No on Proposition 8...

RJ is a very friendly boy. Whenever he sees young girls, he gives them a hug. At the faculty party this year he waited by the door for all the daughters of coworkers to show up and get hugs. Unfortunately this affection got him bit once at school, but even after being love scorned once he still won't shy away from walking up to a random girl at the Gap Outlet and wrap his arms around her.

He's not even ashamed of a little man(equin) love either:

Grandpa's Visit to Calaveras

My father came to visit us over my birthday weekend. On Friday, he initiated the first ever Cal State "Bring your daddy to work" day. While I was in a meeting, he spent the morning observing RJ at school from the observation booth. I got a full play by play of RJ's day afterward! We had lunch with a colleague and then attended a department committee meeting. Unfortunately for him, Fridays aren't usually very exciting for me - I typically have a meeting or two and spend the rest of the time prepping or grading! He probably would have had more fun with Lance at work since they had a Tropic Thunder screening, a crunch party, and Antonio Banderas over for lunch (yes, I'm dead serious!).

Saturday

On Saturday, we went from Calaveras Lane to Calaveras County (interestingly enough, neither is on or near the Calaveras Fault line which runs through the East Bay!).

Our first stop was a tour of Moaning Cavern where we descended 165 feet into the caves. For adventure seekers, we'll need to make a second trip (sans RJ) where we can rappel down instead of taking the stairs, and then crawl through tunnels:



We stopped at Angel's Camp which is notable for any Mark Twain or jumping frog fans:





















We skipped over, the Glory Hole Recreation Area and headed to Columbia State Park which is a restored Gold Rush Era town. Think Plymouth Plantation or Williamsburg but with panning for gold and bowling:







Our last stop was for dinner in Sonora and dessert at an old fashioned soda shop.

Sunday

Sunday we mostly hung out around the house -- but we did sneak out in the afternoon for some wine tasting at Concannon Vineyards as well as some frolicking on their grounds:

On being MIA

You probably all know why we've been MIA for awhile as you should've gotten our change of address email. Moving in mid-September when in Academia is always always always a bad idea, but we really didn't have much of a choice because we bought a house and due to a series of incompetent actions (or rather a lack thereof) on the part of our real estate agent in addition to the fact that buying real estate is a frustratingly SLOOOOOW process, our house was just sitting vacant taunting us while my summer off dwindled away to nothing. Anyway, we're going to try and catch up on the blog and publish some of the posts that we started and just didn't finish due to live. We're not even remotely close to being "all moved in", but I still think that you all need to be updated before I have pictures hanging on the wall and my students get their papers graded! So stay tuned...we'll be back before you know it!

RJ's Second First Day of School

The summer was fun, but the end of summer brings with it the start of another semester. So RJ goes back to school at the Child Development Center and I go back to teaching. The director of the CDC is back from maternity leave so I'm no longer in charge :- ( . RJ is much more of a handful getting out the door this year compared to last:







One of the nice things the CDC does is at pickup we get a daily report on RJ's mood, inputs, and outputs. It is a little insight into his day when we don't get a chance to watch from the observation room:



Since the infant/toddler CDC is only half-day, RJ spends afternoons sharing a babysitter with some friends. It is nice because the babysitters are all current or former teachers at the CDC from last year. On Monday, Tuesday, and Thursdays, RJ goes to Daisy's house and on Wednesday and Friday, Daisy and RJ go to their friend Stella's house. Yes, it's a complicated system, but at least RJ is no longer trying to nap in my office while I try to do work in the dark!

Guess who's pregnant again...

Guess who's pregnant. Relax, it's not Cheryl. My supervisor is going on maternity leave for the next six months so I have been asked to take over as Project Lead for the production pipeline. For those who don't remember what I do, here is a description from a recent job posting for my team:

"The Production Engineering group is responsible for designing and implementing software used in the production pipeline to create animated feature films. Production engineers understand the entire computer animation process and use that knowledge to develop the DreamWorks global animation pipeline."

