july 4th

its now final - part of the anstis clan is coming down to the new digs for july 4th weekend. so this weekend we're going to be busting our @$$%$ to get the pad ready. actually there isn't a whole lot to do necessarily - i just need to finish that fence, mow, etc. i need to move a bunch of old furniture out of the garage as well (anybody want a couch or 2? how about a coffee table?). i finally got our bikes hanging from the ceiling in there, so that's cool. hey, it'll all get done at some point...

kalel

here's the latest sonogram of kalel (since steve named our last fetus koleel, i figured kalel would be a good choice for the new baby. for all you superhero nerds out there, kalel was superman's krypton name). we're praying that he waits a little longer than gavs did to make a break for it. actually cindy's been getting sonograms more often with this baby so that they can possibly take some sort of action to keep him in there longer if it looks like he might be ready to come out early. stay tuned...

weed and feed my @$$

so i weeded and feeded the other day and there sure seemed to be alot more "weed" in the equation than "feed." that stuff is supposed to make your grass all green and stuff in 24 hours, and all it did was make mine look all burnt up. which leads me to believe that perhaps our entire front lawn is weeds. man, are we in trouble.

happy belated father's day to all the fathers in the family...

Aww...the best daddy in the world! 

Happy Father's Day! 

fresh berries from the farmers market... 

gavs is saying hi to the new baby... 

our dining room table came! i'll post some pics soon...

no suburban home is complete without a hoop! 

here's the (partially completed) fence. as you can see, i had to do it picket by picket, since home depot and loews have all these 42" panels on display outside but don't actually carry them in stock (which is always really helpful). obviously the old, grey, crummy part is the old part, and the new, brownish, crummy part is the new part. it did an excellent job of keeping the dogs in until they dug a hole under the OTHER fence between our house and the neighbors [sigh]. oh well. those things would run through a firing squad to get to that cat food... 

gavs after a long day at the galleria...a real trooper... 

kayla killed a possum this morning. very pleasant scene to wake up to. i had just stepped out of the shower when i heard her barking incessantly. i didn't want her waking up the neighbors, so i went out there to tell her to shut up when i saw the wretched rodent laying there on the ground. actually i'm not sure she killed it, but i'm assuming she did since she kept picking it up and shaking it. the really wierd thing is that when we got home tonight, the possum's body was outside the fence - and Kayla can't get out. so who put it there? wierd... 

another view... 

we had some requests to see the outside of the house, so here it is. the lawn in the front is in sort of a sad state of affairs, but its starting to grow in pretty well. we're kind of spoiled, because at our last house we had a whole yard of very hearty st. augustine, and by the time july rolled around the sun and the rain got it to where it was as thick and full as a shag rug. we've got a bit of st. augustine at this house but its only about 1/3 of the yard, so maybe we can get it to spread with some weed and feed and some tlc.

playing computer on daddy's laptop (he's actually a better programmer than i am). now that i think about it, replace the words "playing computer on" with "breaking/pounding/smashing/tasting" and you probably have a more accurate caption...

gavs loves playing with his popcorn popper thingy... 

i just spent the whole day working on the fence in our backyard. yesterday i awoke to a plea from cindy to go get the dogs. apparently after she let them out, they slipped through the fence and proceeded to attack our neighbors across the street in their own yard. after an awkward 5 minute conversation, i got them inside and vowed to fix the fence this weekend. now, 24 hours and a horrific sunburn later, i'm almost done (some of the old panels are still out there, but at least all the holes are patched). pics to come...

this is a kind of crummy pic of our formal living room - or, as we like to refer to it, our "africa room." we found that zebra skin ottoman and really liked it, and decided to just go with it and use the room to display various knick knacks cindy had collected from south africa, as well as other donations from her family's collection. we're planning a photo montage from her dad's collection of photos from africa as well, we'll keep you posted. he has some cool stuff - drawings, photos of wild animals etc. we're real excited about how this room is going to turn out.
 

this is gavs watching tv in the den with his cousins on saturday. they came over to hang out with us and we all watched the incredibles. actually at this point i think they were watching the spongebob squarepants movie for like, the 4th time (thank you, directv all day ticket). 

so here are some pics, finally. although i guess i'm being a bit hard on myself, since this blg is only a week or so old. in any case, since i'm trying to stay disciplined and post here once a day (or reasonably close to once a day), here we go...
 

Musings

its lunch time, and i'm starving. i'm not sure what to eat, though. chris and i were here pretty late last night doing some of the final touch-up stuff on our offices before our open house and chamber of commerce ribbon cutting on June 17th. and all i ate before i came back out here was a BLT.

i am in desperate need of a desk in my home office, but i really want to hold out for something cool. i'm thinking about getting something like this and putting a new desktop on it. problem is its pretty heavy and would probably cost a fortune to ship. hmm...