Cap't My Cap't

As already posted on my cousin Christine's blog, her sister and my cousin Melanie has brought Alexander Sean into the world. He was apparently born on Monday, and details at this point are sketchy, but stay tuned, as this is baby central around here, a picture will be forthcoming (I hope). Our congrats go out to Melanie and Darrick, who will be fantastic parents. We look forward to visiting and introducing our little on to theirs!

Back From The Dead

Sometime late last week, Emily and I were stricken by a nasty stomach bug. Four days and about twelve pounds later, we both seem to be on the road to recovery.

A couple of things I suggest you shouldn't try eating when your stomach is purging everything you put into it:

- a six inch turkey sub with avocado and honey mustard
- a Whattaburger honey BBQ chicken strip sandwich
- a raspberry filled doughnut
- sun chips and/or a BBQ hot pocket

Today I have stuck to eating crackers and Cheerios, and lo and behold, I've for the most part staying away from the facilities.

Thankfully Brenna was not as effected by this nasty sickness as we were, and besides a continually runny nose and coughing, she seems happy and healthy. We'll be taking her in for her four month check-up in a few weeks and will see about getting something that can dry her sinuses out.

Sorry, no pictures today, any pictures we'd have taken since my last post wouldn't be anything you'd want to see here, unless you're interested in how our bathrooms are decorated. Stay tuned though, I'm sure Brenna will offer us some photo ops soon.

A Night In The Box

After dropping Brenna off at grandma's, we managed to get to the concert at around 9pm. Unfortunately, we missed the entire Shack Shakers set and only caught the last song of Junior Brown's (didn't even get to hear him sing a note). The Rev delivered a great show, as always, though, and it was worth our time just for him. The parking lots for the venue were sold out, so we ended up parking on the opposite side of Tempe Town Lake, about a mile away. Thankfully it wasn't terribly cold last night.

We got home this morning around 3am, and the picture below is of Brenna sleeping around 7am, while Emily got ready for work. You'll see my leg off to the right here, and in the next picture below you'll see me watching vigilantly over our daughter. I'm preparing my speech for Father Of The Year as we speak.








This next shot is of Brenna after getting her hair washed, this is totally unrelated, but we thought it was a nice picture of her high hair.




Finally, here is Brenna in her crib, watching her water thingy that Grandma H got her recently. She seems to enjoy it thoroughly.

Back To Brenna

My apologies for straying in recent weeks to other non-Brenna related topics here, including our freak weather. I'll be posting some snow shots over on the gardening blog, including some pictures from our snowstorm from last March (well, snow in Superior, about 30 minutes from here). I'm also pondering creating a new blog dedicated to my dreams... no, not as in aspirations, but some of the bizarre things my subconscious digs up in the middle of the night when no one is looking. I feel like some of these are worthy of my amateur interpretation, and in the process, perhaps someone else will find those types of posts interesting. Dunno, we'll see how much more time I can squeeze out of this.

Getting back to the subject at hand, our first Brenna update is from last night, where Emily used a toothbrush and some olive oil to get some dry scalp cleaned out of our daughter's hair. In the process, we decided to pay homage to the Rev'd Horton Heat, whom we're going to see in concert tomorrow night (I know, an adults night out, go figure!). To learn more about the Pyschobilly master himself, go to www.reverendhortonheat.com




This next picture was Emily's attempt at a Mohawk, maybe in honor of The Clash? Hmmm. Yes, Brenna's eyes are still blue.

Here is Brenna on the couch last night, doing much of nothing, but that's better than crying/screaming.

Finally, Brenna picking up a habit of Grandpa H. We'll let that one remain a mystery, and will entertain guesses... look closely. And no, it's not breaking wind, this is a visual.

Hell Has Officially Frozen Over

While we only saw what I would guess to be flurries in our backyard, Mesa, which is west of us here in the valley, got hit with what the meteorologists are calling a thundersnow, where it was apparently cold enough aloft for snow to fall in 40 degree weather, and heavy enough to actually accumulate briefly on the ground.

Below are three pictures I borrowed from the following article about this freak storm, at

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0121weather-ON.html

These were all taken, according to the article, from people living in northeast Mesa, maybe
fifteen minutes from us.

They're forecasting 2-3 inches of snow in Tucson, and it continues to pile up in the mountains, which can only be good news for our water supply come this spring/summer.

Snow(flake) Watch

We're on high alert this evening, the local news reported snowflakes falling in downtown Phoenix this evening, and are forecasting snow in the rest of the valley, with no accumulations. Meanwhile, and Melanie and/or Darrick can vouch for this, but it would appear it's snowing in Tucson as we speak. More to come.

Cold Continues...SNOW!

Here's another rarity, it wasn't in the forecast, but we got a nice amount of rain today, and it barely got above 40 degrees today. The mountains surrounding us, down to about 2500 ft are covered in snow, including Four Peaks to the north (pictured below).

I drove over to a local park just north of here to take this next shot of the Superstition Mtns. Not covered nearly as much as when we had that snowstorm last March, but worth taking pictures of, since this happens maybe once a year.

