March 2008 Photos
The March 2008 photo galleries for Berkeley, Eliana, and Olivia are now closed. The galleries can be reviewed at Berkeley's web site, Eliana's web site, and Olivia's web site. Or just access the galleries directly using the following links:

Berkeley's March 2008 Gallery ... (5 years, 8 months old)
Eliana's March 2008 Gallery ... (4 years old)
Olivia's March 2008 Gallery ... (1 year, 8 months old)

Chocolate Dipped Cream Puffs
We had the Sharps over for dinner tonight and served some of these chocolate dipped cream puffs for dessert. The puffs I bought from Costco; the sauce I just made up from scratch using suggestions from Kristy.

3 dozen Van Diermen Cream Puffs (or equivalent)
4 oz semi-sweet chocolate (e.g. Nestle chocolate morsels)
3 tbs cream
1 tbs butter
1 tbs powdered sugar

Thaw cream puffs (if frozen).

In double boiler, melt chocolate. Remove from heat and add butter, sugar, and cream. Combine and then place in a small bowl. Place some wax paper on a platter. Dip top of cream puffs into chocolate sauce and then place on wax paper. Refrigerate until chocolate hardens. Serve chilled.

(Update Wed Apr 2 20:41:12 PDT 2008 // clarified handling instructions)

Preparing for General Conference... "More Than We Can Handle"
Kristy and I gave the sermons (or "talks") today at church in Sacrament Meeting. I believe this is the third time I've had to speak in front of the congregation since we moved here (eight years ago)... the last occasion being in September of 2005. The topic we were given to address was "How Can We Prepare Our Family for General Conference". Here is an excerpt from the beginning of my talk:

How Can We Prepare Our Family for General Conference?

Some time ago, a famous furniture salesmen in Arizona and his wife were the beneficiaries of fertility pills... in fact, they hit the jackpot. Of the event, the local newspaper, the Tempe Intelligencer, read: ARIZONA QUINTS GO HOME! The subheading: 'More Than We Can Handle,' Laughs Dad."

While Kristy and I only have three kids, we sometimes feel they are "more than we can handle" - especially during longer Church meetings such as General (and Stake) conferences. Now y'all who're without sin can cast the first stone ...

Now despite what I thought was very clever, no one came up to me afterward with a knowing look on their face and said "Raising Arizona! Am I right?" *sigh* Ah well. I plan on incorporating some random Raising Arizona quotation into all future Sacrament Meeting talks I give. I challenge you (Bryan) to do the same!

Olivia's Good Manners
Olivia has picked up a very good habit of saying "thank you" for just about everything; be it some food, a binky, a toy, or just being carried up the stairs.

"tank oo Daddy"

"tank oo Mimi"

"tank oo Gerky"

"tank oo Ala".

Her siblings are not as gushing with gratitude (not now, nor ever) - this is something that is unique to her and her personality. Sometimes she will thank me for some event or some thing that seems so routine that I'll stop and smile and say "You're welcome Livy... I love you." and blow her a kiss.

"Stand Up" Shoes
This morning Kristy was at Bellevue Square with the girls. While she walked through Nordstrom, past the women's shoe section, Eliana was agog:

"Mimi, Mimi! Look at all the stand-up shoes!"

(High heels.)

Movie Review: Flightplan

So, yeah, anyways... I found Flightplan collecting some dust in the non-new-release BluRay section of the Redmond Blockbuster and decided to give it a go. The wife and I watched it tonight. It's an ok attempt at a Hitchcockian thriller. Kristy saw through the plot pretty easily, and I went along with her after I reasoned it out. In the end, she proved to be correct, but the way the film arrived at the destination seemed a bit too contrived and the antagonist's plot to extort $50MM from the airline was far too implausible. But there were enough twists/turns along the way to keep me guessing for a time (e.g. was the daughter, like her husband, real or imagined?).

Summary: nothing particularly special.

130 Tokens
OK, so yes, I know, I've wrung my hands many many times about the video game issue. I'm weak. I bought the Lego Star Wars game on the web last week. It arrived today.

