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.
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.
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.
Today my Xbox died. The past couple of days it’s been locking up randomly and today it finally gave up and just flashed some red lights on the front when I tried to turn it on. I called customer support and they had me send it back in to get repaired. I heard a rumor on the Internet that some of the early Xbox 360 models were overheating because a heat sync on the graphics chip wasn’t installed properly. Oh well, it’s coming up on a year, so I was afraid that my warranty was going to expire soon. So, I made sure and called them today.
Today Abby went on a field trip with Jennifer for Jennifer’s photography class. They went to Rollins College to take some pictures of their unique architecture. Jennifer had been enjoying the class and has learned a lot. Her ultimate goal is to start her own business taking children’s photographs. Today’s picture is one of Abby posing for Jennifer while on their field trip.
The Longhorns rolled all over Oklahoma State tonight. Winning easily: 36-10. I was worried more about this game than I was against Texas Tech. Fortunately, Texas didn’t let OSU get ahead like they did Nebraska and Tech. They started out strong and kept it up the whole game.
On Monday Jennifer and I had our seventh wedding anniversary. We didn’t do much on Monday because Jennifer had her photography class. Also, for the first time ever, EA Tiburon had a “parent’s night out” on Friday. All the kids of employees came up to work and they had hired a company to watch all of them while the parent escaped for a night out of the town. They had crafts and watched Finding Nemo on our giant projection screen. We took all the girls up there and then Jennifer and I went to our favorite “date” restaurant: The Melting Pot.
Texas once again crushed Baylor, this year 63-31. It wasn’t looking good when Baylor jumped to a 10-0 lead, but I had faith that Texas would come back. there was no way that Baylor would beat us. The defense once again looked great. They stepped up and caused turnovers, two of which they brought back for touchdowns. Florida lost, so that should move Texas one step closer to a rematch with Ohio State in the National Championship.
It’s been a while since I’ve written, so I thought I would do a “month in review”. For the most part September was pretty much another ordinary month in the French household.
After the Knight of the Week event, the Longhorns ended up loosing to Ohio State. The defense just looked terrible. I thought Colt McCoy still looked good under the circumstances, for a red shirt freshman. We have him for four more years and he can only get better. After the loss to Ohio State, the Longhorns went on to beat Rice, Iowa State, and Sam Houston State. If they can continue to win out the Big XII, they can still be in the hunt for a BCS bid and a chance at the National Championship once again. But first they have to beat Oklahoma, which is next week.
On the subject of sports, it was a good and bad day for Houston sports. Today the Astros lost the last game of their regular season which puts them out of the playoffs this year. It was an amazing last year getting to the World Series and all, but it wasn’t meant to be this year. On the good side, the Texans finally won. They beat the Miami Dolphins 17-15, in a very exciting game. They are now 1-3, which isn’t a great start to the year. Their number one pick in the draft, Mario Williams, got his first sack in the game. So far, the Texans have looked terrible. I’m hoping that they can turn it around, but I’m not holding my breath.
On the 8th, I went in for a “touch up” on my Lasik. My left eye wasn’t 20-20, so they offered another session. It was really easy, much easier than the first time. Apparently the “flap” that they cut in your eye doesn’t heal in six months. So, they reopened the flap and re-lasered the eye. Immediately after the surgery I was seeing much better. It’s amazing.
On the 9th, we went and witnessed our first shuttle take off. We discovered that the place the shuttle takes off from is only about twenty minutes from our house. We just parked on the side of the road and walked up to the bridge that goes out to the Kennedy Space Center. Someone had their radio tuned into the countdown and when it reached zero, there was a brilliant light and the shuttle was lifted into the sky. It was amazing and can only suggest that if you haven’t seen it you should come to Florida to try and see the shuttle take off. Currently the next shuttle is schedule to go off at night. We are thinking of making a trek out for that one as well.
In other news Jennifer was named Abby’s “room mom”. So, she helps out and coordinates parties for the class. This week she went up for Apple Math and Science Day. They had four different stations and Jennifer manned the “less than or greater than an apple” station. She would name an object and then the kids would have to say whether it weighed greater than or less than an apple.
Abby’s doing really good in school. She got her first report card this past week. She got all “Satisfactory” grades. They don’t start getting letter grades until second grade.
Abby took her first field trip today. They went to Uno’s Pizzeria where they visited the kitchen and made their own pizza. Jennifer got to go with them. Abby said she had fun and that they got to go into the freezer, where it was really cold.
This past week was Vacation Bible School so Jennifer took the girls up to church each day this week. Abby and Emily sang songs, make crafts, and learned bible stories; Isabelle played with other babies her age in the nursery; and Jennifer volunteered and taught crafts. All in all they had a great time and were asking to go back each morning and every night I came home I got to see the craft they had made for the week. On Sunday, there was a special church service where the girls sang the songs that they had learned and they showed a slide show of all that went on during the week.
Also on Sunday, we took a trip to a little stream down in Heathrow to take some pictures of Isabelle. Jennifer is still experimenting with the camera I borrowed from work and she wanted to take some nice pictures of Isabelle. So, we sat Isabelle on the rocks and I stood right off camera to make sure she didn’t take a plunge into the water. Finally the humidity and bugs drove us back home. Here’s one of the pictures that Jennifer took.
Ever since Abby was a baby, Jennifer has always loved having the girls’ portraits taken by a professional photographer. Her favorite ones have been themed portraits, but since we’ve moved to Orlando it’s been hard to find a photographer that does those sorts of portraits. She did find one recently, but she’s almost an hour’s drive away. This gave Jennifer the idea of why not learn photography and start earning some money. To that end I borrowed a Cannon D20 digital SLR camera from work and she’s spent the last two days practicing and figuring out all the different settings on the camera.
Today Jennifer and the girls went over to a friend’s house to swim. Jennifer took the camera and started taking pictures of the girls, two of which are in this entry. I think they are pretty good.
I spent most of the day re-doing Frenchville. Hope you like the new look.
This morning we all headed to church to see Kinley baptized. It was at the 8:30 service, so the attendance was a little thin, but that really didn’t matter. We all sat at the front of the church while Christina and Mike stood up with Kinley while the Dr. Pennington baptized her. The ceremony went fine.
In the evening, Jennifer and I met George and Heather at Fogo de Chão, a South American restaurant. The best way to describe the restaurant is a parade of meat. It starts with a giant salad bar and then you head back to your table. There’s a disc on your table and if you leave it on the green side the people walking around with meat will stop at your table and offer you some. If you leave the disc on the red side, they will not bother you. It was a unique experience trying all different cuts of meat and it all tasted very, very good.
Frenchville 