it was a real boost for him. We were supposed to play two games yesterday. The normal Saturday game and a make up game for an earlier rain out. We were there to play the first game and so was the other team except for the coach. It started raining so they decided not to play. I think they could have. It was warm and it wasn't that wet. We came back an hour later to see if they would play the second game. We wanted to and so did the other team. Unfortunately only Graham and Colby were there. A third player was on the way so they started playing 2 on 2 (they usually play 3 on 3). Graham did a really good job. He kicked a couple of goals and seemed to be having a good time. What a difference having two less kids on the field makes. It started raining again so they didn't finish out the game. His last game is next Saturday and we have two games to make up. It might be a busy week.

On top of soccer, Graham has started T-Ball practice. I am not sure how well that is going to work out. He seems to do ok and listens to the coaches some what, but he is usually playing with the other kids instead of paying attention to what is going on. The games could be very interesting. I hear that baseball is a really big deal in this area. I just can't take it all that seriously. He is practicing 3 times a week. When they start playing they could have 2 or 3 games a week. Seems like a bit much. Of course if they practice on a soccer day then he goes to soccer instead of t-ball. If Graham enjoys it we will let him continue playing, but if he doesn't then this might be the only season that he plays.

They came a week or so ago and fixed our plumbing problems and installed the showerhead in the master bathroom. We decided that even though they haven't fixed the bottom of the shower (the tiles aren't slopped right and water pools in the corners) we would use the shower. I don't know if that was a good idea or a bad one. The shower leaks. I noticed that the grout looked wet around the shower in places. The carpet in the master bedroom was damp. Who knows what it will take to get it in working order. They are tiling the shower in the house across the road now and the tiler is supposed to come work on ours when they are done. Last we checked the tile was in there, but not grouted.

March 29, 2005

What happened to March? We have been pretty busy this month and pretty lazy too. Graham finished up soccer and has played his first t-ball game. We planted the trees. In the front we put a Crepe Myrtle and we put an orange, a grapefruit, and a lemon in the backyard. In the front bed we put 2 foxtail palms, a Canary Island date palm, and 2 segos. We also put in some grass stuff in that bed by the drive way. In the bed by the house we have put 3 bushes and I have some other plants sitting on the front porch waiting to be put in the ground. Originally we were going to fill the front bed with ground cover but decided that it might be too much when we bought the trees. I decided that rock would look best. Two Saturdays ago we started putting in the rock. We lined the bed and got in a yard of rock. Not enough rock, but enough for a days work. I was going to mulch the other bed, but never managed to get any mulch purchased. It was a good thing. We had a terrible storm come through that night. Lightening and wind and driven rain. We had water coming in under the front door. Our garbage can blew away, but two others blew into our yard. There was probably 16 inches of water flowing down the roads and it was half way up the driveway. Good thing we didn't mulch anything because it would have all washed away. Last Saturday we shovelled another yard and a half of rocks in the front bed, but it is done now. The other bed still hasn't been mulched. Hopefully this week.

Easter was uneventful. I think that everyone took a nap in the afternoon. We were all tired from the work the previous day and staying out late at the neighbors the night before.

April 12, 2005

Scott finally has his new souped up computer working. Well mostly. He has it booting and using raid. He is in the process of moving things from his old computer.

April 30, 2005

I seem to have all of the technical difficulties cleared up on my computer and I can run my favorite web software again. I guess my what happened to March that didn't get posted at the end of March is now a what happened to April. It pretty much went the way of March. We are just plodding along doing the same old same old.

Graham is doing well at t-ball. He seems to enjoy it. I think that he will want to play again next year. He keeps asking if it is fall yet so he can play soccer again. He has taken an interest lately in writing his letters which is great. He can write his first and last name. I thought that the day would never come. I registered him for kindergarten on Tuesday. I put him in the lottery for one of the partial immersion classes. I don't expect him to get in, but I think it would be a good opportunity for him if he did. The school is within walking distance, but there isn't a direct route right now. Maybe after they widen the road. We can get there through the neighborhood across the street. I'll have to figure out how long it takes to walk there. We should be able to ride the bikes too. Maybe I'll take him to school on the tandem. We'll see. They don't know when school starts yet. We will have to wait until August to find out. This part of town is growing quickly and the school is over flowing. There are eight kindergarten classes (2 of them are partial immersion). Next year we might be in a new school. I think that they are working on it now. It should be within walking distance too. They will need to get a sidewalk put in before we can walk to that one, though.

Scott is done with school next week. I can't believe that. He has to teach one more class on Monday and he gives a test Friday night. Right after the test he is leaving for some graphics conference in College Station so Graham and I will be on our own for the weekend. His new computer seems to be working out well. He is only taking one computer to work these days.