With shipping and tax, the total cost came to $32.50 or 130 tokens. Berkeley earns an average of about 4 tokens ($1) per day. So he (essentially) must work for one full month to buy it from us... that is, if he doesn't redeem his tokens for anything else in the meantime.

(Update Wed Apr 2 08:00:38 PDT 2008 // $32 -> $32.50)

Advantages to Outside T-Ball Practice
Berkeley practices with his T-Ball team twice per week, once on Saturday and once on Tuesday. After practice today I asked him if he liked outside T-Ball better than inside T-Ball:

"I like outside T-Ball better."

"Why?", I asked.

"Because we can build stuff."

"Build stuff? Like what?"

"Sam and I built some rocket ships in the dirt."

"When?"

"During practice."

Movie Review: Walk The Line

In short, I have not been more repulsed by a movie's message for quite some time.

That being said, props to Phoenix and Witherspoon for turning in some excellent acting (and singing). However, this movie just didn't deserve to be made.

Summary: Drug addict cheats on his wife, abandons his family, and then is told he is a "good man" by his mistress.

Scripture Power
The first time I heard the Primary song "Scripture Power", I was left dumbfounded. Scripture power is "the power to win"? Win what? The lottery? Your next sporting event? I don't get it.

Anyway, despite my dislike for the song, the kids love the tune (and love to "win"... e.g. sporting events, races, etc). They especially like to raise their scriptures up over their head during the chorus... particularly Livy Lou... see picture below:

So I'm OK with the song now only because the kids seem so eager and happy to sing it all the time.

Easter Dinner with Cousins
We had the Sorenson extended family over for Easter dinner. We picked the traditional Sorenson-style Easter dinner: leg of lamb, twice-baked taters, asparagus, and orange rolls. Everyone was able to attend with the exception of Matt, who is traveling with his golf team. We had a nice dinner and then used the attic for the second time today for an Easter egg hunt. Kristy took some pictures of the kids during the hunt:

Not pictured: Emily (age 2) and Andrew (age 8 months).

After all was said and done, it was time to count up the loot and separate the good stuff from the bad. For Berkeley, this means giving all of his chocolate stuff away to his sisters.

Easter Morning
We had a fun Easter morning with the kids. Kristy had all of the stuff (baskets, presents, clothes) set out last night for the kids to find when they came downstairs after waking up. The kids were pretty excited to find the baskets already had some candy, but disappointed they weren't allowed to eat any until after breakfast. While the kids ate breakfast, I hid a bunch of eggs up in the attic. We usually hide eggs in the living room, but the attic proved to be a much better place for the hunt - better hiding places and much much more room! Here are some pictures:

After the gifts were opened, the eggs found, and a unmeasurable amount of candy had been consumed, we dressed up for some Easter portraits. Apologies in advance for the poor focus on the family portrait... I need to break out the manual for that camera and read up on the self-timer thing and setting focus points or something. However, not all is lost... the one of the three kids is fantastic. Enjoy!

(Update Tue Mar 25 11:44:05 PDT 2008 // "My Favorite!" -> "My Faborite!")

First Day of Little League
Berkeley has been looking forward to the first day of "outside T-ball" for weeks. He told me once that his indoor T-ball class wasn't real T-ball because you play real T-ball outside. I wonder what his reaction will be when he discovers that T-ball isn't real baseball. *shrug* He will be in the "T5" league this year (T-Ball age 5) and will play another year of T-ball "T6" before he plays coach pitch. I've been pitching to him already helping him practice his swing. He seems to bat better against pitching than when the ball is on a tee. But that there is what it is. So be it.

Berkeley and I started the day by ourselves at the Little League pancake breakfast fundraiser. We ate with the Howeys and the Lunsmans and the Fishers, whom we just happened to run into while there. After breakfast, I bought 4 Cubs hats (for $10! cheap!). Berkeley's team is the Cubs. I guess that since we are in an American League town, all of the Little League teams use National League mascots. Some of Berkeley's friends are on the Giants, others on the Phillies, and so on.

