Holiday Weekend Hello!

Well this has certainly been an extended absence from posting, but hopefully, I'll fall back into a regular schedule now.

First let me recap our vacation to Oceanside. It was phenomenal. Rhonda, Jasper and I always look forward to leaving Arizona, especially when we get to return to California. We stayed with my amazing grandparents (Ralph and Nancy) and even got the chance to spend time with my Mom and Jack while we were there.

The big event of our trip came when we went to Sea World for the day, and when I say "day" I mean it. We arrived at 9:00 a.m. when the park opened and we left a little before 11:00 p.m.

There were a bunch of great memories of the day from Jasper standing next to the Anheuser-Busch Clydesdale horses...


to watching Rhonda eagerly place dead fish in her hands so that she could feed the dolphins...


But the highlight of the day came in the evening when we were lucky enough to participate in the "Dine with Shamu" event.


This is a limited seating event that allows guests to eat a fully cater dinner meal while sitting along side the back of Shamu's tank as the whales and trainers prepare for their evening show. It was really spectacular to be that close to everything and see the 'behind-the-scenes' workings of the show. It was awesome!

Another highlight of the trip came from two trips to the beach in Oceanside. Jasper really enjoyed this and had no reservations about running head-on into the waves of the ocean and getting soaked. It was great to see him enjoying the beach experience and taking in the enormity of the ocean.


Once we returned home, it was back to the grind and that included Jasper too.


He was back at school and after being given zero, zip, zilch in the way of homework for the first week of class or to take on his vacation, he was promptly given six pages upon his return. Fortunately, he enjoys learning, but Rhonda and I were a bit baffled. We were later told that the teacher had just grabbed some pages from a work book and game him those to do since she knew we wanted him to have homework. Argh!

We also attended the school's "Open House" this past week and had the chance to talk to his teacher a little bit about the class and her plans. It went fine, but our plan is to still transfer him into a local public school once he turns five in October.

On to some bad and worse news. First the bad: the WSU cougars kicked off their 2008 college football season with a loss to Oklahoma State. What can I say, the Cougs defense made you want to cheer, but the offense made you want to cry. It will likely be a long season for the Cougars as they re-build the program but at least they're heading in the right direction.


Oh, and one this that is always awesome about college football season is getting up at 7:30 a.m. on Saturday mornings and watching ESPN's College Gameday and ALWAYS seeing the Cougar flag flying proudly in the background!

Now for the worse news: Rhonda is enjoying this three-day weekend from bed with a cold.


Hopefully she will be able to just rest-up and feel better before the new week begins, but right now, she's not feeling to well.

On Sunday, Jasper and I went down to the local aquatic center and swam in the pool for a couple of hours.


It was a lot of fun and our first trip to the pool this summer, as a water virus infected many of the pools in the greater Phoenix area earlier in the summer. Fortunately, that's all over now.

Finally, a quick funny note. If Jasper keeps up his recent shenanigans, we may be forced to dress him as Edward Scissorhands this Halloween.


The reason for this is that on Saturday, we noticed that a pair of Jasper's underwear had been cut at the waist. Upon further exploration, we came to learn that on Friday, while at school, Jasper went into the classroom bathroom and found a pair of scissors. Wanting to see if they could cut (just like every other pair of scissors) Jasper decided that there was not better canvas for his experiment than his own underwear. Yep, that's my son!

Have a great weekend!

Monday, Monday!

First thing is first - I checked my e-mail this morning and learned that my sister Shannon recently suffered a broken arm and I wanted to send out my wishes for a speedy recovery!

I don't know about all of you but the dominant television programing in our house over the past week and a half, has been the Summer Olympic game in Beijing. Even though some of the events are not normally big draws for me, I feel like that fact that this only happens once every four years is enough of a reason for me to give air rifle competitions and others a quick look.

Actually, Rhonda and I have spent the majority of our evenings watching the games and of course the dominant performance of U.S. swimmer Michael Phelps. I don't need to mentions everything about the guys here, but lets just say his 8-Gold Medals is a once in a lifetime thing to see.


This past weekend Jasper had a up and down time. It began with a disappointing showing at ice skating class as he ended up getting frustrated with his skating and we left the class early. After a long talk, we agreed that we would make the class up on Wednesday night and refrain from getting upset with ourselves for any reason.

Things quickly turned around, however, when he received his new V-tech video game, "Toy Story 2 - Operation Rescue Woody." After cleaning his room and helping do chores around the house, he got his new game and began a marathon session with it. It's actually pretty good and I was impressed with how well he was doing with some of the mathematical games.


Well on Thursday, we will be packing up the car once again and heading West to Oceanside for a quick vacation.


We are all so excited about the trip and getting to see Mimi, Bumpa, Jack and Kathi. It should be an awesome trip. We have also decided that one of the things we will be doing during our visit is making the trip to Sea World. Rhonda and I are super pumped because we love sea life and haven't been able to really enjoy it since we were members of the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Jasper is also excited to see the giant "Shamu" and get up-close to all the dolphins, sharks and rays. It should be a really fun day.


That's about it for now. In case I don't post again before we leave for our trip, don't worry...we'll be bringing the camera and video camera and will have plenty to post upon returning.

Hope everyone is doing well.

School Days!

Monday, August 11, 2008 will now go down as Jasper's first official day of Kindergarten. He began Kindergarten today at a new Kindergarten and he had a wonderful day.

I dropped him off at school and met his new teacher (Ms. Taylor) and Rhonda got to pick him up and hear all the exciting details from the day which included, winning at BINGO, coloring and meeting new friends, but wouldn't you rather hear Jasper explain his first day? If so click on the video below for the highlight recap.