Last year I promised myself that I would get a new bike if I had the money. Since I lost my seat on the tandem I have really wanted a new one. Well I got one today. It is a Terry Isis and I think that it is beautiful. I haven't ridden it very far yet. Just around the block a few times. Tomorrow we'll take it out and see what it can do. Hopefully it won't be as windy as today. I ordered it a month or so ago. I had to wait for them to get parts since I wanted Campy components and they usually put Shimano on their bikes. Then it was another couple of weeks to get the wheels. Once all of the pieces parts where in one spot, they sent the bike to a shop here. That took a week. The shop got the bike yesterday and they had it put together for me around noon today. Scott is going to use the Bianchi for his commuting bike since his mountain bike has pretty much given up the ghost. I am sure he will want a new mountain bike at some point. I told him he could get a new bike too, but he hasn't seemed very interested so far.

May 6, 2005

Well I guess that miracles do happen. They came yesterday and took the bottom out of our shower. Today they took out part of the tile on the walls. I guess that next week they will come put tile back in. Hopefully it won't leak this time.

The new bike is good. I have been out for several rides now and it is really nice. The saddle could use another adjustment, but I'll get it set where I want it eventually. The other night Scott took Graham to t-ball practice so I could go for a ride. You have to be careful with some of the county roads around here. You never know how far they will be paved. I picked the wrong one so the new bike has been through the dirt now. I guess it won't hurt it.

May 9, 2005

Last night we had a thunderstorm roll through. The power went off a couple of times, but didn't stay off long. As usual we had water pouring on the front step. We really need to get some gutters put on the front of the house. The was a bucket full of dirt on the front step that had been there for ages. The bucket full of dirt became a bucket full of mud after the storm. What happens when Graham finds a bucket of mud? The house, the porch, and especially the boy become covered. I squirted it off from him with the hose. He thought that was great fun. Then he wanted to squirt the mud off the house and the porch. That boy loves mud and water.

Graham asked to have his hair cut tonight.

June 1, 2005

Another month gone. I am not sure what happened to May. We have been busy doing nothing much. I still don't have a working shower. Maybe tomorrow they will come do some work. Gina will be here Saturday night with Chase and Cassidy. I hoped that everything would be done by now. I will just be happy that we have other showers. Scott has planned out the play ground for the yard. I think that it will be really nice. We just need to get the wood and get it built. Graham is very excited about it. He is also very excited about his upcoming birthday. We are having a party for him on the 11th. Scott leaves for California on the 12th for a week so the Saturday before his birthday was out. Many of his friend will be on vacation after his birthday so we decided to have it earlier rather then later. He also has a t-ball party that same day so I think that he will be partied out. T-ball is done. His team took 3rd. He enjoyed playing and goes out and practices batting on his tee almost every day. It looks like my work at OSU is going to turn into a regular salaried position. That is really good. In celebration I bought a desk so I would have a little bit more room to work. It came today and it is really nice. Not sure what I will do with all of the space. Scott now wants more space, but I think that cleaning off what he already has will do the trick.

June 9, 2005

Well we just sent Gina and the kids home. They might have had a little bit too much sun. We all enjoyed the visit. Graham had a great time playing with his cousins. We went to the beach, the arcade, and bowling. We had lots of good food. We learned that Gina's favorite thing is a power nap.

June 11, 2005

Birthday party day. We had a couple of late cancels so I wasn't sure that there would be anyone there. It ended up being a small gathering but the kids still had a good time. We had pizza and then opened presents and ate cake. The the kids were turned loose in the arcade. They got a free ride on the bumper cars (well two since we had extra tickets) and they really like that. Graham had a great time and was glad that his friends could come to his party.

Later that afternoon Graham had a party with his T-ball team. It was at the coach's house and the kids had a good time playing in the pool. We were pretty much partied out by the end of the day.

June 19, 2005

It is a big day here today. Father's day and Graham's 5th birthday. Where does the time go. Last night Graham and I went to the airport to get Scott. His had a late flight and Graham refused to sleep before we left. He did sleep in the car on the way home. I figured that he would sleep in. Yeah, right, who was I kidding. After we got home and Graham went back to sleep, we got out his big present and set it up. It was waiting for him in the morning along with the other presents that had been sent to him. He had a good time opening stuff and playing with his toys. Graham wanted to go out for lunch so we went to Macaroni Grill. The place was boardering on busy and it took forever to get our food. I guess that worked out OK since they gave us 2 for the price of 1 on our meals.

July 14, 2005

Happy Bastille Day! Yes we have been enjoying Le Tour. I have been treated to live coverage everyday and it is really nice.