Kristy and the girls came out at 10am for the "parade" which was essentially just the teams grouped together walking around the ¼ mile junior high school track. I snapped plenty of pictures:

Later in the day Berkeley had his first "outside T-ball" practice with his team and his coach. He is the second oldest boy on his team because the cutoff for age grouping is in May or something. So the majority of his classmates played T-ball last year in T5 (like Fox and Jake) and are in T6 this year. But he does have one of his classmates on his team, a little boy named Sam. He really got into the drills at practice and has asked that we works on his T-ball skills every day after school. Fine with me.

The Candy Fiend
Olivia is an absolute candy junkie. She will ask us for "nan-dee" (candy) at least a dozen times per day. She doesn't get much love from us for these repeated requests, so this Easter weekend will be paradise for her.

We attended a Easter Egg hunt at the Ward building tonight. The kids were turned loose on the Church grounds where candy-filled plastic eggs had been hidden. The kids ages 4 and under were separated from the rest of the group and were sent to the front lawn to pick up the eggs of the grass (laid there in plain sight). Berkeley fended for himself with kids that were twice his age and managed to scratch out a meager two or three eggs. Eliana and Olivia on the other hand could pretty much bankroll Berkeley for several weeks using a small portion of their haul.

After we returned inside, the kids put themselves hard at work on the task of candy consumption. Olivia wasted no time at all. On several different occasions throughout the evening, her mouth was so full of "nan-dee" that she couldn't keep your lips together; a stream of bright colored drool dribbled down her chin and onto her clothes.

Early Risers
My two little girls rarely sleep in... this morning they both got up before 6am (which would be before 5am if we were on the normal DST schedule). I sat them down in front of the 6am showing of Teletubbies on KCTS and snapped this pic:

Home Renovation Project: Attic Conversion: Final Inspection
A familiar face, that of the King County building inspector, showed up today for the final inspection of our attic conversion project (it has been the same inspector that has visited us throughout our project). The inspector walked around, tested some plugs and switches, and then said "Looks great!" and signed us off. I guess we are officially "done" now.

The only thing left to do is exterior paint... the paint contractor wants to wait for warmer/dryer weather. Oh and there are some annoying floor creaks in the attic (three to be exact). Two will likely go away once we put the 600+ lb pool table over them, but the other one will bug me until the day we rip open the second floor ceiling outside of Kristy's office and put some screws up through the joists into the 3rd floor deck.

Token Currency
We have a new economy here at the Berretts and it is based on little checkerboard pieces, or "tokens" as we call them. The kids earn tokens by completing jobs and can spend tokens on objects of desire. Jobs include making ones bed, getting oneself dressed, taking a nap, brushing teeth, helping Mimi (or Daddy) empty the dishwasher, and other general cleanup tasks made upon request. Each completed task earns 1 token. Tokens can redeemed for computer time (1 token == 10 minutes), play dates (10 tokens), and special prizes (4 tokens per dollar value).

One special prize on the radar (because of recent weakness on my part)... Lego Star Wars for the PS3. I picked the game up recently on-line for $25 (plus $4.95) shipping. Token cost? $30 * 4 tokens per $1 = 120 tokens. Berkeley will probably have to work for over a month to save that many tokens. But motivation for this particular prize could be higher than usual.

"Ere Mimi?"
Kristy works one day a week, Wednesday. I watch the kids in her absence. After Berkeley is at Kindergarten and Eliana is at preschool. After 9am, it is just Olivia and me until lunch time. During that time I get asked the same three questions.... over and over again:

"Ere Mimi?", Olivia quizzes me. (Translation: "Where's Mimi?")

"She's at work Livy. She'll be back after dinner."

"Ere Gerky?"

"Berkeley is at school."

"Ere Awa?" (or sometimes "Ere Ala?")

"Eliana is at school too."

Sometimes she'll just ask the first question, "Ere Mimi?", and skip the other two. When she does, she makes up for it by asking me where Kristy is 4 or 5 times back to back to back to back. I guess I'm giving her the wrong answer.

(Update Mon Mar 24 15:52:06 PDT 2008 // Ana -> Awa!)

Attic Furniture On Order
Kristy and I (and the kids too) spent part of the afternoon visiting a couple of stores and ordering some furniture for the attic; namely, a round game table, six chairs, and a billiard table. The game table will take about 3-4 months to manufacture (built to order), but the billiard table will be here next month (scheduled delivery is April 8th).

