We had a fun 4th of July neighborhood BBQ today. Lots of food, good conversation, and kids running up and down the block. And then when the sun went down, of course it was time to take some fireworks pictures. I didn’t actually go over to the freedom fest, as I can see the firework pretty good from the balcony on the back of our on-post housing. I pretty...

We finally broke down and got new smart phones from t-mobile. Ana has had her heart set on the mytouch 3g slide ever since she saw that silly commercial on the tv about being able to talk your text messages. As for me, I really wanted to wait until the new Samsung Vibrant comes out later this month, but in the end I just didn’t have enough patience. Plus,...

This was originally posted last year (2009), but as I’m getting my tripod out, and charging up my camera batteries in preparation for tomorrow, I thought it might be appropriate to bring it back to the front page of the blog. I hope you find it helpful. With the 4th of July Holiday coming tomorrow, I bet quite a few people are planning to go out and try to...

Tuesday was Jasmine’s 8th birthday. We didn’t have a huge party this year. It was pretty much just family, and a few of her friends. The “non-party” started when I got from from work that afternoon. I’d stopped by the Anthony’s Pizza over at the Fort Hood PX, and took advantage of their 3 large one-topping pizzas for $21...

The other evening, the girls convinced me to go sit with them at the little playground behind our house, so that Jaiden could come … Jasmine is there pretty much every day. Jaiden is really hitting her 2 year old “independent” streak at a full running pace … especially when it comes to her big sister … she thinks that anything Jasmine...

We downgraded pools in our backyard last week. It’s not like the other one was huge or extravagant, but it did still require a bit of regular maintenance … which in the end, turned out to be too much, in proportion to the amount of people who were NOT swimming in it. I got in a couple of times with the girls, and we all frolicked around for an hour or...

Jaiden loves bananas. Actually, come to think of it, just about everybody I know loves bananas. In fact, I bet if you were to take a survey bananas would probably be most people’s “favorite” fruit … in much the same way that corn tends to be people’s default vegetable. Like most folks, we usually eat bananas in the morning, chopped...