Category Archives: Family

When it Rains, It Pours

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I don’t think I’ve talked about this on Frenchville yet, but we were worried that there might be something wrong with the foundation of our house. There’s a crack in the garage which was getting bigger. We reported it to our insurance company who brought out some engineers to do an assessment. Their conclusion was that it was just settlement of the house. However, they did suggest we fix some of the drainage problems around the house. We’ve been having a lot of problems with our grass and some of the soil around the rain downspouts has been leading to some of the soil to wash away. So, it’s looking like we are going to install some drains and re-sod at least the front lawn. We are relieved that it wasn’t something more serious, but re-sodding a lawn isn’t cheap.

Then, last weekend I decided to clean out the closet in my office since it was the last thing that was left in a cluttered state since the office remodel this past summer. This is when I discovered the carpet was damp under a bookcase. It so happens this closet is right behind our master bedroom shower. I pulled the bookcase out and now we are going to have to reset some of the tiles in the shower. This is Jennifer’s department, but she’s busy with school work. We are just going to use one of the other showers in the house until she can get around to redoing some of the tiles. Sigh.

Girl Scout Cookies

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It’s that time of year again. The time when our house fills with Girl Scout Cookies. The past couple of years Jennifer has helped out with the distribution of the cookies. So, there’s always a wide variety of cookies to munch on.

This weekend I helped the girls get their cookie orders distributed throughout the neighborhood. With Abby’s help, we put the boxes into piles labeled with the house they went to and how much they owed us. We ordered the boxes and left our house walking around the circle delivering the cookies. It went very smoothly and we only had one house we couldn’t deliver to. I was surprised how much work it was. Which leads to how the Girl Scouts can have such a low cost of goods on their distribution: a child (and parent) workforce which will work for near nothing. Only 14% of the sale of each box goes to the troop.

New Ford Truck

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A few Fridays ago the Toyota Camry started to idle real rough and the Check Engine light came on. It appeared that the old car was finally on its last legs. We bought the Camry in early 2000 soon after we were married and Jennifer started a new job half-way across Houston. We thought it would be safer for her. Soon after we bought it, she was in an accident: rear-ended while waiting at a light. (This is pre-Frenchville so I don’t have any pictures online). She was okay, but we were worried about Abby, who was still inside Jennifer’s belly at the time. In fact I was waiting at her doctor’s appointment to check on the baby. This was also a time before mobile phones. She had one, but I didn’t. So, I had no idea where she was and why she was late. She finally rolled up to the doctor appointment crying and the back-end of the car totally smashed in. I was surprised she was even able to drive it from the west side of Houston to Clear Lake, where we were living at the time.

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Well, it was time to say good-bye to the old Camry. We drove two of our girls home from the hospital after they were born in that car and it was pretty dependable over the ten years we owned it. We had already sunk a lot of money into the Sequoia and when the brakes went out and now potential issues with the engine, it was time.

Since we had had so many problems with the Sequoia, I had pretty much sworn off Toyota. I wanted to “buy American” and I wanted a truck again. I hadn’t actually had a new car that I could call “mine” since 1996, so this time I was going to be the one choosing the vehicle. The only condition I had was I wanted the Ford SYNC system so that I could throw away my old tape deck audio cable that I used to plug into my iPhone to listen to podcasts. It was time to move into the 2010’s and not the 1990’s. The SYNC system has a USB port so that it will index the songs on my iPhone and then I can play what I want through the voice activated system. For example, “Play artist Pink Floyd” or “Play playlist Podcasts”. It’s great. It also allows me to make phone calls hands-free.

I looked at several cars and trucks on the lot, but ended up with the Sports Trac. It was a combination Ford Explorer and pick-up truck. The cab is large enough for the whole family and I have room in the bed of the truck if I need to get something at Home Depot.

I’ve been driving it around for a week now and I’m loving it.

Emily’s 8th Birthday

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Can’t believe it, but Emily turned 8 this past Friday. Seems like just yesterday that we were moving to Florida (for the first time) right after she was born. She wanted to spend her birthday going out to eat at Kid Tropolis. Her birthday is always tough to have since it’s right after Christmas. This time the girls still haven’t even gone back to school from Christmas break, but Emily, being the shy girl that she is, just wanted to have a small gathering with family.

Kid Tropolis wasn’t all that great. I would describe it as a Chuck-E-Cheese knock-off. The pizza was actually worse, if that’s possible. We played a few games and tried to digest the food and then headed home so she could open presents and we could eat some cake. Someone must have told everyone she liked soccer, because that was definitely the main theme of all the presents.

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Earlier in the day Emily got her ears pierced. Jennifer said she cried for a little bit, but she was all smiles when she showed me her ears once we met up for dinner. It’s going by fast and they are growing up quick, but as Abby told Jennifer the other day, “I’m just going to have to deal with it.”

Happy New Year

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Hope everyone had a save New Years Eve. For the first time, we went to a New Years Party. Our friends the Carbones invited us over to their house. We initially turned them down because we don’t really have a regular babysitter. We didn’t know there were actually going to be other families at the party with kids the girls’ age, but when Tom informed us as such, we accepted.