The Pipeline team is the glue that connects all of the production departments together and build applications that artists use based on the core technologies built by R&D. So, R&D will work on the animation software, but we are the team that helps production build and organize things to animate (called assets), get those assets into the animation software, provide plugins and other systems to solve problems not covered in the animation software itself, and then provide the tools for capturing their work and preparing it as input for the next department to work on the scene. As the complexity of animated movies seems to have no bound, it becomes very important for our department to find not only technical efficiencies but also streamline the artist workflow. This may help explain why I say we work on every movie, but yet can't point to specific artistic contributions that make it in a film.

My new role will be mostly focused on project management and helping to improve the software development process for our team of a dozen developers.

It is kind of interesting that both Cheryl and I have ended up taking over leadership or management roles this year at work. It will be a challenge to keep the balance between work and spending time with RJ.

Happy Anniversary Momma and Daddy

On August 16, Momma and Daddy let me play with my friend Erika ALL DAY LONG. I'm not quite sure why they decided to go hiking up a hot (90 degrees!) hill without me instead of going swimming in Erika's pool with me, but they said it had something to do with me getting squirmy and heavy in my backpack. I don't see what the problem with a squirmy 21 pound toddler is - I have great fun riding up high and getting to see everything in the backpack. There are things to see EVERYWHERE - that's why I keep looking to the right and then leaning to the left and trying to turn around and well, you get the picture...I'm 14 months old...you're just going to have to deal with my curiosity.

But this post isn't about me. It's about Momma and Daddy being married for 5 years. Yeah, 5 - that's my life times 5. Momma has been itching to go hiking since her and Daddy haven't been able to go in two years because of work and being busy and well, me. So Daddy took Momma to Mount Diablo (I've been there!!! Just look!! I wasn't at the top, but I was there! I even ate lunch there!) to hike to the top of the 3,849 ft mountain. They didn't climb up all the way from the bottom, (Remember they haven't been hiking in 2 years) , they just did the Juniper to Pioneer to Summit Loop Trail, which goes up about 1000 ft in a 3.8 mile round trip. Here are some pictures from their hike.

Livermore Valley

North Peak and the Sacramento River

The Bay Area

Then they had a picnic lunch at the summit, where they had a very unwelcome visitor that chased them around the picnic area (literally, they'd run and the bee would chase them) until they finally shoveled their food in and quickly packed up. Momma said that this was not like Barry from Bee Movie or a nice bee that makes honey like Uncle Luke and Aunt Amy's bees!!! This was one mean bee and she did not want to find out that she was allergic to bees like Aunt Amy while atop a mountain. Then Momma and Daddy came home to shower off the mountain stinkies. They were hoping to see me, but I was having WAY too much fun swimming in Erika's big pool. I love swimming. It's so much fun. I just splash and splash and splash. I love my little pool too - it has a tree that squirts water at me! Oh yeah, this is about Momma and Daddy, not me. In the late afternoon, Daddy took Momma to taste some wine in Livermore. Momma really enjoyed the Thomas Coyne port. She was also all crazy happy about the organic wine at Retzlaff too. They had dinner outside at Strizzi's after a recommendation from two of the wine servers and then a yummy chocolate fondue at Simply Fondue. Then they came home, but I of course was already asleep after my fun day playing and swimming with Erika. I think we all had a good time on Momma and Daddy's Anniversary!

Happy 5th Anniversary Momma and Daddy. I love you! Love, RJ

RJ & Momma Explore LA LA Land

On Monday (August 11) Lance left early in the morning to take a bus to the convention center and left RJ and I to explore a little and to switch hotels. After breakfast, RJ and I walked to the Venice Canals, since we hadn't seen them yet and it was a good pre-morning nap activity.

While we were strolling we stumbled upon a location shoot for the TV show NUMB3RS. I could only tell because the little carts the crew were pushing around said NUMB3RS on them. I really only saw a bunch of security and a guy who was dressed like an FBI agent. I doubt that a location shoot needed a real FBI agent, so my guess is that the guy was an actor - I didn't recognize him though. RJ stopped at a playground adjacent to the shoot to see some ducks and meet yet a pretty little girl to flirt with on the swings.Alas neither RJ nor I was "discovered" by a stray agent or director or anything. Heh.

