Category Archives: Family

Long Awaited Update

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Jennifer has been getting on to me for a while to update Frenchville. Especially, since I had a Christmas tree at the top. Well, it’s now changed. We’ve been pretty busy for the past month, so I guess I will do a month in review.

For me, it has just been work, work, work. We are starting to wrap up our planning phase for the game I’m working on and we will start the actual construction of the code and making of the art assets. I can’t write any details on the web, but hopefully soon EA will put out a press release and then I will write a little bit more about it.

Jennifer has been getting more and more stuff for her photography studio (a.k.a. our front office). She has lights and a couple of sets she’s is working on. She’s been taking test photos of the girls in order to get the lighting just right. She will be starting to take photos of some of the neighbor kids in order to practice. 

Abby has been doing fine in school. I’m amazed at how much they learn in Kindergarten. She has spelling words she has to learn. I don’t remember having to take spelling tests way back then. Of coarse, I don’t even remember Kindergarten, but oh well. She’s been struggling with writing out the numbers 11 – 99. She sometimes gets them reversed. We’re working on it often.

We had sad news a couple of weeks ago. Jennifer’s Grandmother, Helen Musselman, passed away. Her funeral was the following weekend, so we had to buy plane tickets and meet Jennifer’s parents in Muskegon, Michigan. The high temperature the day we arrived was 17 degrees and snow was on the ground. We flew into Grand Rapids and then had to rent a car and make a forty minute drive to Muskegon. We stayed in a hotel there in Muskegon and had the funeral on Saturday. On Sunday, we dove over to Jennifer’s other grandparents and visited with them and all of her aunts and uncles. Abby and Emily had fun playing in the snow, having never seen it before. It was tough having to always bundle up when we went outside. We were happy to get back to the warm weather in Florida.

Storybook Portraits

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I don’t know if I’ve written about this in Frenchville yet, but Jennifer has been working on setting up her own business as a photographer. She got a camera a couple of months ago and has been taking classes at a local art school. In December, she got a loan in order to start purchasing some of the equipment needed in order to start up a photography studio in the house. We moved the girls’ playroom from our front office to upstairs so that she could set up shop in that room. Well, the room has been painted and the equipment is starting to arrive. There’s now a backdrop, a few sets, and now the lighting equipment. The room is definitely starting to look like a photography studio. She’s also been asked to take photographs up at church during our Easter picnic. So, hopefully she can get some clients from that engagement. Expect to hear more news about her new business, Storybook Portraits, in the coming months.

Today’s picture is from Emily’s birthday party: Emily blowing out her candle.

Emily’s 4th Birthday

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Two weeks ago we celebrated Emily’s fourth birthday party at Pump It Up. It’s a warehouse type place which is filled with blow-up bounce houses. We thought this was appropriate since when Abby turned four we rented a bounce house for the back yard. Anyway, Emily had a couple of their friends from school show up and a lot more neighbors and friends from church. They had fun bouncing around for and hour and then having cake. Jennifer made a special horse cake just for Emily’s birthday.

Empty Traps on the Roof

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On Wednesday we tried to find out how much money we could spend by bringing people to our house. First we called someone to take a look in our attic and find out what was doing all the scratching. He did his inspection and found two entrances in the roof. He suspected that it could be one of three creatures: a raccoon, a rat, or a squirrel. He put traps on the roof at each of the entrances and then put some rat traps in the attic. He’s going to come back next week to check it out. That night we heard the creature in the attic again, but that was the last time. We haven’t heard it again, but the traps are still empty…

That night was also the first night it had gotten cold enough to put on the heater, but guess what. It didn’t come on. So, after I messed around with it for a while, we decided to go ahead and call some else out for that. They came out that day and found a blown fuse and a control box which was burned out. He said that the control box had been burned out for quite some time, so he didn’t even know how the air condition unit was even operating. So we got that all fixed up and in total spent $650 split almost equally between the wildlife guy and the heater guy. Isn’t home ownership wonderful? There’s nothing like unwanted, unaccounted for expenses to brighten up your day.

