I always love seeing how Lauren has changed over the years! Now we have Brody in there and we’ll have more fun changes to watch.

The ever popular compilation of all the years:

2009:

This page is the official family newsletter for 2008. Why have it on our site? Partly because we’re lazy, but mostly because we can keep it here forever. In 10 years, we’ll all be able to go back through the newsletters and see what happened during each year. Sort of like our little annual scrapbook.

First, we’ll cover all of the important events of 2008, and below all of that will be a slide show of photos taken around the holiday season.

• Of course, the highest on our list is the birth of Brody! He joined us on 6/7/08 and has been keeping us busy ever since. 
• Lauren turned 12 in April and started 7th grade in the fall. She’s doing very well in school and enjoys Drama and Science as a few of her favorite subjects. Seeming to grow taller every day, she now matches Melanie in height… and they can wear the same shoes and some jeans, too.
• Melanie turned the big three oh in May, and Neil turned 38 in July. (we’re old)
• Lauren enjoyed her final soccer season. She’s claiming to officially retire from the sport (for now). Volleyball has her interest and she hopes to persue it more next year.
• In October, Lauren got braces put on. She loves to switch the colors of the bands now and then. Currently, she is sporting seasonal green and red.
• Back in March, while very pregnant, Melanie flew with her friend Rene to Loveland, Colorado. They surprised their friend Stacy for her birthday. Stacy knew all along that Rene would be there, but was bummed that Melanie wasn’t going… until they landed and Melanie was with Rene!
• Neil’s work travels were much less than they were in 2007, with only a few trips to Portland, Seattle and New Orleans (and he met bass player Jimi Jazz of Special Sauce on his flight to New Orleans).
• Melanie and Neil enjoyed just a couple of concerts in ’08. Jack Johnson in August (Neil’s birthday gift) and G. Love & Special Sauce in February (pregnant Melanie was a trooper for that show).
• In July… Neil’s brother came down to visit in July with his wife and son Colton. Brody’s other cousin, Jake was also there. We all had fun watching the 3 boy cousins. They were all born within 7 months.
• In August, we all went to the Orange County Fair and did our annual photo booth shots. This was Brody’s first time in the booth, and it’s getting crowded. Up on the header of the site, you can see a shot from each year we’ve done it, starting in 2001 on the left.
• Neil is enjoying his side work doing photography, and hopes to have more work soon.
• Melanie and Neil started doing baby signs with Brody. Hopefully in a few months he will be able to communicate with us. (a little at least)
• Early December, Brody cut his first teeth… two on the bottom. Read all about it here.

Keep in mind that all times can be “give or take” 5-10 minutes or so. We don’t quite have it down to an exact science just yet.

• 5:00am
  • wake up
  • check work email (usually via my phone while getting ready to shower)
  • shower
  • shave
• 5:45am
  • try to wake up Melanie
  • get dressed
• 5:50am – 7:00am (the order is dictated by when Brody wakes up)
  • start putting our lunches together
  • eat english muffin with peanut butter, drink some OJ (this is done while doing the previous step)
  • check diaper bag to ensure it contains all items required
  • wake Brody up, if he’s not already squirming
  • change his diaper
  • dress him
  • bring him to Melanie once he’s dressed and ready to go
  • make us both instant coffee for the drive (Melanie takes cinnamon and brown sugar)
  • toast english muffin for Melanie (also with peanut butter)
  • load up the car: lunch bags, diaper bag, coffee mugs, any other misc bags
• 7:00am
  • put Brody into car seat
  • load Brody into car
  • drive to my work
• 8:00am
  • I get to my work
  • Melanie takes over and drives to the sitter’s place
• 8:15am
  • Melanie drops Brody off with sitter
• 8:30am
  • Melanie gets to her work
• 5:00pm
  • Melanie leaves work to pick up Brody from sitter
• 5:15pm
  • Melanie leaves sitter to pick me up from work
• 5:30pm (ish)
  • Melanie picks me up from work, I take over the wheel for the leg home
• 6:30pm (ish)
  • we arrive home
• 6:30pm – 6:45pm
  • bring Brody inside
  • unload all of the stuff from the car
• between 6:45pm and 7:30pm
  • Melanie and I eat dinner
  • feed Brody cereal or some jar food if he seems hungry
• 7:30pm – 8:00pm
  • bathtime for Brody
• 8:00pm – 9:00pm
  • Brody gets fed and falls asleep
  • this could go past 9pm if he doesn’t crash easily
• 9:00pm – 10:00pm
  • do some random chores that need to be done before the next day
  • do anything else that I’d like to spend my free time on… sometimes I can last until 10:30pm if I really want to
• 10:00pm – 10:30pm
  • go to sleep

