Vacuum Return

Posted on May 13, 2004 by Jason

I met the girls at Chucky Cheese for dinner today. We had a fun time of eating pizza and winning tickets. I was amazed that Abby could actually work this machine where air blows around some ping pong balls and you take this net on a stick and collect the balls and put this in this bucket. I was impressed.

I bought Jennifer a new vacuum for Mother’s Day which was lighter and more compact for easier clean up of things that get on the floor. After all, Abby’s Barbie vacuum can only pick up so much. We needed something more powerful. Unfortunately when she opened it, it was busted. I also thought it was cordless. The pictures of the vacuum on the outside of the box showed no cords. Anyway, she returned it to Target today and got one she wanted. It was cordless and it allows her to quickly get all those crumbs off the floor that are generated by the girls. It’s times like these when we miss our beagles, Sam and Sierra. Today’s picture is of Abby and Emily making more messes on the floor.

Going Home Early

Posted on May 10, 2004 by Jason

Not much happened today. We had a normal day at work. Since we worked so hard to get the E3 build out, our Development Director let everyone go ahead and go home. I didn’t feel like I got that many bugs fixed today and I ended the day in double digit positive numbers, but if someone tells me to go home, I’m going home.

Jennifer found a solution to the sand in the car problem: go get the car cleaned and have them vacuum it out.

Here’s another picture from yesterday at the beach.

Mother’s Day at the Beach

Posted on May 9, 2004 by Jason

Happy Mother’s Day. I would like to wish thanks to our moms: Nana (my mom) and Grandma (Jennifer’s mom), and, of course, Abby and Emily’s mom, Jennifer.

We gave Jennifer her gifts this morning. Abby had already told her what they were: a “vacuum” and “diamonds” (it was a diamond bracelet). So, there wasn’t much surprise. Jennifer had coached Abby to get diamonds. What Abby wanted to get her before the coaching was “an angel for the Christmas tree”. I had to tell her that because it wasn’t Christmas there probably wouldn’t be any angels for her to buy.

After church, we headed off to the beach. Since I had the day off, we figured this might be the last time that we could go to the beach before Jennifer and the kids left for Texas for three weeks. We all had a fun time and the girls had a great time playing the in sand. One problem we now face with going to the beach: how to get back into the car without getting sand everywhere.

E3 Push

Posted on May 9, 2004 by Jason

Been working a lot this week in order to get our E3 build of Madden 2005 up and going. The game is shaping up great this year. We have to make it look good, since I’ve seen several articles about how Madden is one of the games that everyone looks for when they are at E3.

This morning I stayed with the girls while Jennifer went to a “Spring Fashion Show” with some of the women from church. This was a fund raiser for a church in downtown Orlando and Jennifer said that they were scoping it out to see if this type of fund raiser would go over in Winter Park. Jennifer won a free massage while at the show.

Day of Swimming

Posted on May 8, 2004 by Jason

After school, Jennifer picked up Abby and they all went to the Alexan, the apartment complex we used to live in, to swim. Some of our friends that still live there invited them over. This was the first time for the year that they had been swimming in a pool (last week they went to the beach, but I don’t think there was much swimming going on).

After dinner, Abby went to one of our new neighbors to watch a movie. Jennifer went over as well to visit.

Today’s picture if from the girls playing around the house. They are hiding in the pillows that are on our bed.

Mommie’s Home

Posted on May 3, 2004 by Jason

Jennifer arrived home at lunch time and the girls were happy to see her. While she was gone, Abby kept asking when she was going to be home. Saturday morning she said that it was time to “wake up mommie” like we always do every morning, but this time she wasn’t there. She asked where mom was and I told her she was at church. Her response, “Mommie slept at church?” It was pretty funny.

Emily’s top two teeth are starting to poke through now. Deciding to start early, today’s picture shows that Emily has already started brushing.

