Rob and the California George Family

The process of updating this blog has obviously been tough for me lately. I have so many other things drawing my attention that it's tough to get over here and post an update. I know that there are ways to get it done, but I don't want it to feel like work.

I got online today to check out my neighbor's blog. He retired recently and is heading out on a cross-country ride on his Harley. I saw him off this morning with his SUV and trailer with his two bikes. He will cross the country to his brother's house in Virginia and then start the motorcycle riding part of the trip. If anyone is interested, he plans to blog his trip at:
http://GonzoCrossUSA.blogspot.com
(If I am less lazy later, I will turn that into a hyperlink.)

On the personal front, things are well. I still have the same job. I am about to transition from one customer project in Canada to another customer project in Canada. That will carry me through at least the end of the year at which point I will have been working exclusively on international projects for 4 straight years (starting with my New Zealand and Sweden trips in Dec 2007)!

Bethany turns 18 years old today!!!! She is very excited about starting at San Diego State University at the end of this month. She will be living on campus, although we still have a few details to learn about that.

Hayley had to make up her 2nd semester of Geometry with a summer school class to improve her grade. From what she is telling us, she is doing a great job! She has her final tomorrow and it sounds like she is on track to get an A this time.

Honestly, I am not sure what all Andrew is up to lately. He still lives with my mom in Costa Mesa and spends a lot of time on his passion: music. He is doing some sort of self-employed web site design work now too, but I don't know many details around that. I think he is just finishing his first project now.

Thanks for letting me share again, even if it has been a while. Even if no one has time to read it, at least I got a little writing practice again!

Labels: Andrew, Bethany, Hayley, School, Work

Since my posts last year...

I have been traveling back and forth to Canada (Toronto and Montreal) a lot for a customer. The project is continuing and I am about to head back again.

Andrew is working at "Prehistoric Pets" - a store in Fountain Valley that sells pets such as reptiles and arachnids. They also do birthday parties with said animals. He is also taking music classes to expand his musical skills. He still lives with my mom on Costa Mesa.

Bethany just decided to become an Aztec. This is breaking news. She will officially be at SDSU in late August, but the payments started last night.

Hayley keeps active with Club Volleyball, Girl Scouts, Sea Scouts, and of course school. So far she has been able to effectively manage all of these activities, but it keeps her (and us) very busy!

Labels: Andrew, Bethany, Hayley, Work

We have had a definite summer mix of entropy and order in our household.

Entropy:
My work watch battery died. My casual watch band broke. The stores are always packed when I go to get them fixed, so I keep waiting for another time.

The Tivo that I got Celeste for Christmas didn't work as billed. It was not recording programs and was randomly resetting. We have gotten 3 replacement units to test (the latest seems to be working finally).

My cable modem stopped working together with cable TV. I could only get one or the other - in the middle of trying to test one of the replacement Tivo units!

The suburban needed new tires after we got a flat on a family outing.

The refrigerator was slowly dying, but gave us enough warning to go find a replacement.

The first replacement refrigerator had a leak in the freezer. It made beautiful ice sculptures, but that was not enough to offset our real need for a freezer.

The day that the first replacement refrigerator was delivered, our clothes washer decided that holding water was optional and dumped it all out on the floor. It gave us no warning, so we went appliance shopping again.

The second replacement refrigerator was obviously damaged, yet the retailer sent it to us anyway. The delivery guys were smart enough to show us the damage before unloading it.

The third replacement refrigerator and the new washer both arrived today. Both seem to work, but the delivery guys did some carving in the wood door jam to the kitchen as they moved the unit in.

I've missed some details, but that gives the general direction.

This is not a rant, but rather an observation that sometimes the bad luck cycles like to coincide. However, it's easy to forget the good things (i.e., the order) if you don't stop and think about it.

Order:
Bethany made it to Norway to visit Ina and family, stayed for more than 3 weeks, and returned as planned. Our webcam and cell phone communications allowed for daily contact as planned.

