pennstar.net
Dave & Pen's place on the Web
4th of July Weekend 2010
Jul 5th
This past weekend was 4th of July weekend. Since the 4th of July landed on a Sunday, it meant that everyone (non retail) got Monday off from work.
On the Saturday night we had a BBQ and Pool party with lots of friends from church. Our kids love the pool!
Daniel also got to spend the gift card he received for his birthday. With his gift card he purchased the LEGO Batman. Now he loves Lego Star Wars and Lego Batman!
Sunday was spent doing church stuff and most importantly hanging a cabinet in our bathroom. This was something we had been meaning to do for a month and we finally got around to it.
Today was family day. Today we took the kids to Stone Mountain and just hung out. We got to play Mini Golf together, go on a train ride, go on the cable car to the top of Stone Mountain and the kids loved playing in the big barn. My favorite part of the day was when I was sitting on the train next to Stephanie holding her hand. She looked up at me and said “I love you Daddy” then wanted to give me a kiss. Really if we did nothing else that day, that would have made it a fantastic day. 
Golf Tournament and a lost tooth
Jun 27th
Golf Tournament and a lost tooth. I bet that makes you think someone got hit by a golf ball while playing in a tournament? Not quite.
The golf tournament and the lost tooth are two completely separate instances.
On Saturday I played in the C3 Church Annual Golf Tournament (as a side note I also helped organize the tournament for the 3rd year running). 50 guys played golf in 90+ degree heat at Reunion Golf Club. $2000+ were raised for the Quinn House and a blast was had by all. I didn’t win, which is how it should be, I also didn’t come last as happened last year.
Here are some highlights from the tournament.
The lost tooth also happened on Saturday. Daniel has had a wobbly tooth for weeks now and it just refused to come out. Saturday night after the golf tournament and before Daniel went to bed, Daddy got a tissue, grabbed the tooth and yanked it out! Daniel was very happy and though a tissue stuffed mouth said it didn’t hurt at all. Now he has a nice toothy gap!
The tooth fairy did come and left another dollar for Daniel. He now has three crisp clean dollar bills from the tooth fairy.
It's a Mario Kart Wii Birthday
Jun 15th
Today is Daniel’s 6th Birthday. Due to his birthday falling during the week we celebrated it on the previous Saturday.
When planning his birthday we had gone through many options of what to do for it. Finally we decided on what Daniel had requested the first time around, to have his friends over and play Mario Kart Wii.
It turns out Daniel’s idea of a party was a great idea. We had two Wii’s going with Mario Karts and kids every where. Daniel had a blast! The great part about Daniel’s friends is that a lot of them have little sisters who are Stephanie’s friends, so she had a great time too playing with her mates.
Daniel received lots of Lego, and racing car presents. Mummy and Daddy took the cake though with the gift of Super Mario Galaxy 2 for the Wii. Nanny and Pop did pretty good with Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga for the Wii, while Gran and Granddad’s gift of LEGO Pirate Code Game (3840) got the Daniel nod of approval too.
All in all I can’t believe that we have now been parents for six years.
Daniel Graduated Kindergarten
May 22nd
This past Wednesday Daniel graduated from kindergarten (prep for our Aussie friends) from Oxford Falls Academy. They had a performance where they sung some songs, and they received their graduation certificates. Pen’s and my favorite part of the performance was the “Thank you” song at the end. It is really worth waiting for.
The sad part of the graduation ceremony was that some of the kids Daniel graduated with, he has known since he was a baby. They have grown up and have gone through every class at Oxford Falls together. Now they will be all attending different schools. 
Daniel knows this and has has said to us that it makes him sad. We just remind him that he will see most of his friends on Sundays at church, and that he will make tons of new friends at his new school.
Speaking of new schools, Daniel’s elementary school for next year will be Freeman’s Mill Elementary.
It’s hard for us to believe that Daniel will be catching a bus to school and from school next year.
He is really growing up.
Mothers Day weekend
May 11th
Mothers Day weekend was fun.
We started Mothers Day off making Pen breakfast and giving her some presents.
The kids had made presents for Mommy at school/daycare. Daniel had made her a painted glass cup with a candle in it, while Stephanie had made a painted box for her Mommy. As tradition demands it, Daniel had also filled out a “My Mommy” book, in which he answered questions about his Mommy. This year it was surprisingly correct, as opposed to other years where instead of Pen’s favorite food being “Chinese food” it was “Chicken Nuggets”
Pen also received some Godiva chocolates and some Barbie sunglasses. The sunglasses were so Pen knew her real present was new glasses, but that she would need to buy them.