Following our morning walk, RJ napped a little and then we checked out of the hotel and drove to check out the Santa Monica Pier, which is a nice little amusement park built on a Pier. I think in another few months, RJ will be begging to go on all the rides - but for now, he had to settle for Momma holding him on his first carousel ride. Sorry the pictures suck, I was holding him on the moving horse with one hand and trying to snap pictures with the other. At first he was a little scared by it, but soon discovered that it was a really fun thing to experience.

We headed to LA to time nap time for the car ride. As the traffic didn't suck as much as LA traffic is supposed to (it was 1:30pm), I had to drive around a little more so that he could get a long enough nap. The hotel had valet parking, so I couldn't really just park and let him sleep and then check in, so I drove around a little - saw a sign for Echo Park and set the GPS to find it. We parked there and then walked around Echo Lake and stopped at the playground, where he met yet another little girl - although this one was about 7 years old and basically took RJ all over the play structure, helping him with the stairs and everything. She was doing a really good job, so I just stayed nearby and let him play with her. We checked into the hotel and then met Daddy to grab dinner. RJ was a little rambunctious in the tiny hotel room, but found a number of ways to amuse himself. In addition to hiding in the closet and playing with an inflatable beach ball (great travel toy!), he also decided that he didn't need a playground to climb.

This video is not recommended for the faint of heart or for anyone with an anxiety disorder of any kind.




Then, on Tuesday, we checked out of the hotel, drove Daddy to DreamWorks, and then visited Griffith Observatory for the view. We didn't go into the planetarium or anything, but I would like to when RJ gets a little older. We hit Fred 62 in Los Feliz for lunch, but unfortunately didn't see anyone famous. I supposed I will have to hang out in Lauren Graham's neighborhood a little more if I ever plan on seeing her. Then we were back to Griffith Park to attempt a nap.

Needless to say, even with RJ's kick ass sleep tent, a nap in a park is not possible with a toddler. I managed to get RJ into the tent, but then he thought it was a game and tried to roll his tent down the hill. He nearly succeeded too. Anyway, we gave up on napping and played on the massive playground nearby instead. It is a boundless playground, meaning that the whole playground is meant to be safe, accessible, and enjoyable for children of all ages, including those with disabilities. RJ loved it - we were there for over an hour and he didn't even get to parts of it because he was digging the parts he was in so much. It was an incredibly designed playground for a toddler and I could see that even younger and older children alike were having a great time there!

Then we picked up Daddy and headed back home to Northern California.

RJ Goes to Santa Monica...

"All I wanna do is have some fun
I got a feeling I'm not the only one
All I wanna do is have some fun
Until the sun comes up over Santa Monica Boulevard..."
(Sheryl Crow, 1994)

On Sunday (August 10) Evening we drove up to Santa Monica and checked out the Third Street Promenade. If you're ever in Santa Monica, I would say skip the Third Street Promenade unless you're in a mood for shopping. It's an outdoor mall and most, if not all the stores can probably be found in your local mall or downtown area. But, it was a nice little walk in downtown Santa Monica.

We also took RJ to his park. Yes, there is a "Reed Park" in Santa Monica, and it just happened to be on the way toward dinner. Nothing special, it's really just a playground, but RJ is a much easier toddler to take around town if we let him out to play at strategic intervals!

Upon a recommendation off some random local mom's blog that came up when I googled "Kid Friendly things to do in Santa Monica", we ate some yummy mexican food at El Cholo. Not only was the food yummy (RJ dug the rice and beans, and even some of my seafood enchilada), but I also enjoyed my first margarita in over two years. I only finished a little over half (as I still had to nurse RJ at bedtime), but it was sooooo yummy!

RJ Goes to Venice Beach...

