My Nook Case

I made this following some tutorial I found online. I didn't want to spend $30 on a case, so I tried this, and it turned out surprisingly well. I chose Pontoon because I love how it looks, but it was sad to gut it like that, so if anyone has an extra copy, I'll take it :-)

Awesomes Christmas Ever?

The fact that so many people gave me so many awesome presents makes me feel really bad because I didn't buy anything for anybody, except the kids. It's true that we're more broke than we've ever been, but I also decided that we shouldn't worry, since we drew names with Geoff, so that part of the family was taken care of (I thought), and Meg made cute aprons for all the ladies in the family, which is a better present that I could have bought anyway, because I'm the crapiest present giver ever (awkward sentence). Also, last year was so crappy when it came to presents that I didn't worry. I mean, I got like a wind up worm, and stuff like that.

Books I Read on 2010

I'm pretty sure I won't be finishing any more books this year, so I might as well do this now.

I made it to 46! Of course, I had more time to listen to some audio books on my way to work, so the word "read" is somewhat loosely used. Reading them on my Kindle and Nook apps on my phone made it easier as well.

Life of Pi + Common Nonsense

Life of Pi, novel by Yann Martell

I kept seeing this book in every thrift store I ever went to, so I finally got it and read it. I hated it so much I wish I hadn't even bothered. But at least it caused a strong enough impression that I felt I needed to write about it.

The book begins well enough. There are long descriptions of animals and animal life, which are actually fascinating. The author then describes his quest to find a religion at a very young age, and this part sounds quite uninformed and simplistic. If I hadn't read later that this book was the author's attempt to make sense to his life through some kind of search for spirituality, I would seriously consider that this was his attempt to demonstrate how silly and petty religions were, and, therefore, unnecessary.

Lights at Temple Square

Gabe Crawling / Gabriel gateando

That cable is really unplugged! He just likes cables, and that seems to be the main motivation to make him crawl these days, so we have to unplug everything. I think that if he hadn't been wearing those sack looking pajamas, and if the flash hadn't been distracting, he could have done a better job :)



Ese cable esta desenchufado. Parece que los cables son la única motivación para hacerlo gatear, así que tenemos que desenchufar todo (por éso la etapa del gateo no es algo que esperaba ansiosamente). Si no hubiera estado usando ese piyama en forma de bolsa, y si el flash no lo hubiera distraído tanto, capaz que hubiera ido mas rapido. Capaz...

Letter from China

Well, it's not really a letter. It's a little message from the seller that was attached to a battery I bought. I always find these things fascinating, and I guess that engrish.com shows I'm not the only one. The grammar and word choices are so unique, and yet, we understand pretty much everything they say. The last paragraph is genius, though.

David Sedaris at Sam Wellers

Last night David Sedaris read part of his book at Sam Wellers and then signed books. The reading took about 45 minutes, and it was hilarious. He read portions of an unpublished story about some flies that ate vomit, and how one of them was so stuck up and pretentious because she had eaten the deputy governor's wife's puke. It was genius. He then did a Q&A, and some of the questions were so stupid that they made me cringe. Some examples were:

- How's your sister?
- How's your brother?
- If you could be a mythological animal, what would you be?
- Have you gone to the Louvre?

Painful.

He was good, though, and gave great little monologues loosely based on the questions, so he fixed the awkward moment and made it good.

The signing went really smoothly. He chatted with everyone for a few minutes and was very gracious. If I had to mention my one complaint, it would be the jokes. When he did the reading, he read some jokes that people had shared with him, and that was all good, but when he was signing people's books he started telling us jokes, and I wasn't crazy about that. It just felt very juvenile. It all felt like a desperate attempt to be funny and charming. I understand that it is hard to come up with funny stuff to say all the time, but then, he didn't have to. Just being there, saying hello and signing my book would have been perfect. But, oh well, the guy did an awesome show and that's what we went there for, and it was exciting to actually talk to him after hearing his voice on tape for so long.

Here's his answer to the question "Have you ever heard of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints?" Sorry about the crappy audio. I'll probably add subtitles eventually.

Gabe Laughing His Head Off

When Gabe was about two months old, we thought the kid might be autistic because he never laughed or smiled. Now, he won't stop doing either. He will smile at random people, and today, as we were driving back home, he randomly started laughing while looking out of the window. This are videos of Gabe laughing during Thanksgiving, from mild to uncontrolable laugh.

Gabe laughing with Maura


Gabe laughing with uncle Matias


Gabe laughing histerically with Santi, Matias's dog

Muffled Gabe

Fantasy Stories

My students finished their fantsy stories, and these are some of my favorite passages.

