Good weather = Less posts

Must have had good weather around here because I see a lack of blogging going on. Well, I'm sure we can catch up real quick here.....

Great Grandma Carol came to visit for a week, and we all really enjoyed having her around. Went for a day-camp near Anderson Ranch on Saturday....had some little snow storms blow through, but it was still very nice.

Panoramio Test

Trying out this tricky little feature discovered on the Panoramio web site......oh the wheels are turning now!!!

Smoothie Operator (I stole that from Max)

Sally and I thought we should have a little contest involving blenders while she was here, and it turned into a great, big smoothie contest with 5 teams vying for the coveted dollar store trophy.

The basic idea of the contest was to have 2 people per blender come up with a smoothie drink using whatever ingredients they wanted to bring, steal or borrow, followed by a tasting by all teams and an anonymous voting process to determine the smoothiest winner.


The criteria for judging were:
Nutritional Value (ranked 1 to 5)
ColorAppeal/Presentation (scale of 1 to 10)
Taste (scale of 1 to 10)
Texture (scale of 1 to 10)
Most points wins.

Here is a picture of most of the ingredients that were up for grabs. I say 'most' because some people insisted on keeping their key ingredients in a brown paper bag (Mom and Cooper).

Brian and Amy creating the Aloha Sunset.

Max and Amanda even brought team jerseys for their Raspberry Truffle entry.

Cooper and Grandma whipping up a Mello Banana Peanut Butter Frapp. Mello as in marshMello. Not much of a nutrional score on that one, I'm afraid.

Sam and the Shanna Cabana.

And Mia guarding her and Sally's Summertime Creamsicle.

Time for the tasting!!! Cooper can barely sit still he's so excited about 'THOSE TROPHIES' and Mia 'just wants to win'.

As you can see from the scorecard, Max and Amanda ran away with the prize by scoring a perfect 40 on Taste. It really actually did taste like Raspberry Truffle, even though Max swears that this was the first smoothie he ever made.... Note the '2' that Mia gave Mom and Coop for Color Appeal because 'it's brown-yuck!!' that really sunk their battleship.

All the smoothies were great - I'd gladly pay $$ for any one of them. Couldn't have been a more fun group of people to blend with either, if you know what I mean.

Silly Sally Springtime

Sally was here this weekend, so the usual mayhem ensued. Here are some pics.

Giant game of memory, first thing in the morning.

Lemonade Stand in the afternoon. They made like $40 an hour, the little varmits.

And hid some easter eggs with Jaelyn on Sunday. Inside because it was raining. Notice Jacob's big egg eyes.

Of course, the kids absolutely loved having Sally around and they look forward to June when she may be able to visit again.

Pink, Flamingo Pink

After a minor delay in posting (more to come I can assure you), I return to the blogosphere tonight with 2 weeks worth of updates. One reason for the delay is that I was in Las Vegas last week for a trade show, and then I subsequently stayed a few extra days with Steve, who happens to be working down there right now. We spent most of the time at Bass Pro Shops preparing for Baja (ie buying a lot of tackle), and the rest of the time we spent talking about dreaming about hypothesizing (sp?) about arguing about and generally discussing 'the trip'. I stayed in the Hilton Grand Vacations Club behind that Flamingo, which I didn't even know existed. It was actually a sweet spot because it was close to everything, yet had a nice kitchen, washer and dryer (in the room!), and no smelly casino in the lobby. I would recommend. Here's the view at night overlooking the pools and palm trees and a huge pink flamingo. Sorry, forgot to take a picture in the daytime.

Solo fishy weekend #2

For the second weekend in a row, I managed to catch only one fish. Shanna and I went to Brownlee on Saturday and spent a very cold morning trying to find some basses. Eventually it warmed up, but we only managed to land a single nice smallmouth. Later I found out that the fish were biting much better on the other end (20 miles further) of the reservoir, so I guess we should have just kept on driving. Had fun anyway, and got home in time to go shopping and go out for dinner. Can't complain about that!!

Shanna vs The Longest Ramp Ever. She won, eventually.

No chewing on this ice

Interesting article......if you are a total nerd.
http://www.isa.org/Content/ContentGroups/News/20071/March33/Hot_ice_in_nanoseconds.htm

Rockin A-Rock with the new Yammie

Breaking in a new trolling motor is pretty boring, so I thought I could at least add an exciting title.

I recently purchased a small trolling motor for the boat, so Dad and I went up to Arrowrock on Saturday to break it in and make sure everything was working right. Was absolutely perfect weather and there were not many other boats on the lake either. Maybe that was because the launch ramp looked like this:

Yes, that's right; The dock is completely blocking the ramp so everybody has to drive around the ramp (?) just to launch. Typical. As you can see, we also broke in the new tow vehicle (Shanna's Sequioa). It really pulls nice!! Much better than the truck, so I think she's out of luck for the entire summer.