Bethany finished her Girl Scout Gold Award and we got to hold a nice party for her and her friend (they had "twin" projects at the same location) at the park where they did their project.

Celeste and I made it to our first no-kids getaway in almost 20 years last month. Hayley had a great time with Flying Van and family, Bethany was in Norway, and Andrew is still lives with Gramma in Costa Mesa.

Hayley has started summer Volleyball in preparation for trying out for the high school team. She is also moving into high school as a freshman and will join her sister at the same school for the first time in 5 years.

Hayley got a preview of being an only child while Bethany was away. It was good practice for when Bethany heads to college in a little over a year. She seemed to like it, although she did miss her sister.

Celeste and I had our first chance to see Andrew and his band perform recently here in Lake Forest. He has been working with them for a while, but it was the first venue that was close enough when the kids were busy for us to check it out together.

Labels: Andrew, Bethany, Family, Hayley, Ina, Scouts, Vacation, Volleyball

Things have been very busy for me since the cruise. The week after the cruise I was in Montreal visiting my current customer. This was followed by a week of preparing for another prototype review for that customer. This week, I am in the Toronto area at another office for the same customer. However, I hope to find more time for blogging again.

Since it has been a while, this post will cover a lot of ground.

Andrew has been playing with a couple of bands and starting to make some money here and there. He is a lead singer and plays guitar and bass guitar. His band has had a couple of out-of-town trips with the most recent to Arizona where they played at a bar and Utah where they played at a wedding. Celeste had a chance to see him play at a local bar/restaurant near home while I stayed home with the girls.

Bethany has started the SAT/ACT testing process. You can definitely tell a motivated teenager when they are willing to PAY to get up early on a weekend and take a grueling test! She is especially looking forward to getting out of school. The day after her last final, Beth is off to Norway to visit Ina and her family for three weeks!

Hayley has continued playing volleyball. She moved up a level and has real coaching instead of just me now. Her skills have definitely improved with her specialties being serving and setting. Hayley is about to graduate from 8th grade and become a freshman at the high school.

Hayley and I went to see the latest Shrek movie last weekend while Bethany was taking her SAT Subject Tests. It was fair, but not as good as the first one IMHO.

Hayley continues to be my last hope for playing my board games. Bethany is not into them at all, Andrew will play some when he is around, and Celeste will only play a few. Hayley has really enjoyed quite a few of them and occasionally I pull out an old classic. The most recent classic was Battle Masters. This is close to minatures, but still on a game board. Granted the game board is around 4' by 5' and with lots of cool plastic pieces to move around (knights, orcs, archers, beastmen, etc.). We pulled aside the dining room table to have room to play and kept it around for the weekend. Lots of fun pulling out the old stuff!

As I write this, I am in the Toronto area for work. I am outside of town without a car since my hotel is across the parking lot from my customer. I can see downtown Toronto in the distance from my hotel room, but no time on this trip to visit. I've posted some pictures from there. Also, when I checked in they were out of regular non-smoking rooms. Rather than moving me to smoking (Yuck!), they upgraded me to a suite with a Jacuzzi and Sauna. Despite all of my trips to Finland, I have never tried a sauna. I did try out the Jacuzzi, so maybe I have to give the Sauna a try tonight. Maybe. I posted some pictures of that too.

I did take a nice walk last night and found a local geocache. I was disappointed to see the the geocoins that were supposed to be there were not. However, when I read the log today I see that a new geocoin was dropped off. If the rain stays away, I may go get that one.

My hotel is very near Pearson International Airport, so I can see planes in the final approach to landing from my room. The hotel is soundproofed nicely, so it is cool to watch. This is obviously a very international destination. Here are some of the airlines that I can remember seeing from my hotel this week:

* Air Canada
* Jazz
* Continental
* United
* American
* Korean Air
* LOT (Polish Flag Air Carrier)
* AlItalia
* Lufthansa

OK, that is enough for now. I'll try to post shorter blurbs more often for a while!