Today we met our new neighbors. They moved in today to discover that our former neighbor had left his house a complete mess. We predicted this and felt sorry for them. Good news for us: they have two chidren, a 4-year-old daughter and a 2-year-old son. The kids will be arriving tomorrow and I’m sure Abby and Emily will be ready to greet new friends.

Up on the Roof Top…Scratch…Scratch…Scratch

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As I write this there is something trashing around in the ceiling. It all started on Christmas Eve and we though it might be Santa’s reindeer on the ceiling, but then we noticed the noise was coming from within the house. A critter has gotten into our attic once again. This morning we called a person to come out and set traps and seal any holes in the roof.

Today was a day of chores around the house. Jennifer took the tree down, which proceeded to drop the rest of the needles. It had been raining down needles for weeks. We learned our lesson: no more live trees. We like fake ones. Less up keep. I installed a soap dish in our shower and a rack for the brooms in the laundry room.

On a completely different note, we’ve been playing Fantasy Football up at work for the game I’m currently working on. Last night was the final game and my team had made it to the Championship against my boss, Jeremy Strauser. My team had finished with a 29 point lead and he had the Dolphins Special Teams/Defense. I finally had an excuse to watch a Monday Night Football game. It wasn’t looking good as the Jets-Dolphins entered half time tied 0-0, but the Jets came back and ended up winning and thus giving me the Championship in our league.

Today’s pictures were taken by Abby of their new playroom upstairs. They took over my office, which was upstairs so that Jennifer could set up her photography studio in their old playroom. My desk has been moved in our bed room.

Merry Christmas

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I hope everyone is having a safe Christmas out there. This was the first time in two years we didn’t drive back to Texas for Christmas. Having visited twice in the last year, we were tired of making the long 16 hour drive and it’s just too expensive for five plane tickets.

The morning started out with Abby coming into our room to inform us that Santa had come and given them gifts. Abby received a Lite Bright Cube. She was very happy and was amazed that Santa had written “To: Abby; From: Santa” and had drawn a picture of himself on side of the cube. Emily received a toy train set, which she just loves controlling the train and rearranging the tracks. Finally, Isabelle received a little car she can ride around on and a grocery cart with fake bread and fruit to push around.

Most of the afternoon was spent cooking for our Christmas dinner. We invited our neighbor Jane and her two sons, Lucas and Connor, over for dinner. Jennifer cooked a spiral ham, mashed potatoes, and rolls. Jane brought over some corn, carrots, and a desert cake. We had dinner and then the kids ran around and had fun.

Nana and Poppy Visit

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The past month has been pretty much a big preparation for Christmas. We’ve been shopping, going to the EA Holiday party, and shopping. This all lead up to Nana and Poppy flying in last Saturday. Allegiant Air now has a direct flight from Shreveport, LA to Orlando-Sanford, a smaller airport which is only about 15 minutes away from our house.

Abby was excited when Poppy said he was coming because she had a long list of movies for them to see. So, on Saturday, Poppy took Abby and Emily to see Flushed Away. They had a great time, even though there were no Nerds on a Rope at that movie theater. They came out of the movie singing “Roddie got flushed down the potty.”

On Sunday, we went out to eat at Peach Valley Cafe and took a tour of Baldwin Park, a nice neighborhood which is closer to downtown. We’ve been thinking about moving closer to downtown so that my commute times to work would be less. Also, Jennifer and I went to see the musical The Lion King, which was playing at the Bob Carr. It was okay, not stupendous. Jennifer said that she knew all the funny lines because she’s seen the movie a thousand times.

On Monday, we took Nana and Poppy to our new favorite pizza place, American Pie Pizza Company. We played video games and ate very good pizza. When we got home we decided to go ahead and open our Christmas presents so that we could share Christmas with Nana and Poppy. The girls got a whole lot of new toys and were running around playing with them the rest of the day.