“It works like this: if you use Flickr, go to the sixth page of your photostream and pick the sixth picture there, then post it to your blog.”

This is a shot of Melanie taken back in October at some pre-halloween thing we went to at Lauren’s church. At that moment, I remember deciding that I should be getting more shots of Melanie. She didn’t think that it was that good of an idea… as you can tell by her expression. Oh well, I like the photo.

Click for a larger view.

We parked across the street, and walked over to the field. Out of acres and acres of wheat, I would estimate that there was less than 5% of the crop left. And it had been left there as if it were waiting for me to get the shoot I was thinking of. We walking along the waist high wheat, using the part of the cut-down wheat where the tractors drove. Once we got far enough into the field, I smashed down some of the wheat to make a small area for them to stand in while I shot.

The photos came out very nice. And I’m definitely glad I got the chance to get out there before it was all chopped down. Check out the choice ones from the shoot.

Lauren started her spring soccer season with her new team: Black Magic. They tied their first game last week 1-1. They played really well in the last 3 quarters and the team looks promising if the continue to practice their skills.

Melanie and I are getting close to starting escrow on our new home that’s currently being built. It’s a two-story townhome in Chino, CA. It’s our first home and we’re super excited to get moved in. We are dreading the commute, but it’s the closest we’d be able to get to Orange County and still “afford” it.

More news to come soon…

It was a fun night that we had with a couple of friends. Mikey is a die hard GLaSS fan like me, and his roommate, Brett, came with us and we all had a blast… despite some rude people we encountered late in the first set. Brett had seen GLaSS back about 10 years ago in Atlanta. He said he’s definitely changed since then, but he’s got the skills for sure.

I don’t remember all of the songs they played this time (last time I pretty much recalled all of them), and when I remembered to go ask for a set list, they were all out.

They opened up with “Hot Cookin’”, which is my favorite track off of their newest album, Lemonade. G looked quite dapper with his black velour suit. But, he kept it loose with the holes in the knees! Other surprises for me, that they didn’t play when we saw them in Anaheim, included… “Kick Drum”, “Gimme Some Lovin’”, “Honor And Harmony”, “Recipe”, and the crowd favorite “My Baby’s Got Sauce”.

Overall, it was a great show. The band was tight as ever and they kept the crowd going for almost 2 hours. In the middle of the first set, some idiots that thought they could just stroll out and just plop right in front of us. The floor was packed already, and these folks seemed like they were maybe just season pass holders for HoB or something… you know, they didn’t fit the bill for G. Love fans. We (forcefully) ushered them out of our way. The encore set had more room for us as people thinned out a bit. G came out with some acoustic numbers and then the band returned for a “Cold Beverage” and “Gin And Juice” medley.

We heard G Love will be recording Last Call with Carson Daily coming up on 2/13… and that Ben Harper is supposed to be playing with them. We’d love to go, but we’re taking some time off later that week for a trip out of town.

Lookin’ forward for their return to So. Cal. We’ll just have to keep our eyes open for gig listings.

Finally! The show that Mel and I have been waiting for. G. Love & Special Sauce live! Neither of us have ever seen him and we jumped at the tickets when we saw that he was coming to town. I’ve been a fan for 10+ years, and Mel had no choice but to dig his music since I play it constantly. I really wanted to sneak my Canon point-and-shoot into the show, but it would have been tough. I didn’t bring my phone (w/camera) with me so no camera phone shots either.