Here is the Toronto skyline as seen from my hotel window:

This is the jacuzzi and sauna in my hotel room:

Here is the jacuzzi in my room when I prepared it for use:

I found a geocache in that small tree behind me:

Labels: Andrew, Bethany, Blogging, Family, Games, Geocaching, GPS, Hayley, Ina, Movies, Rob, School, Travel, Volleyball, Work

One of the highlights of the Hawaii trip was when Bethany, Udara, and I went zip lining. They have tall stands of pine trees brought in by Captain Cook long ago. These continue to grow tall and strong. Very tall!

After an earlier post, Shoo asked if I weighed myself before and after the cruise. I definitely weighed myself before the cruise. The zip line company has an upper weight limit and, at my heaviest, I have been above that. I started the cruise at 250lbs looking at a weight limit of 265lbs. The zip line excursion was scheduled for Thursday (nearly the end of the cruise). That gave me an incentive to watch the good intake! On zip line morning, I weighed in at 251.4. I was happy.

The course went in a roughly circular pattern so that we did not have to do much walking. There were some bridge crossings, but no hiking from one line to another.

Here are some photos.


... and one video. Unfortunately, I ended up backwards on this landing. I came in facing forward for the rest, but this is the one video of me on a full zip line run. This was towards the end of the 7 zip lines that we did. They tried to get us to do a trick. I was going for a 360 degree spin. The 180 that I got was pretty weak!

Labels: Bethany, Family, Vacation

The cruise industry is doing a lot to try to increase the revenue per person once they get you on the ship. Don't get me wrong - you can have a great time without spending on any of the extras. The price includes a room, food, and entertainment. A "service fee" is automatically taken at the end of the week to cover the standard tips for the restaurants and the room steward. You have opportunities for extra tipping, but it is for anyone special that you want to recognize or for some of the "extras" on the ship.

One extra that we partook of was the ship's photography department. We didn't purchase all of the pictures that they took and we bypassed some of the photo opportunities. However, we did buy a few photos and a scrapbook. Our arrival photo purchase included a photo of the ship and the scrapbook included another photo of the ship.

Here are copies of the photos that we bought.

Here is our ship: the Pride of America. This is the photo that came with our arrival photo.


This is when we arrived to the ship on Saturday, April 3. We had flow in from LAX, taken a shuttle to the ship, and we were about to check in and get on the ship. This photo was taken in the arrival area with a few hundred of our soon-to-be-ship-mates around us. They had entertainment and some reading to get ready for the first day, so overall it was a decent check-in experience.

P.S. They claimed that it was an important tradition to set me on fire upon arrival (see my hand in the photo above).


The ship's photography department had opportunities for formal portraits. We didn't do that. However, we did have some fun with some green screen photos. Below is the only one that Celeste and I liked. The girls were busy with the teen club and didn't join us.


At each port, there was a photo opportunity as you left the ship. We skipped the photo opp in Maui and Hilo. However, we got a nice family shot when we got off the ship on Wedneday, April 7 in Kona on the big island. We were on our way to kayaking and snorkeling (I have already posted a few of those photos).



On Thursday morning (April 8) we arrived in Kauai. Bethany, Udara, and I left the ship for another one of our shore excursions. More about that in a future blog entry.


On our final full day of the cruise (Friday, April 9) we left port early enough to sail along the Na Pali Coast of Kauai. As you can see from this photo, the scenery is very dramatic. This part of the island is off-limits to any development.


The next day, we got off the ship at around 9:15am (after one last buffet breakfast). Little did we know that we had more adventures ahead. But that is a story for another blog entry.

Labels: Bethany, Family, Hayley, Rob, Scouts, Vacation

On our trip to Hawaii, we made use of 6 different digital cameras. The quality of the cameras ranged from a very nice one that Bethany purchased last year to my cell phone camera at the low end. Hayley also had her first chance to try out a camera that she bought last year too. She was happy with the results.

