New Years Eve

Another year comes to an end. In the month of December we moved from Carlsbad down to the Mira Mesa area of San Diego. We did this so that I couldn't shorten my drive to work from almost an hour each way down to about 10 minutes. We found a great house to move in to as well. It's a single story, a little larger than our last place, and a couple of hundred dollars cheaper. All in all a good deal.

We all had a great Christmas. Jody came out and visited for a few days and we had a pre-Christmas celebration with her. Then we traveled up to Ventura to celebrate Christmas. Jackson got more gifts than he knows what to do with. He's still trying to assimilate all of his new cars, fire trucks, legos, tricycle, planes, trains and stuffed animals. We have such a generous family, and we want to thank them for the wonderful presents.

Here are pictures from the last few weeks:

From 12-30-09

From 12-30-09

From 12-30-09

From 12-30-09

And a link to the photo gallery:
http://picasaweb.google.com/phorne96/123009?feat=directlink





And a still more glorious dawn awaits. Jackson is turning 2 on the 4th of January. Two whole revolutions around the sun!

Jackson's School Photo

Jackson has been attending a "Mom's day out" program at a local community church for the last few months. It gives Mommy some time to run errands and Jackson gets to play with some other kids. He took a "school" photo the other day and it turned out quite well. It's the best little smile in the world.

Halloween 09

Jackson had his second Halloween today and we went trick-or-treating for the first time. Jill's mom, Jody, and my sister were with us. Jackson was in a cute dinosaur costume that Jill drove 30 minutes to find. We set out about 7 o'clock as the sun was going down and we walked to our first house. Jackson followed Jill up to the door holding his empty pumpkin shaped bucket. She rang the doorbell and without any prompting Jackson stepped up to the door as close as he could and tried knocking on the door, which is a gesture he had just learned a couple of days before. After a moment, the door cracked open and swung wide. Jackson immediately stepped up and walked right in to their house.

Jill said "No, no, no, sweetie." She reached out for him and brought him back outside as we all laughed loudly. The lady inside the door said "Happy Halloween!" and brought down a giant bowl of candy to Jackson's level. She asked him if he'd like some candy. Jackson looked at Jill to see what he should do and she told him it was OK to take a piece. He tentatively reached in to the bowl and grabbed a Reeses Peanut butter cup. He brought it to his mouth and he tried to bite the plastic. We told him "No, put that in to your bucket." He looked at his bucket to where his mom was pointing. He lifted the bucket and dropped the candy in. As the candy left his hand he lifted it and grabbed another piece of candy. And another. We had to stop him before he tried to take any more.

And the night progressed on from there. He was no longer shy, and he walked up to every house we went to. He knocked on the door, reached in to their bowls for candy, dropped it in his bucket and he would flop his hand goodbye. He had this down, he didn't need our help any more on this. He's got it figured out, thank you very much. Soon, his bucket was starting to drag because it was so heavy with candy. We tried to help him by carrying some of his candy. If we tried to take it out of his bucket he would stop and get angry. He would reach his hand up and demand for his candy to put back in his bucket. He wouldn't move again until he got it back.
This was all quite possibly the cutest thing the world has ever seen.

Here are some pictures:

From Halloween-09

From Halloween-09

From Halloween-09

From Halloween-09

From Halloween-09

http://picasaweb.google.com/phorne96/Halloween09?feat=directlink

It's almost Halloween!

The weather is finally getting cooler here in Carlsbad as we get closer to Halloween. Jackson is going to be a Dinosaur, that is if he lets us put his costume on. We went to Legoland for a Halloween event, and he wasn't too please to be wearing the costume.

From 10-25-09

But, we had a good time none the less.

From 10-25-09

Jackson also got his first real haircut. That was something else he wasn't too happy about, but he kept it in until he cracked at the end and started crying. However, he looks like a new man now!

From 10-25-09

Enjoy the rest of the pictures after the jump:

http://picasaweb.google.com/phorne96/102509?feat=directlink

It's so hot

It's so hot, and with no air conditioning, Jackson has to just hang out in his diaper and enjoy some apple slices.

Sea World

Jackson went to Sea World today and saw his first dolphin!

When are you going to upload new pictures?

I'm uploading pictures! Yay! I've been exceptionally busy with my job so I just haven't had the time to post new pictures, but here are several sets of new pictures for everyone to enjoy.

Here's are pictures from our recent trip to up to the Bay Area.
http://picasaweb.google.com/phorne96/8809?feat=directlink



Our recent trip to Ventura:
http://picasaweb.google.com/phorne96/GnP2009?feat=directlink



And some random recent photos:
http://picasaweb.google.com/phorne96/91309?feat=directlink

It's hot in July

It has been very hot (for San Diego) and unfortunately the house we're living in at the moment does not have air conditioning. That makes it pretty uncomfortable to be downstairs, and downright unbearable to be upstairs during the day. Fans mitigate the heat, but it's still pretty hot. So, what have we done about the heat? We go to the beach! We have really been taking advantage of living so close to the beach now that we have moved back to California. Before we moved to Austin, we'd go to the beach once, maybe twice the whole year. Even then it was usually to Dog beach so we could bring Einstein. Now that we're back we are hitting it up almost every weekend we're free. Carlsbad has some great beaches that are good family spots. One of the best things about the beach is that it's free. Well, it's free after you buy an umbrella, beach towels, beach toys, beach chairs, sun-block, and a swimsuit for the baby (And mommy wants a new one too). But, after that it's free.

