Category Archives: Jennifer

The Price of a Dollar

Posted on by
Reply

The day started off with Jennifer going to the dentist. She chipped her lower tooth while eating the other day. She chipped the same tooth a could of years ago and she had it bonded. The dentist filed it down this morning, but Jennifer says that it’s still too sensitive. The only other option is to replace the tooth with a crown.

Jennifer called some contractors to take a look at our floor so we can get it all cleaned up. Both contractors are pretty much telling us that it’s not possible to match the old floor and the new floor. We just now have to get a quote from the contractors to turn over to State Farm so that they will give us more money.

My parents have gotten moved into their new house over the past weekend. The new house has a car port instead of a garage and their lawn mower got stolen over night. I guess it’s a house warming gift in reverse.

Today we saw a report on the news about how kids were collecting money to buy phone cards for soldiers over in Iraq. There was a shot of a jar full of dollar bills. When Abby saw it she started to explain to me how Mom uses dollars to get cookies and to let Abby ride on the horses at the mall. It’s interesting how she’s starting to understand how money works. I tried to explain that Dad has to go to work and that they give me dollars which I then turn over to her mother so that she can buy the cookies among other things.

Today’s picture is the twin to the picture of Emily at the airport watching the fountain. It is Abby sitting at the same fountain watching the water. She wasn’t as mesmerized as Emily. Abby starts back to school on Wednesday.

New Tires

Posted on by
Reply

Got new tires from Discount Tire Company for my truck today. Instead of waiting at the place, Jennifer picked me up and I went and test drove the Toyota Sequoia. Much nicer than the Honda Pilot that I test drove the other day. The Sequoia drove much more like my Blazer, but with a little better acceleration, more like our Camry. I liked it and hopefully we can get one before the end of the year for our trip to Texas.

Tonight, Jennifer went out to eat to The Cheesecake Factory with a bunch of the wives from work. She had a pretty good time visiting and getting away from the kids for a while.

Today’s picture is from when we picked up Marci from the airport the other day. There is a fountain inside the airport and Emily was mesmerized by the water.

Jak II Completed

Posted on by
Reply

This morning Jennifer went to a meeting at church about Sunday coffee and whether or not we are ever going to get help serving or not. Afterwards, she went and test drove a Toyota Sequoia.

Once the girls got up from their nap, we headed to Wal-Mart to get new tires for my truck. Since we are going to be trading in my truck soon, we decided to get some cheap tires since the ones that are on there now are nearly completely bald. However, Wal-Mart was out of tires that fit my truck. Oh well. I’m going to try Discount Tire Company tomorrow. After Wal-Mart we went shopping at the mall.

During the girls’ nap I finished playing Jak II. It was a fairly good game. I just get the feeling that it suffered from an identity crisis. While it’s predecessor was a pure platformer. Jak II tried to be more that it really was. There were so many different types of games that it got a little frustrating. There was a racing mini-game, you would ferry people around in floating cars, you had weapons to shoot enemies, and even a whack-a-mole type mini-game. Only about 50% of the game was an actual platformer. Another frustrating part of the game was that you would have to move around the city in order to get from one mission to another. This seemed a little excessive. It sounds like I didn’t like the game, but I did. The story was good and I can’t wait for Jak 3 to come out and to continue the story.

For my next game I decided to get away from the platform and console games and go with a first-person shooter (FPS) on the PC. I haven’t played an FPS since Return to Castle Wolfenstein and I haven’t been able to play one at home for a long time because I haven’t had a computer powerful enough to play. Now that I have my new laptop, it was time to get a game to take it for a test drive. Looking at Game Informer magazine I decided to go with Unreal Tournament 2004. So far it’s pretty fun. I got online and took on some people in a capture the flag game. I figured I would suck, but I was able to hold my own.

Today’s picture is from the trip to the beach. Abby is flying the kite all on her own.

Sand It Down and Stain It

Posted on by
Reply

The day started off with me and Abby taking Aunt Marci to the airport. She called us later to tell us she had arrived back in Dallas safely.

When I got home, Jennifer went off to ProSource to get some samples of different types of flooring. When she got back we had received a check from State Farm for the repairs. At this point we don’t think that that is going to be enough to repair the floors to our satisfaction. State Farm wants us to hire someone to install the new floor, sand it down, and stain it so that it matches the old floor. It just seems like it’s going to be quite hard to get a new floor to look like the existing floor. Jennifer called around to various places to see if this process was even possible. We are going to get some estimate from a few contracters at the beginning of next week to see what they say.

To keep Jennifer’s mind off of the floor situation, we went car shopping after dinner. We test drove the Honda Pilot. I wasn’t all that impressed. It wasn’t big enough for our needs and it just seemed a little cheap, like an econmy SUV. We still have to pay off our Toyota Camry before we can get a new car, but we would really like to get it before we make the big Christmas drive back to Texas. We’ll see.

Today’s picture is of the kite that we flew on yesterday’s visit to the beach.

The Matching of the Floor

Posted on by
Reply

We didn’t do much today. It was a day of rest before we go to the beach tomorrow. In the morning we went to Winter Park and showed Marci where we attend church and then we went shopping along Park Avenue.

The water extraction guy showed up early in the morning to check how the floor drying was going. It was still wet directly underneath the air conditioner so he left most of his equipment and concentrated some of the blowers to the wet spot. In the afternoon the claims adjuster from State Farm showed up. He said that they were going to pay to redo the flooring in the hallway under the air conditioner and the kitchen. The problem with this is that with new wood in the kitchen, there will probably be a seam that would be visible between the kitchen and the living room. The claims adjuster said that if we have trouble matching up the new wood floor, that we should contact him. Jennifer went to ProSource and the guy there said that we would definitely have trouble matching the floor, so Jennifer is currently working on getting a quote together from ProSource to go ahead and do the entire floor over.

