Happy New Years 2010!!

As 2009 and the decade comes to an end I want to share a thanks to everyone who has been a part of mine and my family’s lives through out the last several years.  And as we venture into a new time, I hope things continue to be as good if not better than they have been this year.  This year… Andrew turned 4, Isabella turned 2, I broke the 30 mark and Heather, I won’t mention how old she is…. :)  Andrew started pre-school, learned to ride a bicycle, and learned how to swim among other things.  Bella has grown into a very smart, funny and cute little girl.  I know she will only continue to do that, but I will miss this time when its gone.  Heather has gone to school, and gotten a job that she likes, gotten promoted in that job and been the best wife and mother anyone can ask for.  As for me, the biggest thing of 2009 for me was my passing my RVT exam!  I continue to work at Eastside Vascular, where there have been too many changes to number since I started there in 2006, which seems like a lot longer ago that it really is.  As for this decade, well I graduated from college twice, got married, had two great kids, moved at least 6 times, 5 times after being married, and seen many many great movies and listen to many many great songs.  So this blog could go on an on, but I will stop here and wish everyone a wonderful new year……. .Oh yeah… and GO DUCKS!!

 

Happy New Year 2010!!

Happy Holidays!

Sorry I haven’t been updating my blog for awhile.  I’ve been really busy with work and everything, but that is no excuse.  I just wanted to quickly say Happy Holidays to everyone that might read this.  Another year is almost gone.  Why does time go so fast?  I’m looking forward to the coming year, watching the kids grow and seeing what happens with work and family.  GO DUCKS!!

 

Here’s a picture of my cutie!

RVT

Well it finally happened!! After 6 attempts I have finally passed the physics portion of the exam for becoming a  Registered Vascular Technologist or “RVT”.  It took a new version of the exam and a different testing facility to finally do it, but I did it and now I don’t have to worry about it ever again.  Now that I am an RVT, my job will be giving me a $2.00/hour raise!!

Obsession

I’ve been obsessed lately with a game played on Facebook called Farm Town.  You start out with a small piece of property and you plant crops, wait for them to grow, then harvest them and sell them to make more coins, with more coins you can buy different seeds and trees and other stuff.  As you make more crops and sell them you gain experience points which help you to gain the ability to get better seeds which can bring you more coins from harvest.  There is the ability to have neighbors (which are your Facebook friends that play the game too) You can visit them, and make coins by helping them out with little things.  You can also go to Marketplace where you can sell your crops, or get hired by other players to go to their farms and harvest their crops.  They pay you about 50% of the coins, which can end up being a lot of money in your pocket, depending on the crop you are harvesting for them. 

Anyways, i’ve become addicted to this game!

 

I’ve been slacking on my Wii fitness, i’ve just been too lazy and obsessed with Farm Town to bother with getting fit.  :(  

I’m slacking on my posting

I haven’t posted for two weeks, and I haven’t used the Wii in the same amount of time or longer. I’m such a slacker! Well I guess I’ll try to get back into it after the 4th of July weekend. I just heard from my best friend Blain, that he and his girlfriend Aileen had a baby boy, Blain Ross Jacobson Jr. I got the voicemail today. I’m going to try and find some time to go to Sacramento to visit them and my grandparents for a weekend.

So for the 4th of July, we are going to drive down and meet my parents in Winchester Bay, which is on the Oregon coast. I am excited because I get to go out on a charter fishing boat and go Salmon fishing with my dad. They say that everyone is catching the limit, which is 3 Salmon, so I’m excited to see if I can catch any.

Andrew has started swimming lessons again for the summer and going twice a week. He is having fun, and when they’re there, the little kids get to play in the wading pool.

Last weekend was Andrew’s 4th birthday. He got some money from his great grandparents so he decided he wanted to go to the Build-a-Bear Workshop and make a bear. So we all went on my day off last week and created both Andrew and Bella their own pets. Andrew built a bear and named him Teddy. Bella built a cat and named her Pink. (see picture below)

My buddy Matt sent me his Blackberry Pearl from Slovenia for us to use over here, however when we took it in, they said that it had to have a US EIN# in order to work with their network which it didn’t have. So we looked and decided to just do our phone upgrades now, but we were only able to do one upgrade early and the other will be in August. So… since I am always the one to get the new stuff and good stuff, we had Heather do the upgrade since her phone was starting to go bad. She ended up getting a Blackberry Curve 8330 in Pink. She loves this phone and all the neat things it can do. I’m going to get the same thing come August, except of course I’m not going to get it in pink, but rather in silver. I used to swear that I would never get a Blackberry, but I guess anyone can change their minds.