Within walking distance of our hotel in Marina Del Rey and just up the coast was Venice. On Sunday (August 10) morning we set out to find a cute cafe for breakfast and to see what we could see.

We stumbled upon Abbott's Habit for breakfast, where we discovered that RJ likes grapes. The one problem was that he really wanted to try the ball-like grapes too, not just the toddler-friendly 1/8ths. Don't worry though - we didn't let him put the whole grapes in his mouth!



Then we walked along the Ocean Front Walk (essentially a boardwalk of sorts). Lance and I got some LA-friendly sunglasses and we visited the Venice Beach Freak Show. See if you can spot the difference between this turtle and a normal turtle.Yep, that is a second head and yes, that turtle is living. Also among the live freaks were a five legged dog, which only walks on three legs, and a two headed snake. I worry a little about the welfare of these animals and hope that they're not being somehow bred for our entertainment, but it was interesting to see them just walking around living life.

We also took RJ to a playground at Muscle Beach Venice. Sadly, Muscle Beach Venice is NOT the Original Muscle Beach, but it was created in the spirit of the Original Muscle Beach. Wikipedia explains why there are two Muscle Beaches within miles of each other. It is pretty cool that there are gymnastics apparatuses and weight machines on the beach! I totally would've played on the gymnastics equipment had I not been wearing a skirt and we weren't already running dangerously close to having a late lunchtime for RJ.So after our cursory glance at Muscle Beach Venice, we continued our loop back to the hotel stopping for lunch at C&O Trattoria, which was recommended by a local we met the day before on the water taxi. It was a good recommendation! We sat outside and watched the people go by on the street.

We spent the rest of Sunday (after RJ's nap) in Santa Monica, which is just north of Marina Del Rey and Venice. The map from the Marina Del Rey post shows you the loop we walked in Venice, outlined in red.

RJ Goes to Marina Del Rey...

RJ and I recently took a trip down to Southern California to tag along with Lance when he attended a conference for DreamWorks. The conference was at the LA convention center on Monday August 11 (Koos' Birthday - Happy Birthday Koos!), but we spent the weekend before exploring the coastal area of Los Angeles County.

We started in Marina Del Rey where we walked around the Marina to Fisherman's Village, which is cute. RJ really enjoyed the live music. He just kept dancing and dancing.
He also enjoyed looking at the boats and as pictured here, riding in the water taxi!

The only low point was that we went to "Angler's Choice" for dinner. Apparently the Angler likes really bland food. I'm sorry, but how does any paid chef screw up a shrimp cocktail??? Defrosted frozen shrimp from the grocery store are better than the "fresh" shrimp cocktail we ordered. Usually, we're good about checking Yelp reviews prior to picking a restaurant while traveling. However, this time we were walking to Fisherman's Village and decided that such a place should be known for their good seafood restaurants. Maybe some of the other restaurants are good, but this one was not. Despite the not-so-good seafood, Fisherman's Village was a cute area and we enjoyed our walk around Marina Del Rey.

This map includes all the points of interest we hit during the whole trip. It also includes the walk we took around the marina, which is the blue line in the Southwest corner of the map.
View Larger Map

What do Journey and Hammer have in common....

Well, only time will tell if we made a colossal blunder or are market geniuses. On 08/08/08 we reached an agreement to buy RJ a house. We have an estimated close date for the first week of September.

Tracy,CA



The house is located in Tracy,CA -- the nearest neighboring town to where we are now. Our commutes will be nearly the same, but it does put us closer to the commuter train that goes to San Jose, the grocery stores, and everything else really.

Pro: 56th safest city in the country
Con: 2,560 miles from our closest relative

Perry vs. Hammer.

I can't decide who would make a better neighbor. Steve Perry, lead vocal for Journey or MC Hammer. Tough call.

Working hard to get my fill,
Everybody wants a thrill
Payin anything to roll the dice,
Just one more time
Some will win, some will lose
Some were born to sing the blues

I'm goin' for all that i can get
Kickin at the top cause I'm too legit to quit...sing!