That morning we went to church and looked after the kids in the 2 year old room. They all made cards for their Mommies and were perfect. The previous week the same kids had told the teachers why they loved their Mommies. The responses were put on a big board which you can see below. Click on the picture and see if you can find Stephanie’s comment about her Mommy.
Mothers Day lunch is generally insane when it comes to finding a place to eat. We have worked out over the years though that you can usually get in straight away at a particular Hibachi restaurant. I think in the years that Pen has been a mother we have celebrated at a Hibachi restaurant all but one year. Daniel really likes “The Fire Place”.
The afternoon was spent shopping at the Mall of Georgia. Pen went and looked at glasses and then proceeded to buy a some clothes and accessories at Guess. Ah you can’t keep a good woman down when she is shopping. I took the kids off and entertained them while the shopping was taking place.
I think overall, Pen had a very good Mothers Day.
Happy 3rd Birthday Stephanie
Apr 25th
On Saturday we celebrated Stephanie’s 3rd birthday.
Wow how time has flown. It seems like yesterday that she was born.
We held Stephanie’s birthday at jumping castle place called Monkey Joes. We invited 20 of Stephanie’s closest friends, which really meant 10 of Stephanie’s friends and their siblings, who were conveniently also Daniel’s friends. Both Daniel and Stephanie had TONS of fun. With three consecutive parties going on, Monkey Joes looked like organized chaos. Most parents realized the best they could do was to make sure they saw their kids barreling past every few minutes. Stephanie’s favorite are the huge inflatable slides. Anything that is “FAST” Stephanie loves. It’s like the saying from the movie Top Gun. “I feel the need…The need for speed!”
Present wise Stephanie received a Bike!, some dolls, tea party stuff, DVD’s and clothes. All in all it was a really fun day! Even the pouring rain couldn’t put a damper on the day.
Stephanie and Monkey Joe
A special thank you to Dave and Annie Spell (surrogate grandparents) and Whitney Warren (Daniel and Stephanie’s teacher) who all attended Stephanie’s Birthday party, just because they love her.
That was fun!
Apr 8th
Last weekend was a fun weekend.
We started the weekend off by taking the kids to Zoo Atlanta. It seemed that with the weather being fine, half of Atlanta wanted to go to the Zoo too. We initially struggled to find a parking spot, but once we had managed to track one down things weren’t too bad. We spent most of the day there, looking at the animals and having a great time hanging out as a family. We took tons of pictures and videos, I think 104 in total. The kids favorite part of the zoo was the petting zoo. Both Daniel and Stephanie loved the pigs.
Sunday was Easter. Easter Bunny visited our house, so of course we had an Easter Egg hunt.
After collecting all of the chocolate from the hunt, we shared it out amongst everyone. Daniel then promptly opened up his chocolate bunny and devoured it faster than you could say “Boo”. We think this is partially our fault as when the kids go to birthday parties and get “goody bags” they know that once we reach home, any remaining candy goes in the “Treasure Box”. Daniel was probably working on the same theory with his bunny and eggs.
After the Easter Egg hunt we headed off to church to celebrate Jesus resurrection. The kids had been practicing for weeks, for their Easter performance. I have to say they were awesome!
Stephie is really the little singer. She loves singing, and will quite often make up her own songs about the everyday things that she sees and does. So singing in front of everyone at church was right up her alley.
It really was a fun weekend, lots of memories were made.
What a week
Mar 24th
Wow what a week last week was.
It all started on Monday at about 6:00pm. I was still at work trying to finish things up, when I received a phone call from a rather upset Pen. The sum of the initial conversation went “Hi, I just ran up the back of someone. I think I have totaled the car.” I responded with “It’s OK, don’t worry about the car, I am leaving work now.”
Interestingly enough, 10 minutes before her accident, Pen realized she was too close to the steering wheel and moved her seat back a bit. That saved her possible powder burn, etc from the airbag when it deployed. Pen also recalls wondering during her drive home if she would drive our 1998 Toyota Camry until it was an old bomb as she had no good reason not to. The accident happened very quickly. Pen recalls turning around briefly to look at something very cute Stephy was doing in the backseat. When she turned back around she was faced with a car stopped in front of her. She slammed on the brakes. But it was too late.