Anyway, my laptop was the repository for the pictures all week. Yesterday, I sent an external hard drive full of pictures and videos home with Udara to back up. Then Bethany wanted copies of the photos. All we had left was a couple of 2GB SD cards and a 256MB SD card. Between those three cards, it took around 8 passes to get all of the files transferred.

We took a lot of photos and videos!

Of course, we followed the digital camera rule of taking lots of pictures to get a few good ones. A lot of the shots are marginal at best, but that strategy allowed us to get some pictures we might not have otherwise gotten.

Anyway, I will continue to post some of the interesting items as my schedule permits.

Labels: Bethany, Family, Hayley, Vacation

Rather than not posting due to lack of time, here are some initial pictures from our Hawaii trip.

Here we are at LAX before leaving for the flight. This was officially a Girl Scout trip - the girls saved up their money for many years for this. However, we only ended up with one non-family Girl Scout on the trip (Udara). Udara is one of Bethaany's best friends and like a daughter to our family. Udara's dad drove us to the airport.


Here is a starter picture taken by each of the girls on Easter Sunday on Maui.

A photo taken by Hayley:


A photo taken by Bethany:


A photo taken by Udara:

Labels: Bethany, Family, Hayley, Scouts, Vacation

I have a new project that started in October. It has required 2 trips to Montreal, Quebec, Canada so far. If all goes well, I will be headed back there a number of times in 2010.

The unfortunate thing is that I am actually staying in a suburb of Montreal called Anjou. There is not much around. It is not like the trips to Helsinki where there are a lot of cool historical places in walking distance. I did get to drive into the main city with some co-workers one night, but that was it.

The area where I am staying seems safe to walk around, but there is not much there. Mostly strip malls and residential areas. Not much of interest.

I did take a few photos on my first week there (see below). Per Lee's suggestion, I checked out a Tim Horton's and had dinner there one night. I think I would appreciate it more if I were into coffee, but it was fine for a quick meal and a donut.

A typical residential street near my hotel. It will be snowing soon, but for now the weather was in the 30s and 40s.


The picture above shows apartments or condos. Not far away was an area of single family homes such as this one.


Below are a couple of pictures of park areas that I passed as I explored.



Everything is in French and sometimes also in English. The sign below was for a local election. The idea of marking up the signs seems pretty universal. I went to a couple of restaurants where they only speak French. I will have to have Bethany tutor me some (she is in her 3rd year from French at school).


More signs in French.



My hotel is on the right. Straight ahead is a major highway (freeway in California speak). The hotel is near the intersection of two major freeways. There is a mall across the freeway and a bit to the left of this photo, but it seems pretty quiet over that way in the evenings. I did not get a chance to go check it out.


Here is a self-portrait across the street from the local Tim Horton's. Tim is everywhere. I thought that Starbucks had a lot of locations in the US, but Tim seems to have them beat in Canada!

Labels: Bethany, Rob, Travel, Work

On Monday, Bethany had her sixteenth birthday. It was a little bit low key because we had a bigger blowout for her fifteenth birthday, but we still wanted to acknowledge it. A good friend of hers turned 16 three days earlier, so she spent two nights in San Diego last week with a group to celebrate that.

On her return, we surprised her by having several friends spend Saturday night at our house. We setup a projector and big screen to play movies for the group in our large upstairs playroom. On Sunday, we took them to play laser tag and have lunch.

The laser tag games were an interesting combination of younger boys, teenage boys, and the group of 5 girls (and me). The games were supposed to be free-for-all with everyone scoring off of everyone. However, the groups seemed to naturally evolve into teams anyway: the little kids and related adults vs the teenage boys vs the girls. The older boys seemed annoyed by the audacity of the girls to challenge them as a group while the younger boys were happy to have a natural enemy in the girls to skirmish with. The girls seemed to follow the free-for-all spirit of things in game 1, but learned (with a little coaching from me) to work together like the other groups were doing. At the end of three games, the consensus was that it was fun and ideas for future father/daughter events were discussed.

Sunday evening ended with a family outing for dinner at Lucille's, a local BBQ restaurant that Bethany selected.