Oh, yeah, we were talking about a house



Vital Statistics

2378 sq ft
4 bedrooms
2.5 bathrooms
hard wood floors
stainless steel kitchenaid appliances
around the corner from the park
elementary school district regarded as best in town

Deal or No Deal?

We got the house for 95% of asking price with the seller paying for closing costs, points, and home warranty. We also get that little tax credit from Uncle Sam.

We will be paying about 16% less than what the house sold for when it was originally built in 2003. That is about 53% off the peak price paid for another smaller house on the same street back in 2006.

We should also be able to rent it out at market rate and have a modest positive cash flow should we choose to move to a different neighborhood and not be able to sell.

So for now, we're just waiting to close.

RJ Goes to the Garlic Festival...

Do you know where your garlic comes from? Probably China actually, but you may be lucky enough to get some of the good domestic Gilroy,CA garlic.

The garlic festival attracts a 100,000+ crowd to the southern-most stop on Caltrain. It is a 90 minute drive from our place, and I kid you not, from more than 4 miles away up the highway, ac on, windows closed you could smell the garlic.The area's top chefs show up for the cooking competition that even airs on Food Network. We sampled garlic bread, garlic calamari, garlic pesto pasta, garlic pepper steak sandwich, garlic sausage sandwich, garlic marinated mushrooms, garlic chicken stir fry, garlic shrimp scampi, and of course topped it off with garlic ice cream. It sounds scary, but even RJ enjoyed it:

Vampires beware.

RJ Goes to Santa Cruz

We headed down to Santa Cruz to see the beach and the boardwalk and all the rumored "crazy people" that live there. On Friday (July 18) we arrived and got the lay of the land and found a good taqueria for dinner (Thank You Yelp!). RJ was enthralled with the parrot painted on the window there.

On Saturday we hit the main tourist spots.

We started at the Mystery Spot, where the laws of physics check themselves at the entrance gate. I would show you pictures of RJ standing at a slant but, no lie, our camera refused to work while we were at the Mystery Spot. Zoinks.

Moments upon leaving, the camera magically started working again, so that you can enjoy some pictures of the foggy morning at Natural Bridges State Park.

Then we met up with some of the local color in the form of the Kempos (also known as Laura Rosensteel and her hubby Jesse). See what we mean about Santa Cruz attracting "Crazy People"

[Okay the scary part is that I realized that this picture (from Sophomore year Spring Break in Cancun) will be a decade old come Spring Break season...man we're all old now. ]

Laura was still in shock and disbelief that we have a kid. While walking downtown we also were approached by a shabbily dressed gentleman selling a book and childcare. We'll keep that in mind for next time.

We had a very very very yummy lunch at Chocolate, which was just as scrumptious as a restaurant named Chocolate should be! Three cheers for the Chocolate Orgy platter.

Then we hit the boardwalk and let RJ get his feet in the Pacific for the first time, and headed home.

Adios DamnedPump!

I have been breastfeeding RJ for over a year. Given how demanding work has been, I am damn proud of myself for surpassing my goal of breastfeeding for a year. I had at one time a grand idea of letting RJ dictate the weaning schedule, but given how rough this past school year was with pumping and nursing between classes and meetings, which were never at the same time every day, I wanted to ensure that I wouldn't be nursing RJ during the day when the Fall Semester starts. So, I gave the weaning process a little nudge.

Before weaning, here was our nursing schedule:

Pump for freezer/bottles 5am
Wake 6:30
Snack 9:00
Naptime 1:00
Snack 4:00
Bedtime 7/7:30

When school was in session, I was pumping in place of the 9:00 (and also at the 5am pump), but nursing on the weekends. Since June, I have been nursing for the 9:00, but I kept pumping knowing that I would need the supply of pumped milk in order to mix with whole milk when I started weaning.

