Testing a little banner

I'll post some pictures and maybe a video later today, right now I'm just testing this little banner thingie.



~me

Oh, a realtor called me on Friday, I did a mortgage "interview" online at lendingtree.com and he got my details from there. He's coming by today to talk turkey, says he's got a family looking for exactly what we've got (our house) and might be ready to make a deal (pending that they like the house, location, etc...) SO, hopes are high, lol, it could be that we sell the house, and get what we want from the sale, without even putting it up on the market!

I'll keep you posted.

It's Friday.

Hey, how's everyone doing here?

We've (my work) started this new website that rates companies... www.zipingo.com ...

How about all of you (both of you that read this blog) go to http://www.zipingo.com/jetspeed/portal/home.psml and log in as me and rate some companies. There's a bunch of contests going on here at work with this, I cna even win an iPod.

Log in as iamclavo
use the email iamclavo@hotmail.com
zip code: 85629

and rate a bunch of companies for me, I'd REALLY appreciate it!! I just did it and it's a pain in the butt, so I understand if you don't do more than one. Thanks though.

forgot...

I forgot to mention that we've been getting rain, although official monsoon season hasn't started, we've been getting frequent showers. We do also get the wind gusts that are anywhere from 50 - 60 mph, it's like a mini-hurricane. The downspouts on the gutters came off the house the other day, and the cages that I have to put on the landscaping all blew off as well. The bunnies are having a feast on our rosebushes.

It's Thursday, welcome back!

Good morning everyone~ (all three of you that read this) ~how's it going? I'm having a fabulous day so far. Work, work, and just for fun, I'll throw in a bit more WORK. yeah...

Ok, sarcasm aside, things are going well, kids are doing good, and the wife is hot. I didn't go to class yesterday, I seem to have pulled a muscle (or stretched a tendon?)or something in my inside right leg which makes jiu jitsu very hard. I do plan on running today just to see where I'm at. I'll let you know (hehe). For some reason, today the move (to Atlanta) seems more visceral, not sure why, but it just does. I moved some more stuff out of my closet last night, as well as cleaning off another bookcase in the master bedroom. I did however annoy my wife by "stacking" some books on her nightstand and putting the bookcases and a box of stuff in the hallway (which is a designated "no stacking zone"). I'll get to them tonight hopefully.

The realtor emailed me again yesterday, I responded with my list of demands for the new house, we'll see if I get a response. I think that I'm going to try to start (yes, actually start!) taking some pictures of the inside (and possibly outside) of the house this afternoon. I really need to get the FSBO sign and flyer out. (for sale by owner).

For your amusement, here's some landscape pictures from around the house. Hopefully I'll be able to post some of the "for sale" pictures in the next couple of days.

Lots of love,

me

wesley's cactus, it's got to be 25 feet tall or so

out in our front yard, that's "wesley's cactus"

from the front porch, looking west-south-west, just another landscape

from the back porch, looking west that's elephant head national monument

from the front porch, santa rita mountains (snow covered)

from the back porch, looking at the santa rita mountains

off the back porch, sunset through the mesquite tree

from the front porch at dawn

Thursday, relief in sight

For those of you that can read spanish (and for those that can't) the school that I train at was written up in a local hispanic newspaper. Check it out: Writeup.

The Florida fire is about 11 or so miles directly South of us, it's rather spectacular looking at night and very, very smoky during the day. Some of the people that live there have been evacuated, so far, we're not in any danger but you never know...lets hope the Monsoons start sometime soon to help out the firefighters (and my landscaping!). It's been 100 degrees or hotter for 31 days in a row now...we're closing in on a record.

Enough of local news. It was our 4 year anniversary yesterday, wow, that went quick (slow?!) We're celebrating this weekend by going out to dinner (MAYBE without kids, we'll see how the little one does with the bottle...)

I've uploaded some movies of the kids to my online database, here's some links:

Kylee (1.2 megs)

Jadyn getting spun around (5 megs)

Kids up close (6 megs)

I haven't gotten any comments on any posts yet...is anyone looking at this blog?

Tuesday morning, rather random

Good morning,
I'm feeling rather random today, this blogging isn't as easy to do as I thought it would be. But, I've got some few thousand pictures on my hard drive, and I like uploading them, so here's some random shots that I've taken.

Enjoy.

Wes sleeping with the herd of cats

Sylvia cat, we'll miss you.

Tubac, AZ entrance to a bar, my grandfather and my mom and her husband

Horse

Stef, Kylee, Stef's dad and his wife

one of the local prairie dogs (I call 'em "fatboys") up in a creosote bush

Self

at the zoo, Wes and Kylee

3rd birthday party at the park, still Spiderman

my Nan, my Dad, my son Wes, my sister Katharine, my wife Stephanie and my oldest daughter Kylee

Sunset through the Mesquite tree out back

Lilly?