On Tuesday, Abby, Emily, and Poppy went to see Happy Feet. While Jennifer and I escaped to go out and see The Holiday and then go out to eat with the kids in tow.

Early this morning it was time for Nana and Poppy to catch their flight home. We had to leave the house at 6:30 a.m. so that they could make their 8:30 a.m. flight. The girls enjoyed having them and Emily gave Poppy her ceramic hippo that she made at Abby’s birthday party. Poppy wrapped it tight so that it wouldn’t break and told her he would put it in his bike room.

Abby’s Sixth Birthday

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It’s hard to believe I have a daughter who is six years old, but it happened today. It was also a long day. With Abby’s Sunday School class, we boxed up Thanksgiving dinners for the Greater Orlando Food Bank. It was mass chaos as around 100 kids kindergarten through fourth grade walked in a line with boxes and put canned goods, stuffing, and other non-perishable food into card board boxes. They were taped up and will be sent to the food bank for distribution to the needy.

After Sunday school we headed into church where Abby sang in a kindergarten and first grade choir. Her group blew away the second through fourth graders, who you could barely hear. Abby’s group knew their song well and you could actually understand what they were singing as opposed to the other group. Sorry, older group, but the younger kids out sang you.

After Church we headed to the Cheesecake Factory for a birthday lunch for Abby. Abby went for the French Toast and bacon, while Emily went for the grilled cheese which was bigger than her head. I wish I would have taken a picture of it, but we didn’t think of taking the camera into the restaurant.

Finally, we celebrated Abby’s birthday at All Fired Up, a pottery painting place in Winter Park. Abby invited some of her friends from school. Abby painted a mermaid statue and Emily painted a hippo. Emily’s statue started out multi-color, but ended up gray as she kept adding multiple colors one right on top of the other. It will be interesting to see what color it comes out as once it’s gone through the oven. Abby had fun with all of her friends as we had cupcakes and sang Happy Birthday.

She opened up her presents when she got home and Nana and Poppy gave her a digital camera. This last picture is one Abby took of Isabelle with her new camera.

Texans are now 3-0…

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…against Florida teams. They are 0-6 against non-Florida teams, but that’s besides the point. Unfortunately, they didn’t give tickets out to any of the games at work this week. I was hoping to win tickets to the Texans–Jaguars game since it was only about an hour and a half drive away up in Jacksonville. Texans were up early and held strong winning 13-10, despite missing two field goals. This was their first road win since December 2004.

You may be saying to yourself that I haven’t commented on another game which happened yesterday. Well, here at Frenchville, we only talk about positive sports events. We don’t talk about how the Longhorns choked away their chance at a rematch against Ohio State in the National Championship. We don’t talk about how Colt McCoy’s collar bone isn’t broken and he’s questionable in the game against A&M. And, we definitely don’t talk about they now must beat the Aggies in order to have a rematch against Nebraska in the Big XII Championship.

Report Card brought to you by Pizza Hut

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I took Abby and Emily to Pizza Hut for lunch today. Apparently Pizza Hut is a big sponsor of my child’s education. They have a “Book It” program where if you read 200 hours to your child per month, they will get a free personal pan pizza. We accomplished that for October, so we had to go and redeem our free pizza.

Abby also received her first report card this week. I thought it was funny that it had a big Pizza Hut logo on the sleeve the report card came in. Apparently if you child has good grades, you can take the report card in and get a free personal pan pizza for that as well. I just thought is seemed kind of weird to have a Pizza Hut logo on a report card, but oh well.

On a whole different subject, we’ve been getting a lot of questions about what we (especially the girls) want for Christmas. I’ve setup a gift list at WishBin.com. I’ve put stuff in there for the girls which I think they will like and I’ve put their clothes and shoe sizes in there as well. You can mark things as bought in there as well, so that multiple people don’t by the same thing.