The goal is to drop the 9:00, 1:00, and 4:00 feedings, but keep the wake-time and bedtime feedings for as long as RJ wants. To do this, I'm using a "don't offer, don't refuse" approach, dropping one feeding at a time. In early July, I started mixing pumped breast milk with whole milk in a sippy cup. For two days, RJ drank 5oz. breast milk mixed with 1 oz. whole milk, which we reduced by an ounce of breast milk every two days until he was drinking 6 oz of whole milk out of a sippy. The first feeding I dropped was his naptime nursing, because of it's close proximity to lunch anyway. Also, dropping this feeding gave me a big chunk of time when I could drive down to campus on my babysitter days. RJ responded wonderfully and didn't ask to nurse at that time at all. There was one time that he wanted to nurse an extra time in the afternoon, but it was the exception rather than the rule. As you can see from this picture, he is a fan of his sippy cups and even plucked this one out of the fridge when I had opened it to get something else!

We are amassing quite the arsenal of sippy cups free of BPA and Phlalates and PVC. We have 2 Klean Kanteens, 1 Born Free Soft-Spout Trainer, 1 Foogo Sippy, 1 Think Baby Trainer, 1 Boon Fluid, and 1 Nuby Easy Grip Sippy. RJ is not as fond of the Nuby as he is of the rest. Seems like he knows which one is the cheap one already. In terms of leak-proof ness - The Foogo and Klean Kanteen are the best and the Born Free is the leakiest. Now if only we could get RJ's chin to stop leaking, we'd be in good shape! Next on the acquisition list is the "Safe Sippy"

Since the first reduction went so well, we only waited a few days to start the process with his 9:00 am nursing, which allowed us to get moving quicker when we wanted to go into the city or whatever. This worked out quite well when Sully was here and we were going into town a lot.

We're down to three times a day now - when he wakes up, when he wakes up from his afternoon nap, and at bedtime. I'm going to hold steady for a little while and drop his post-afternoon nap feeding just before our 5th anniversary next month, so that we can spend the whole day just as a couple.

RJ seems to have responded to this quite well. Every once and a while, he'll come up and lift up my shirt (his personal, very obvious, baby sign for "I want the boobs"), and I indulge him. It hasn't happened often - maybe 3 times total in the last month, so I think he was ready for weaning anyway. After all, many of his feedings were very active, wiggly toddler feedings, so I'm not convinced he was getting a whole lot. What I have noticed is that he nurses a lot better now that we're not nursing so often.

My favorite thing about daytime weaning is bidding adieu to my not-so-good friend, DamnedPump. Now that there is only one more feeding left to drop, and I have a freezer full of breast milk due to my continued daily pumping, I decided that it was time to stop waking up at 5am to pump. I hated pumping and it was never easy for me, as I had to pump at least twice, most of the time 3 times for every one feeding I missed, with the exception of my first pump of the day. (I shudder to think what would've been had I not had a good Medela pump!) I only kept up pumping first thing in the morning because I wanted to make sure that I still could pump, so that I wouldn't have to give RJ formula. I know it wouldn't have hurt him, but breast milk is better for him and I abhor the smell of formula. But now that RJ is old enough not to "need" breast milk, I am going to let the supply of frozen milk dwindle as he drops the 4pm feeding and give him sippy cups of breast milk if I'm ever not around for bedtime (which will happen about 6 times during the fall semester when I have a night class that I have to teach- urgh!) After it's gone, he'll get a cup of whole milk if I'm not there.

So Adios DamnedPump! I'll probably see you again someday when baby #2 needs milk (No, I'm not pregnant. Don't get all excited, Mom!)

By the end of the summer, RJ will be nursing only when he first wakes up and right before he goes to sleep at night. We plan on continuing as long as he wants to. We both still enjoy it and it's still good for him so I am not going to nudge him to keep it up or to stop. If he's still nursing and I get pregnant again or you know, he's still nursing in kindergarten, then maybe I'll think about nudging him toward weaning those feedings. But for now, there are still some daily boobies in RJ's life.

The Mortgage Mess: July Update...

