We had a good christmas

Christmas worked out pretty good for us. It was a nice quiet day really. Katya seemed to like all of her gifts, which was good. I think her favorite was the chair we bought for her. She has been sitting in her little chair all the time when we have been home. We're going to Karen's for new years eve.

I love this night....

I love Christmas Eve, especially since Katya came home. Tonight Rain took Katya to see my mom sing at church. I took advantage of the time and played Santa's helper. I have stuff stashed all over the house so it will be easier to get it out later after Katya is sleeping. The attic (which is where we stash most of the gifts) stairs are right in front of Katya's bedroom door, and there is always a chance that she will wake up while we are getting everything out. This way, everything is much more accessible than it has been in the past. I love wrapping al the stuff up, but what I really love is putting it all around the tree and then sleeping in on Christmas day. Last year Katya went out to the living room then came back to the bedroom to wake us up and tell us that Santa had been there. To me, it is moments like that which make parenting all worthwhile.

Stupid people

I find it absolutely amazing the number of people who will get in their car first thing in the morning and without cleaning the frost off of the windows drive down the road. This morning I saw 3 cars where they either only wiped enough off the window to see directly in front of them (not the whole windshield) or the defroster was just starting to thaw the windshield out, like the bottom 4 inches of it. Don't these people realize how dangerous it is do drive like that?

New web host

If you have the website bookmarked, please make sure that your bookmarks point to www.irvinefamily.org. I moved the web site to a new server this morning and the old direct URL will be going offline soon.

New car for Rain?

Well it looks like after a new battery and heater core hose Rain will have an (almost) new car. This will be a good thing since her car has over 209,000 miles on it. I am trying to get caught up on copying home movies from camcorder and vcr tapes to DVD. It is a painstaking process, but I am definitely making some progress with it. yay!!

I'm not happy

I just had to uninstall internet explorer 7 because my version of roxio has issues with it... :-( I guess I will just have to get the new version.

Mobile Trillian

I finally think I got it working... I have a copy of trillian set up so that it runs off of a memory stick and does not need to be installed. It's kind of a neat concept really. I can plug in the memory stick into any computer and talk to my friends...

mobile trillian

I finally think I got it working... I have a copy of trillian set up so that it runs off of a memory stick and does not need to be installed. It's kind of a neat concept really. I can plug in the memory stick into any computer and talk to my friends...

Website was down

Last night the website went down due to a server crash. I rebooted the server this morning and all is well again.

Our little girl is getting so big!

This mornign Katya grabbed a glass from the cabinet without using a stool.
The cabinets that we have has a shelf below the main cabinet where we store
the glasses. She can reach all the way back and get a glass all by herself
now. It is hard to believe that she is getting so big!

Earthquake!

Yup, that's right folks.. Yesterday afternoon I was sitting at my desk at
work and I felt the whole building shake. I'd say it was probably a 2 on the
Richter scale. It was kind of freaky, NJ isn't exactly known for
earthquakes.

Brr!

Well, it has been BRR! cold the last couple of days. I rode the bike to work both days and it was right around 20F outside. With wind chill that puts it at about -22F. The Hippo Hands make a big difference, though with my current gloves I wouldn't want to go more than about 15 miles. The windshield makes a huge difference. I am still only wearing 1 polar fleece, where last year I needed 2 to keep warm at these temps.

House Cleaning

We have been working on cleaning out the basement lately and I am finally starting to see the results. There are still piles of stuff in a few areas but the baswement is much more open than it has been in a long while. We've either given away or thrown away a considerable amoutn of stuff in the last few weeks. I hope to have the laundry area organized better sometime in the near future, which will be a big help. It is amazing how much crap you can accumulate in 8 years.

25 days till xmas

I guess I should start my holiday shopping now. I hate the crowds right after thanksgiving. I think I might take a day off of work to go shopping, that would probably be easier.