HAPPY #2 PENNY

Last Monday was our Peanut's 2nd birthday, and we had a great weekend celebrating. I can't believe she's two already. The past year has gone so fast it's crazy. We kicked it off the celebration Friday night at a birthday party for Penny's cousin, Caden. It was at AirTime, which basically is a big warehouse with inflatable slides, obstacle courses and more. We had a blast watching Penny jump, slide, fall and just giggle uncontrollably. It was awesome, thanks to Jason, Amber, Mireya and Caden for having us along for the fun.

Caught in mid jump.








Penny's party was Saturday morning at our old stomping grounds—La Jolla Shores. We had quite a crew show up for the little Peanut—I'm sure she felt very loved. We played some whiffle ball, threw the football, blew bubbles, ate and had a grand ol' time. Of all the great presents she received, none was funnier than the fake mustache she got from Ellen and Ellen. She didn't know what to think of it when we put it on, but once she got used to it, she wouldn't take it off. It was hilarious. Mel made a beautiful—and delicious—Mickey Mouse cake that Penny loved, since Mickey is one of her favorites right now.

Queen of the World enjoying her day.


Mario and Luigi have a long lost cousin.


Mel's beautiful cake.


A proud momma and daughter.




Sunday was supposed to be a nice relaxing day. However, we got a text message late Saturday night from our friend Lacy, wondering if we wanted free tickets to the Chargers game. It was too good of an offer to turn down, so we packed up some snacks and the three of us went to Qualcomm Stadium. It was really fun being there for the home opener—especially since it was a resounding Chargers victory.

We were worried that Penny would get restless or cranky, but she had a blast. She loved the fireworks, helicopter fly-by, parachuters, and even liked watching the game. We had great seats and were even interviews for the Channel 8 news! One of the highlights was the sweet bro sitting behind us. He spilled beer on us during the 2nd play of the game, dropped about 279 F-bombs and even took his shirt off during the 3rd quarter—good times for all!

Our amazing view.


Here is the sweet bro with his shirt off. Very nice.


Monday was her actual birthday, and I was sick, so I stayed home. Even though I felt like poop, it was fun to spend the day with her and Mel—especially when PJ and I went to 7-11 to get a Big Gulp and Slurpee.

Click here to see more photos of the awesome weekend.

Rob & George vs. The Stumps

So we've been slowly making some changes around the ol' homestead. We'd love to do everything at once but time and money, those two dastardly challengers, keep getting in the way.

But one problem that we knew we wanted to address was our overabundance of stumps. George offered his services to assist me in tackling this problem, even going so far as to say he's somewhat of an expert in the field, as he's done it several times before. I jumped at the chance to take him up on his offer since I've never dug up a stump in my life.

So a couple of Saturday's ago, we decided to give it a go. After running to the lovely Miss Donuts for some early morning fuel, we went to work, thinking that we had a couple of big stumps, and a few small ones that wouldn't be too big of a deal—even hoping to be finished in a few hours.

"HA!" those stumps said, "we'll show you". And they did.

How silly of us to think it might go smoothly. What we found was that these pepper trees have the evil ability to spin a web of roots that stretched in some cases about 15 feet underground. They were crazy. What seemed like a small stump above ground was just a shooter that came off a huge stump under the surface. They were iceberg-like.

We worked from about 9:00 to 5:30 on one Saturday, then from 8:30 to almost 2:00 on another one, but damnit if we didn't show those stumps and roots who is boss. We listened to some good tunes, drank countless ounces of Coke from 7-11 and ate about 48" of Subway sandwiches.

As you can see in the photos, PJ even came out to see if she could help.

Now all Mel and I have to do is decide what to do with the ground, and if we want to try to move the giant Agave plant that sits by the lawn. That my friends will be quite an undertaking.

Above ground this looked small. It turned out to be quite a challenge.


This thing was a bear, to say the least.


George looks a lot shorter standing in this hole!



Peanut helping us out.


Part of the damage.


Victory!