Nice color

Monday morning

Picked Carolyn up from the airport on Saturday, she's here for a few days (Stef's mother) to help out.

Sylvia (the fat black and white cat) isn't doing too well, liver failure, we're going to have to put her down today or tomorrow. Sad days.

Here's a quick video made up of some still pictures that shows a "triangle choke", that's me applying it to the other guy that got promoted the same day as me.

Triangle Choke

Seacrest Out!

Latest jiu-jitsu update

After class, got my first stripe today white belt - one stripe.

lol, such a long way to go yet.

good week of training, I only tapped out once this week, that was to an armbar, I just couldn't get my elbow past his hips to break it, got tired out and extended, damn.

I got several taps this week though, even got my first oma-plata and almost, ALMOST tapped a 3 stripe blue belt with a kimura transition to armbar, but he was too damn strong and I couldn't extend the arm.

ahh well, it's all good, except that I hate getting trapped in sidemount, it confounds the heck out of me.

.....

little by little, that belt is turning black

Made it...again

Another week @ work, yippiee.
:-/

We got our first real rain of the year last night. It was appropriately about 30 minutes after I put some random computer stuff out on the front porch to go to goodwill. It seemed like a quickie monsoon, but no winds. The weatherman broke into BigBrother to warn us of IMPENDING rain...sheesh, like we've never had rain before. It was nice though, a welcome relief from the heat.

Stef took the kids to the Wildlife Museum again yesterday. They have quite the good time when they go, I know because Wesley tells me all about it when I get home. I haven't been yet. I've been here in AZ for a bit over 11 years and I haven't gone...BAD jim!

Class again this morning, I brought my video camera and tripod to get a video of myself training. It's good for me to watch myself in order to see things that I need to work on. Enough about that. I had to keep rambling since my mother took the time to check this blog out, HI MOM! :-)

Kylee is such a character, hehe. She'll tell you "I BANG!" (which means she's going to hit you with something)...then when you tell her, "no banging Ky..", she says "I BONK" (which means that she's going to head butt you). Of course we tell her "no bonking", but that just means that she's promptly saying "KICK" and sticking her foot out. It is quite hillarious when she does that, it's almost like her little game. "No kicking Ky"...but then immediately she goes into "HIT" and doing her little punching motion...and immediately following it up with "I HUGGIN'" while throwing down a big hug on you. Very cute.

Well, we've had Jadyn day, Kylee day, today is Wesley day for pictures. Here goes!

We love frozen fruit on a stick!!!

SUPER HERO!

OMG, what happened to your hair??!!

Little Guy

UP CLOSE! Look at those eyes!

Slipping one or two of Kylee in

Cute Wes

SPIDERMAN@!!

Spiderman suit, first time putting it on, and still wears it (tries to anyway)

Wes is a ham early on

Early Wes

I don't remember Wes being this chunky

Got Milk?

look how big I am

I know that I've had favorite pictures already posted, but here's yet another. My favorite boy and my wonderful wife.

Daddy is so funny!!

Hey, I'm almost crawling!

Jadyn on 4th or July (or thereabouts)

Jadyn right around 5 months as well

Jadyn at 5 months

Some more pictures and Gam-Ma is coming soon.

Good morning!
I'm working from home this morning before I go to jiu-jitsu class. Thought I'd put up some pictures of Kylee today, I'll make it a Kylee themed day for pictures.

Stef's mom is coming to visit this Saturday, she's such a big help when she comes that I just hardly can't wait till she gets here!! I'll also be able to get some more work done while she's here. I've got boxes and boxes of things that need to get moved out to the shed, and lots of pictures to take of the house in order to get a flyer made for a FSBO (for sale by owner) for the house to get sold.

On a slightly unrelated note, the weatherman said that it will be ridiculously hot today, which means about 108 degrees...gah.

So, here's some pics.

I'm sooo cute!

Big smiles

Nice hair Ky

So sweet

Hi Kylee!

Mitzelplick...

It is what it is.

One thing that doesn't seem to change is the beginning of the work-week, I still don't like it (actually, I don't like any part of it at all...)

The weekend was great, took some pictures, spent a lot of time with the kids and my wife, it was a good time all in all. Oh yeah, Jadyn's on the move now. She's still doing the army crawl, but can ~almost~ crawl properly, she starts out crawling, but usually falls on her face just as she gets going. Which means that in a day or two she'll be crawling for sure. Wesley is talking up a storm, he's got a very funny personality and (like other kids) enjoys pushing the limits...on everything. Kylee is going through the no clothes phase, and just this morning not only took off all of her own clothes, but disrobed Jadyn as well! This should be an interesting ride...LOL!

Here's some of the pictures:

All the kids, and no fighting or crying!!

Biggest booger you ever did see!!!