Enjoy these stock photos until I can take some in person:

Olivia's Bedroom Furniture
We took delivery of Olivia's bedroom furniture a couple of weeks ago. The pieces are manufactured by Plenty's Horn. We bought Olivia the "Camelot" collection by way of PoshTots (PoshTots renamed the line "Guinevere"). It is beautiful furniture that features an antique rose theme and is finished with a distressed "crackled" finish. Kristy painted the room to match the furniture pieces.

When the freight company arrived with the furniture, their attempts to move the large armoire into Olivia's room proved unsuccessful. Instead, they left the piece in the hallway just outside of Olivia's room. There it stood for the entire weekend of Eliana's birthday and the length of my Mom and Dad's stay with us. When the freight company left that day, I was thinking "Oh great!" we are going to have to take the armoire into Olivia's bedroom a la Eliana's, i.e. through the window.

So I called up Baxton and had him come over and look at our new conundrum. He stopped by a few days ago. After some measurements, Baxton thought that we could fit in through the doorway and into the room. "Ok, sure go ahead, try it!" I said, even though I seriously had my doubts that he could do it. The freight crew tried several different angles for almost an hour and they couldn't do it. Yet, after we took the doors of the armoire, the door off of Olivia's room, Baxton was able to just sneak it into the room with maybe a quarter of an inch to spare. The trick was to maneuver the armoire up over the baseboard and around the chair rail. Today was the first chance I've had to snap some pictures of the room. Here they are (note: I need to hang the mirror and one picture yet)...

Cold Cereal Review: Post Bamm-Bamm Berry Pebbles

I bought a box of "Bamm-Bamm Berry Pebbles" a few months back for Olivia. She absolutely loves Fruity Pebbles, so I thought she like this "pink" version of the cereal as well. This proved to be an incorrect assumption as the cereal is, quite frankly, pretty much unredeemable... nasty stuff. I was pretty close to throwing the box away, but we have managed to choke most of it down. I finished the last of it this morning. Never again!

Cold Cereal Review: Post Fruity Pebbles

When I was growing up, it was considered a rare treat to consume a bowl of "sugar cereal". Each year, my brothers and I would look forward to our birthdays not just for the bounty of gifts, but for the one time when we could have any cold cereal of our choosing. Every year, without fail, I selected Fruity Pebbles. Nowadays, I keep several boxes of both Fruity and Cocoa Pebbles in the pantry and I'll have a bowl any day... for breakfast or lunch (and sometimes dinner). Fruity Pebbles has had staying power as my most preferred cold cereal, despite not being the top dog for a number of years (while Post's Oreo O's were still being manufactured). Fruity pebbles also happens to be my daughter Olivia's favorite cereal ("Sear-E-Oh"). She will select off the shelf from amoung man other possibilities... each time, every time. Like father like daughter! (Note: it may help that the box is a bright colored red all the way around.)

Fruity Pebbles has a nice "fruity" taste... not too sweet. It stays crunchy in milk longer than ordinary rice crispies, probably due to the sugar coating - but still becomes soggy relatively quickly. Best eaten within 5-10 minutes after contact with milk. Fruity Pebbles mounds up up nicely on a spoon, allowing it to be eaten in bunches. It also leaves a great flavor residue on the leftover milk. Olivia will hold up a bowl to her mouth to slurp out every last drop of the remaining milk (and truthfully... so will I). The cereal also has the advantage of feeling "light" after consumption but still leaves you feeling full. Good stuff.

Cold Cereal Review: Post Oreo O's

It is a fine Saturday morning here in Sammamish. No rush to get the kids ready for school... and Saturday morning cartoons are on. When I was growing up we looked forward to Saturday morning - not just for the cartoons, but for the cold cereal. It was the only day of the week that we were allowed to eat it. Every other day, my Mom (bless her heart) would feed us a hot breakfast (something maybe I should do more often).

Should you take a peek into the Berrett pantry on any given day, you will find about a couple dozen or so varieties of cold cereal. I just counted this morning - there are 20 different varieties (but the cupboard has been a bit bare of late). One variety I wish I had on hand is that of Oreo O's, a cereal that used to be made by Post. The cereal consisted of Oreo flavored O's with white creme sprinkles on them. The O's were supplemented with marshmallows.

