Halloween

Sammie was a Piggy for Halloween. She was the cutest little piggy ever.

This is the little piggy with Auntie Jennie and Uncle Ry Ry.

Grandma had this stereo playing halloween sounds on the porch and this little piggy loved it.

"S'dat?"

This is Sammie trespassing in our neighbors yard, but I'm pretty sure they didn't mind.

All these pictures were taken by Auntie Anne so I had to borrow her camera to get them. Thanks Anne! Sammie loves her Aunties!

Pumpkin Patch

This week was pumpkin patch week with Sammie. The first one we took her to was on Mines Road in Livermore.

Sammie got to ride in her own wagon.

And she loved to look at pumpkins.

Which one should I choose?

They had animals for Sammie to look at, too.

There was a little gopher there. I think his name was Randall.

A couple of days later, we went to the corn maze/ pumpkin patch on East Airway Boulevard in Livermore. They had this big sandbox except it wasn't filled with sand, it was filled with corn kernels. It was really wild.

Sammie seemed to like it!

We were finding corn on her after we got her home. I wonder why?

This is a Pink Floyd.

Life is good.

I've got a few random thoughts, then we'll get to the real reason why you came here.

-I think that it should be the law for public bathroom doors to open outward, with no door latch so you can use your feet to open them.

-Did they really fire a missile at the moon? And how much did that cost?

-I was at the DMV the other day and they had these "we want to know what you think" surveys at the desk I was at, and presumably at all the other ones too. Maybe I could include one of those with every ticket I write. I'd probably get better results than the DMV!

-Reading the aforementioned surveys would probably provide good comedic material.

-The National Parks really were a great idea.

-I watched an Episode of Top Gear the other day where they had a Toyota Prius on the track with a 400+ horsepower BMW. The Prius had to race around the track and all the BMW had to do was keep up with it. The Prius got 17 miles per gallon, while the BMW ended with 19. That's awesome.

-I really liked the movie "Mean Girls." Is that wierd?

-I just deleted a handful of people from my friends list on Facebook. My test was this - If I saw this person at the grocery store, would I have conversation with them? But have no fear, I pretty sure all 12 of you who read this blog will still be able to see my facebook page too.

-I'm bummed that NBC cancelled "Life." I really liked that show. So thanks to Leno, "Life" got bumped because of his show. I like Letterman better anyway, and I'm really starting to like Jimmy Fallon.

Ok, now the good stuff.

Sammie's latest thing is climbing. On everything. This is after she conquered the coffee table.

Sammie also flexes her muscles. I've got to figure out how to put video on here because it is absolutely hilarious when she does it. But here is a glimpse until I figure out how to catch up to technology. Oh, and her face is messy because the black beans I gave her weren't rinsed.

Sammie's hair is getting long, it might be getting close to being time for her first haircut.

We went to the Oakland Zoo on Monday for a work gathering. This is Chel and Sammie on a fake butterfly in the kids area. Not every animal Sammie saw was a kittie, but most of them were.

These are our friends Brady, Meredith, and their two daughters Elsa and Lulu. Lulu is with Meredith in the front and Elsa is in the back with Brady. Lulu is kind of minding her own business while Elsa is kind of freaking out. Maybe it's because she's sitting on a rabid panda bear? I thought this picture was funny.

The cream cheese needs to be soft.

Ok, so it bugs me when I go to spread cream cheese on a bagel or something and it spreads like drying plaster on wet cardboard. Sometimes when we get that tub of cream cheese from Costco, I open it up and its hard. It still tastes good, but the spreading qualities are just not there. The solution? I put the big chunk into our kitchenaid and whip it for a while. It softens it up and makes the cream cheese spreadable like its supposed to be. Kitchenaids are great!

This picture was taken about a year ago. I'm pretty sure that it is from one night when Chel came to visit me at the academy.

And this is about a year later. I can't believe Sammie is almost a year and a half old. Having her in our lives just makes life so much better!

Sammie in the City

Yesterday we went to San Francisco since we hadn't been there in a while. It was a fun trip, I think Sammie enjoyed it too.

Our first stop was the San Francisco Scooter Centre. It's a really cool scooter shop, and it's kid friendly, too!

After the scooter shop we went to Crissy Field. Sammie was having fun. There were lots of kitties (Dogs) and the sun was out, but it was pretty windy.

My two favorite girls. Our next stop was the Palace of Fine Arts. Sammie was having fun climbing on the benches.

It was kind of chilly by that time so Sammie was wearing her hoody.

There was this lady there doing some kind of hula hoop dancing. What do you call that? Hula Hoopla?

After that we went to Joe's Crab Shack for dinner. By that time Sammie was pretty tired, but she had a little bit of food and the loud music kept Sammie dancing. It was a good day.

New Phone

Ok, so a little over a month ago, I got a Palm Pre. I've been waiting for it to come out and it actually came out in June, but I wasn't eligible for a phone upgrade on my sprint phone until August. Overall, I really like it. I was thinking about switching to at&t to get an iphone, but I didn't want to go through the hassle of switching phone companies, and I didn't want to join the iphone bandwagon. So here's a little run down on my impressions of this super cool phone.

Awesome:

-Touchscreen works well.

-Wireless connectivity where available.

-It can open more than one application at once.

-It automatically backs up to my computer, no hookups needed.

-Now I can get together with my friends who have iphones, and we can watch youtube videos together on our phones while we sit in the same room as a desktop computer!

-I like that it has a keyboard.

-Battery life seems good.

-It takes good pictures.

-I can download music onto it and use it like its an ipod.

Not as awesome:

-it came with a charger, but the cool electro-magnetic charger costs like $70.

-The phone itself was like $200 before taxes and stuff (still worth it, i just wish it was cheaper).

-I had to purchase the super data plan, I couldn't just add more data service to the plan I already had.

There's plenty more to be said on both sides of the argument, but then this post would be too long, and I fear I may have lost some of you already. Bottom line, I don't think this phone will steal any customers from Apple, but I think it will keep a lot of people from leaving Sprint so they can get an iphone.

Perfect English

Sammie's list of words that she can say is slowly growing. Her official first word is "kittie." She can also say "yeah", "mmmm!", and her latest is "canadian". I'm not sure where that last one came from, but she says it occasionally. Oh, she also points at stuff sometimes and says "shdatt" (sounds like what's that). Anyway, we are just loving having Sammie in our family. I think we'll keep her.

Morning crazy hair.

Sammie and Auntie Laura. Laura was visiting this weekend. It was great to have her around.

Sometimes when Sammie is close I just point and shoot without looking through the camera.

More crazy hair, post-bath.

Not much else is going on. I've been working during the week so its been nice to have the weekends off. But that will end soon, I'm sure.