Today was a day of rest and packing. It’s our last full day in Houston and so we just spent the time around the house and corralled all of our stuff into the appropriate containers.
The picture from today is from our picnic back on day 5 of our trip.
Today we packed up everything and finally headed into Texas: Lindale, Texas, to be exact. Where I went to high school and where my grandparents live. My Aunt Marci was there and my parents followed us in their car. Once there, we celebrated Isabelle’s first birthday. We had a big lunch, opened presents, and then dug into the bear cake.
One of the bonuses to a trip back to Texas is you get to go to all the restaurants that we miss now that we live in Florida. One of the places I was really looking forward to was Rudy’s Bar-B-Q. They have several of these back in Austin and they happen to have one in Tyler. However, fortune was not with us. A lightning strike closed down the restaurant, so we had to settle for another Bar-B-Q place.
After dinner we headed down to the park in Hide-a-Way Lake. The girls had fun on the merry-go-round and a big slide. We got a pretty good laugh because when Emily went down the slide, she would build up a lot of static electricity and all of her hair would stand straight up.
We didn’t realize it until this morning, but we were in a smoking room at the Horseshoe Casino. When we complained at the front desk, they just blew us off. Jennifer said that she’s going to write them an angry letter. We visited the floor below us and couldn’t believe the difference. When we first went to our floor, we figured the whole hotel smelled like cigarette smoke since people are allowed to smoke in the casino.
Today we took everyone out to buy Isabelle’s birthday gifts. We found the Toys R’ Us and allowed Abby and Emily to pick out a toy for Isabelle. We also gathered the ingredients for the bear cake which each girl has had for their first birthday.
Today’s picture is from a few days ago, Emily looking sadly outside the window at Nana and Poppy’s house.
Today we went to the park and had a picnic. We stopped over at Subway and picked up some sandwiches and headed over to a park near my parents’ house. The park had a nice play gym, but it turned out to be too hot, so we didn’t stay for too long.
Once we got back from the park, my mom had to go to work and while she was pulling out of the driveway, she scraped the side of our Sequoia with her car. It scratched the rear wheel panel and the running board. Now we have two cars to take into the shop: one from a crazy neighbor with a wine bottle and one with a crazy Nana with a car.
Later in the evening, Jennifer and I headed to Horseshoe Casino, to stay overnight. It was our little get away from the girls. We ate at a nice Chinese restaurant at the casino and then tried to win a lot of money. We ended up breaking even. We entered with $400 and left with $400. It was looking like we were going to be big losers, but Jennifer was able to win back our losses right at the end at the roulette table.
Today’s picture is from a couple of days ago when Emily was watching Poppy put up the shutters.
Now that Head Coach is done, we’ve moved our annual trip back to Texas to the summer instead of around Christmas, like it usually is. Currently, we are in “the most inconsiderate town in America“, Mobile, Alabama. This time it hasn’t been as bad. I think the key is not to travel on the weekend. There’s a lot less activity on a weekday.
The drive wasn’t all that fun. Isabelle just doesn’t understand what is going on. She’s cranky and it’s hard for her to fall asleep in her car seat. Abby asks every few minutes if “we are there yet” and Emily isn’t much better with “We at Poppies?” The best one on the trip was Austin. He just sat under Emily and got hit on top of the head with plastic horses, cups, and shoes.
For dinner we tried out the Chuck E. Cheese which was down the street. We went a little on the early side and missed the crowd. Once again, I think it helped traveling on a weekday. Today’s picture is Emily standing in front of Chuck E. Cheese taken with my mobile phone.
Sorry it’s been a while again. I just can’t seem to get back into writing on Frenchville. This week we started our finaling period on NFL Head Coach. That’s where we stop working on new features that will be in the game and just work on fixing bugs. That’s also the time where I put in the most hours. So, sounds like a good time to take a week off. I was approaching my limit on PTO, so my boss told me to take a week off so that I don’t hit the limit. I can’t complain with that. So, I’ve been home since Thursday and I don’t go back to work until next Thursday. You would think that we would get out and do stuff, but we’ve really just been hanging around the house. We did go play putt-putt golf on Thursday, but that’s the extent of our excursions.