Not much going on here as usual. We started building the play area for Graham, but we haven't got very far. Graham has been taking swimming lessons and seems to be really enjoying it. We need a pool. Too bad we don't have enough yard to put one in. It is hot and humid. We scrapped the Bianchi off the top of the car when we forgot it was there and drove into the garage. It got a new front wheel and seems to be just fine. Good thing it wasn't one of the other bikes.

Graham crashed on a bike at pre-school today. They called me up to bring him some Tylenol. He has quite a lump on his head.

Holy crap, there is a hurricane heading our way.

July 20, 2005

Emily has come ashore and we have barely noticed. I think that it is supposed to be windy with off and on showers during the day, but nothing more then that. I don't think that we even got the heavy rain that they thought we would get over night. Maybe it is still to come.

July 25, 2005

Believe it or not, they have torn our shower out again. There is a good chance that they will finish it this time. All the tile is gone and they are going to put in marble. I guess they can't find anyone who can do a good job with the tile. It isn't really what I wanted, but at this point a working shower will be good enough. Next house we'll get the shower right.

Work on the playground is progressing nicely. We have the slide, tarps, and rope ladders that we order off the internet. Saved a little bit of money there. Both towers are put together with the upper decking installed. One of the ladders is built. We should have that and the slide installed tonight. Maybe some of the railing too.

August 3, 2005

Work continues on the play area. It is actually to the point where Graham can play on it now. We just have a few more things to put up and some trim work to do om the club house. Scott says that he just wants Graham to play on it as many hours as it took for him to build it. I think that it will be a hit.

August 21, 2005

Graham has survived his first week of Kindergarten. He told me while we were walking home on Friday that school was too long. He didn't want to stay until 3. I told him to get used to it. His teacher seems very nice. I think his class is too big, but the school is over flowing. There are 8 kindergarten classes and they are going to make a ninth sometime real soon. Hopefully he won't get moved to a new class. They are supposed to do that according to registration date and we registered pretty early. Mrs. Alba said that she only had 7 boys in the class and 15 girls so she hopes to not lose any of her boys. At least his class will be a little bit smaller after they make the new one.

The school is about a half a mile away. The plan is to walk. The humidity sucks but we have to just deal with that for a few more months. The walking has been hit or miss because we usually run into someone who gives us a ride. Graham would rather ride then walk. I told him that I wasn't getting the car out to take him a half a mile. One day I brought the neighbor kids home. They were very unhappy that they had to walk, but Scott had the car. If I have to pick them up again, I'll probably take the car. Graham always asks now if we can take Megan home with us.

We have been getting up at 7 for school and he is tired in the mornings. We are going to try to go to bed a little bit earlier this week. Of course over the weekend he was up at 6:45 both days and was happy about it. Sigh.

The playground is finished more or less. We still need to do some trim work, but haven't felt like it lately.

September 2, 2005

There was a hummingbird in the lemon tree today. We might have to get a feeder.

September 5, 2005

We had a pretty lazy weekend. We went to the beach Saturday morning. Sunday and this morning we went for bike rides. That was about it for the entire weekend. It rained on us riding today and I told Scott to get Graham home even if I wasn't keeping up. They got a little bit ahead of me and then I got stuck at a traffic light. Then I got a flat tire. The tires on my bike are extremely tight on the rims and it took me a while to get it off. About the time I was getting everything put back together Scott called to see what happened to me. They came in the truck and picked me up. The bikes are filthy and need a bath. Maybe tomorrow.

September 12, 2005

Mrs. Alba, Graham's kindergarten teacher, told me when I picked him up today that he gave the class a thrill. He went into the bathroom and forgot to close the door. The kids were shouting "Graham close the door". He didn't seem to care too much. Typical Graham.

September 17, 2005

Graham had his first soccer game of the season today. I think that he did a really good job. He didn't score any goals, but he was aggressive and tried to get the ball. He came very close to 3 goals. Hopefully he will continue to have fun and enjoy playing.

I have updated the gallery software. Everything within the gallery should work just fine, but most of the links from the other web pages are probably broken. I'll get those fixed as I find them.

September 19, 2005

Looks like tropical storm Rita might be heading our way. We should know more in a couple of days.

September 23, 2005

Lucky for us and not so lucky for other people, Rita turned north as predicted and Corpus Christi is no longer in danger. Wednesday the city and county called for a mandatory evacuation. We boarded up and started preparing the house so we could leave on Thursday or very early Friday morning. Thursday afternoon the evacuation order became voluntary. We decided to wait and watch the storm since we really didn't have a place to go. We were thinking of going to Carlsbad hoping that would be far enough away to actually find a hotel room, but everything we could find on the web for Carlsbad was full for the weekend. I guess with 2 million people leaving the Houston area everything was filling up even that far away. By Thursday evening the evacuation orders in this area had been lifted completely, even for Mustang and Padre Islands. Our forecast for today and tomorrow, windy with a slight chance of a shower. We are still under a tropical storm warning until 1AM Saturday, but windy and a slight chance of a shower doesn't sound too threatening. I think we will survive.