On Monday, some friends with annual Disneyland passes (the deluxe kind that are not blacked out in August) took Beth for her free Disneyland day that the park offers. She took that chance to renew her annual pass (received on her fifteenth birthday) with a discount from her free ticket. We finished the night of her actual birthday with the family at home watching episodes of Smallville on DVD (we are getting around to watching those which I got for my birthday last year).

Labels: Bethany, Birthdays, Disneyland

Life has been really busy, but it is hard to make it interesting enough to post. Here are a few notes nevertheless.

Volleyball Season came and went. I had a lively bunch of girls that made a pretty good team, but we had an ok season. I don't have stats, but we were right around 50% on our win:loss record. The important thing is that I am pretty sure that the girls had fun.

Celeste had a birthday last week and we celebrated yesterday. It was a low key day with all of the kids around. We helped her do some work around the house, played some games, saw a movie (Night at the Museum 2).

Work is busy, but not overly so. My European customers are getting ready for the July/August vacation season. They sure seem to have the right idea about vacation time over there! Even the newest employees get somewhere around 3 weeks of vacation per year plus a ton of holidays.

I took a day trip to Arizona last week to see a customer. That trip reminded me that I am very lopsided on my international vs domestic travel. In the past 2 years I have travelled to 2 US customers (Arizona, Texas) and a whole bunch of international customers. For the foreseeable future, that will remain the same. My next planned trip is to Finland in September. The international travel has been an interesting turn in my career. It takes extra travel time that would have been much more difficult when the kids were younger. I have enjoyed the chance to see some parts of the world that I would not otherwise get to.

School gets out next week for the girls. Hayley gets out a day early since the 7th graders start a day early for orientation to the new school (7th grade is the start of Middle School here). That means helping with final homework and studying for finals. However, it also means that my mornings will be my own again instead of helping get ready and driving kids to school!

I'll try to dig up some interesting stuff (at least stuff that I find more interesting) next time.

Labels: Bethany, Family, Hayley, Volleyball

I received a text message this morning from Ina that she was back in Norway. Her parents met her in Oslo and she is on her way home with them now (from Oslo she still has a ~1 hour flight and then ~2 hour drive to get home).

Ina Therese Alvaeren is an exchange student from Norway who lived with us from last August through yesterday. She attended our local High School as a senior. Due to a family event, she finished the school year early. We dropped her off at LAX yesterday afternoon and have been watching the British Airways updates on her flights since then. Now that she is with her parents, our responsibility has been passed back to them.

Ina's visit helped us have a fully packed year of family activities! A few examples:
- San Francisco
- Monterey
- Yosemite
- Las Vegas
- Sea World
- Hollywood
- Universal Studios
- Knotts Berry Farm
- Disneyland Annual Passes
- Attend a taping of America's Funniest Videos
- Visited more beaches in 1 year than we have in the last 10 years!
- Purchased a new family Christmas Tree (we go the artificial route - Ina talked us into the new tree that we bought)
- Our version of holidays such as Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc.

I am cutting the list very short, but this provides a good sampling of the things we got to do with her.

More importantly, she got to be a member of our family. She got to know a number of American kids her own age and see what we were like. She got to tell us and our friends about Norway. She walked to school with Bethany daily. She gave her extra US and European coins to Hayley and answered Hayley's questions about how to say things in Norwegian.

This is not the end of our story with Ina - just the closing of the first chapter.

Labels: Bethany, Family, Hayley, Ina

Once again, work and life activites are keeping me busy. It shouldn't be that hard to write a few lines once in a while, but I obsess over my postings. Usually. Not this one. I will keep it free flow and let it go no matter what warts it may contain. My goal is to post something despite not having a lot of time. I am also not checking what I have written before, so apologies in advance if there is any repeat material here.

My customer in Sweden has gone live with our software. They have been using it for a few weeks now and so far, so good. There are still issues to resolve, but nothing that is stopping use of the software. This customer has operations around the world. The next step is planned to be Germany in September.