This was supposed to be the "money shot". Every time I drive over to the Post Office after it's rained, I've notcied the mountains reflected in the water ponded up in this retention basin, and have always thought, "gee, that would make a nice picture". Today I thought I'd check it out, but unfortunately there wasn't quite enough water to get the entire mountains reflection in it. Oh well, maybe next time.

And finally, for the Brenna junkies, here is a picture from this morning, where she's showing off her blue sandals that Grandma H gave her this past Christmas.

Alien Talk Continued

I was hoping to break out my Robert Plant "Little By Little" song this week ("I can breathe again"), but woke up yesterday morning with my sinuses clogged again. It would appear that either a) my 10 days worth of medication wasn't enough to shake my infection, or b) this is something totally different that I've picked up. So far I don't feel miserable, but stay tuned, that may change.

Brenna has had a good weekend so far, lots of naps and good sleep at night, not much fussing at all, except when she's been hungry and/or bored with how we're entertaining her. It's been fairly cold out this past week, 50's during the day, cloudy and a little rain, so we haven't taken her out too much, although I'm sure we'll take her to church in the morning.

Below is a link to some video of Brenna discussing the immigration control problems that continue to plague our state. I think you'll see that she has some insight into the situation and some very valid points to make in this riveting one-minute video.

http://www.dropshots.com/day.php?userid=217718&cdate=20070120&ctime=221350

Near Perfect Night (or The Chin Of Solace)

Tonight got off to a somewhat rocky start with Brenna screaming when mama got home (she's decided she doesn't like riding in the back of the car by herself to and from Emily's work). Things improved quickly though, as we were able to put her to sleep long enough in her swing to eat a quiet dinner.

Afterwards, in a moment of grumpiness, Brenna reached for my face and found my beard, apparently a new creature comfort. Below are two pictures Emily took of her squeezing my chin, which lead eventually to her taking a two hour nap on me while we enjoyed the hilarity of American Idol.

By far, tonight was the least fussy/quiestest evening we've had at home in quite some time, and I owe it all to the beard/goatee/fu manchu (I knew it would come in handy some day).

No More Freezes, Please

Sorry that yard news is spilling over here on the family blog site, but I can't bring myself to post these under the yard blog right after posting all of those shots of the yard there before the big freeze hit.

We officially had two nights in a row with lows of 21 degrees. Every ficus tree in the valley looks like the one in our back yard, black leaves that will be dropping off soon. I've read/heard that the tree may or may not recover, and will be ready to dig it up in March if it doesn't show any signs of life.



You can go to the Hoes blog to see the "before" pictures of this side of the house. About 80 percent of the leaves on the orange jubilee have blackened and dropped off. These should releaf in the spring, they only die if it gets down to 10 degrees, which thankfully didn't happen. The yellow elder bushes on the opposite side are still black and wet, so I'm not sure what's going to come of them.

Finally, my 12 foot tall bougenvilla in that was just recently covered in these crimson leaves, has turned shades of brown and black. Again, though, I'm being told that these will recover in the spring as well.

There are many other victims in the yard, too many to list here, but hopefully most of them will come back in March.

New Metal School Posting

For those of you interested in my music related posts, I've placed an update on this blog regarding a new found show located on the net that I attended back in 1992.

http://metalschool.blogspot.com/

Since the yard continues to turn varying degrees of black during our deep freeze (21 degrees last night), I'll be turning my attention to my Metal School blog site for a while. It's just too painful to visit the Hoes site right now, sniff sniff.

FREEZE

It got down to 23 degrees last night, coldest night by far in the six years I've lived here. I'm glad I took all of those pictures of the yard yesterday because a good majority of my plants have been blackened by the cold and will look horrible until March when hopefully they put out new growth.

Case in point, below is a before picture of our Ficus.



Here's the after, the entire tree turned black by the cold. I've read that there's a 50/50 chance that the tree will recover from a freeze like this. Considering it's only grown about a foot in height in five years, I won't be disappointed if I have to chop it to ground and plant something else here.



The rest of these pictures are from the park across the street. Apparently there was a water leak last night, and below are the results.

Vegetable Price Is Right

Head over to the Hoes blog for new pictures of the yard and a little vegetable pricing game!

Keep scrolling for new Brenna pictures from today.

A Few More Brenna Pictures

Here is Brenna today sitting on in little chair on the kitchen counter.



Here is Brenna with mommy in the kitchen.




And finally, here is Brenna checking out mommy's cell phone.

For Those About To Rock (We Salute You)

While Emily was eating lunch this afternoon, I was tending to the Brenna, and flipping channels at the same time (we college grads can multi-task with the greatest of ease). As I was flipping, I came across a show called the BBC Crown Jewels, or some such, on VH1 Classic. Apparently this is a show dedicated to old footage of bands playing in England back in the 70's, and as luck would have it, the band being featured was none other than AC/DC.

I was expecting no reaction from Brenna from the noise that insued, but much to my heart's content, she not only had her eyes glued to the program for about twenty minutes, but for part of the time she was cooing and talking back to Bon Scott, the deceased/original lead singer of the band.

