A sad day at our house...

You all remember Itch? Well, poor Itch passed on to the big fish bowl in the sky. Cheryl was very sad... Good-bye Itch...

Summer's Over...

The final cut for the Saddleback College soccer team was today. Cheryl made the team! She is now playing college ball! Her first game is next week Friday. Here is her entire schedule, but check with us first, Papa, because she won't be at all the games. Her class schedule was difficult to work with this semester because she waited so long to register. She has Psychology, Physics, English, Art, and Soccer (all classes that she needs to transfer to USC). The math classes were full, so she will have to complete her math during summer school. Go Gauchos!!!

Chris made the cross country team at Capistrano Vally High School. He is also going to play AYSO Fall soccer. His school schedule this year is: English, World History, Spanish 2, Chemistry, Geometry, and Cross Country. He's set to start the
Tuesday after Labor Day. Go Cougars!!!

Chris and I still have the Disneyland half-marathon next weekend! I hope the weather stays in the 80s. It would be miserable to run in 100F heat.

I went in to sign papers for my new contract today. I start back to work at Rockwell-Collins on September 16th, 32 hours per week. My summer is also coming to an end.

We have had one busy summer after vacations were over!
Four vision checkups
Six visits to the doctor (including the emergency room)
Eleven visits to the dentist
One visit to the vet

More Training...

My friend Tami posted this challenge on Iraq and Back. It's a training program to reach the goal of 100 consecutive push-ups in six weeks. I've let my weight training slip while I've been training for the half-marathon. This looks like a fun way to get back into it. Anyone else want to join us?

I'm starting with day 1 of the program tomorrow. My initial test is 7 normal push-ups.

Wordle, Wordle, Wordle!!!

I love the look of word patterned papers and embellishments. One little word can set the entire tone and feeling of a layout. What about 10 or more carefully chosen words? Even better!!!

I found this great site on the TallyBlog, called Wordle.
http://wordle.net

Here is a screenshot:
You can "point" Wordle to a blog or webpage and it will pull words off the page to create a fun jumble of text.

Another fun option is to use your own words instead of letting Wordle select them from your blog. Which is what I did for this card. The FAQ section explains how to make some words larger than others and how to keep phrase words together (like "Wish Big"). I type the words I wanted on the page, I just clicked on the Go button underneath the box and it pops up with my custom word art. The menus on the top can be used to change the font and colors.

Here is how I got this to print out in the size I wanted:
1) Make sure the browser window is active and do a window capture (Alt-PrintScrn).
2) Open an image editor, like Photoshop.
3) Create a NEW photoshop image. (File-New)
4) Paste the window capture into the new photoshop image (Ctrl-V)

Now you can crop, resize, and even edit your wordle. In my case, I resized it to fit on the card, and added some fun dingbats to fill in the empty spaces.

In this layout, I generated the wordle using a quote, "Look for what is good and you will find it." When the wordle was generated, it was just a jumble of words:

I used Photoshop to copy the words onto my photo, and move the words around so that it would read like the quote.

This is so much fun!
I hope you'll all give it a try.

Happy Anniversary to Us!

Yep, 23 years today! How did we celebrate? A trip to the Candy Baron of course! Cheryl came with us, but she's still hiding from the camera. And our big dinner this evening... take-out Chinese Food! Happy Anniversary to us!



Can you see Chris's hair in the photo? Jim trimmed it up. Now his hair is black with frosted tips. Looks pretty cool, huh?

Cheeky-munk

Here's my poor little Cheeky-munk... shhhhhhhh... hehehe!

Half-Marathon Training - week 12

I haven't done a running post in a while... I'm still on my way to Ohio. I've run over 800 miles since January! And I'm still training for the half-Marathon at the end of this month.

I made all my goals last week. Yahoo!!! Here are the training goals for this week.
Here is my schedule for this week:
SUN - off
MON - 13x800m miles
TUE - off
WED - 40-60 min
THU - off
FRI - 40-60 min
SAT - 25 min

I ran 16 miles last Monday, and I feel great!

Chris stopped keeping track of his miles. He's been training with the cross country team for the last couple weeks and is getting back into race shape. The next tryout is this week. He's very sure that he'll make the team.