Marc Broussard opened up the show. We got there late and only saw the last 3 or 4 songs of his… but, we enjoyed his stuff a lot. We’ve only heard a few of his songs here and there. But, we’ll be checking more of his stuff out for sure. This guy has got soul!

We made our way down to the main floor and waited for the curtains to re-open. He opened with “Can’t Go Back To Jersey” and immediately got the crowd going. I must say that we noticed that the fans farther back with us, and in the back were waaay more into the show than the people up front. The show was full of energy and everyone around us was groovin’.

Here’s a list of songs I remember from the show. I’m sure that I’m missing some, and they aren’t exactly in proper order… so, let’s not call this a set list.

Main set
Can’t Go Back To Jersey
Missing My Baby
Don’t Drop It
Back Of The Bus
Booty Call
This Ain’t Living
Waiting
Dreamin’
Rock And Roll
Let The Music Play

Encore set
Still Hangin’ Around
Rainbow
Beautiful
Blues Music
Lou Reed’s Walk On The Wildside
WAR’s Low Rider (Money Mark joined on keyboards)
Cold Beverage (medley with Snoop Dogg’s Gin And Juice / A Tribe Called Quest’s Can I Kick It)
Astronaut
Instrumental jam with G. Love on harmonica

Highlights of the show for me: The crowd sing-a-long on “Rainbow”… almost made up for Jack Johnson not sitting in. All the covers in the encore set. We both were hoping for Ben Harper to sing on “Let The Music Play”, but only Marc Broussard came out. The song was great live!

After the show, we went back inside to get a t-shirt and a hat. We walked around upstairs a bit and as we passed the bar, Mel said to me “um, don’t you want to go meet him?”. I said “huh, who, what?” and turned around to see Garrett leaning up against the bar… girls hangin all over him. I waited patiently until all the girls finished taking photos with him. He saw that I was hangin out waiting. He was on his way outside but stopped to shake my hand and accept my compliments on the fun show. I thanked him for all of his fun music and the fantastic show. Sure, he’s not going to remember me, but I’ll remember him stopping to say hello.

We left on a high for sure.

On Tuesday morning, the first morning we were there, Lauren went on a bike ride with Allie, Jake, Rene, Dale and Rhonda. I stayed back at the camp to take a cat nap. Rhonda woke me up and said that Lauren had taken a bad spill on her bike and her knee was cut pretty badly.I jumped up and drove down to where they were. The cut on her knee was pretty bad, along with a nice scrape on her elbow and some road rash on the side of her thigh. Dale said that she didn’t even cry, and that she was a tough girl. I drove her down to the ranger station which had first aid service. They cleaned the wounds out and dressed them up with blue and green wrap… she got a kick out of that.

I was bummed that she couldn’t go into the water since I wanted to give her some surfing lessons. We still managed to have a good time playing on the beach.That night, we wanted to go out to eat and went to a place that was recommended to Dale. I’ll post separately on that incident since it deserves it’s own. Stay tuned for that one.

On Wednesday morning, I went for a surf. After about 30 minutes, I wanted to walk south as the slight current had taken me north a few hundred yards from where I paddled out. As I walked, I noticed a large dead seal on the beach. It looked as if it was washed ashore overnight during high tide. I looked up the bluffs and noticed our campsite was directly above. Once I inspected it for any shark bites, I paddled back out for another 30 minutes… the whole time keeping my eyes peeled for anything swimming near me.

Upon returning to our campsite I told everyone about the dead animal… and, of course, the kids all needed to climb up on the fence to see it. [better from way up on the bluff than up close like I did] When lunch-time rolled around, the stench of the rotting seal began to waft through our campsite every so often. It was not something you want to smell every 5 minutes or so. A park ranger was at the restroom area and I stopped and asked him what the procedure was for removing the carcass. He explained that the life guards take care of such things… but they have their hands full with an abandonded sailboat that was almost washed ashore. — We watched in amazement as a life guard swam out about 100 yards, hooked up a line to the front of a 20 ft sailboat and towed it out past 1000 yards… backstroking… by himself. Not sure why the boat was abandoned, they towed it away later. — We packed up our beach gear and headed down to the beach for the rest of the day.

