Andrew's Birthday

Andrew had a birthday party.  It was at his other grandparents house (Inman's) in Graham.  He had both sets of grandparents and a great grandparent there, besides his own family.

 Andrew got to pick the meal.  He had hamburgers and french fries and pop.

 Little sister there to celebrate with Andrew.

 Andrew opening presents.  We got him a shirt and a book.

Andrew made his own birthday cake.  It was great.  I really liked it.  Happy birthday Andrew, we love you.

Penelope's Birthday

We went to Penelope's birthday party over at Doranda's house.  Talitha and David came too.

 She is four years old.  This is her birthday cake which looks like a giant cupcake.  It was cool looking.

 Penelope opening birthday presents.  We got her a treasure chest box.

 All four children at the table.  Tucker, Scarlett, Leon, and Penelope.

 Penelope got to pick the dinner menu.  We had pancakes with frosting and sprinkles.

 Look how big Leon's getting.  They grow so fast when they're babies.

Happy Birthday Penelope.  Grandpa and Grandma love you.

Dad is 90 years old

We went down to Arizona to be with our Dads on their birthdays.  Jacquelyn went down a week earlier than me and got to be with her Dad on his 86th birthday.  My Dad was turning 90.

 Here's Dad at 90.  He's doing great and I think he had a good time on his birthday.

 Dad and Mom with their two sons - Mark and I.

For a birthday present we had this tree planted in Leisure World in honor of Dad's 90th birthday.  It looked good, larger than I expected, and he was really surprised and liked it a lot.  The tree is across the street from Rec Center 2 and just past the driving range.  You can see it from the road or the golf course.  The tree was from Mark and I, Angela and Jacquelyn (even though they got left off the card), and from the grandchildren (who were mentioned on the card).  I think he was pleased it was from everyone.

Mark made him a $25,000 Birthday cake.  It was a recipe from a cooking contest where the winner got $25,000 as a prize.  Mom used to make it for him for his birthday every year.  It had pecans and lots of chocolate in it.

For dinner we went out to the Texas Roadhouse, their favorite restaurant.

 Dad and Mom at the restaurant.

Besides Jacquelyn and I, Mark and Angela were there.  And Kristen came also who flew back from a business trip in Japan.

We had an extra guest with us at the restaurant, little Elijah, who is Conni's grandson.  She had to take her other grandson to the emergency room (Eric was sick but was okay) so we watched Elijah.  Anyway, Elijah ran away at the restaurant and no one could find him anywhere.  We searched the restaurant and the parking lot.  He was setting in a corner booth by himself pouring salt on the table and playing in the salt.

After the meal they sang happy birthday to Dad and he got to ride the saddle and got a free chocolate sundae.

 Here's a picture of Conni with Eric, one of her two grandson's that's living with her.

 A better closeup of Eric, who is 18 months.

Here's Elijah again.  They call him Eli for short.  He's a big 2 1/2  year old and is at the 97th percentile in weight for his age and height.

Popcorn Ceiling

I spent my day off today removing the popcorn ceiling from our bedroom.  Jacquelyn really wanted it done and I didn't have much else to do I guess.

 This is a before picture.  As you can see we had that old popcorn type ceiling.

 Here's a close-up of the offending popcorn.  It doesn't look to bad here but we had several spots where it got ruined when our roof was leaking.

 First step was to take everything out of the room.  Everything.  This was no easy task.  It took forever.  Besides taking out the bed and furniture it involved a lot of cleaning and sorting and putting things away.

 Next step was to cover the walls with plastic.

 Then I had to cover the ceiling fan and carpet with plastic too.  Our room is large and has approximately 267 square foot.

 Ready to go, I have my eye goggles, respirator, spray bottle, and scrapper.  Since our house was built prior to 1980 we might have asbestos in the ceiling, which is very bad to breathe or get in your eyes.

 Here's one corner of the room done.  It was slow going and very messy.

The finished product.  All done.  Painting the new ceiling will have to wait until Jacquelyn gets home and picks out what she wants.

Andrew and Mallory

Andrew and Mallory stayed the night for a sleep over.

 First we had pizza and watched a movie we got from Redbox.

 Then we went on a flashlight walk around the block.

 Scary shadow monsters.

 The next morning we had chocolate chip pancakes with chocolate syrup and whipped cream.

 Then we walked to Wal-Mart to take the Redbox movie back.  This is the trail that goes behind Pierce.

We stopped at Bradley Lake along the way and the kids climbed on a tree.  I think they had a good time.

Vancouver

Jacquelyn and I took a trip to celebrate our anniversary and drove up to Vancouver, British Columbia in Canada.

 At the border at Freedom Park they have the Canadian flag in a massive flower display.

 We got stopped and had to go into the office at the border crossing because we had pepper spay in the car. It's illegal to take pepper spray across the border into Canada and they confiscated our little container.

 The main object of our visit was Capilano Suspension Bridge Park.  Here's Jacquelyn with a totem pole.

 More totem poles and me.

 Here's the famous suspension bridge over the gorge.  It's really long and high and is very wobbly but safe.

 We went on the tree tops trail.

This is part of the cliff walk.  It was a lot of fun to see.

 The next morning we went to the Vancouver Temple.  It was a great way to start the day.

 First stop in the city of Vancouver was Chinatown.   We also walked through downtown on a different day to see the tall buildings.

 Then we went to Stanley Park where there were lots of trails along the water front and through the trees.

 More totem poles.

 The next day we went to Richmond, a suburb, and took a tour of this Buddhist temple.  A strange thing happened there; they invited us to a free lunch (called Second Serving).  It's all vegetarian.  We bought a container (with metal spoon and fork) for $3 since we didn't bring our own.  Then we set in a big hall with all the Buddhist people and monks and trainees that came to eat. They served us a variety of vegetarian dishes that they scoped into the bowl one right after the other.  What luck to be there at just the right time.  We had an unusual experience.

 Then we went to the town Steveston when they film the TV show Storybrooke.  They happen to be having  races called the Dragon Races.  There were hundreds of people racing in dozens of boats (4 or 5 per race).

 They have a fish market dock where the boats pull up and the fishermen sell their catches directly from the sea to the customer.

 Octopus for sale anyone?

 Sea urchins too.  We saw a Chinese lady buy one, break it apart and remove the spines, and eat the middle raw.

We checked out another Buddhist Temple for our last stop.  This is the Happy Buddha.  He was a monk that became one of the original Arhats of Buddhism.  They say this lovable icon is the embodiment of happiness and prosperity.  We learned a little about their religious customs which seemed very strange to me.