We did some running while we were in Kauai. The weather was great! Not too hot, not too humid. Here are some photos of our runs. This is Waimea Beach. It's a black sand beach. We run along the beach to the Waimea Landing:



My Aunt, Uncle, and Grandma live right on the Waimea River, so we also ran up the river trail. Here is a good picture of the river from the Swinging Bridge. We just took pictures here, we didn't cross...



Along the river trail, it's really beautiful!

Good-bye Wisdom Teeth, Hello Breaking Dawn!

Cheryl had her wisdom teeth out on Friday... After she came out from the general anesthesia, the nurse put her in a wheelchair and took her to the elevator. The elevator was mirrored. She took one look at herself with the two rolls of white, bloody gauze sticking out of her mouth and said, "Hey, I look like a vampire!" We've had vampires on the mind waiting for the new Twilight book, hahaha!

I got an email notice from Amazon that Breaking Dawn has shipped! Cheryl and I have been looking forward to this book! Will Bella changeover or not?

Anyway back to Cheryl... When she came out of the general anesthesia, she started chattering away... non-stop! I couldn't understand most of what she said because of the gauze stuffed in her mouth. It's such a change from when Chris got his wisdom teeth out. Chris said nothing... got in the car and said nothing... got out of the car at home and went to bed.

After Cheryl got home, Chris made her some mac and cheese while I went down and picked up her prescription. I got home and put the mac and cheese in the blender. I know it sounds disgusting. It even looks disgusting... but it tastes just like mac and cheese. LOL!

She won't let me take her picture, but I think she is so cute with the fat cheeks. I've been calling her my cheeky-munk.

Cheryl's new Fish...

Last weekend, my nephew Jacob (8yrs), played some games at the Japanese Festival and won a fish! He gave the fish to Cheryl (Cheryl's last fish, Mr. Fish, died last year). Wasn't that sweet of him? It's common practice at our house not to name a prize goldfish until it has lived for at least 3 days...

I'd like you all to meet, Itch!

He's the newest member of our family, and lives in Cheryl's room...

Obon Sunday!

We spent Sunday at the Norwalk Japanese Community Center Obon Festival. This is traditionally a Buddhist celebration, but here it's celebrated as a Japanese cultural event. It started with a Hula Show. My mom was in the show. My kids and I agree that she's the best dancer out there... the prettiest too! In the photo she's in the center (with the striped skirt).

Then there is the ondo (Japanese dancing). Here are the kids and my mom all dressed and ready!

Here is us dancing. Going down the line: my mom, my nephew, my niece, my daughter, my youngest niece (you can just see her leg), my son, and me.

We stayed until the end of the marathon raffle drawing. No one we knew won the $1000 prize... but, my daughter won a keychain watch, and my niece won a tree (It's a good thing my brother brought his mini-van!), LOL!

Home from Kauai

Kauai, Day 11 - July 14
Here we are, on our way home!
Aloha Kauai! See you in a couple years!







Ahhhh.... No more roosters at 3am! LOL!


I've had a request for David's famous "seven things to do on Oahu" list. Here it is in it's entirety:

Hi Auntie Joni,
Here's seven things that I would recommend that you do while you are on Oahu.
1. Pearl Harbor
2. North Shore- this is kind of a long drive; if you go here, be sure to stop at Matsumoto’s shave ice - it’s one of the landmarks of the North Shore along with the beaches
3. Hanauma Bay - go snorkeling here, one of the biggest tourist spots
4. Diamond Head Hike - Not too hard, but not exactly a breeze. Gives you a great view of Honolulu when you reach the top. Like I said before, use the bathroom before you go haha
5. Tantlus Lookout - try to go here on a clear day, be sure to bring lunch, there’s a beautiful picnic area right before the lookout, you should drive right by it on your way to the lookout; Visiting this lookout shouldn’t take too long unless you get lost, but if you get the right directions, its not hard to find the place, plus the drive up the mountain is beautiful
6. Nu’uanu Pali Lookout - what makes this lookout fun is it is always VERY, VERY windy, plus it overlooks the other side of the island (which is MUCH more beautiful that the side you will staying on btw)
7. Ala Moana Shopping Center - if Cheryl wants to go shopping, this would be one of the best places to go, along with Kalakaua Avenue (which is right off Waikiki)
Hope your Oahu trip goes well.
-David

P.S. David's Dad recommends the Polonysian Cultural Center in addition to David's list for new tourists to Hawaii (complete with luau). We definitely aren't considered new tourists and avoid luaus whenever possible, LOL!