Start building the ark! Storms blew through here like nothing I can ever rememeber seeing in the past. We had so much rain that the sump pump could barely keep up with it all. I went out and bought a small pump that attaches to a garden hose to help the installed sump pump out in its efforts to keep us dry. I spent about 3 hours with the helper pump and finally, the water level was manageable enough for the permanent pump to work on its own. I think that I'm going to buy a battery powered back up pump to be safe. The neighborhood basically flooded in spots including the street directly in front of the house. There were still areas where the streets had a foot or more of standing water this morning. Hope tonight's storm is not as bad.

Earlier this spring, we decided to start the landscaping in the backyard. I rented a sod kicker and then a roto-tiller and formed a flower bed that ran the entire length of the back of our house. I then tried to improve the soil in the bed which naturally is pretty much pure clay. I added about 1000 pounds of topsoil, about 12 cubic feet of peat and a couple to bags of vermiculite. We finally planted flowers a couple of weeks back and so far we are pleased with the results. The impatients were probably a bad idea since we are pretty much full sun in the back yard but I think the three time a day watering schedule for 7 minutes each cycle has that problem taken care of for now. Now I am trying to decide what kind of shade tree I want to plant and when to plant it.

The final phase of develpment in our neighborhood is in full swing. Unfortunately, the last phase happens to be in our backyard. There are 11 lots left. One house has its shell completed, another has the foundation poured, the one directly behind our house has the foundation dug and the forms are being placed this morning and this morning another lot was being marked for digging today. Progress? I think pain in the rear end! There goes the view.

We had some pretty nasty weather in the area last night. No sooner did we park our cars in the garage and a storm that dropped hail, some as large as golf balls, blew through. Most of the hail was in the 1/2" size but there was a lot of it and in a short period of time. Sounded like the windows were all going to break! The only damage we had was a couple of areas of the back of the house had the paint knocked off. It was if the hail worked like a sand-blaster on one area of the house.

Unborn Baby News!!

There's only one in momma's belly! Baby is about 8mm long and has a due date of February 9, 2007. Heartbeat looks steady and strong.

We have a little "Boston Market like" restaurant that does BBQ instead of chicken a couple of miles from our house that we have tried an liked in the past. The place is called City Q BBQ. Today they were advertising "free BBQ today 7am-10am". Of couse we had to stop to see what this free promotion was all about. They had a little drive up table set up in the front parking lot and were handing out brown bags with the makings for a pulled pork sandwich and a sample of texas sheet cake. Pretty neat idea!

I'm sure that most of you have heard the happy news by now but if you haven't, Shawn is going to have a sibbling!!

When I called John to give him the news, he and Allison happened to be in Manhattan near The Ed Sullivan. The Ed Sullivan theater is where David Letterman does his show from. So what does John do? He heads to The Happy Deli and hands the phone to Rupert Jee a regular haunt that Letterman visits and harrasses during his show. Needless to say, Rupert now also knows that Lisa is pregnant and he wishes us "the best of luck". Rupert actually talked to me for about 90 seconds asking me if we knew the sex of the baby and if it was our first and saying congraruations (yes it is mispelled for effect).

Our trip to Anaheim was a hectic one through southern California rush hour. What was supposed to be a 1 hour 45 minute trip took more like 3+ hours not to mention that the mapquest directions we used were less than accurate. We finally arrive to the hotel about 6 pm and had a few adult beverages at the hotel's manager's reception then off to explore downtown Disney. If any of you have gone to Disneyworld's Downtown Disney, you will be terribly disappointed in the California version. Disneyland's downtown is not nearly as large and was extremely overcrowded. Oh course we has another Shawn "I need a prize" meltdown and headed back to the hotel rather soon after we arrived.

The next two days were spent at Disneyland and Disney's California Adventure which was similar to Disneyworld's MGM Studio's park. Shawn discovered the joys of amusement rides during this portion of the trip. He even when on one of those white water rafting type rides were you basically get soaked and loved it. Unfortunately the folks at Disney don't think it's enough to charge you $350 for admission for two adults and a child for two days but they also see the need to charge you $3 for an apple, $4 for a coke, 7.95 for a basic turkey sandwich.....etc...etc...

The second day we were at Disneyland, we decided to head back to Downtown Disney to sit and relax for dinner. The lines for all the restaurants were pretty long but decided on a Mexican joint called Tortilla Jo's. The food was decent but again with the large Mexican population in the Southern California area, I really thought that the mexican food would be much better. I opted for the Carnitas Burrito and Lisa had the Chicken Burrito. The pork was really dry but the chicken seemed to be much better that night. The bright spot was the guacamole; pretty tasty and there was plenty enough for six to share.

Saturday, it was time to start heading back to San Diego for our Sunday flight home. On the trip back to S.D., we stopped in Long Beach. Long Beach is the permanent home to The Queen Mary. The Queen Mary was one of the largest cruise ships build in the 1930's and now is a permanent museum and hotel. The Queen Mary is also said to be haunted but major draw for us (Shawn) was that it is now hosting a traveling Titanic exhibit. The exhibit was really neat. There were tons of artifacts taken from the wreckage and quite a few facts about the passengers and their fate. When we walked into the exhibit we each received a card with a passenger's name on it and toward the end of the exhibit we each learned the fate of our passenger. Lisa's passenger was the only survivor of the three.

As part of the package we purchased for The Queen Mary included admission to a Russian Sub that was decommissioned in 1994. The Russian Scorpion tour was pretty interesting. If you have never toured a sub, it is worth the tour. This tiny little vessel housed 78 men for long periods at a time and walking through the tiny corridors, you would be amazed that people didn't off themselves on a regular basis.

We left Long Beach and drove down the pacific highway or highway 1. The drive was very scenic and a nice end to a rather busy vacation. We ended up stopping in Balboa Island for dinner and to walk around their quaint tourist trap of shops which reminded me of the Western Michigan beach towns that we experienced when we lived in GR. We ate at a place called Ciao. I think that Ciao means not so great but overpriced Italian food (seemed like a common theme throughout our stay).

When we arrive back in San Diego, we had to find a grocery store in order to find Shawn some milk and to replenish our snacks for the plane. On our way to the store, we notices a pretty cool election sign on the side of the road that I just had to have for a souvenir (see photo below).

All in all a great trip!

Shawn after the water raft rideQueen MaryScorpion Russian Sub