Lazy Week Off

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What a relaxing week. Took the whole week off from work in order to rest and recover from the push to get the NCAA Football client ready and off to manufacturing.

We put our new season passes to the Disney water parks to good use, going to Blizzard Beach on Tuesday and then Typhoon Lagoon on Friday. Our verdict: Blizzard Beach is much better. The lazy river takes you around the whole park and you can jump off at a few different points in order to go on various rides. At Typhoon Lagoon, the rides just aren’t as good and aren’t logically grouped together. We rode a “family” tube ride, which sat max 4 so, we had to divide up into 3 and 2 per tube. We then waited in line for 30 minutes for what seemed like a 5 minute (or less) ride. Not worth it. If you have a choice between the two water parks, Blizzard Beach is the one you want.

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Fixing our master bath shower progressed a little this week. We had to replace the marble shelves and then order glass for the outside and the door. It should be installed next week. We also fixed the sheetrock in the closet on the opposite wall that we tore up looking for the water leak. Almost done. Jennifer has been busy texturing and repainting the closet wall.

Finally, Father’s Day was on Sunday and we started it out with a trip to The Townhouse for breakfast. This is always my favorite thing to do on any occasion. Besides that, it was a pretty lazy day, not doing much of anything. We ended the day with barbecuing some kabobs on the grill. The marinade we used was excellent and they whole meal was really tasty. Probably the best thing we’ve grilled in a long time.

Junior Counselor to the Rescue

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I started out the week with a couple of days off. My plan for the end of the NCAA Football development cycle was to take three days off once EA Certification had passed us and to take a week off once Microsoft and Sony and passed us. Late last week the former happened and late this week the latter happened. So, I’m taking next week off. It’s much more restful when I know I don’t have to worry about the game. In fact, this is the first time in several weekends where I haven’t had to call someone on the team for one thing or another. It’s nice and peaceful with no e-mails going back and forth.

The week also started out with the demolition of our shower. It has been leaking for quite some time now and we finally settled on a contractor to come in and remove the tile, fix the problem, and put new tile in. It was a lot of work getting the tile and bringing it in, but David’s Tile did an excellent job. It looks great. Our only problem is that he removed the glass and now we are searching for someone to put it back. So, it’s “almost done”.

This week was also Vacation Bible School up at the Methodist church here in Oviedo. The girls attended and this was the first year that Abby wasn’t actually a participant, but a “Junior Counselor”. She watched over a group of kids while they did crafts and other various activities throughout the week. Abby got a complement from one of the mothers who watched how Abby handled one of the rowdy boys in her group. Both Abby and her parents were very proud. She’s growing up too quickly.

Happy To Be Six

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Today our youngest daughter, Izzy, has turned six. Can’t believe it has been six years and she’s going to be heading to first grade in a few months. The time has flown by. When asked where she wanted to celebrate her birthday she was quick to say Chuck E. Cheese, even though it’s not our favoriate place in the world.

We made the reservation and sent invitations to everyone in her class. The bad thing about The Cheese is that you pay per person and they will charge you for a minimum of 11 kids. Well, early in the week we only had 3 RSVPs for 4 kids (plus our 3 made 7). So, we canceled the Chuck E. Cheese sponsored party and decided to “go rogue”. We still had the party at Chuck E. Cheese, just none of the perks. Izzy liked it anyway and it probably saved us a ton of money.

Teacup Cousins

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While I didn’t see them much because I was so busy at work, Jennifer’s sister and her family visited us this weekend: Christina, Mike, Kinley, and Matt. Their goal: get in as much Disney World as possible. Always up for a trip to Disney and since I was working so much, Jennifer obliged.

The Eppersons arrived on Thursday and hung out visiting. On Friday was a trip to Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique for Kinley and Izzy to get “all princessed up”. Afterward they headed over to Magic Kingdom where they had fun riding all the rides. They said Matt was a handful, but that was expected. At two, there isn’t much you can do, but complain.

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Saturday morning started out with a trip to The Townhouse, our favorite breakfast spot, and then they were off to Animal Kingdom. After a few hours, the Florida heat was just too much and they came home around 4:00, right about the time I was heading up to work to fix some bugs that had come in.

Mother’s Day Pool Volleyball

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I would have loved to have slept later this morning, but the girls did a drive-by “we’re hungry” which woke me up. With the stress of shipping NCAA Football weighing heavy on my mind, I haven’t been sleeping well. I rolled out of bed and tried to wake up enough to make some waffles in our well-used waffle iron. When Jennifer woke up I almost relented going out to the Townhouse for breakfast, but figured it would be packed for Mother’s Day. Jennifer was greeted with a bunch of “Happy Mother’s Day” from the kids and we gathered in the living room to open presents. She received some earrings from James Avery from me and a special Filled-Pancake pan from the kids. The girls also piled on a ton of gifts they had made in school and girl scouts. It made me realize that I miss out on all this stuff because they are out of school once Father’s Day rolls around. Oh well.

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In the afternoon, we headed over to the Carbone’s for lunch and some swimming in their pool. Jennifer made an awesome spinach and cream cheese ball. We tried to make some toasted bread to go along with it, but while trying to hurry up and get out the door, they got burned to a crisp in the oven. We had to settle on swinging by Publix while driving over to the Carbone household.