The terrible three’s have arrived from Emily. She just doesn’t listen to what we are saying. She is just off doing what ever Emily wants to do. Jennifer and I are reaching our wits end. Today she pushed Isabelle over and she bumped her head. Emily ran for her life once Isabelle started screaming.
Speaking of Isabelle, she has really been getting around the house. She crawls pretty much every where now and can walk down the edge of the couch. Yesterday she’s started wheeling herself around in this walker we have. We’ve been using it for weeks now, but it hasn’t been until recently that she’s noticed that she can roll herself around. Today’s picture is actually a movie. It’s suggested for high bandwidth Internet connection because it’s almost 8 MB. Isabelle has a special interest in this plastic duck.
I finished The Da Vinci Code yesterday. It was pretty good. I guess I was expecting much more since the book was so popular. To tell you the truth, Angels and Demons was better. I can’t wait to see the movie. Unfortunately a preview for the movie spoiled the ending of the book for me. I kept waiting for this one particular scene to happen and guess what? I happened at the end of the book. Overall, though, I thought it was a good book. I’ve now read all of Dan Brown’s books. I really like him as an author and I plan on reading anything he writes in the future. Now I’m back to the Dark Tower series again: Wizard and Glass.
It’s been an interesting week in the French household. First, Isabelle has had chicken pox all week. She must have picked it up from the church nursery since that’s the only place she goes besides home. We started noticing red spots appear on her just over a week ago. At first we thought it was bite marks from a bug. We washed all of her bed linens, but once we took her to the doctor, it was confirmed: chicken pox. Fortunately Abby and Emily have been immunized against it. Poor Isabelle really didn’t know what was wrong. The worst part was a fever that she had a few days ago. On the bright side, she doesn’t have the hand/eye coordination in order to scratch, so it didn’t really spread that much. It’s pretty much over now. She has a few scabs here and there. Me and Abby gave her the name “Chicken Pox Baby”.
On Friday, Emily was discovered with scissors in one hand and a clump of her own hair in the other. She apparently decided it was time for her to have a haircut. She pretty much clipped away all of her hair on one side. We took her to the salon yesterday in order for them to clean it up. In order to even it out they pretty much had to cut her hair short. Jennifer thinks she looks like a boy, but I think it’s very stylish. One of the neighbors said she looked like a blonde Winona Ryder.
On Monday Abby and Emily sang in a musical performance at school. This was the first time I’ve seen Abby stand up there and sing with the other kids. She usually gets a severe case of stage freight right before the performance. In the picture you will notice that she’s dressed up. The 4-year-old class was dressed as different professions. Abby was dressed as a teacher. Emily did well too. She didn’t know many of the words to the songs. However, she did know she was supposed to bark during “How Much is that Doggy in the Window?” At the end of the program, the kids handed out Valentine’s Day cards to their parents. Emily gave hers to Jennifer and Abby gave hers to me.
My eyes are getting a little better. I’m being very impatient and I want perfect vision right now. I know it takes time, but it can get frustrating at times. I’m okay to drive and watch TV, but looking at stuff from a long distance is still blurry.
Everyone has been telling me how much they enjoyed my Rose Bowl coverage. I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to get back into the habit of writing on Frenchville. Things are starting to settle down, so hopefully I can get back into the routine.
One of the first things that happened once we got back was Emily’s 3rd birthday party. We rented out The Little Gym and we were really worried if anyone was going to show up. We ended up inviting some of Abby’s friends in order to round out the group. We only had one out of Emily’s six classmates show up. For the cake, Jennifer made a new creation: a group of cup cakes which had candy lions, zebras, tigers, and elephants. They ran around the Gym for two hours and had great fun. It has been though planning Emily’s parties since they are so close to Christmas. This year was no different.
At work I moved on to a new product tentatively entitled NFL Head Coach. It’s a new NFL franchise we are creating at Tiburon that is a strategy game where you attempt to build and manage a football team. I’ve come in to manage the Gameplay and Online aspects of the game. The game will be available in stores spring 2006 for the Playstation 2, Xbox and PC.