Here are some more pictures of us at the beach.
http://picasaweb.google.com/phorne96/72209?feat=directlink

Picture Bombardment

Hey, long time no post. So, here are some pictures to quench your thirst.

Here's the link to the whole album of recent pictures:

http://picasaweb.google.com/phorne96/62809?feat=directlink

6-28-09

And, here are some cool ones I'd like to point out:

Jackson at Music Class:

From 6-28-09

Jackson doing his Al Bundy impression:

From 6-28-09

Jackson being forced to make Father's Day presents:

From 6-28-09

Jackson chillin with the Fam:

From 6-28-09

Jackson meeting the ocean for the first time:

From 6-28-09

Oh, that's right, we have a blog

Monthly blog update incoming...

Another month has gone by, with lots of things going on.

I finally managed to get myself a job. A friend put me in touch with a mobile games company that has an office in San Diego, and they were looking for a producer type person with experience in the console market. After about 7 interviews with people all the way up to the president of the company I finally got an offer. I accepted and I'm going to be starting next week. Woot for me!

We took a trip to the Carlsbad Flower Fields. It was beautiful day. Sunny with a nice coastal breeze keeping it cool. Jackson got to see all the colors of the flowers, and even tried to taste some dirt. He didn't like it very much.

We also made a trip up to Ventura to my grandparents for Easter, and had a wonderful time. Everyone loves Jackson and can't get enough of him. Jill's Mom came out and stayed with us for a few days over her Easter Break, and she got to spend a bunch of time with Jackson.

May's coming up soon, and Jackson will be 16 months old. He's walking so much, and he's starting to run. He also likes to practice climbing stairs. The normal stairs are too big for him, but he likes to step up on the fire place ledge, and then step down. He'll do that over an over for what feels like hours, but really is about 10 minutes. He's blabbering up a storm, and it's fun to listen to him because he sounds like he's really trying to communicate something important to you. We've got him pointing to his belly and his nose when you tell him to. We're still working on words with him. He can still say ball (or "bah") and sometimes he'll say "bobow" for elbow and "bebe" for belly. He doesn't like to "perform" so he'll shake his head no sometimes when you ask him to do one of those things.

We can't wait to see what he'll start doing next!

Here be the new photos:

http://picasaweb.google.com/phorne96/42409?feat=directlink

4-24-09

Beware the ides of March

Well, it's not the 15th of March yet, but it's close enough.

Let's see what's going on in the past couple of weeks.

I think I forgot to mention that Jackson and I spent a weekend in Mesa, AZ with my Nana a few weeks ago. My mother and sister also came out and we all had a great time.
Nana has a Wii, and I think I almost wore my arm off playing all of the Wii sports games. It was definitely interesting to see my mom and Nana beating the crap out of me at Wii Bowling. I'm supposed to be the video game guy.

Jill spent a week in Scotland for work. She had to collaborate with some of their folks over there on the project she's been working on. At first it was between Scotland and Milan, and she was cheering for Milan. Of course it was decided that Scotland would be the better choice, but at least she was going to stay in a nice hotel. But wait! It turned out that hotel didn't have enough rooms for everyone and she ended up staying at the Holiday Inn Express at the Glasgow Airport. I think she put it well when she said she might as well have gone to Michigan for a grey and bleh as it was there.

I had my 31st birthday a few days ago. Unfortunately, Jill was in Scotland at the time, but we had a little pre-celebration before she left and we went out to dinner. She got me a Jawbone II bluetooth headset, which is awesome. She also got me a cooking class later this month at Sur La Table, which I'm super excited about. Over the weekend Jackson and I took the train up to my Grandparents in Ventura. It was interesting taking the train. It was about an hour longer than a drive, but Jackson didn't have to sit in a car seat the whole time. He still fussed quite a bit, but over all I think he liked it better. The weekend was nice, and my parents came down as well as my uncles and their families came up. After everyone left on Sunday I spent an extra day with my grandparents which was wonderful.

Jill's back from Scotland today, and she is missing Jackson so much I hope she doesn't drive to fast coming home from the airport. I don't think we have anything major planned coming up in the next couple of weeks, but if anything comes up we'll be sure to post about it.

I've posted a few more pictures of Jackson so be sure to take a look:

http://picasaweb.google.com/phorne96/31309?feat=directlink

3-13-09

Blogging Negligence

I know, I have been horribly negligent in posting new stuff to the blog since we've moved to California. You would think I'd have all the time in the world to take new pictures and videos of Jackson and then post them. But, I've slacked off. Sorry.

I grabbed a bunch of pics I took on my iPhone, and I've posted them on Picasa, and I've taken some video of Jackson and I'll try to get that posted soon too.

http://picasaweb.google.com/phorne96/PatIphone?feat=directlink

Pat Iphone

First post from California

I'm finally getting some time to make a post from since we moved in to the new house. We're pretty much settled and most everything is in its place. We still have a garage full of boxes, both empty and half full, but that shouldn't take too long to clean up. We love the new house, and the backyard is wonderful.

Jackson had his first birthday a couple of weeks ago and I've posted a few new pictures from his party as well as some others from over the holidays.

http://picasaweb.google.com/phorne96/11709?authkey=5P_piPG7uGY&feat=directlink

1-17-09

I'll try to post some video today if I get a chance.