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We had fun visiting and playing games. We played Apples to Apples, which neither Jennifer nor I had played before. It’s a word game where an adjective and read aloud and then each player gives a noun card from their hand to the player who is playing the judge. The judge then determines which adjective best describes the noun cards which was submitted. Low-and-behold, Jennifer and Emily were experts. They killed the rest of us taking 6 of the 12 rounds we played.

We were surprised all the girls were able to stay up until midnight. They looked beat and we left the party soon after midnight. Izzy fell asleep immediately when we got into the car. We had a great time and are grateful to the Carbones for the invite.

Merry Christmas

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Hope everyone out there had a good and safe Christmas this past weekend. This is the second Christmas we’ve had since moving back to Florida and also the second time we didn’t make the drive back to Texas. With all the expenses on fixing the Sequoia this year, we felt it best not to spend additional money driving back to Texas this year. Hopefully, we will be able to make it back next year.

On Christmas Eve, we went to an early church service and then headed home for some dinner. After dinner, the opening of presents began. Our tree was overflowing with all the gifts from both of our families, mostly for the girls. I screwed up and actually bought Jennifer a James Avery necklace charm that I had bought her before. Oh well, I guess I had good taste twice. Izzy’s favorite toy was her Dancing Mickey and all the Littlest Pet Shop toys she got. Abby’s favorite was her iPod Shuffle. She had me putting songs on it right once we were done opening presents. Emily’s favorite present was a ZuZu Pet, but it pales in comparison to the real guinea pigs that she received from Santa. Besides the guinea pigs, now named Oreo and Nibbles, the girls received new bikes and video games for their Wii and DS.

Thanks to everyone who sent gifts and thought of us on this holiday. We are blessed to have such great friends and family. Merry Christmas from the French Family and hope you have a great 2011.

Happy Thanksgiving

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We did something unique this Thanksgiving. A few weeks ago we received an e-mail from Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse inviting us to Thanksgiving. They had a special 3-course meal and special pricing for kids. So, we decided instead of cooking Thanksgiving dinner ourselves, we would let them do the cooking for us. If we did it ourselves, we figured by the time we bought the bird and the sides, it wouldn’t be that much more expensive (we were wrong by the way).

Jennifer got everyone dressed up for dinner (including myself) and we took some pictures before heading over to the steak house. We arrived at Ruth’s Chris to find no parking spaces available that weren’t valet, so I reluctantly did valet parking. I hate valet parking, mainly because I hate tipping someone to just park my car.

This is the fanciest dinner we’ve ever taken the girls to, so there was a lot of “training” going on. The hardest part was keeping their napkins in their laps and not on the floor. It was also hard to keep their attention between courses, so thank goodness for Fruit Ninja on the iPhone.

I got steak and Jennifer and the girls got turkey. The food was good, but not up to Ruth’s Chris’s normal quality level. The steak was a little over done and Jennifer said her turkey wasn’t hot. Still, all-in-all, it was a good meal that we were all thankful for.

We were sad that we couldn’t make it back to Texas, but we are all thankful for our family and each other this holiday. We are thankful for the smooth transition moving back to Florida (we’ve now been back longer than we were away). Hope everyone out there had a safe and wonderful Thanksgiving, hopefully with the people you love.

Abby’s 10th Birthday

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It’s hard to believe it has been ten years since Abby was born, but there’s proof on this very web site. Abby has now officially moved into the “tween” years, so she couldn’t just have a regular birthday party. She had a slumber party, inviting four of her friends from school over to watch Avatar and stay the night. I got pizza on my way home from work and Jennifer picked up a cake from a local baker. When the movie was over, the girls went upstairs to the game room. There was a lot of giggling coming from up there and Jennifer said she heard whispers of them asking each other which boy they liked at school. Is it time to get that shotgun from Jennifer’s dad? At around midnight, we gave up and went to bed. Not sure how late they stayed up…

Happy Halloween 2010

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Happy Halloween. As you can see from the picture to the right, the costumes were pretty interesting this year. Izzy was a frog, but not really any frog. She was a Littlest Pet Shop Frog (Hasbro good job marketing to a five-year-old). She loves these little toy creatures and is always playing with them upstairs. This weekend I caught her digging into some candy corn early in the morning and when I went to tell her that candy corn wasn’t for breakfast, she stated that she wasn’t eating the candy corn. It was for the “Little Pet Shops”. “They are Trick-or-Treating,” said stated.

It was little surprise that Emily chose an animal of some sort. This year a cat. She was wearing the cat ears for weeks ahead of Halloween. She’s probably counting the days until it’s socially acceptable to wear her reindeer antlers again. Not that any time is a socially acceptable time to wear reindeer antlers.

Finally, there’s Abby’s costume. Some sort of female prisoner called “Miss Behavin'”? The only thing I can think of is that she’s starting to enter her “tweens” a few weeks early (she turns 10 on the 19th). I don’t really understand that choice. Maybe I’m not supposed to.

Anyway, it was the standard fare. We have about 40 houses in our gated community and we just swung around the block hitting any of the houses with their lights on. Three very full plastic pumpkins made their way home and Jennifer is making me take some of the candy up to work so that it isn’t in the house tempting her and the girls.