They grow up fast, don't they?

So this past week Mel and Peanut went to Arizona to hang out with Mel's family. The trip had two purposes:

#1. Allow the two of them to hang out with family, whom we don't see as often as we'd like. Mel's family had been wanting us to come out, especially since we missed the mini-family reunion last month. Plus, we'd been wanting to show off Peanut, since she becomes more awesome by the minute.

#2. Allow the two of them to actually see and interact with humans. Rob has been working some pretty long hours of late, and this week (and month in general) was going to be no different. So while he was putting in 14-16 hour days, why not let them have a little fun?

They had a grand ol' time with Lew Dog, Tauna, Emblebee, Bebo, Jen and the girls. But, much to Rob's surprise, Penny changed immensely while they were gone. First of all, she went from crawling a couple of feet to moving constantly around. Plus, when she left, she was almost bald, and now look at her! It's crazy. You're away from them for one week and all of a sudden they're off to college or something.

She leaves for a week and all of a sudden she's Rapunzel.


Robot and Frank are so glad to have them back, even if they have a hard time recognizing them. So let that be a lesson for you, don't let them out of your site ever again.

Christmas (a bit late)

I am retarded, and never finished our Christmas post (obviously).

So, now I am redoing it (for the second time), and instead of telling a story with words, I'll let pictures do the talking. We drove to Utah to spend Christmas with Rob's family, and had a great time. It was Penny's first experience with snow (as seen below!).

Click on the link to view our pictures so you can see some of the things we did. Most importantly we just were able to chill with family, and we all loved it. I know I'm lazy, but oh well, just deal with it.

Christmas Pictures

As a treat, I'll give you a sneak peek of some of the fun we had on the trip. Here you go.

Penny in her awesome snowsuit. She was not happy!


Rob in his new coach's shorts that double as Christmas shorts.
If this doesn't fill your heart with Christmas Joy in March, nothing will!

More January fun

As I discussed in my earlier post (85º in January), it was an unseasonable warm January, and part of February as well. I find myself missing the rain and cold, but it is fun to get out and spend some time in the sun. In the past few weeks we've been able to do some fun things, here is just a taste of what we've been up to.

We spent an afternoon in Little Italy, where we ate our favorite deli sandwiches from Mona Lisa's.
We did some shopping and ate frozen yogurt in La Jolla.



Tried Papa's favorite hat on Peanut.


Visited Balboa Park, one of our favorite things to do.






Penny got herself a new toy, which, as you can see, she absolutely loves (making our lives that much easier).


We visited Dré and met her new awesome kitty, Jack.


Some of us grew beards.


And the beards turned into mustaches.


Some of us just couldn't help being extremely cute.


Jason and Amber had us over for dinner a couple weeks ago, and we had a blast hanging with them. Penny loved seeing her cousins, Mireya and Caden and she even modeled a cute new poncho for Baby Fabulous.




We had dinner at Islands. Mmmm, Islands.



And finally, we spent an afternoon in Ocean Beach, which was both fun and interesting.



This was a sweet wagon parked next to us in OB.


All in all, it was a fun month, as you can see. Hopefully we can get out and have some more fun in the next few months, although Robot's work might make that a little difficult. We'll see!

I like to open my mouth, drool and generally just be really cute

My new interns

Good news, I got me a couple of interns. They started on Friday, and they are the cutest interns I've ever met. One of them is kind of young, but she's something of a child prodigy.

Okay, so not really. Lately I've been working long hours, and it's a trend that has no end in sight. I'm not complaining, just stating a fact. However, the big downside is that I don't get to see my leading ladies as often. But never fear, the wifey and lil Peanut decided to stop by the office on Friday and brighten my day. It definitely worked! Everybody at work had been asking when they were going to stop by again, so they were all pleased as punch to see the two of them.

Here are a few pics of the first day with my new interns (I wish):




Hanging out with Peanut in my office.


The wifey, looking as hot as ever.



Playing with "Granny Jane"


She seemed to love the bean bags. Maybe we need to get one?

85º in January

I almost feel bad writing this post, since most of the country is in a deep freeze. Almost. But then I thought about it, and decided, screw it, this is why I live here.



This is why we pay the sun tax, or sand tax, or whatever you want to call it. I can't afford to own a home here in lovely San Diego, but damnit, it's beautiful all year round. All of you out there in Minnesota, Missouri, Utah and elsewhere may have an advantage over me in cost of living, but I have an advantage over you, and it's called 85º in January.

So last week we decided to take advantage of said beautiful weather and get down to the beach. Now, let me interject something here, because I don't want you to misunderstand where I am coming from. I love it when it rains, and usually this time of year, I complain when we don't get much of it. But at the same time, it's hard to think that a Saturday where it's 80+ is a bad thing, even in January (unless your name is Alan R. Taylor).

We took lil Peanut down for her first trip to La Jolla Cove. It was crazy busy, as is to be expected with gorgeous sunshine on a weekend, but we didn't let those crowds get us down. And what made it even better was that we were able to find a parking spot at our usual place (for some reason, nobody parks on this one particular street).



It was perfect down there. Sunny blue skies, a nice little breeze coming off the ocean to keep you from frying. It was awesome. We've started carrying Penny around in a Baby Bjorn, and she absolutely loves it. She just hangs there, staring at the world, chewing on and slobbering all over the piece of material in front of her. By the time she's done, it's soaked all the way around. But man is she cute in it, and like I said, she loves it, so that makes our lives a little bit easier.





We mainly just walked around the boardwalk and along the rocks, but eventually we made our way down to the sand for a little bit. We even put Peanut down in the sand and leaned her against the wall for some cute pictures.



I had an idea for a great shot all worked out, but it didn't quite turn out how I had envisioned. Penny kept slumping over and people kept walking into the shot in the background. She of course put her hand in the sand, the same hand that spends 80% of the time in her mouth, so we quickly brushed the sand off.




It didn't seem like she was in the sand that long, but later on, when we changed her, she had a ton of sand in her diaper. Poor itchy butt. I guess it doesn't take long for sand to get everywhere. She was a trooper though, and seemed to be enjoying herself. Well, I don't know if she enjoyed herself, per se, but she didn't get pissed, so that was a victory.



All in all it was a fun day. One of those days that you feel lucky to live in such a beautiful place. And I even got to eat a delicious burger from Burger Lounge, one of my favorite places in town. I freaking love it, and if you haven't tried it yet, I highly suggest going there as soon as you can (if you like burgers, that is).

Until the next gorgeous day…