New York and Phoenix

Well, the long awaited family trip to NYC and Phoenix took a little turn. About 4 months ago, the original idea was for the family to go out to NYC for a week while I stayed at Sheraton for work. Afterwards, we were going to fly out to Phoenix for Thanksgiving; Susie had intended to go to her 10 year high school reunion the Saturday after Thanksgiving.

So, first of all, my trip to NYC got cut short and then was extended to include to work with a company out in Long Island. This was a big discouraging for Susie since my hotel in Manhattan would only last until Wednesday mid-afternoon.

Then, Susie's sister, Cari, decided to choose November 17th as her wedding day. Susie felt that her week off would be best spent helping Cari get ready. So below are some of the pictures that I took with the family on Friday before the wedding.

Grace and Ben Cason enjoying the swings out in the front. Quite frankly, I'm her favorite Uncle, really!!

The pool was heated up to 80 degrees and Simon thought it was like a big bath. He loves taking baths and he loves being out in the pool.

Susie loves taking Simon in the pool. He had a mild ear infection for which he's taking antiobiotics. So he couldn't get his head in the water. It's actually pretty funny to watch him go under. Susie wanted me to point out that Simon's left eyebrow goes up higher than his right. She claims that's the "Robinson Mark"... more specifically, she said that look reminds her of her father Sam.

Cities & Knights Victor

For those that are in the know, about 40 minutes ago, I, Kelvin, won Cities and Knights for the first time in the year 2007.

The first place loser was Jared Peterson with 12 points. And pulling up the rear was David Parker with 8 points.

For those that were keeping track, we've played quite a bit this year (almost weekly) and taught a lot of people and showed them how to win. Before this day, the last time I won a game was in Mallorca, Spain, playing against Jared and Kelli Salter just before Christmas.

I would like to thank Jared and David, who recognized I was winning, and put up a huge fight to make sure I wouldn't win it by a landslide. For about the last 6 rounds, no one would trade with me, and they did all that they could to thwart what was to be my day. At least, it was not won uncontested.

All Hail Lord Kelvin of Catan...

San Francisco Wave Organ

So today we did a family walk out to the San Francisco Wave Organ. If you walk out from the exploratorium to the beach and take Baker out to the ocean, there's a little finger of land that stretched out into the ocean. There are a bunch of pipes that play different notes as the waves hit along them so they change at different water levels.

I actually used the timer on my camera for the first time and took this one. We'll need to do this more often, or else, only Susie and Simon end up in the photos.

Jared Salter would like this shot because we were able to get the sailboat in the background. Yes, that's also Alcatraz island in the back.

Simon with the Golden Gate Bridge in the back.

My two favorite people.

Ward Halloween Party

As you can see, we had a theme with our costumes. Simon was a shark, Susie was a mermaid, and Kelvin was a surfer (the surf board didn't quite get finished before it was thrown away). The ward Halloween party was excellent. We had on the menu:
- Brains, with eyeballs served in a blood sauce (spaghetti and meatballs in a meat sauce)
- Bread with Vampire Repellent (garlic bread)
- Battered, deep-fried fingers on a stick (corn dogs)

A little over 200 people attended and we had all sorts of games. A spook alley was constructed with the help of the youth. The Bishop had his spider room which was good for the little kids. Thomas Glenn was the "mad scientist" in the spook alley. He had to tone it down a bit after a couple of kids. This section lasted only from 5:30 to 6:00pm. We had a scavenger hunt for the kids which involved them looking for certain characters in the cultural hall and getting a sticker from them. If they got all the stickers, we would give them a bag of candy in the end (everyone got a bag regardless). There was a "toy-walk" and a pumpkin pie eating contest.

Honestly, this was our first Sunset Ward Halloween party, and we liked it. We'll have to dress Simon back-up in his shark outfit again to take more pictures.

Simon has Teeth

As of October 29th, Simon woke up with a tooth on the lower jaw, front left. On the 31st, the one next to it came out also.

This explains why he's been sleeping so poorly, and feeling a little warm. As you can tell, he's now learned to stick-out his tongue. Since this occured for the first time, the morning his tooth showed up, we think the two are related.

The latest theory is that he likes to feel the tooth under his tongue, so he's really not sticking his tongue out, but just rather, feeling his tooth with his tongue.

Farmer John's Pumpkin Patch, HMB

Every year we go to Farmer John's Pumpkin Patch in Half-Moon Bay. No one else really has a pumpkin patch; they all buy their pumpkins and lay them around. Farmer John actually grows them out in the field and you can go out and pick them off the vine.

This, of course, was Simon's first trip to the pumpkin patch and he had a lot of fun.

Jared and Becca were there along with the Tanners. Here's Jared taking our catch from the vines back to the front lot.

Simon picking out pumpkins with Susie. He's wearing socks his Grandma Ning made for him.

Simon's first kiss is with a pumpkin

Gap Casting Call

So, we've decided to test how cute our baby boy is. We have entered these pictures into the Gap Casting Call competition which you can read about here.

Here are the pictures submitted.

If Simon wins the first round of judging, then he'll be up for public voting. At which point, we will let everyone interested in voting for him know so that we can get some extra help. :)

We think he's the cutest.