Testing the Waters

It has been awhile since we first found out about the foreclosure. Since our last update we've been looking at houses and doing some research. I thought about going ahead and getting a real estate license for a little while there. Our goal simply put:

rent >= mortgage interest payment + property taxes + homeowners insurance + error

It has been getting pretty close to balancing out, but not unsurprisingly, anything approaching that equation is getting multiple offers. We just looked at a house that has 12 offers already and it has only been on the market for a week. I suspect it is the same dozen people bidding on the few cheapest foreclosures while many others are ignored. We looked at another house this morning that was listing higher but had zero offers and was just as nice.

Notice to Quit

We've been put on notice so we're now officially squatters.

NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that ... (ii) within sixty (60) days after service on you of this Notice in the event you are a tenant or subtenant of the property, and not one of the owners of the property, you are required to quit and deliver up possession of the premises...

We believe the sale happened around July 14, so we actually got a little extra time. Our property manager is returning our security deposit and rent as of the date of the sale. The bank is offering "cash-for-keys" meaning that if we leave in 3 weeks they'll give us a check toward moving expenses.

The silly thing is that

rent > cash for keys

It would cost us more to rent a place for a month than what they are offering us to move out a month earlier. We probably won't wait until the last minute to get out since we want to be settled before the fall semester begins anyway (and I don't necessarily want to meet the local sheriff).

Missed the Mortgage Rate Minimum

Rates have been going up. A recent New York Times article points out rates have hit their five year high. At first I thought this was a missed opportunity for us, but maybe it isn't so bad. The rate increase makes the monthly payment jump $194/mo.

$300,000 @ 5.70 = $1741/mo

$300,000 @ 6.70 = $1935/mo

$270,000 @ 6.70 = $1742/mo

If we assume that the rate increases pushes other buyers out of that price range then the asking price of the house should go down too. The $1741/mo mortgage at current rate translates to a $270,000 home rather than $300,000.

Since we're the saving and pay down debt type, the lower house price is actually a better deal for us.

$270,000 @ 6.70 => $1942/mo = 23 years
$300,000 @ 5.70 => $1942/mo = 24 years

It will just be a question of whether prices will actually dip that much in our timeframe. The housing package passed this week should also help us out:

"The bill includes $15 billion in housing tax breaks, including a credit of up to $7,500 for first-time home buyers who purchase between April 9, 2008, and July 1, 2009"

The traditional home buying season will be wrapping up soon so there are a number of indicators pushing us in the direction of closing a deal soon. We have a couple informal offers out there now so we'll have to see what happens.

Besens, Bubbles, and Bop, Oh My!

Akin to the drought that California is experiencing, we have also experienced a drought of a different kind: A drought of visitors! And then on July 12, like the old adage, when it rains, it pours, we had a house guest and other friends visiting the area!

Bop

Mr. David Sullivan is a man of many names. Others might call him Dave, but we typically call him Sully or Sully-Bot, or sometimes just Bot. RJ caught on and his name for Sully is now "Bop".

When "Bop" was here, we visited Alum Rock park near San Jose, where the most recent felt earthquake (Oct 30, 2007) was epicentered. Here "Bop" taught RJ to play football.


We also spent two days exploring San Francisco. On the first day, we had Dim Sum and walked around Chinatown, walked through Fisherman's Wharf and Ghiardelli Square, where we enjoyed the free chocolate-peanut butter squares, and then walked back through North Beach where we introduced Sully to the garlic laden delicacies at The Stinking Rose. The second day in SF was not as well choreographed, but both Sully and I got a good workout walking up an inordinate amount of hills as we walked from Fisherman's Wharf where we had lunch at Boudin Sourdough, then up and around Fort Mason, through Marina, and then weaved around the edge of the Presidio and through the Richmond District until we ended up in Golden Gate Park. This was quite the walk - about 8 miles of weaving and going uphill and then downhill. Then we had an adventure taking RJ on his first muni bus. RJ met lots of interesting people, including one amputee who was friendly with him. Unfortunately, when the amputee was getting off the bus, at the time we were thinking of getting off the bus, he bumped this fat guy standing there. I had stood up with RJ just after the amputee passed us and I was standing behind the fat guy, who shoved the amputee, who shoved back and luckily RJ and I stayed in an upright position despite the shoving match right in front of us! Apparently I haven't lost my sense of balance! Then RJ and Sully got their first cable car ride back to Fisherman's Wharf to pick up the car so that we could pick up Lance at work.