There were plenty of appetizers that we filled up on while Tom smoked some chicken in his smoker and made some hamburgers on the grill. We stuffed ourselves and then filled the rest of the afternoon with pool volleyball, a tradition at the Carbones’. It was great to get out of the house and hangout with friends. By the end of the day, we were exhausted. Emily even more so as she fell asleep with a cheese stick wrapper in her mouth.

Quick Trip to Magic Kingdom

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I’ve continued to be busy at work as we near the end of our Finaling period on NCAA Football 12. The game is looking great and now we just have to stabilize the game and get it out of the door. Because I’m working so much, the weekend is the only time I have to do any of the normal stuff around the house. So, this weekend was my chance to “catch-up” doing yard work, washing my truck, getting a hair cut, etc.

While I was doing all of that, Jennifer took the girls to Disney World. Jennifer’s sister and her family are coming to visit us at the end of the month and since Disney is offering a deal on 4 days worth of tickets for Florida residents, Jennifer thought it would be cool to go ahead and buy the special 4 days tickets since they were almost the same price as just buying 2 days. The catch is that the tickets expire at the end of May. So, she decided to go ahead and use of the days on the tickets today. We didn’t realize how long it had been since Izzy had been to Magic Kingdom. She didn’t remember any of it. It was like a first visit to her. I got periodic updates through Facebook, but for the most part they had fun and were exhausted when they got home.

New Grass Across the Universe

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The new lawn finally arrived! Last weekend we had a stalled out bobcat tractor in our front yard and I’m sure our neighbors were thrilled with that. The tractor just died while ripping out our old lawn. They fixed it on Monday and had the rest of the old grass ripped out. On Friday, the new stuff was laid down and then today we noticed the grass was looking dry. Turns out they only set our sprinklers to 16 minutes. I jacked it up to 45 minutes. I’m going to water the hell out of this lawn. There’s no way I spent this much money on grass to just let it dry and and die.

On Saturday was EA’s annual “company picnic”, which is basically tickets to our choice of Universal parks and lunch. We chose Islands of Adventure because we had yet to go to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter. I’m not a big fan of the books or movies, but Jennifer and Abby like them. Jennifer has read the whole series and Abby just started the first book the other day. We entered the park and headed straight for Hogsmeade at the back of the park. We had some Butterbeer which tasted like cream soda with extra cream on the top.

We knew that we needed to get back to the Harry Potter Ride because the line would be crazy. We got there and the sign said a 75 minute wait and to top it off, Izzy was too short to ride it. Fortunately they offered what is called “ride swap”. We got in line (which took about 60 minutes) and when we got to the front, Jennifer and Emily rode while me and Abby waited with Izzy in a waiting room. When the ride was done, we switched with Jennifer and Emily. It is a very good ride. Like the Spiderman ride, it’s part screens which give you a sense of flying through the air and part fake dragons and spiders that drop down at you. Very well done.

For lunch EA had bought out Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville for a couple of hours. We had a few drink tickets for margaritas and Cheeseburgers in Paradise to eat. I was impressed that we reserved the whole place for lunch. It was roped off to the public and you had to show your tickets in order to get inside.

The kids were tireless. We walked all over that park riding stuff in Jurassic Park-land and getting soaked in Toonland on a Popeye ride. We kept threatening to leave, but the kids kept dragging us to different areas of the park. Finally at 7:00 p.m., we gave up and did a force march to the front of the park, Izzy crying the whole way. I guess 9 hours at Universal wasn’t enough for her. She promptly fell asleep when we got to the truck.

Spring Training 2011

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Having such a great time just doing a double-header last year for Spring Training, I told my friend Tom Carbone that I wanted to go more extreme and do a “Spring Training Tour”. So, we did the planning in February, Tom got the tickets, I booked the hotels and we set out Thursday afternoon: Five games in Four days.

Needless to say, that was a lot of baseball, but it was awesome. The trip included visits to four different parks, two of which I hadn’t been to yet. The first was Brighthouse Field in Clearwater, FL, home of the Philadelphia Phillies and near the original home of Hooters (confirmed on Wikipedia). It was a very nice park, reminiscent of the Detroit Tiger’s Lakeland park: not too big and great atmosphere, which included awesome Philly Cheesesteaks.

The second park I hadn’t been to was the home of the Yankees: Steinbrenner Field. I would say this park was too big. It might have been our seats, but it didn’t feel like a Spring Training game. We were so far from the players and the park just swallowed up the atmosphere. The Astros didn’t look too good in the two games we saw, but it did get me pumped up to watch baseball again starting this weekend.

While I was gone, Jennifer’s parents decided to visit. Jennifer’s dad helped around the house, mainly cleaning out our garage (Thanks, Jack!) and helping to install some low-flow shower heads in the girls’ bathrooms. I appreciate all the help while I was out of town on my “tour”.

Girl Scout Camping 2011

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This past weekend Jennifer and the girls took off Friday and Saturday night to do some camping with their Girl Scout troops. Of course, about two hours before they were set to leave Emily was jumping around upstairs and hit her bottom lip against her teeth puncturing her lip. I got the “double ring” call while I was in a meeting at work which is never good. They went off to the medical clinic, but she didn’t need stitches. They derma-bonded it closed and they were off to camping.

I wasn’t there so I can’t really give a full account of what went on, but they spent all week preparing these little pins that they trade with other troops called “swaps”. They then pin all the different swaps they get to a hat. I do know there was a hula party and some fire dancers, but that’s the extent of my knowledge. Check out our Flickr gallery devoted to the camping trip. They all said they had a great time and they were exhausted when they got home.

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.