Time for bed. One more day of work before we go to the coast! Next update coming next week. Hopefully I will have gotten back on the Wii and will have an update. Everyone have a happy 4th!

Robert the babysitter

Last night Heather went out with her friends Tiffany and Jessica to celebrate Tiffany’s birthday.  Well I was lucky enough to get to watch three little kids all by myself.  Actually it wasn’t bad at all.  Tiffany brought McDonalds when she came to get Heather and drop off her daughter Madison.  I was a little worried because in the past Madison had a fit when Tiffany would leave her with us.  The last few times though, Madison has been no problem.  I sat the kids at the table and got them eating their dinners.  After awhile I put on Horton Hears a Who, and let the menu screen run until they were done eating.  When they were done, I set up a blanket and pillows and Andrew’s Spiderman couch and had them all sit down to watch the movie.

Towards the end of the movie, Andrew asked for ice cream, so I got all the kids strawberry ice cream in cones.  Here’s a picture of Madison and Bella eating their cones.

There was a couple times when they got a little wild, but everything worked out.  I got them to calm down after the movie by watching Mickey Mouse Club House right before Tiffany and Heather got home.  All in all not a bad night by myself with three little kids!

Something cool

My co-worker Eli told me about this cool application that allows you to access your computer’s media from anywhere.  Well I downloaded it and now I can access my music, videos and files from my PDA, another computer or even from my Wii!!  I’m pumped to try this out from a distance.  Here is a link to the site where you can get this program.

Orb Streaming

On another subject… we watched Seven Pounds with Will Smith tonight and it was very good!

Another day

Today I went to work like any other day. The kids both ended up in bed with us last night. Bella didn’t fall asleep in her bed like Andrew did and she was freaking out, so I brought her downstairs with Heather and I before we all went to bed. Then sometime in the middle of the night Andrew woke up with his leg hurting and wanting medicine. Well I gave him a little Tylenol and then he came to bed with us. I woke up, took my shower and got dressed for work. I went downstairs and prepared what I was going to bring for lunch; a couple hard boiled eggs and bread to make into an egg salad sandwich. Heather had a couple of job interviews today so she had to wake up at a certain time. When I went upstairs to see if I needed to set an alarm for her, Bella was awake, so I took her to get dressed and then I dropped her off at daycare before going to work. Work…scanning… and then at lunch time I made my egg salad sandwich and went back to my desk to eat it when I noticed I had a voicemail. I checked it and it was Heather asking me if I had had lunch yet. So I called her right back and she was stopping by Taco Bell, so I had her pick me up something and I put my sandwich back in the fridge. So Heather stopped by and had lunch with me.

After the day was over I drove home and got two big hugs from my kids as I walked in the door. After watching some cartoons and making dinner I set up Heather’s pix place account with Verizon so that she could upload this picture to her computer…

What a cute girl. This was taken yesterday at Newcastle Park beach after Bella ran into the water in all her clothes. No wii tonight as we got the kids in bed really late and had to clean up a little bit because the maintenance guy is coming by tomorrow to fix a few things finally.

Sunday, June 14

Today was a somewhat busy day. Today I was home with the kids in the morning since Heather had spent the night at her friend Sara’s last night, and my mom had left already for the last day of her conference. We got up around 8:30 and had breakfast, well at least the kids had breakfast. Andrew had some oatmeal and Bella had some Kix cereal. I spend most of the morning using my new scanning program to make digital copies of different statements and important papers. Today I started with making a digital copy of my 401(k) papers. The kids decided they wanted to go to the park, so we got dressed and Heather met us at the school park so that Andrew could ride his scooter and they could play on the slides and monkey bars. After the park, Heather and Bella went home to do a couple things there while Andrew and I went to Costco to get gas, and then to Fred Meyer to pick my insulin and deposit some cash into the bank. We came home after Freddy’s and picked up Heather and Bella and went to pick up Valerie at her hotel since her meeting was over. We went to the South center Mall and had lunch at The Rainforest Cafe. Our last experience there was nice, except that when we ordered the kids meals of chicken tenders they each got a ton which was a total waste of food. So this time we only ordered one meal to split between them and when it came out it was really small. I was out walking around with Bella because the gorillas we were seated next to would scare here when they moved around. We came back after the food had been delivered so I missed Heather’s comments to the server, but she was not happy. So we ended up ordering another meal for the kids so that they had enough. Lets just say that we are not going to be going back there again anytime soon. After lunch we walked around the mall a bit before getting in the truck and taking Valerie to the airport for her flight back to Medford. After we dropped her off, we drove back home and got there before my mom made it back. Her meeting had ended at 3:45 and we dropped Valerie off at 4pm. We weren’t sure who would make it home first so we had left one of our keys in a hiding spot for my mom in case she was the first home. The kids and Heather went down for a nap around 4:45pm. I stayed awake as my mom was just getting back and we had plans to see the 6:50 showing of Terminator Salvation. I enjoyed this flick and will have to rent it when it comes out so that Heather can see it. I was hoping that this movie would put a close to the Terminator story line, but it didn’t quite. The way the left it, if they wanted to make more movies they could, though I really hope they don’t. We came home after the movie and hung out before bed time. Oh, and I took my fitness test before we went to the movie. My BMI was down from yesterday, but my fitness age was back up to 32 from 29 yesterday. I’m laying in bed writing this, so now that I’m done, I’m going to go brush my teeth and get ready for bed. Talk to you all again soon. (I say “all of you” even though I don’t think anyone is actually following this blog yet). Goodnight!