Today’s picture is of Abby sliding down one of the water slides from yesterday’s trip to “Mickey’s Water”.

Singing at Church

Posted on by
Reply

We had a nice quiet weekend. We mainly just stayed around the house cleaning. My aunt will be arriving next Sunday so we’ve got to keep the house clean, a pretty big feat with two small children. On Saturday, Jennifer cleaned both of the cars inside and out. Abby and Emily donned their bathing suits to help for a little bit.

On Sunday, as the final part of her Vacation Bible School, Abby sang in front of the church with all the other kids. We didn’t think we were going to get her to go up there. She was complaining that her tummy hurt. However, when it came time and all the other kids started heading towards the front of the church, she got right up and just sang away. She did a really great job and impressed both of us. Today’s picture if from the event.

Weekend Catch-up

Posted on by
Reply

Trying to get caught up with what all has been happening over the last few days. A lot of resting a relaxing, except for Saturday morning. I went and played flag football with some of the guys at work. They play on a regular basis and I’m going to try and make it when ever I can, so I can get some sort of exercise. Even though we played 10 a.m. until noon, it was sweltering hot. Near the end I was dragging my feet before and during plays. Had lots of fun and have been very sore and sun burned for the past two days.

To relax the past few days I’ve just been playing Jak II and Jennifer has been working on Emily’s baby scrap book. We go upstairs and work up in the office. That has lead to trouble with Abby sneaking out of her room and getting into trouble. Friday she snuck out and got into Jennifer’s make-up. She spilled it on the floor and then blamed it on Emily even though Emily had been asleep for a couple of hours.

I saw Kill Bill, Volume I this weekend. Quentin Tarantino is an amazing director. Some of the shots are astonishing. The way he blends the music to what is going on in each shot is perfect. Can’t wait until Volume II comes out on DVD next month. It’s already in my Netflix queue.

Today Jennifer and the girls started attending Vacation Bible School up at church. Jennifer is doing games with the kids while Abby attends the classes. Emily is staying in the nursery. Because of the problems we are having with Abby about getting out of her room at night, she hasn’t been getting a good night’s rest. This morning, she was tired and kept crying at Vacation Bible School. She had to sit up with Jennifer for a while until she calmed down and then she joined her class later.

Today’s picture is from the set of pictures that my grandmother sent me from when Jennifer and the girls visited them in East Texas last month. Abby is showing off the new purse that MaMaw made for her.

The Gym

Posted on by
Reply

We started out the morning by going to The Little Gym with Abby & Emily. They just opened up this gymnasium for little kids around the corner from our house and Jennifer signed up the girls for a couple of free lessons. We thought Emily was too young for their program. We think Gymboree is a little more Emily’s speed since it’s for younger kids. However, Abby did excellent. She followed the instructor’s directions and she was the only one in the class which could hold her own weight on the ballance beem and extend her toes all the way out. We are thinking about looking for a regular gym and put her into, but we will see. The best thing about it was that she ran herself tired for a full hour. When it was nap time, she was out like a light.

Jennifer’s been trying to work on Emily’s baby scrap book. It’s been harder because when Emily was born, we switched over to a digital camera and she’s having to get the pictures she wants printed.

I received some pictures from my grandparents, MaMaw and PaPaw, from when the girls were up in Lindale, Texas visiting. I will be posting them in the near future, but today’s picture is from Emily’s trip to the gym.

First Day Off

Posted on by
Reply

Well, today was a momentous occasion. It was the first day I hadn’t see the inside of Tiburon since May 16th. Forty-one straight days of working. Isn’t the game industry grand? I guess no news is good news from work and we will have sent the game off to Central Quality Control at EA-Redwood Shores (EARS) in San Francisco.

Since it was my first day off, I was given my Father’s Day/Birthday gift from Jennifer and the girls: an Onkyo Stereo Receiver, with 6.1 surround sound. I got it all hooked up today. Now I just need a good set of speakers. I currently only have 3. Since the ultimate goal is to start watching more movies, today we signed up for Netflix, where you get DVD’s mailed to you. You have three checked out at a time and when you send them back, they send you the next movie on your list.

The only thing we did today was wash Jennifer’s car. Today’s picture is from that event. Emily was pretty funny. She would have the rag in one hand but she wouldn’t use it. She would use her bare hand to wash the car.

College Reunion

Posted on by
Reply

The Internet is amazing. I had a Frenchville.net first today. My old college roommate, Mike Barnes, discovered Frenchville and wrote me an e-mail. He’s doing well and finally graduated from college with an accounting degree and is currently living in Dallas. After our second year at U.T., college life wasn’t cutting it and he decided to move back to Oklahoma. I heard from him a couple of times after that and then never heard from him again until today. I e-mailed him back and I hope to hear back from him to find out what he’s been up to for the past ten years.

We are very close to having Madden out of our hands finally. I left work at midnight and we are “on call” through the weekend. Hopefully QA won’t find any major problems in the next two days (knock on wood).

While I was sleeping this morning, Jennifer and the girls went over to the Cowans’ to swim in the swimming pool. Jennifer was impressed that two hours of swimming equaled four hours of nap time after lunch. That fueled the swimming pool talks once again. I looks like Jennifer is more interested in more furniture than a swimming pool. I have to admit, on these hot Florida days, it would be pretty nice to just be floating out in the pool.

Today’s picture is from the family reunion on my mom’s side of the family last week. It’s a picture of Poppy, Jill, and Emily. This was actually the first time Jill had seen her niece since she was born. She moved to El Paso and we moved to Orlando before we could ever meet up again.