Last week I was in Finland working with another customer. They plan to go live with the software in January 2010. I have 2 more planned trips back to Finland during the process.

Hayley is in the middle of volleyball season. I had to miss our first game against another site last week. I understand that the team won 2 and lost 1 game. This is a co-ed league and not very competitive (no playoffs for example). However, the kids really like to win and try hard. My team is in the 11 - 15 age bracket. I happen to have all 7th grade girls. The one team that they lost to was mostly boys on the older side. From what I hear, they made a respectable effort against them (the score was something like 25 - 15).

Ina (our Norwegian exchange student) goes home next week Tuesday. This is before school gets out, but she is getting home early for a family function. She has finished her finals and is going through her last week of school. After school on Friday, we are going to a beachfront hotel in Oxnard to let her get one last California beach weekend. It has been a great experience having her here, but after this weekend we need to give our budget a break from all of the travel and activities!

Bethany is taking French as her language in school. She plans to take it all 4 years and is finishing her second year. She was invited to join a French student honor society and had the ceremony last week. I missed it due to being in Finland. I really, really don't like to miss things like that, but had no choice this time. At least I take solace in knowing that I attend way more than most dads (based on my experience when I do attend). My job requires a lot of hours, but it gives me a lot of flexibility most of the time to attend events like this.

Andrew has gone back to school and is almost done with his first semester. He seems to be more serious this time around and in some of our conversations has recognized that he has lost a lot of time. On the other hand, he has gotten some real life experiences. He still performs a lot: singing, guitar, some keyboard. He has had a chance to play in a few for-pay shows which is good experience. However, they have been places that are not "family friendly" so far. We really want to see him perform sometime, but need to wait for a venue that he thinks will be ok for the girls to attend.

Damn. I couldn't resist. I just went to paragraph 1 and made a correction. I caught myself and stopped before doing any more. It's like an addiction!

OK, back to work. I think I spent about 10 minutes typing this up, although I really didn't time myself. In any case, it was significantly less than I usually spend!

Labels: Andrew, Bethany, Family, Hayley, Ina, Work

We got home from vacation which went very well. I'll have to post more about that another time.

Back at home, work is very busy. My customer in Sweden is in the process of going live on our software. That means very long work hours at unusual times right now. However, it should be behind me by the middle of next week.

I'm still finding time for family even with the work. Last night I took Andrew, Ina, and Hayley to an Angels Baseball game. The Angels lost, but it was still an exciting game. Lots of hits and the score kept going back and forth. Unfortunately, the Angels were on the "back" side at the end of the game.

Tomorrow we are taking Bethany and her Girl Scout troop on another college visit (have I written about that? Need to check.). We are driving up to UC Santa Barbara. Between the drive and the on-campus time it will be a very long day. The girls need lots of hours to apply to their Gold Awards, so that is a good thing. However, it also means a Friday away from my projects so I have to figure out how to keep everyone busy when I have very little way to communicate with them.

Volleyball season started last week. Hayley is doing it, but Bethany has gotten to old for the league. I am coaching Hayley's team again. They picked their team name: Fergilicious (need to confirm that spelling). I told them that it could not be a dull name and it had to be family-friendly. Beyond that, it was a team vote. The name Caliente Loco (Crazy Hot) came in a close second.

I'll close with a couple of pictures of Hayley from the end of our vacation. We are at my aunt's house. The house is by a private runway and has a hangar attached to it. For car fans, you can appreciate this. My aunt has owned a Shelby Cobra since 1972. It is in great shape and is often taken to car shows. For those that are not car fans, this is a very expensive car by a renowned designer and is personally signed by that designer (see the "glove compartment" area in the photo showing the dash). The girls had fun taking photos in the car and in the (not seen in this photo) airplane that is also in this hangar.




(by request) ... and now you're all caught up!

Labels: Andrew, Bethany, Hayley, Ina, School, Scouts, Vacation, Volleyball, Work

Bethany and Hayley both have important tests going on today.