Normal Thursday

Posted on April 30, 2004 by Jason

This will be a short entry, because I’m tired and I want to head off to bed. Not much happened today. One of the prongs on Jennifer’s engagement ring bent and she had to take it to a jeweler. They said that they would clean it up so Jennifer left her wedding with them as well. She got it back today all nice and shinny. They both look brand new.

Since there isn’t many pictures of Abby lately, today’s picture is of Abby in her playroom.

House Cleaning Sunday

Posted on April 25, 2004 by Jason

It was nice to finally have a day off from work. There was a lot of stuff to do around the house and Emily wasn’t feeling good because she is starting to get her two upper teeth. Because of this, me and Emily stayed home from church.

This week was Jennifer’s turn to teach Children’s Church. During the 11:00 worship, they have a little “children’s moment” for three year olds through first grade. After that is done, the kids go off to another building for “Children’s Church”. Jennifer volunteered to teach it once a month. She’s been scrounging for subjects to teach and finally went to a Christian bookstore the other day and picked up a Veggie Tales video to get some inspiration. I don’t really understand the fascination with animated vegetables. Maybe it’s because I’m not a real big vegetable eater. They watched a video about the “Good Samaritan” and then discussed what it meant to be one.

Meanwhile, I started laundry and cleaned up the laundry room. The top of the dryer had become a “catch all” for all kinds of Jennifer’s projects. That all got cleaned up and moved into the garage and I hung up a ironing board hanger so that the ironing board could be out of the way and not just leaning up against the wall.

After dinner we drove down to Baskin Robbins to get some ice cream because Abby said, “I ate all of my dinner so I need ice cream.” Afterwards we drove around Lake Mary. We’ve been up in the area for four months and I’m amazed how much I haven’t seen. It seems like day in and day out I’m just driving from work and to home and that is it. On the weekends, I’m just hanging around the house before it all starts back up on Monday. It was nice to drive around and see the area. Now that we are in Alpha, it might not be until July when I actually get to slow down and see the area.

Today’s picture is from yesterday’s trip to the beach. Abby playing in the sand.

Is EA Moving Downtown?

Posted on April 20, 2004 by Jason

Jennifer went to a brunch with her Moms Church group today. She thought it was funny that a lot of people kept asking her about the news of Electronic Arts constructing a new building downtown. They kept asking about the 700 jobs that would be brought to the area. It turns out that there was another article in the Orlando Sentinel this weekend. The Florida House and Senate approved a $4.2 million increase to the University of Central Florida‘s budget to create a co-op between UCF and Electronic Arts. As far as I know, no final decision has been made on where we are building the building. From what I’ve heard they want to grow Tiburon into the size of EA Canada over the next five years. I can only guess that that is where the news reports are getting the 700 jobs from.

After brunch and Abby’s school, it was off to the park again. Amazing how much Jennifer and the girls have been going down to the park since we bought the bike buggy. This is three days in a row. I guess it was worth the money just so that they would get out of the house and get some sun.

I had fun playing MVP Baseball at lunch today. They won’t let us bring laptops to work so at lunch I take mine down to the atrium and set it up to play MVP Baseball or work on the web site while I eat.

Today’s picture is of Emily while she and Abby were playing dress-up.

Easter Pictures

Posted on April 16, 2004 by Jason

Today at work I got my voice recorded for a new feature in Madden NFL 2005. I can’t mention the new feature yet, but hopefully EA will announce the feature set at E3 in a couple of weeks. Then, I will fill in the details. It was pretty cool, but I wasn’t given the script ahead of time so the first few takes were pretty rough as I got used to reading my lines.

Update on the Great Baseboard Painting Project: the dining room is complete. Now only the living room, kitchen and hallways are left. Not too bad for only working on it for a week.

Jennifer has been flattered lately because people at church are starting to notice the weight she has lost. She’s lost 30 pounds over the past three months.

We got our Easter pictures back from our photographer. I’ve scanned them in and I present the best ones here. Photographs were taken by Jennifer Adams.