It's ALIVE!!! still

Avid readers may remember a post half a year back about our beloved computer undergoing power source corrective surgery. The recovery went well and all was normal until Sunday afternoon when out of nowhere, it displayed the not so great symptom that many refer to as "the blue screen of death." ((insert scary music here)) Now I know that all of you Mac lovers out there are laughing to yourselves... but in spite of all of those "I'm a mac.... I'm a PC" commercials, my little HP has been anything but a disappointment. It is going on 5 years of selfless service, that is 35 doggy years and about 60 computer years. I have literally taken it around the world, subjecting it to nearly a dozen airport security checkpoints... you get the point. It has been in the family longer than Logan. It has facilitated the writing of thousands of school papers and hundreds of blog posts... Wow... this is beginning to look like an obituary... Anyhow, after several failed attempts to get it to boot up properly the hard drive screamed and came to a deafening halt. So... off to Best Buy we went, and picked up a new hard drive installed it and all seemed good until:Stumped again, I went to the service forums and found that many HP pavilion owners have experienced this problem, they all said that it was the CMOS battery, which would have meant that I would need to completely disassemble the computer again to get to the battery on the mother board. UGH! as I was about to break out the screw driver another article caught my eye that talked about a BIOS driver update that happened back in 2004 that does not always reload correctly upon reformatting. I tried the update and surprisingly, it worked!
So, in keeping with the time of year, I proclaim, ITS ALIVE!!!!
LONG LIVE FRANKEN-PC!!!
Word to all my pc lovin pals:)

Thanks Grandma Pauleen

A couple of vids of a couple of kids

Addy 4 months & Logan 3 years

Amber posted:

I took Logan and Addy to the Dr. today for Logans 3 year check up and Addys 4 month check. They are both doing great! The doctor was really impressed with them. Logan is 39 inches with his shoes off.......I am so happy that means at Disneyland he will be able to ride more rides with us :-)! That puts him in the 90% for height and then he is 35 lbs and 75% for weight. What a big kid. He is ready for a booster seat.

Addy is in the 95% for height this little girl is 26 inches long. She is in the 75% for weight putting her at 14.11 lbs. She can no longer fit in the baby car seat. Man that is crazy to me they grow up so so fast. Good timing with Logan moving on up. Addysen loves her brother, he is making her laugh more and more everyday.

Our little Addysen

Amber posted:

Addysen loves it when Logan plays with her. She smiles when he comes and talks to her. It is so fun to watch them together.This was priceless to me!! I am so happy Logan loves his little sister.
What can I say the men in Addys life sure do love her!! How couldn't we though she is so happy and brings a special spirit into our home. We love having two kids and watching them grow up together.
I love all of you so much. Thanks for making this mommy so happy.

Joy School Fun

Amber Posted:

We had such a fun time having Joy School at our house this past week. The boys sure are fun and crazy!!We learned about our 5 senses and we played with some pudding. Some didn't know what to think.......
Logan thought it was the greatest thing ever!!! Seriously no one else but Logan had it all over there face and clothes.
Preston did the activity but wasn't so sure. Dalton made lots of dots and Mason wanted his hands cleaned pretty fast. I love this picture of Preston it is like come on Amber I did your activity NOW Clean my hands.
We missed Jared on Thursday but here is a picture from Tuesday when we had the whole crew. They are good friends and it is so fun to watch them grow and learn.
Thanks guys!

October is coming!!!

Well, I was about done looking at drugs and such every time I came to the blog and I haven't had time to put more kids pics together, so this will have to do for the time being. Every time we go to Disneyland we make a shirt for the family, (yes we are that geeky family that dress the same the entire time we are there) So here is the creation for this fall's shirt. It is inspired by the vintage 1983 Mickey shirt that Logan has been sporting since our last trip. Hope you enjoy.

the devil's playground

I apologize in advance for the nature of this post but I just wanted to throw out some of my thoughts and my experience and also an invitation for all you to take a careful look at the places your children play. Tonight the weather was cooling down and Logan was full of pent up energy so we thought it would be refreshing to go out to the playground at our apartment complex in Columbia. Logan was climbing up the chains when something caught my eye. It was what appeared to be a condom. It caught me off guard. I kicked it under the woodchips and just as I did, something else caught my eye... a little zip lock bag with spades on it. For the next half hour I walked around the playground to see what else was there and here is what I found.
Condom package #1
Condom package #2
Remains of condom
Found several of these vodka tabs
Baggy number 1. I did a little research and found that it is common for drugs to be given street names. Sometimes the baggies have symbols printed on them as a label for that type of drug. Different types of bags are commonly used by different dealers in order for their products to be differentiated among other drugs and other dealers. So 3 distinct types of bags can mean three distinct drugs or the same type of drug distributed by 3 different dealers. Any way you slice it, scary. All of these bags were out in the open in plain site, I did not have to look hard to find them.
Baggy number 2
number 3
number 4
and last and hopefully least.... an anti theft alarm probably from clothes taken from a Walmart or Target. I am putting these pictures on a disk to give to the apartment management so that they can give them to the Columbia Association and the police. All of this made me sick. I am sad that this sort of stuff is happening out in the open in one place that I would hope would remain safe for my kids to play. I for one am going to pay a little more attention to what happens out there, maybe if we can get the association and the cops involved, the situation will improve or at least those who take part in these activities will be less eager to do so at our playground. Next time you take your kids to the park or the playground, take a good look around and be careful about letting your kids run off by themselves, you never know what they will find.

Weekend at Berkeley Springs

We just returned from a wonderful weekend with friends at a small cabin in West Virginia. We headed out there on Friday after work and met the Turpins and the Robinsons.
Logan had a blast playing with Jeffy and Ethan. It rained for most of the time we were there but there was a screened patio room as well as a game room complete with an air hockey table. Jeffy and Ethan also showed Logan how to play Mario kart on their game boys.
This picture is a tad out of order but I could not leave it out. We were getting ready to BBQ out on the front patio and there was this bowl filled with sand for an ash tray and what looked like somebody's abandoned toy spider. Jake went and tapped the bowl to see if it was real and sure enough, the giant spider came to life and started circling the inside of the bowl. We all freaked out to think that there were spiders this big running around the forest there...
Addy did great, we were a little worried that she would have trouble sleeping in a strange place, but she turned out to be a great little camper.
I promise we don't coach him to pose, he just does it. What a cheese ball...
The hot tub was awesome. On the first night we all sat out in the rain and talked until past midnight.
Burgers, dogs and brats, doesn't get any better than that. Due to the rain we had to move it to the front porch, but the resulting dinner was delicious.

Logan Starts Joy School

This year we signed Logan up for "Joy School". It is a pre-school program with a hand full of boys Logan's age from the ward. He goes twice a week from 9am till noon. He really enjoys the interaction with his friends and he is especially excited about his Buzz Lightyear back-pack.

look at mii

Addy fix

The force is strong with this one....

Yikes.... Definitely the dark side:)