"Now this is in the year 2000, well, really right now. But because of the time period, there are pants and things like that."

"King Charles always helped people with heavy things that they couldn't pick up or carry. No wonder he had such large muscles. His hands were also muscular because of it. He was a very handsome king."

"I finally remembered that rain was held in the clouds. I rode a hot-air-balloon up to the clouds and saw little men made of clouds."

"She was in the bakery with her sister and her father one day, when all of a sudden Santa Clause came riding in on a unicorn named Penelope, then Penelope says "Get off me, you fatty!"

Pretty awesome, huh?

StS' Beatles

This is way too funny not to share. It didn't do very well on my Facebook, but at least I'll be able to see it in a couple of years when I revise my blog posts...

Yes, There Is Alien Life in Ogden

Texas Roadhouse Refills Are Awesome!

Cowboy Cooler refills. Can you notice the difference? (Hint: It's the ice.)

I Blame My Mom For This

Fascinating article on this week's Week: The 'liberal gene': An instant guide.

I blame it on my mom, of course.

My favorite part of the article: "The researchers hypothesize that people more open to new ideas and more unconventional points of views already tend toward liberalism, and if they are exposed to enough different ways of living and viewing the world, their political beliefs will tend to solidify to the left of center."

Some people may not agree, I say they're a bunch of knuckleheads. Just kidding! Sheesh!

Finalizacion de la adopcion + Halloween

Después de 8 meses de traerlo a casa, pudimos finalizar la adopción de Gabriel. De acuerdo con el calendario en la puerta de la corte, nuestro caso duraría 1 minuto:



Duro más de un minuto. De hecho, el juez no llegó hasta las nueve y cuarto. Nuestra trabajadora, Melissa, social estuvo ahí (tuvo que testificar que eramos buenos padres, bla, bla, bla), y justo un fotografo del diario estaba ahí sacando fotos para un artículo sobre Melissa.

El juez no parecía entender mucho la situación, porque hizo varias preguntas que me parecieron raras. Por ejemplo, cuando uno está esperando adoptar por medio de una agencia, la trabajadora social tiene que hacer una visita cada seis meses, y el juez estaba preguntando por qué nos habían hecho tantas visitas, como diciendo que capaz que eramos peligrosos o algo así. Pero al final terminó todo bien, y el juez hasta posó para un par de fotos con nosotros.



Cuando salimos de la corte y fui a buscar el auto, un hombre en una gorra y un piloto me empezó a seguir, lo que me asustó un poco, siendo que estabamos en Ogden... pero el hombre este me paró y me preguntó "¿Disculpe, es usted un abogado?" "No", respondí, a lo cual el hombre este me dijo "Uh, disculpe. Espero que no lo haya ofendido" :)



Después de la corte fuimos a desayunar, y comimos un cinnamon roll del tamaño de mi cabeza.


__________________________________

Para Halloween fuimos a la casa de nuestros amigos, los Muñoz, y nos prestaron un disfraz de pollo para Gabriel.




Gabriel con su amiga Emma Muñoz


Gabriel con el botín de esa noche

Motivational Poster Fail

This poster, found at my school, was meant to help people feel good about themselves

Gabe Talking and Standing

If you get bored of the first part of the video, check second 45, where Gabe stands up! Yup. Our 8 month old stands up. With the help of the chair, but still.

We Got a Court Date!!!!!!

Only two months late, but here it is:

October 13, 10 am: Finalization at some court; in Ogden I assume.

October 16, 12:30: Sealing at the Bountiful Temple. The blessing will be some time that day, not sure when until we talk to the bishop on Tuesday. If we do it before the sealing, we couldn't do it after 10 am, because we have to be in the temple by 11:30 (guests need to be there by 12:00 and wait for half an hour without shoes in the wedding-waiting room). Afterwards, we will have an awesome dinner provided by the ladies in the fam and Meg's posse. By the way, this is the day after Gabe turns 8 months! So, sort of 2/3 birthday.

Come everyone, this is what we've been waiting for years, and it finally happened!!

Gabe: July Update

Gabe being overly friendly with Emma...