For Bethany, she (and the rest of the 10th grade) is taking the CAHSEE (California High School Exit Exam) today. This is a test that all students must pass to get a diploma. From what I hear, it is a very low bar to leap. However, it is intended to avoid the embarrassment of my generation where there were jokes about students that could not read the diplomas that they received.

Hayley has a more intense situation. She was home sick with the flu all last week. Last Thursday and Friday were Trimester finals for her. She missed those. We have been helping her prepare for the 4 tests that she has to make up. She took History and Math tests yesterday. She has to complete Math today and take her English final. She may take her Science final today or it may push to tomorrow. In any case, she has to do this on top of keeping up with her regular work. I have re-learned a LOT about History, Science, Math, and English over the past week or so. We were even studying over the weekend while we were out selling Girl Scout cookies at the grocery store.

Good luck to the test takers.

Labels: Bethany, Hayley, Health, School

As Lee pointed out, I have another large gap in my blog. Rather than waiting to get pictures, here is a summary of some things that have happened since I returned from Finland.

- Uneventful trip back home - as it should be! No serious delays, the entertainment system worked on the plane, and I had an aisle seat instead of the middle seat for the London - LAX flight!

- Celeste's Suburban needed some major repairs. We are not ready to downsize the car due to school and Girl Scout transportation requirements, and we are not ready to purchase another large vehicle. So we fixed it.

- Joined Hayley with her Sea Scout ship (the one she will officially join when she is 14) in the Newport Harbor 100th annivesary boat parade. The boat had problems, so we dropped out of the parade early. However, that let us watch the parade close up from the deck.

- My brother and his family (the "Colorado George Family") arrived for their Christmas visit. They stayed with my mom for a week before visiting the other family in San Diego.

- Semi-annual teeth cleaning and check for Celeste & I. All is well.

- For the second year, I got a work break around the holidays. This year, the company closed down (with pay) from Dec 24 to Jan 2.

- The girls (Celeste, Ina, Bethany, Hayley) and I visited Knott's Berry Farm with the Colorado Georges, my mom, Andrew, and Ina.

- Christmas celebration with Colorado George family, my mom, Celeste's mom, Andrew, and the family at home (including Ina) on Christmas Eve.

- Christmas Day celebration with Andrew, Celeste's mom, the the family at home. Ina was somewhat homesick, but she got a lot of gifts from both the Norway family and her American family. She made Celeste cry on Christmas Day (in a good way, that is a story for another day). We went to see the movie Marley & Me which was very different than the ads led you to expect. We generally liked it. Andrew claims that the movie made me cry. He can't prove anything.

- Celeste, Bethany, and Ina went out for day-after-Christmas sales with Celeste's mom. Hayley and I stayed home to play games together. Hayley and I were lured into having lunch with everyone at the new Ruby's that opened at the Irvine Spectrum and then we joined them for a little bit more shopping.

- Celeste, Ina, Bethany, Hayley, and I went to visit Hollywood for a day. We stalked some movie stars homes and then visited the area around Hollywood & Highland. This turned out to be one of the highlights of Ina's visit to America due to the brush with fame and lots of photo opportunities.

- New Years Eve was pretty low key. Bethany went to a dance at a local church with some friends and had a great time. We played some cards with another family at home. We popped some streamers at midnight and then I picked up Bethany and a few of her friends from the dance.

- New Years Day was an outing day, but it was cool and foggy. Celeste, Ina, Bethany, Hayley, Rachael (Bethany's friend), and I went to Corona Del Mar State Beach ("Big Corona") to let the girls play and take pictures on the rocks and jetty. I think that the last time that I was at this beach was with Shoo and Lee when we used to meet there by taking the Route 57 OCTD bus from each end (Lee and I from Costa Mesa, Shoo from El Toro). We stayed about 2 hours and left when we decided that the fog was not going to clear. We went to see the movie Bedtime Stories which got mixed reviews from the family. Andrew was not there to accuse me of unmanly emotions.