Only caught one fish, but we didn't expect much anyway - after grilling chorizos in a quiet cove with the shirt and shoes off, it didn't need to get any better.



And I really apologize for the totally inappropriate amount white skin in the above photo. The internet just isn't safe for children these days (never was...) Until next weekend!

Round the block

I thought this was a neat post (click here) about the process a parent goes through when trying to figure out at what age to cut the kids loose in the neighborhood. I can relate because Mia regularly asks if they can run around the block. It's actually a really small block, more of an 1/4 block with 8 houses total on the inside of the circle facing out and about 25 around the outside facing in. Anyway, it's interesting because they do go out of sight for a while and you just kind of sit there waiting for what seems an eternity for them to pop out around the corner. One time I sent Mia and Coop around with the two way radio and it was really humorous to hear her check in all official and stuff.

*bebeep* Dad?
*beep* Yes, Mia.
*bebeep* Can you hear me?
*beep* Yes, Mia.
*bebeep* Cooper wants to say something.
*beep* Ok.
*bebeep* ired
*beep* What Coop?
*bebeep* I'm tir...give it to me...*bepbeepbeepbep* He said he's tired
*beep* All right, just come home then.
*bebeep* Ok.

And so on......

On Saturday, Coop decided he might get hungry along the way (which he probably would because he's ALWAYS hungry). So he got a box of Wheat Thins to-go.

*deep voice* Monster Trucks yeeaaaaaaaaa

Coopster and I went to see the Monster Truck show today. I brought my old, smaller camera to keep it undercover, and now reviewing the pictures I can see how much better the new camera is at low light performance. If only it was smaller! Anyway, back to the trucks - didn't have time to get earmuffs at Home Depot, so I was forced to pay an exorbi exorba exorbu........a lot of money at the show instead. So as a result they even look like monster truck tires. Oblivious to the shafting that dad just took, he looks cuter than a penguin at poker party don't ya think?

The crowd favorite Grave Digger was there, and of course, won 2 of the 3 challenges. Very effective mix of name recognition, leading edge engineering, and skilled driving there.

It's all fun and games until somebody loses a tire. Bonus excitement.

They also threw in some freestyle motocross dudes jumping a 70' gap and they were very impressive. Again, sorry for the total lackey pics but I suppose it's better than nothing. Somewhere up near the ceiling is a guy with both feet straight up in the air, holding on to only the rear fender.

In the end, Grave Digger launched himself off that huge dirt pile, which none of the other drivers were willing to do. *the crowd goes wild* Had a good time. I'm sure Ms.Reyna and the kids at daycare are gonna hear all about it on Monday....

Shanna's new baby

This week we magically transformed the old '96 Honda Civic into a massive land yacht otherwise known as an '02 Toyota Sequoia.

We certainly got our money's worth out of the Honda (123,00 and zero problems), and it is still in the family because we sold it to Shanna's mom! Got a good deal on the Sequioa (two other buyers were working on a deal while we just 'got er done') and it is in great shape for an '02. I was a little concerned about buying an older vehicle, but between the fact it's a Toyota and an extended 2yr warranty I think it'll be no problem. Speaking of problems.....how to fit in the garage with the Tacoma and boat???

No problem. Well, it's a little tight but liveable nonetheless. Done for now - off to pay the gas bill.......

Now that's advice we can all use.

http://damions-diary.blogspot.com/2007/03/do-us-favor.html

I love the way Amy lays down the law - politely. I had to wait until somebody nicer than me posted this so I could link to it! Anyway, don't blow my cover ya bunch of blogerrific newbies - Let's just keep things on a first name basis or I might have to turn this thing into such a horrible wreck that no one would even want to read it, much less try to Social Engineer their way into my life.

A fascinating topic by the way. SE, not my life. Consider this little tidbit from Wikipedia: In a 2003 information security survey, 90% of office workers outside of their building gave away their password in answer to a survey question in exchange for a cheap pen.....

Out-Sam

When in March, do as Martians....

I just made that up. On Saturday, Shanna and I went snowboarding with Jacob and Amber at Bogus Basin. It was unusually foggy, but fun nonetheless. Here is Shanna in her new coat and hat, just as cute as a cucumber.

Sorry, no action shots. Partly cause it was cold and wet and mostly cause there really wasn't much action. Getting too old for that crazy stuff.

Dirty rotten scoundrel

Bert posted pics from the Chicago Auto Show here. Oh, super jealous. Then he throws in a picture of the Mini to really drive the point home. there's a pun in there somewhere

Red Velvet Cake

Shanna made a Big&Rich (no relation) red velvet cake on Saturday. Everybody got a kick out of the batter being so....RED. She said she didn't have the right pans, so she had to use a bundt pan instead. As a result, it was very dfficult to bake into the center without overbaking the outside. So that's my guess as to why she didn't take a picture of the final product. I, however, thought it was pretty crazy cool and it tasted fantastic!!.....whoah there Nelly (no relation), that baby is really rich.