It is my humble opinion that Oreo O's are/were the best cereal ever made by man. They had a fantastic flavor - um, they tasted like the Oreo cookie... and who doesn't like Oreos?! (I mean, other than my father-in-law.) Yet, despite being based on a cookie by the same name, they were not too sweet. Oreo O's also stayed crunchy in milk for quite some time... allowing a bowl to be slowly consumed, extending the enjoyable experience of eating a bowl for 15 minutes or more.

A few years ago I could no longer find Oreo O's in the stores, so I resorted to buying them on-line (from amazon). However, Post has since been discontinued this cereal.

"Daddy, I Lub You"
I love my little Eliana. She's a darling little girl (strong-willed but still darling)... every time I can I give her a big squeeze and tell her how much I love her. One such event happened today after ELiana came into my office today with the express intent of giving me a message:

"Daddy, I lub you."

(She gave me a hung and a kiss too.)

Eliana pronounces all of her "v" sounds as "b" sounds. Another common phrase heard around here... "Daddy, the moo-bie is all oh-ber." Eventually she'll grow out of this small speech impediment, but I'm enjoying it for now. It's very cute.

Streaming Media Content to a Sony Playstation 3 from a Linux Desktop
The "Find Media Server" menu items on my Playstation's XMB (XrossMediaBar) have been teasing my curiosity lately. I have a fairly large repository of media available on my desktop computer... about 20 GB of family pictures, 16 GB of music ripped from my less-than-impressive CD library, and a handful of DVDs encoded to DivX (for my own personal purpose of creating a backup copy of course!). So it would sure me nice to access that content on my PS3 over my home network now wouldn't it?!

One possible problem... my music and my videos are located on my desktop computer running (Ubuntu) Linux, and my pictures are located on my home file server running FreeBSD (NFS-mounted on my desktop). I can access this media on other (less reliable) platforms using SMB shares, but accessing SMB shares is not supported by the PS3. Drat. (Actually not supporting SMB shares is probably a good thing... it is a messy ugly protocol.)

Enter MediaTomb, a free open source (GPL) UPnP media server that supports a variety of UPnP compatible devices... including the Sony PS3. MediaTomb runs on a variety of platforms, most notably Debian and Ubuntu. Seems like a perfect fit!

Download and installation of mediatomb was pretty easy. I just added the appropriate deb line ("deb http://apt.mediatomb.cc/ gutsy main") to my sources.list and then installed it via Ubuntu's "Add/Remove..." GUI interface. I had to modify one line of the config file to add support for the PS3 (I did this according to the instructions found in mediatomb's on-line documentation). Once installed and configured, I started the mediatomb server by simply typing the command "mediatomb &" at a command prompt. This launched the media server... and it was running in the background listening for connections.

To add content to the server, access mediatomb's web interface available on port 49152. There is a handy menu item Ubuntu automagically installs in the "Applications -> Sound & Video" menu that can be used for this purpose... or just type "http://127.0.0.1:49152/" into the address bar of a web browser and create a bookmark in your browser for future easy access.

Adding media content to the mediatomb server is an easy point/click process... as easy as surfing around any web site on the net. Nice and simple. I added my mp3 albums directory, some photo albums, and a couple of DivX movies. I then went upstairs, fired up the PS3, and clicked on the "Find Media Server..." menu item. After about a 10 second search it found the server and all of the content. The MP3 music, JPG photos, and DivX videos all appeared under the "MediaTomb" media server in the Photo, Music, and Video menus (respectively) on my PS3... and stream over the (wired) home network on command. Sure, the DivX movies are pretty blocky on such a large screen (1080 lines of resolution on the TV compared to about, oh, 300 or so on most of the DivX movies)... but it's still a pretty darn cool trick! Thanks mediatomb (and Sony)!

