Car Trouble

We had ourselves a pretty big weekend. My mother-in-law turned 60, so I got to go hang out at my wife's sister's house. It wasn't so bad after a few Longboards. They set up the old Super8 projector and were watching old home movies, so that was awesome for me. The kids got to swim for a while in the doughboy in their backyard and play the Wii and watch Toy Story 2 and get ice cream cake, so it was a great party for them.

They have now completed one week of swim lessons and are going to be starting their second and final week of this session today. Big T may just be able to swim by Thursday, according to the teacher. Little E, probably not. But then, she's only 4 and this is her first time trying, so maybe a couple more lessons and she'll be okay. Just have to wait and see. It's frustrating for me, because I want them to be better faster, and I'll watch them in there with the teacher, and they're fooling around and being goofy, and I want them serious and focused because they're only getting 25 minutes sessions 8 times. Less than four hours of lessons to make them swim and they're not progressing at the pace that I'd like them to. I will say that Big T is much farther along than I thought he would be as he's dunking his head for a long time and really enjoys those diving rings that sit on the bottom of the pool. He loves trying to pick those up.

In other exciting news, Big T Finally lost his first tooth!! It took over seven years, but it finally happened. He was crazy excited about it and couldn't wait for the tooth fairy to come, and come the tooth fairy did. He was thrilled to find his tooth replaced by money this morning and the first thing he told me this morning was about this very magical and long awaited transformation.

Little E also picked her first peapod off her plant yesterday morning. She was also very excited about this development and can't wait for more of them to be ready to pick and eat.

In other exciting, but not nearly as welcome news, my vans transmission started to crap out on us as we were leaving for the 'local' Bass Pro Shops in Manteca. It would slam so hard from first to second that it felt like we were being rear ended. Checked everything out later that night, (we went to Bass Pro still, just took the wife's car instead of my van)  and everything was working fine. Called my mechanic this morning and discovered that this kind of thing can happen and when you turn off the vehicle and then turn it back on, it resets the computer, which is what could be causing the problem due to not reading the engine correctly and shifting when it should. So he said it was cool to drive and if it started happening again, I can simply pull over, turn the van off, turn it back on and it should work again. Of course, I'll still have to take it in to get it checked out. Which is super because I just got the A/C fixed on Friday. So back it goes!! But at least it's now and not while we're gone on vacation.

And since you're wondering, Bass Pro was fun. The kids got to make a picture frame, hang out in the boats, got new fishing poles, the shooting gallery was free. All in all, an interesting Sunday.

Bullets

Well, well, well. So, three months have passed and such wondrous things have happened. I cannot possibly keep you up on all things Wally, but bullets are always fun, right? Plus this is good typing practice. So what has happened since we last communicated?

• Little League has come and gone. There are no scores kept at the level we were at, so as such, no places or record. But all in all it was a good season. The kids got a lot better as the season went along and there were no major problems with anyone. Next year, we'll be playing almost real baseball, the kids will pitch to each other and there's a hardball involved. Should be fun.
• Little E made it through her first year of preschool and loved it. She's all excited to be starting the 4-year-old class next year. She can identify most of her letters and is attempting to write her name. She does pretty good except for the 'y'. 
• Big T survived first grade and had a great time. He won't have to go to summer school and the teacher he had was wonderful. I got to go on his field trip this year to Smith Farms and played the gut bass up on stage with the kids. It was quite an experience.
• Our kitty Kooni disappeared the day before Easter and we haven't seen her since. It was a tough thing to try to explain to the kids as they've never had to deal with real loss before this. Little E seems fine, but Big T has had a few moments of sadness with it. 
• We got a new Kitty named Zumi just last week. She's awesome and the kids love her and are helping them get over the missing Koonster. But it's an adjustment for them.
• My awesomely old laptop died on me, just crapped out with no warning. We lost all our pics from late August through Aprilish. So the lesson there? Backup, backup, backup, backup. 
• I got a new laptop and my wife got one also, as I had been hogging it due to gaining some more business with the web development stuff. It's been nice to have that little bit of extra cash now and then.
• Some of that extra cash was used to buy a new DVD player as the old one died on us. They only last a year or so for us anymore before they're no good. I don't understand it, as I bought one over 10 years ago from Good Guys when I worked at Circuit City (remember those two stores?) and it still works great.
• We have had two birthdays and the kids are now 4 and 7. Little E is already looking forward to being 5, because then she gets to go to Kindergarten.
• Big T graduated from Tiger Cubs and is now a Wolf Scout. I have somehow become one of the pack leaders and got a little certificate at the graduation ceremony.
• I played Mare Island Golf Club for the first time. The front nine are the oldest nine holes west of the Mississippi. The back nine are much, much newer.
• The air conditioning is out on the van again. Well, not actually out, as it just won't blow out of the front vents. So that will be fun to fix.
• The kids will be starting swim lessons next week. So that's something that hopefully will go very well, as we're planning to visit Tahoe in a while and I would like them to be less reliant on me and floaties in the lake.
• I have planted tomatoes, zucchini, onions, and onions this year in my quasi-garden. I got the zucchini, onions and tomatoes from my uncle, he with the amazingly large garden with enough produce to go to farmers markets with. Also he makes the kick ass salsa. They're all growing pretty well, except that i can't seem to get any strawberries off the plant, I think the bugs are getting to them first.
• My cherry tree this year was awesome. I got a lot of great bings off of it. They were delicious and sweet and the birds didn't get all of them
• They did however, get all of the other cherry that grows on that tree, the Rainiers. Those babies didn't make it far enough along before the birds ate them all. This won't happen next year, however, because Zumi will be able to protect the tree.
• They have also become obsessed with two tv shows: Phineas and Ferb, which isn't that bad, and Hot Wheels Battle Force 5, which is horrible. 
• They are starting soccer today, so that's gonna be something. I'm not looking forward to this at all, as I think they're more than coordinated enough to just play real sports.
• Also, I hit a bird yesterday with my van. I was driving along at about 50ish or so. A bird, who has the ability to fly significantly higher than 3 feet off the ground, wasn't and I smacked it with the right headlight. I don't know if the bird died or not, but I didn't see it laying along the side of the road when I passed back by 30 minutes later. But it did crap all over my headlight when I hit it. So I literally scared the crap out of that bird.
• I have set a new goal to not leave this for another three months, maybe I'll shoot for weekly and see how that goes. Set realistic goals, right?

So reading back over this, maybe i didn't need to keep updating as much, but I swear more happened, just don't remember it all now. 

Till next week, maybe.