Trying to reach Pen was frustrating. Traffic as is typical of Atlanta, was an absolute nightmare, so it took me about an hour to get home. Thankfully our good friend Annie Spell came to the rescue and helped Pen and the kids out. Pen was a bit sore from the accident and the kids were shaken up, but overall everyone was fine.
That night Stephie even told us a story of how the firemen showed her their hats, jackets and face masks, and how she gave the fireman “Dave” a big hug.
As you can see from the image of Pen’s old car, it was totaled.
I took Tuesday off and with Pen collected our rental car, some new car seats for the kids and went looking for cars at CarMax. After a few hours of test driving cars I had narrowed it down to either a 2008 Chevy Malibu or a 2009 Honda Accord. The main difference in the cars being $5000. While I was doing this, Pen went to the Doctor to be checked out and thankfully came back with a clean bill of health.
Wednesday was a normal day for all of us. Thank God!
On Thursday I went car shopping again. Pen came along and drove the 2009 Honda Accord. After a drive around in it, she was happy and we proceeded to purchase it from CarMax. It was probably the easiest sale the car salesman had made all week. The funny part about it all was that the salesman was actually an Australian citizen. He was born in Australia and has family there, but moved to the States when he was 1. He’s been back a few times and knew all about Vegemite, Blunnies and Footy.
Pen went to the Chiropractor today for a minor adjustment. He has recommended she get a 1 hour Swedish Massage which is booked for Monday!
Attitude is not governed by your circumstances, you always have a choice. We have chosen to see this accident as something positive. After all, we both got to upgrade our cars. Pen gets my old car and I get the new Honda. The insurance, Progressive, have been incredibly understanding and are paying all of Pen’s medical bills (massage included!), gave us a good price for the totaled car, and even paid for new car seats for the kids!
60 Degrees and Snow
Mar 8th
60 degrees and Snow? How does that work I hear you ask. It’s quite simple really when my work pays for us to go to Snow Mountain to play for a few hours.
On Saturday all employees of Amdocs in Atlanta got to spend a few hours playing in the snow in 60 degree heat. The snow is man made of course which gives it a different texture to the snow that falls from the sky, but still it was lots of fun. Stephanie enjoyed going down the little slide in a toboggan, while Daniel enjoyed flying down the steep slide in a tube.
Sunday was spent at church in the morning, having lunch with our friends Brian and Jen Smalley’s and their kids. In the afternoon I replaced the burner in our BBQ (resurrecting it for another year or so) and completely cleaning out our fish tank to get rid of the abundance of snails we had in the tank. Pen was good enough to get out and weed our front garden making it look nice for spring.
This week is the C3 Atlanta’s Women’s conference. Pen is really looking forward to attending this, every year she has a great time and gets something huge from the conference. .If you are a woman and in Atlanta this week you should be attending. It is a life changing experience.
Los Angeles
Feb 24th
Well my first week in LA is done. The people at work are nice and the new project is going to keep me really busy. My work put us up at Embassy Suites Glendale which was about 45min from LAX. It’s a very nice hotel with breakfast provided in the morning and a mangers reception provided at night (free drinks and food).
The hotel is close enough that my work mate Yan and I can walk to work each morning (It probably takes us 5-10 min). In doing so we have discovered that at least at the office we are working at, very few people in LA arrive at work at 8:00am. By 9:30am though everyone is there. It has been weird arriving at work and realizing that everyone on the East Coast are just about ready to go to lunch.
On Saturday I went to Universal Studio’s Hollywood. This was a great place to go when you’re by yourself. Lots of different shows to see, and things to do. I spent from about 10:30am to 5:30pm at Universal Studio’s. Beyond enjoying it for myself I also realised that the next time we do theme parks with the kids, we won’t do Universal. The theme park is really made for kids 8+, maybe even older.
On Sunday I went to the Glendale Galleria and The Americana at Brand in the morning and C3 Studio City at night. It was great to see what is happening at the C3 church plant in LA. If you are looking for a contemporary church in LA this is the place to go.
Tonight so Yan actually got to see some sites of LA, we went to Hollywood Blvd. Lots of stars on the ground and tourist shops. It was the one place that we didn’t stop at when Pen and I visited LA with my folks about 6 years ago.
Almost through my stay, looking forward to flying home and seeing the family again on Friday.