HDMI Cable Length and 1080p/60 Signal Degradation
One of the annoyances I have been experiencing with my new media system is the fact that "snow" appears on my screen when I select 1080p output for non-1080p sources... such as regular definition DVDs. Please refer to the picture below of the second disc of my brother Bryan's favorite movie, The Fellowship of the Ring:

After some experimentation, some help from my home teacher - Cameron (also a PS3 owner), and some googl'ing I finally figured out that my HDMI cables won't support 1080p/60... which requires about 3Gbit/s of bandwidth. The lack of support is not because of inferior quality of the cables (which work fine when displaying 1080p/24 content), but because of the length of the cables. The cables I bought were 10 feet long which I thought I needed at the time (since the cables must run out from my components through the back of my cabinet, up over the cabinet in the wall's dead space, and then through the wall, and plug into the TV. Well, it turns out that 6 feet of cable will suffice (thanks Cameron for helping me with my cable runs!). Sure enough, a cheap $30 6-foot long HDMI cable (that I bought down at Fred Meyer) solved my "snow" problem.

Anyone need a couple of 10-foot long HDMI cables? $10 and they are yours.

Movie Review: Bee Movie

(It was fun watching the movie together as a family in the new media area of the attic... can't wait until we actually have some furniture up there.)

Summary: Ho-hum.

Movie Review: Chicago

I'm a big fan of the musical film genre - old (Sound of Music, Mary Poppins, My Fair Lady, etc) or new. This movie is a nice solid piece of entertainment, but it's not nearly as entertaining as other musicals I've seen lately on the big screen (Phantom of the Opera, Moulin Rouge, and (yes) Sweeney Todd spring to mind). I didn't really connect with the story of the two murderess' competition in search for fame, nor did the music really get my toes tapping. But despite this, I found no fault in the performances turned in by Zeta-Jones, Zellweger, and Gere. The movies just didn't do it for me.

Summary: Ho-hum.

Berkeley Milestone: Tying His Own Shoes
My Mom informed me today that Berkeley can tie his own shoes... "Really?" I said. Berkeley was right there (we were taking Mom and Dad back to the airport)... "Yeah, Dad. I taught myself how!" I watched him do it, and yes he can. Eh... so much for doing the "rabbit runs around the tree and down into the hole" trick. I guess I missed that opportunity a few months back(?). Sheesh... where did my little boy go?!

Eliana's 4-year Well Check
It was Eliana's opportunity to receive her yearly checkup today. She officially weighs 36.8 lbs and is 40½ inches tall. Eliana is tracking in the 70th percentile for both height and weight - we are pleased that she is so healthy. Despite the fact that Berkeley received 4 shots at his 4 year checkup, Eliana received no shots today. No idea why.

Note: Berkeley was 41½ tall at 4, so Eliana is keeping pace with his brother. I've told both of them that Eliana will likely be taller than Berkeley sometime around the time Eliana is 12 or 13 (probably for a short time only). I didn't start growing until I was around 15 or so... and even grew an inch while serving my mission in Taiwan (age 19-21).

Becoming a Pilot? Try the Navy ROTC
We traveled down to Normandy Park this evening to have dessert at Jess/Chris's house and to visit again with my Aunt Anadeane and Uncle Layne (up from the Bay Area). Uncle Layne is a retired commercial airline pilot, so I asked him about his career choice and career path in light of Berkeley's recent pronouncements about his desire to become a pilot (which, let's be honest, is probably short-lived). He highly recommended doing the same thing he did... becoming a pilot by way of the Navy. The upside: the Navy pays for school, pays to fly the best equipment in the world, offers the opportunity for world travel, etc. The downside: Layne saw combat time in Vietnam and with it the obvious risks.

Product Review: Sony Playstation 3
I bought a PS3 a couple of weeks ago. I wasn't really happy about it and made the purchase while wringing my hands due to the unfavorable affect I've seen video game consoles have on the neighborhood kids I know. But alas, the PS3 is one of the cheapest Blu Ray players on the market right now (probably because Sony is partially subsidizing the cost fully expecting to make up the money in video game sales) and the upgradability of the PS3 to BD Profile 1.1 and BD Profile 2.0 is something no other Blu Ray player on the market can match. Furthermore, I hear the PS3 has a library of video games that is supports. So, right there... the value proposition of the PS3 is immense. This means that if I ever find a standalone Blu Ray player that I actually like (for a reasonable price), it should be relatively easy to resell the PS3 on craigslist or something.