I feel like we are living in a bat cave with the windows boarded up. Maybe we will take them down today. Maybe we'll wait until whatever part of this storm we might get comes through. It has been extremely hot here so having the boards on the windows has helped to keep the house cooler.

Graham is quite happy to not have to leave. He was concerned about his toys and the house and his playground. He also really wanted to eat those Spaghettios. I guess he can start doing that now. Doesn't look like we have to worry about the power being out for days. I hope that this is the last hurricane that gets churned up this season. I think that everyone along the coast has had enough.

October 2, 2005

Yesterday Scott and I did Conqueror the Coast. Scott wanted to be finished around noon and we got back to the car at 12:15 so that was pretty good. It was windy and not just like we thought it would be. We hooked up with another tandem early on the ride and ended up pulling a bunch of single to the ferry. There was a rest stop right after the ferry were we fueled up and then took off with the other tandem again. We didn't have quite as many wheel suckers this time. The ride down Mustang Island wasn't much fun. The wind wasn't a direct head wind but was bad enough. We slowed way down by the end of it. We managed to drop the other tandem, but meet back up with them at the rest stop. We took a long rest and were feeling pretty good for the turn back to town. Going over the bridge wasn't bad and we hit about 42 on the way down. The wind was mostly behind us now and we kept up a good pace. Once we got to Ocean Drive the other tandem slowed down to take in the sights. Since we ride there all of the time, we kept going and finish the ride in roughly 4 1/2 hours. Not too bad for us.

Graham spent Friday night at the neighbors so we wouldn't have to drop him off at 6:30 in the morning. I think that he had a good time there. One of the other soccer mom's picked him up for his soccer game and then dropped him back off at the neighbors. Scott and I picked up him after we had cleaned up and weren't so stinky. We pretty much spent the rest of the afternoon being lazy.

October 23, 2005

Graham told Scott that he wanted to do 100 laps of the neighborhood after we got back from our morning ride. Here they are coming home after their last lap. They quit after 2 laps.

October 26, 2005

Graham failed a hearing test at school so we were notified and told to take him to a doctor to get it checked out. I started with our family doctor. He certainly wasn't hearing very well. He had water behind his right ear and an infection in his left. He was hearing better out of his left ear (the one that failed the test) then his right. The doc put him on antibiotic and something to help dry up the water. He also got us an appointment with a specialist to see if Graham needed tubs in his ears. His appointment was today and his hearing was just fine. The water is gone and so is the infection. I am glad that it turned out to be nothing.

October 27, 2005

The kindergarten classes had a pumpkin contest. We had to decorate a pumpkin without carving it. It was supposed to be based on a storybook character. Graham decided that he wanted to do Kapai, a kiwi from one of his books from New Zealand. We worked together (well, Scott and I did most of it) to turn a pumpkin into a kiwi. We thought the end result was pretty good. I guess the judges liked it too because it got third place in Mrs. Alba's class. Graham was quite proud of his ribbon.

November 1, 2005

Graham said that he had a good time trick or treating until it started to rain. Scott took him around the neighborhood with the two kids across the street. Pictures of pumpkins and costumes here. It was his first time to go beg for candy. He made quite a killing. They were going to make two laps of the neighborhood doing one side of the street on the first lap and the other side on the second. They only did one lap because of the rain. He still had a full bag of candy. Since most of the kids called it quits early, we have lots of leftover candy. Not sure what we will do with all of it. We don't need to eat it. Maybe Scott will take it to work.

December 8, 2005

Cold here this morning. The high is supposed to be between 35 and 41. Tomorrow will be more of the same. We slept with the quilt on last night.

Graham and I had a nice Thanksgiving in Utah. It was cold, but not snow. We were there for 5 days and ate lots of good food and had a good time playing games. Tom and Michelle took Graham for a ride on the 4 wheeler and he really enjoyed that.

Graham enjoyed a fieldtrip to the Aquarium on the November 30th.

We have put up the tree for Christmas and Graham is getting excited as presents start to show up under it. Maybe we will get the lights on the house this weekend. We are still debating on what to put up. We really like the new LED lights, but haven't decided if we want to spend that much money getting enough to put up on the house.

Scott is done teaching for the semester and gives his finals next week. Not sure what he will be doing after that. Maybe some work. Maybe some play. Graham's last day of school is the 20th and he will be out until January 9th. I don't get anytime off, so maybe Scott and Graham will entertain each other.