In honor of the moment, we located Brenna's AC/DC shirt, and caught the moment. This is me posing for the camera, and Brenna still watching the TV. If she's learned nothing else in the first three months on this earth, she has developed an appreciation for the finer things of life, namely one AC/DC.

One More For The Road

Found one more recent Brenna picture, sitting in her swing (thanks Grandma Becky!), preparing for a nap. This swing has been worth it's weight in gold, as long as you get her nice and relaxed before you plop her into it. She's been known to put in two hours at a time sleeping in this thing with the white noise maker whirring away in the background (thanks mom!).

Lame moment of the day: Of all the bills we've gotten from Brenna's birth, the one that our health insurance won't pay a dime of is her hearing test from when she was in the hospital. How odd is that, that there are zero benefits for a hearing test to make sure your newborn isn't deaf or impaired.

I'm posting a few more pictures of the yard on that blog tonight, so take a gander there while you're in the neighborhood. We're supposed to have some rain the next two days, hopefully I'll be posting pictures of our yard under water.

http://addictedtohoes.blogspot.com/

Tickling The Brenna

New video, from about fifteen minutes ago ladies and gentlemen, Brenna enjoying and/or being agitated by some tickling inflicted by mommy.

I apologize for the poorly lit video, I promise we're not living by candlelight out here, or raising our child in a dungeon.

http://www.dropshots.com/day.php?userid=217718&cdate=20070111&ctime=184900

Mr. Photogenic

For those of you cursed to live out the rest of your days having horrible pictures taken of you, this post has your name written all over it.

I'm sure to some extent everyone can relate to this, but I found this chain of photos, taken by my mom and/or dad while they were here at Christmas, hilarious, bordering on sad.

The first picture below is typical for me, caught blinking, appearing stoned. I could fill an entire album with shots like this one. Click on the picture to enjoy the splendor of this shot.




This year I determined I wouldn't have any shots like this, but I guess it happened anyway. Below are a few pictures where I was so determined not to be squinting that I went a tad in the other direction.







There is small solace in the fact that other people fall victim to the photo curse, such as my father below, whom Emily commented looks like he's breaking wind or pondering such a thing.

And finally, for all of the horrible shots, you get lucky. As they say, even a blind chicken finds a kernel of corn every now and again.

Calling All Aliens

Brenna has a message for all alien lifeforms living among us or otherwise. Click the link below to listen to her thirty second top secret message. The future of Earth may depend upon it...

http://www.dropshots.com/day.php?userid=217718&cdate=20070107&ctime=151303

Brenna Video #3

Below is a link to Brenna pulling on her shirt, yawning, being all around energetic in her shaky chair.

http://www.dropshots.com/day.php?userid=217718&cdate=20070103&ctime=152517


And below is a rare toe sighting, the sock belonging to that foot was no doubt kicked off at some point before this picture was taken.

Finally, we have lemons! We picked about six or seven off our tree while my parents were here over the holidays, and the rest of them have ripened. Below is the link to that blog.

http://addictedtohoes.blogspot.com/

New Hoes Post

There's a lot happening in the back yard these days with our balmy 65 degree weather, click the Addicted To Hoes link to the right to see what's going on!

Back In The Saddle Again

We've managed to claw our way out of the holiday season and are now anxiously looking forward to the drudgery of work on a daily basis... hmmm. Sure, that sounds much better than spending time with friends and family and having our daughter all to ourselves for over a week (or much of it, anyway).

In retrospect, the worst gift I received by far this Christmas was a sinus infection. In fact, it appears to be "the gift that keeps on giving", right through New Years, and presumably into the work week ahead. More annoying than anything, I'll be anxiously awaiting the day that I can roll out of bed (and not the couch, where I've resided the last four or five nights) and not spend the first ten minutes awake serenading the geese passing overhead with my honking. I keep hearing the Robert Plant song "Little By Little" in my head, particularly the line "I can breathe again", and will have to listen to that tune in celebration when this sickness has passed.

At any rate, my misfortune is not why you're here. We've had a nice week with Brenna since Grandma and Grandpa H. left for home (and don't worry Otis, I don't know who you are, but unless my parents have a drastic change of heart, you won't be losing your golfing buddy anytime soon), and below are a few pictures of our daughter enjoying her activity center from the grandparents.










A few other pictures here follow, including Brenna learning to clutch things, particularly her rabbit that Grandma H gave her, and her bibs (any and all). I have yet to capture the devouring of the bib on film, but do have video where she's pulling her shirt over her head, and will post that as soon as possible. Occasionally, if the stars are aligned, you might catch her clutching her shirt and/or bib in one hand, and some other object in the other. Using both hands at the same time is something she's still working at.

Our daughter has also mastered the fine art of thumb AND palm sucking (such a pleasant sound when she's going whole hog at her palm), and is becoming quite the chatter box.






We're still managing a good bit of sleep each night, although we've had to resort to driving around town more often here recently to help Brenna along with this process. Last night she fell asleep around 11pm and outside of feedings, didn't wake up until after eight this morning.

Finally, on a more serious note, we're very thankful for our little one and how well she's doing, and all of the support we've had from friends and family, both locally and across the country. It has been our privilege sharing our lives with all of you these past few months, and God willing, we'll continue doing so for years to come.