Thursday, November 27, 2008
Making Rolls
We may not have had the most traditional Thanksgiving dinner, but we had to have homemade rolls. The kids always want to help when Mom is baking. Here's our little helpers.
New Camera
After our trip to Legoland, Michelle and I started talking about how we should start looking into the possibility of getting a new camera. We bought the camera just before Tyler was born, so it is now over 5 years old.
After every charge it would give us the low battery indicator within about 5 pictures. We could continue to use it all day (like we did at Legoland), but we never knew just when we would be taking our last picture. So, I began looking at the point and shoot cameras on the market. Let's face it, neither one of us has the time to learn how to be a real photographer. As I did my research, I just couldn't justify the expense of a new camera. So, we never replaced it. Well, while we were out Trick or Treating on Halloween night, the camera got dropped. It still continued to work the rest of the night, so we didn't really notice the real damage. A few days later, Michelle tried to take some pictures of the kids in the back yard. Whe she tried to zoom in on them, she couldn't get the zoom to go. I took a look at it when I got home from work that night, and found that the drop caused a lot more damage than we thought. It still takes pictures, but none of the buttons work.
Not too bad of a lifespan for electronics if you ask me. Our biggest complaint with it is that it has a proprietary battery.
After every charge it would give us the low battery indicator within about 5 pictures. We could continue to use it all day (like we did at Legoland), but we never knew just when we would be taking our last picture. So, I began looking at the point and shoot cameras on the market. Let's face it, neither one of us has the time to learn how to be a real photographer. As I did my research, I just couldn't justify the expense of a new camera. So, we never replaced it. Well, while we were out Trick or Treating on Halloween night, the camera got dropped. It still continued to work the rest of the night, so we didn't really notice the real damage. A few days later, Michelle tried to take some pictures of the kids in the back yard. Whe she tried to zoom in on them, she couldn't get the zoom to go. I took a look at it when I got home from work that night, and found that the drop caused a lot more damage than we thought. It still takes pictures, but none of the buttons work.
So, here is the replacement camera. I got it about a week and a half ago. I am still trying to figure out all of its features, but I like it so far. It has a much bigger zoom, image stabalization, 9 Megapixels, and it runs on AA batteries, so we can replace them anytime we need to. We bought rechargable ones to use, but just in case we forget to charge them, you can find AAs anywhere. So, all the pictures from now on will be with the new camera. I just hope that we like it.
Dinner Time
So if you don't like what's for dinner, just give up and go to sleep. We had chicken enchiladas for dinner the other night. The kids usually eat them without any problem. Meagan must have been really tired this night though. She sat down to see what was for dinner, took one look at it and decided to give up. By the time that everyone else was done eating, this is how she was.
Halloween
We went to Gilbert this year to celebrate Halloween with the kids' cousins. Rebecca was a '50s girl, Tyler a frog and Meagan a fairy princess with wings. All of these costumes had been worn by Rebecca in years past, but that is what each of them wanted to be.
The nice thing about Arizona Halloweens is that it isn't cold. Meagan walked around in her leotard all night and never complained about being cold.
The nice thing about Arizona Halloweens is that it isn't cold. Meagan walked around in her leotard all night and never complained about being cold.
Soccer Season
Rebecca and Tyler both played soccer this fall. They had their last game last Saturday. As fun as it is, and as much as they enjoyed it, we are glad that it is over. Practices every Tuesday and Thursday evening and games every Sat morning makes it hard to get much else done. Plus, I'm never around to help Michelle out during the week, so she had to do a lot of it on her own. Here are a few random shots taken throughout the season.
Michelle made the team banner for Rebecca's team. Obviously they were the "Blue Sharks". Each player has a shark with their name on it. The boys had grey sunglasses and the girls had white bows. I thought she did a really good job on it.
Michelle made the team banner for Rebecca's team. Obviously they were the "Blue Sharks". Each player has a shark with their name on it. The boys had grey sunglasses and the girls had white bows. I thought she did a really good job on it.
Consequences
I believe that there are consequences to all the decisions that we make in life. Sometimes the consequences are positive and sometimes they are negative. I chose not to plant a garden this summer or fall. As a consequence, I did not reap the benefits of having fresh produce. I also had the consequence of the kids always wanting to dig in the planter box. I chose to let the kids play in the planter box with the condition that they not get any of the dirt outside of the planter box. This is what they chose to do:
What should their consequence be?
Thursday, October 23, 2008
It just makes me mad...
In the state of AZ this year we have the opportunity to vote to amend the state constitution to read: "Only a union of one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in this state." 20 simple words. That is all that it is. 20 simple words. However, it doesn't seem that it is so simple. I have no idea how it is doing in the polls. It just seems to me that we are living in the times like unto Sodom and Gomorrah. Michelle heard someone say that it will probably pass in AZ, but fail in Pima County (where we live). It just makes me sick to think that people can't see how black and white of an issue this really is. It is so important for the future of our families that this passes. I totally believe in the principle of loving the sinner and hating the sin. I don't want to imply that I have hatred or ill feeling towards anyone. I have spent many nights over the past few weeks stewing on this issue. (like I am tonight) Reading things on the internet and watching the short video segments in support of AZ's Prop 102 and CA's Prop 8. It makes me mad that I can't do more to help the cause. We brought home 5 signs in support of Prop 102 about two weeks ago. I gave one to my co-worker who wanted to put it in front of his house on a fairly well-traveled street. We put three of them out on Friday and left one as a spare in case any of the three disappeared. Every time that we would drive past them, Tyler would say "There's our sign!" Well, when I went to work on Wed, they were still all there. When I came home form work on Wed, they were all three gone. Two of the sticks still remained, but the signs were gone. The signs were printed on one side, but made so that they could be folded in half and the same message would be on both sides. It came stapled so that there was a pocket in the bottom of the sign to insert the stick. So, I drove the sticks into the ground (no easy task given the hard dirt here) and put the signs on the sticks. Then I took my staple gun and put a bunch of staples on both sides to secure the sign to the stick. Well, whoever it was that felt that they needed to quiet my opinion went to the effort to remove the sign and staples from the stick and leave the stick still standing. I want to go and put the one sign that I have left back onto one of those two sticks to make a point. I wish that I had more time to do more. The part that makes me mad is that society as a whole is just getting so evil. It is totally like the analogy of the frog in the boiling water. They say that the frog will jump right out if it is placed into boiling water (I don't know this for sure, I've never done it, but that is what they say) but it will slowly cook to death if placed in cold water that is slowly heated to boiling. Satan has slowly but surely used his tools to soften the edges of people's conscience to the point where they think that this is a good idea. Again, it just makes me mad.
Well, here are a few links to things that I have looked at over the past few nights:
http://cbs5.com/local/gay.marriage.sign.2.844943.html This is a family that live in my brother's ward in San Jose, across the street from the elementary school that I went to.
There are many more, but I'm out of time. I need to go to bed and stop stewing.
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