That's the rationalization I used to justify the purchase at the time anyway.

Last night and today I fiddled around with the multimedia support of the Playstation 3 - I must say that I was simply blown away... almost speechless in fact. I knew that the PS3 would play slideshows of pictures, but I forgot about some of the demos that Khan gave me at his house. I'm speaking specifically of the "photo album 2" slideshow (or whatever it's called). Basically, I loaded up some 600 pictures of Eliana that I had taken of her from the time she was born and loaded them onto the PS3's hard drive. The PS3 read the EXIF data of the pictures and sorted them by date and delivered the most wonderful slideshow that I could have hoped for. It was absolutely brilliant. I put some music in the background of the slideshow and then ran it on a continuous loop up in the attic during Eliana's birthday party tonight. It was an immediate hit.

Summary: Why buy a standalone Blu Ray player when a PS3 brings so much to table? Go get one. You won't regret it... even if you never play one single video game on it. (Am I a fanboy now Khan?)

Eliana's Birthday Parties
Eliana turned 4 today. She had two parties... one for her friends and cousins (kids only) in the afternoon, and one for family in the evening. It was a busy day.

For the first party, Eliana invited several of her friends (and similarly-aged cousins) to the Second Story Repertory to see a musical perfomance of Cinderella. The kids all sat down right next to the stage (criss cross applesauce) with Kristy and Eliana's former teacher and friend Jana Bell. Mom, Dad and myself sat in the chairs. The play encouraged the kids participation and the kids were eager to oblige. After the show, Eliana and her entourage congregated in the theater lobby, ate cupcakes, opened presents, and were visited by the crew of the play (who sung Happy Birthday to her). Eliana became pretty shy at this point and refused to give Cinderella a hug, but instead clung tightly to my neck. Here are some pictures:

Eliana's (non-family) party guests:

In the evening for Eliana's second party, we had the family over for dinner (pizza), cake, and ice cream. My aunt/uncle (Anadeane and Layne) were in town, so they came over as well. We had quite a host of people attending, so the extra space up in the attic was put to good use. Here are a few pictures:

My little girl is growing up fast... for kicks, take a look at previous birthday party pictures:

Eliana's 3-yr-old Birthday Party Pictures
Eliana's 2-yr-old Birthday Party Pictures
Eliana's 1-yr-old Birthday Party Pictures

Projects with Dad
I spent the morning finishing up some small projects around the house with the assistance of my Dad... the primary achievement being the installation of the remote-controlled window shades in the skylights over the media room area. Since it took us about 2 hours to complete the task, I'm glad I didn't have to do both of them.

When I was growing up, my Dad was always busy doing something around the house. I remember fondly the large playground he built for us in the backyard complete with a two-level "fort" that included a covered slide and section of pole vault scrap that he converted into a fire pole. He did this from the ground up using raw materials (not a fancy kit like I used). He re-landscaped our entire backyard to include a half basketball court... again, mainly for our benefit. Then when we were a bit older, he demolished the playset and built a over-sized two-car garage in its place... again, from the ground up... doing 99% of the work himself. He involved the four of his boys in these projects quite a bit (cheap labor and all).

In many ways I'm my father's son... specifically (to my Dad's credit) I'm fairly handy around the house. There are few tasks that I would not feel comfortable tackling: electrical, plumbing, dry wall, irrigation, painting, whatever. It was nice to have Dad around today. The seasoned wise (old) man (sorry Dad... but you are!) giving his son a bit of help.

Good times.

Symphony Review: Marvin Hamlisch conducts Rogers and Berlin
Kristy and I went out with Mom and Dad to a nice dinner tonight and attended the symphony. Tonight's performance was that of Marvin Hamlisch conducting selected works of Richard Rogers and Irving Berlin.

Not much of the music was familiar to me, many of which were selected from musicals I've never heard of. I think I only recognized one song the entire night. However, my Mom and Dad were tapping their toes and bobbing their heads most of the night. In fact, they were quite familiar with most if not all of the pieces. They had a wonderful time. I'm glad.