- Hayley and I have been playing the Xbox game Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliances together. We spend and hour here and an hour there. At one point we lost our save and had to start over. However, we finally finished it. It was a fun experience and I am proud to be raising a Gamer Grrl! Now I need to find a cheap copy of the sequel so that we can take the next step.

- Jan 5 was back to school and back to work. A general sense of dread was felt by all at the loss of freedom.

OK, now I need to go find some pictures to better document some of the events listed above. I will not wait 24 days for that.

Labels: Andrew, Bethany, Family, Hayley, Ina

We wrapped up our Fall Volleyball season today. Last Saturday we had 3 wins, no ties or losses. Today we tried to achieve an undefeated season.

At practice on Tuesday, Hayley was feeling cocky. One of the other coaches mentioned that we had no losses. On our final day we had games scheduled within our own site only, so we were playing that coach's team. Hayley decide to place a bet on our game with his team. She wanted to bet $5, but the coach only had $1 to put on the line.

Game day arrived today.

Game 1 was a win. A good start for the day!

Game 2 was our downfall. The other team was short a player, so Hayley switched teams for that game. We play to 25, but the winners have to win by 2. The game was back and forth throughout with some of the best plays that we have seen all season. The teams both played hard, but in the end the other team prevailed with a 27 - 25 win.

Game 3 was the money game. The best player at our site, hands down, is on the team we played here. He is the son of the coach that bet with Hayley. It was a good, friendly rivalry. It really came down to this: they had one excellent player and a bunch of average players. We had a team of above average players that work well as a team and are willing to hustle.

Game 3 was a win, and Hayley proudly accepted her $1.

So our team ended up with a season of 20 games broken down as 16 wins, 3 ties, and 1 loss. Hayley ended the season with no losses and an extra $1!

Labels: Bethany, Hayley, Volleyball

We are in the middle of the Fall Volleyball seaason. Between Girl Scouts and business travel, I am missing a lot of the season. We only play for 8 weeks which goes by very fast. Each week, we practice once (Tuesdays) and play once (Saturdays). I have missed 2 Saturdays and (including the upcoming week) 2 Thursdays. Hopefully I will make the rest, but that is a 25% absentee rate.

As with last season, I am coaching the team with Bethany and Hayley. You would think that the team would be demoralized and play poorly with the coach gone. The first Saturday was just practice - no games. That one doesn't count. However, let's review yesterday. The team had 3 wins and 1 tie for the day. Last season when I missed a game they had 4 wins and no losses. I guess I should not let the power of being the coach go to my head!

This season, there is a lot of help which makes a difference too. Another dad is helping when he can (like yesterday) and he has some good volleyball experience. Also, one of the big sisters is an assistant coach when she is available. Finally, Celeste and family know the game well after so many seasons and provide good support from the crowd.

In this league, we don't have playoffs so we don't track standings. It's all played for fun - and it is fun. However, unofficially the kids do keep track. Here are our standings so far this season:

Week 1, 2 wins
Week 2, 3 wins, 1 tie
Week 3, 3 wins, 1 tie

There are 3 game days remaining. We'll see how it goes. Hopefully my return next Saturday (the day after returning from Finland) will not upset the record!

Labels: Bethany, Hayley, Volleyball

I completely glossed over Bethany's birthday earlier this month. She turned 15. It has been a busy month between the reunion, our new exchange student, keeping up at work, and so on. Anyway, one of the busy items this month was the celebration of Bethany's birthday.

Bethany has a number of friends that have Disneyland annual passes. As a result, we decided to allow her to have a Disneyland birthday. This included renting a room at the Residence Inn nearby for 2 nights and covering one day of admission for a couple of friends that did not have passes.

By staying at the Residence Inn, we had great meals in the hotel room courtesy of the full kitchen. The hotel also offered a nice breakfast. We saved a ton of money by not eating at Disneyland!

The weekend was called a great success by the girls. We parents were a bit worn out though. Bethany had a good 15th birthday celebration!

Labels: Bethany, Disneyland, Family

Labels: Bethany, Family, Geocaching