A couple of weeks ago Tiburon paid for everyone’s family to go to Disney World’s Epcot. The girls had fun going to a park that we don’t normally go to. (We usually go to Magic Kingdom.) We went from “country” to “country” decorating a mask at each one. I finally got to ride Mission: Space, which is only at Epcot. It’s a simulator ride which really makes it feel like you are taking off in a space shuttle. It was pretty cool. However, I was feeling a little dizzy when I got off. It spins you around like you are in a centrifuge, but you can’t tell it since you are locked into a simulator room.
A week ago last Wednesday Electronic Arts laid off 5% of their work force. It was a cost cutting move that typically happens during what we call a “transition year” (the time between generations of hardware). 35 people were laid off from Tiburon. It was sad because this was the first time that we had to go through this. Last transition (1999-2000) the lay offs happened at other studios because Tiburon was so small. Now that we are approaching 600 employees, it was time to downsize our work force. Although I wasn’t personal friends with some of the people that got laid off, I knew some of them and, like I said, it was sad to see them go.
This weekend I took the plunge and had laser eye surgery. I went in Friday morning. It was really easy there wasn’t much pain at all. I could tell a difference right after the surgery. I went home and slept for several hours and I could see much better. It’s quite amazing. My vision isn’t 100%, but it’s getting better every day. There were two strange events that went on. First, a very tall lanky guy comes up to you and says in a real calm voice, “Dr. Filutowski is going to be your surgeon today. He requests that everyone have a massage to relax you for your surgery. Would you care for a massage?” That was weird, but a guy who works on NFL Head Coach who got the surgery two weeks ago pre-warned me of the event. The other strange thing is that immediately after the surgery, Dr. Filutowski has you give a “thumbs up” and they take your picture with him. It’s framed and given to you when you leave. Besides the two strange events, I’ve been really happy with my surgery so far. I was amazed how easy it was.
Finally, Isabelle has made a lot of progress over the month. During Christmas vacation she was sitting up on her own. Now she crawls all over the house and will stand up against any kind of furniture that will let her. At first she would stand up and then she couldn’t get down, but now she’s fully mastered getting up and down. This is the first time we’ve had a baby so young that is mobile in a big area. When Abby and Emily were mobile we were living in apartments and we could section off the areas of the apartment. Isabelle is going from room to room getting in trouble. Abby has been a great help watching over her and moving her from room to room when necessary.
We headed out for home this morning. We did well only stopping twice: for breakfast and for lunch. This is pretty good with three girls in tow. The key is to stop for breakfast about an hour out from where you start.
Our mid-way point for the trip has always been Mobile, Alabama. Our problems started once we got to the hotel. I was waiting in line to check-in to the hotel, the kids jumping around me in a circle. There were two clerks and two people being helped. I couldn’t believe it, but it took ten minutes for those other people to be helped. There were also two people waiting behind me. I stepped up to the next available clerk when the phone rang and she picked up the phone. Right then the guy behind me jumps to the other clerk before I could move over to her. Then the same thing happened again with the other person behind me. Meanwhile the lady at the desk kept answering one phone call after another. It pissed me off pretty bad.
Second, we decided to take the girls to Chuck E. Cheese to expend some of that energy which had been building up. Big mistake. It’s Saturday night. The place was thick with people. Jennifer waited in line with Isabelle to order our pizza. Even though Isabelle was crying, people three or four ladies cut in front of her while she was trying to order.
Finally, back at the hotel, one final straw. When we stopped here on our way to Houston, I accidentally left my Xbox 360 DVD Remote control in the room. We called about four times while we were in Houston and finally someone found it. They said that they would hold it for us until we came back through. Well, we are back through and they can’t find it. We told them about it at 4:00 and now at 8:00 they say that the manager has gone home and has the key to the “lost and found” closet. How idiotic is that? So, with those incidents, I’ve dubbed Mobile, Alabama “The Most Inconsiderate Town in America”.
It’s sad that I have to have such a negative entry on Emily’s birthday. I want to wish Emily a happy 3rd birthday. It’s gone by so fast.
Frenchville 