alleymon It’s been a while since I updated the webpage. I blame it on Facebook. Okay, It’s my fault, but my family and friends actually see those updates. So, what did we do all summer?
- We’ll start with Branden’s Little League disasterous season. First the good news, Branden’s team wasn’t the Yankees or the Red Sox… He was a Padre, which is a perfectly acceptable team. The bad news is that they didn’t win a single game. They came close and made a game of it a couple of times but no wins. Branden held up okay, there were definitely days when he did not want to play, but he always did his best.
- We finally got a handle on Bailey’s skin problems. A dermatologist at Irvine Medical Center confirmed a diagnosis of dyshidrotic excema and prescribed a very strong steroid ointment for treatment. On our own, through use of the “Elimination Diet” we discovered that Wheat Gluten was a trigger for the breakouts resulting in huge water blisters. The guidelines said that you should add one food back that you expect may be causing the issue (or whatever the patient misses the most). Symptoms should occur in the first 3 days. What do you know? 3 days went by and blisters came up after we added bread. We immediately stopped any Wheat product and they went away.
- We took a day trip to Catalina Island and had lots of fun driving around in a golf cart. I showed the kids my old haunts and told some stories (Just the benign ones.) We had lunch at the boat docks, fish and chips. The kids loved the boat ride and the seas were very calm. We were greeted by Chris Saldaña at the mole. I also spotted Marco’s boat pulling in with his catch, a 207lb swordfish. We were only able to talk for a few minutes since our boat was boarding shortly and he was busy weighing and selling his fish.
- We took the kids to Sea World and had a great time. We hit all the shows, the Pets show, the Sealion show, the Dolphin show and Shamu. The ride, Atlantis, was shut down right when we wanted to ride so we missed that. Bailey’s favorite thing was touching the Bat Rays.
- Stacy and I went for a long weekend to Morro Bay, without the kids, for our 16th anniversary. We stayed at the Anderson Inn and our balcony was right over the water. We visited Hearst Castle. We wandered around Morro Bay and shopped. We also went kayaking on our last day there. We spent a lot of time just relaxing in the room.
- I had a business trip to Mountain View, CA and had enough time on Sunday to drive with coworkers to Santa Cruz and have dinner and sit on the beach for a while.
- I started building a room in the garage, an office for Stacy and I so we can reclaim the family room. We’re almost done too! Just paint and carpet left to do before moving in.
- We incinerated two Tri-Tips during the summer, damaging the barbecue beyond inexpensive repair. So we went barbecue shopping and decided to buy one that doesn’t cook with direct flame, but by radiant heat. It cooks really well and is easier to clean. The burners never get grease on them and there’s only a U shaped pan (the one that radiates all the heat) to clean out. The grease from the first Tri-Tip did flare up and catch fire, but a little water put out the flames, no damage to the Tri-Tip and putting the meat over part that wasn’t lit solved that issue.
- We had some friends over for a barbecue and get together and had a great time.
- Stacy was able to take the kids to the beach with another family a number of times during the summer. I was only able to make it once.
- Stacy’s Dad and Juanita visited and we went wine tasting. We had such a good time and actually found some wine we liked. Stacy and I went back to South Coast Winery for lunch on our actual anniversary and bought a case of that wine 🙂
- We went to 2 Angels games, one early in the season, we lost. One just today, we won!!!
- We were also able to visit a couple of times this summer with family and once, even Wendy made it all the way from Boston!
Well, I think we’re all caught up. It was a busy summer with lots of fun stuff going on. July started off very HOT but then we were surprised with a very mild 6 weeks or so. Of course now it’s really HOT again and we’re glad we saved some of our tax return for the electric bill which topped out at over $700.00 for the July bill!!! I HATE Southern California Edison’s tiered billing! They need to take into consideration the excessive heat and the need for cooling when they baseline months. It is counter intuitive to any other costing. If I were to purchase anything else in bulk it would cost me less per unit. Electricity is the only thing that costs more! Okay, enough of my price gouging rant.
We hope you all had a great summer too!