This is Sully and RJ at Fort Mason:


On one of the other days, I took Sully and RJ to Berkeley, where we went up Indian Rock, had lunch at Barney's Burgers (which is similar, but not as good as, Mr. Bartley's in Harvard Square). In fact, the onion rings at Barney's were actually pretty sucky, which was a downer if you're expecting Mr. Bartley's quality onion rings. We then went to UC Berkeley to check out the tree people, and we missed one of them descending by only a couple of hours!

On Sully's last day, we took a morning drive to Half Moon Bay where it was freezing cold even while wearing jeans and hoodies (the San Francisco Bay area uniform). Despite the frigid temps (it was probably like 55 degrees), hot blooded "Bop" refused to wear a sweatshirt. RJ had some fun blowing bubbles, which is his new favorite thing to do and say.

We then met up with Lance for (free) lunch at DreamWorks before driving "Bop" to the airport. Thanks for visiting Sully-Bop! We miss you already.

Bubbles

RJ has always liked bubbles, but for some reason this week his love of bubbles prompted him to speak the word bubbles pretty much non-stop. He also made the connection between the bubbles bottle (both the green and blue bottles!) and the bubbles that can be made from the stuff inside said bottle. This is no baby-talk word either. It comes out clear as a bell! So everywhere we went, RJ kept asking for bubbles. In the car, at the beach, in the stroller, etc. Clearly the word of the week was, "bubbles".


Besens


Adam Besen is one of Lance's fraternity brothers who lives in Colorado with his wife, Erica, and his 15 month old daughter, Audrey. He brought his family into town on a semi-annual business trip to Google's main campus in Mountain View. The arrived on the same day as Sully and we all met up for dinner that night. As you can see here, RJ and Audrey were fast friends, and they have a similar penchant for KDR's "Princeton Orange" in their stroller fashion.
By the next day, they were hugging in Chinatown!

Click here for more pictures of our fun-filled week!

RJ's First Fireworks Display

For Independence Day, Lance, RJ, and I ventured up to what is described as the "largest show West of the Mississippi". We realize that it was not RJ's first Independence Day, it WAS his first fireworks display because, well, we were exhausted by his newbornliness last year.

We snagged a piece of sand on the public beach in South Lake Tahoe to hang out for a few hours before the show started (it was getting crowded fast). It's weird that we're wearing sweatshirts and jeans on a beach on July 4, but Lake Tahoe is an alpine lake with a surface elevation of over 6000 ft, so it gets cold at night! During this time, RJ found a stray beach ball and tried to walk all over the place kicking it and carrying it. He even shared the stray ball with a new friend named TJ who was a month older than him!


The real fun was trying to contain him on our blanket when it started to get dark - he was a bit active, as you will see in the video. He was VERY overtired since he was staying up WAY past his bedtime. However, the fireworks seemed to make him calmer, because once they started and he noticed them, he settled down in my lap and just watched. He was not scared one bit, probably because the fireworks weren't very loud since they we launched from a barge quite a bit offshore.




The next day we drove around Emerald Bay, looking for a parking spot at a trail head, but due to holiday weekend crowdedness, none were to be found. We did get a few nice pictures of Emerald Bay though. We gave up our search of a good trail to hike and instead found parking at a beach. RJ and I braved the chilly waters of the lake and played on the sand. RJ made friends with some boys who dug a big hole filled with water and some other children who were making "soup" with the sand.

I think we'll have to return to Lake Tahoe when it is not a holiday weekend so that we can enjoy more of the natural splendor of the region.