June 13, 2009 part 2

Today was a lazy day. We didn’t get dressed until about 4:45-5pm in the evening after taking showers. Heather had plans to go to her friend Sara’s house for a post-finals girls night. Because there was going to be drinking involved, everyone was staying the night. That left me home with the kids and my mom after she got home from her all day conference in Seattle. We had a healthy Round Table pizza dinner tonight and watched Taken on DVD. The kids were they’re typical horrible selves again and Andrew got in time out twice and sent to his room once. I got the kids in bed later than usual tonight because of the movie and they’re attitudes/acting out. They did pretty well going to bed though, I only had to go back up there one time. I got on the Wii fit for a quick body test. My BMI was down slightly from last time, 26.17 today compared to 26.20 on Thursday. My Wii fit age however dropped to 29 from 33! I ended up spending about 9 more minutes doing the bubble balance game and the tight rope walking balance game. Below is a funny picture I took of the kids in the bathroom today.

June 13, 2009

Well last night my mom came to town for a physical therapy conference and is staying here with us.  So instead of doing my nightly Wii fit body test and exercising, Heather, my mom and I played Mexican Train Dominoes.  Also, Heather’s mom came into town Friday morning for a US Tennis Association meeting in Renton.  She got to spend the day with the kids at the Woodland Park Zoo and then with Heather.  At the zoo, there was a moment when Andrew disappeared and Heather got very scared.  He was found a little bit later, and is fine now.  Below are a couple pictures from the zoo.

Wii Day 4 update

Just a quick note before i hit the sack. Though my BMI went back up to 26.20 from 26.02 my fitness age stayed the same at 32. I also FINALLY got past the first round of the bubble balance game. :) I did 10 minutes of hula hoop also and a few ski jumps (which i still suck at)! Now I'm going to bed. More tomorrow.

Blog Day 2

Well the plan was to do Wii fit again tonight, for the third day in a row, however everyone fell asleep on the couches early in the night. Then when Heather and I woke and put the kids in bed, I felt I had low blood sugar, which for those who don’t know me, I have Diabetes and have low blood sugars from time to time. So, since I had low blood sugar, I decided exercise was probably not a great idea. We did however decide to take the body test, and my results were improved from last nights. I now have a BMI of 26.02 (considered overweight) and my wii fitness age is 32 down from 33 yesterday and the day before. :) Bed time now. Hopefully I will have an update again tomorrow. Goodnight!

Trying something new

We bought a Wii Fit in January. Periodically I have gotten on it for a few minutes at a time, every couple months. Well I finally decided that its time to get in shape. I’ve now been on it two days in a row! I’ve been able to unlock most of the strength training, balance games and aerobics, and I'm having fun. I do however suck at the Ski Jump! I have also gotten really close to, but have not been able to finish the bubble balance game. You know, the one where your Mii is in a bubble and you have to balance yourself down the stream without running into the sides and bursting your bubble. Tonight I told myself that I would not stop until I passed it, but after about 20 tries, I gave up and moved on to something more constructive. Anyways, as this is my first attempt at a blog, please bear with me. I will try to write a little something everyday, but don’t get upset at me if I forget, as I have a busy life keeping up with my kids and wife. You can check out my kids site at www.andrewsownsite.com Thanks and Goodnight!