Our host for the night, Mr. Hamlisch, was the highlight of the night. Not only is he an accomplished artist, but he was a marvelous entertainer. Only last week, Mr. Hamlisch was appointed the new principal pops conductor for the Seattle Symphony... so he'll be back next year. I better telegraph the dates of next year's pops series (when announced) over to my Mom and Dad.

Home Renovation Project: Attic Conversion: Cleaning Up
All week long we have different crews of cleaners here working on cleaning up the house. We had our normal house service on Tuesday, had the driveway power washed and the carpets cleaned (by Steve Anderson of Anderson Carpet Cleaning) on Wednesday, had the ducts and furnace cleaned yesterday, and had the windows and window screens all washed and cleaned today. It is starting to look somewhat respectable around here.

Eliana's Preschool Birthday Party
Eliana turns 4 tomorrow, but today her preschool class celebrated her birthday. Family is invited for the last hour of class. Eliana wore a birthday crown throughout class. Pictures of her throughout her life were highlighted on a "birthday ribbon" and she was sung to as well. We provided the birthday treats... cupcakes from Common Ground Coffee & Cupcakes (hat tip: Khan). Mom, Dad, myself, Kristy, and Olivia all attended... so we had quite a group. Here are a few pictures:

Parents in Town
My Mom and Dad arrived in town today for the purpose of attending Eliana's 4th birthday on Saturday (March 8th). We put them to work straight away. Dad helped Berkeley assemble a couple of train tables... one for Berkeley, his legos, and his trains... the other for Eliana and Olivia and the doll house, polly pockets, and the like. Mom helped Kristy organize all of the toys and assisted with other home preparation activities. My folks are staying for several days and the kids are loving every minute of it.

Home Renovation Project: Attic Conversion: Home Theater Installed
My audio/video subcontractor (Poulsbo Audio Video Integration) showed up today to install the last of the speakers, the new plasma TV, and hook everything up. The first movie I popped in was Superman.

Berkeley, Eliana, and I watched it for about half an hour. It was great.

Home Renovation Project: Attic Conversion: The Final Details?
Wow, what a busy day today. There were literally almost a dozen people today coming and going. Kenis and crew showed up to finish the trundle beds - the trundles lack only the hardware install. A small crew of finish carpenters showed up to install the base show and address some trivial concerns I had with some doors. The stair guy (Paul) showed up to make final adjustments on the balusters (leveling out the knuckles on the iron). The dumpster and port-a-potty were picked up. Our normal cleaning crew of two came and dusted/cleaned the place (as best they could with so much still going on). And Tad sent his high school aged son over to pressure wash our front porch and driveway. The place is started to look good... real good.

Home Renovation Project: Attic Conversion: Coming Together
There was a lot of work accomplished today. Kenis and Rob and Stewart were here to installed the trundles under the day beds. The stair guy Paul showed up to finish installing the balusters around the attic stairwell and the painters were here to varnish the base shoe and clean up the lines at the intersections of millwork and wall paint. Everything is really starting to come together now. By the end of the week (for Eliana's birthday party on the 8th), this project should be done!

Home Renovation Project: Attic Conversion: Base Shoe Stained
The painting crew showed up today to stain the base shoe that will be installed around the outside of the attic. They will varnish it tomorrow and then it will be installed on Wednesday (*me crosses my fingers*).

Home Renovation Project: Attic Conversion: The House in a House
Kristy worked hard last night (and throughout the weekend) doing some painting up in the attic. She painted a "growing tree" to the left of the playhouse entrance and just above the "picket fence". On the tree trunk and on the "fence" she has marked off 1 foot, 2 feet, 3 feet, 4 feet, 5 feet, and 6 feet marks. Here is a picture... note the installation of all of the final little things: the mailbox, the door hardware, the shutters, and the window boxes.

Sleeping Out in the Playhouse
The kids spent the night last night in the playhouse. There is carpet in there now and a working dutch door with twist doorbell. We have some fake keys for the keyholes in the door plates. Oh and we sold the kids pink Pottery Barn kitchen furniture on craigslist so that we could buy new red Pottery Barn kitchen furniture. It was quite a site to them up there tucked into their sleeping bags inside their new playhouse. They loved it or so they said... they don't want to do it again tonight.