Hanging out at Ikea


Gabe and his improvised hat at the farmers market




At Texas Roadhouse, hoping he could have some chicken critters

Taken with Camera 360, a little app for my celphone. All the photos that follow were taken with that too

Couch 3.0

Meg fixed this couch before. She re-covered the pillows, which was a huge job, and it looked really nice. But that cover started tearing up, and getting dirty, and even though this is a beautiful couch, I was never crazy about the condition of the wood. So this week I finally took it outside, sanded the crap out of it and stained it black. It ended up a little shinier than I expected (the semi-gloss on the can should have tipped me, huh?), but with the new covers that Meg made, it looks awesome. The semi gloss makes the imperfections on the wood quite noticeable, but it'll do for the next few years, or forever. We've decided that after its useful indoors life, this couch will become outdoor furniture. Nobody else will inherit this! It's ours forever! Wahahahah!

Anyway, this is the couch before:



Mah sanding job:



Final thang:





Meg's is like ridiculously talented. I don't understand how we're not making bank yet!

Our Freaking Awesome Bathroom!!!

Ok, this is the project I'm most proud of, not only because it looks so awesome, but because it forced me to do stuff that I didn't think I could do!

Meg has wanted to tile our bathroom floor since we moved in, and since we didn't do much in the house this summer, we decided to go ahead and do it. First, of course, we removed the old laminate floor, and we noticed that they had installed it on top of the old linoleum. Once I saw that, I was afraid to lift it because I didn't want to see what was underneath it. Sure enough, the floor had rotted and it came out in handfuls.





Once we finished lifting the old floor, I saw that the subfloor had also roted around the toilet, and that's when I freaked out. I didn't want to lift the whole thing and reinstall it, because I had no idea how to do it. I even thought of calling the bishop and assembling a group of construction expert brothers to help me out.



Once the panic passed, I went to Lowes and asked what the heck I could do. They explained that all I needed to do was to lay floor wood, which looks like plywood, but it's way stronger, and on top of that I could just lay the backer-board (which they call "hardy back") and then tile right on top of that. It really wasn't that hard. I even got the circle around the toilet flange perfect! (There in the top right, by the box of nails.)



Once we got the new subfloor down, we installed the backsplash. We started from the top with that accent-strip, so we had to tape the tile as it dried, so it wouldn't run down.



After a few rows, we nailed a 1x2 to the wall to hold the tiles in place as the mortar dried (I read this somewhere). After that, I realized that if I just put a nail under each tile as I installed them, I would get the same result and I could go much faster.





Next came the floor. The tile that we chose was beautiful, but really tricky to cut, since it is actually made up of tiny pieces of marble put together. After a couple of mess-ups I figured it out and the process went faster and cleaner. The toilet came next, as soon as the mortar dried. I mean, we didn't have a toilet for a day!! That was the worst part of the whole project. We actually had to use the church's bathroom the first morning we started working on ours, and that wasn't that much fun with a crying baby in the church as we took turns!





I really like our new sink. It's a regular pedestal sink, but it makes the bathroom look bigger and cleaner. The faucet is really nice, and it goes with our other brushed nickel fixtures, which look great and were very inexpensive (light, shower curtain rod, and switch and outlet boxes).



So... I loooove how our bathroom looks now, but I hated putting it together. It was a lot of work, it was messy, and even scary at times when I didn't know what I was going (I realized that if you go to Home Depot and tell the people at the customer service desk that you're not being help, you will get amazing service and personalized advice from an expert in a matter of seconds). But anyway, it's done, and I hope I never have to do another bathroom renovation like this again! At least not in a bathroom with a rotten floor and subfloor, that's for sure.

Painted Vinyl Siding + New Ceiling Fan!

When we moved into the house, I noticed that the siding vinyl was pretty nasty in some parts. I thought it was just dirty, so I washed it, brushing like crazy, but it didn't make much difference. I then thought that maybe it was stained, but then, looking closely, I noticed that the white paint in the vinyl had actually faded. The sprinkler had been hitting the wall for years, and caused the vinyl to discolor.





I then asked around to see if vinyl siding could be painted, and it turns out that you can. You just need to use primer and then paint a lighter shade or color than was there. Since our siding was white, we just kept it like that. It turned out so good, it looks like new!





We also decided to change our bedroom light to a ceiling fan. We chose a small one (since our bedroom is rather small), and it turned out awesome!

The only problem: this unit uses a remote control, it doesn't have those little chains you turn the light and fan on and off with. That was a pretty nice surprise, the real problem was that I was supposed to fit in the remote control unit that goes on the fan into the light box that goes attached to the ceiling. Those light boxes are about four inched wide. The remote control was like 6 inches wide. I ended up having to climb onto the attic and extending the remote control unit cables so I could actually attach them to the fan. It was a pain, but it works just great. The fan looks very nice, but if I'd known what a pain it would be to install, I would have definitely picked up a different one!