Just after getting down to the beach, Allie was wading through the knee-deep water… and got several stings from a Jellyfish. It was painful stinging for about an hour, but a bag of ice helped the hurt and she was back to normal in no time.

The next morning the “disposal” company had arrived to remove the dead seal. Now that would be a nasty job… putting a dead seal into a 50 gallon barrell and trucking it away. We were moving to a different site anyway since we wanted to stay an extra night. Unfortunately, we couldn’t keep that site as it was already booked by someone else.

Quite an eventful camping trip… we certainly have not had such drama in previous years.

Melanie and I had a fun time at The Greek. We didn’t want to get stuck in the stacked parking, so we parked down the hill and hiked to/from the show. It was only a 15 minute putt up/down the hill so it was worth it to not get jammed in all the cars leaving the show.

Here’s the set list:
Set I:
• Both Sides Of The Gun
• Don’t Take That Attitude To Your Grave
• Steal My Kisses
• Get It Like You Like It
• Ground On Down
• Waiting For You
• Morning Yearning
• Please Me Like You Want To
• Diamonds On The Inside
• Forgiven
• Black Rain
• With My Own Two Hands/War

Encore I:
• Waiting On An Angel
• I Shall Not Walk Alone
• There Will Be A Light
• Lifeline

Encore II:
• Burn One Down
• Better Way

Our next concerts are coming up next month. The Sunsplash Reggae Fest at Irvine Meadows (Verizon Wireless Amphitheater) on 9/2…. and then G. Love & Special Sauce at the House Of Blues in Anaheim on 9/23. Stoked to see G. Love… we’ve not seen him play live before either.

Mean people suck! Especially those who side-swipe your car and then take off without a care. [click on the photos above for larger views and notes]

Melanie and I went to Lake Forest’s Sun And Sail Club for their annual July 4th celebration. Linc and Gina live in LF and get tickets each year. We’ve been there twice before this year and always have a blast with everyone there.

This year was a blast until we got back to my car to go home. Approaching my car, I thought “hmmm, I don’t remember parking crooked like that… all up against the curb”. I walked around to the driver’s side and saw a nice crumpled fender and door.

Witnesses were waiting for me to arrive to tell us that it was a silver Nissan Titan with about 4 teenage guys in it. They backed up quickly, scraping the bumper against my fender and door. It looks like the trucks rear tire hit my front, and pushed my car against the curb. If my front tires were not turned into the street, I imagine that the truck would have kept going and scraped all along the entire driver’s side.

One witness even tried to run after the truck and got a partial license plate off of it. The O.C. Sheriff showed up after I called and said that with only a partial plate, it would be tough to locate the vehicle, but that he’d do everything possible. After I complained to the Lake Forest City Manager, I received a call from their chief of police services. He understood my frustration regarding the apparent inability to really do a lot to catch the idiot who did this. But, he explained that a DMV search narrowed it down to 10,000 vehicles in Southern California… and that is every color since that search does not include vehicle color.

Well, I’m off to the body shop for an estimate on damage and to see how long it will take to fix.

I was it… with my eyes closed, I lunged quickly towards the closest voice I heard. Melanie was just coming up out of the water as my hand, with fingers extended, came speeding towards her face. When my hand hit something, I immediately thought that my middle finger went into someone’s mouth… but it only took a split second for me to realize that it was actually an eye socket that my finger went into… up to the first knuckle.

OK, at this point, please look at your hand just to see how far it is from the tip of your middle finger back to the first knuckle. I have average sized hands, and I can say that it’s at least 1/2 of an inch (maybe 3/4) that went into her eye socket.

As soon as I realized what had just happened. I surfaced to find out who it was. I saw that it was Melanie and then turned and yelled that I had jabbed her in the eye badly. Apparently, she had let out a very disturbing scream when it happened… I did not hear this since I was under the water… or maybe I just don’t recall hearing it.

After confirming that her eyeball was still, in fact, in her socket… and everyone calmed down… we went to the emergency room to get it looked at. The doctor put some yellow dye on the eyeball (after numbing it) and shined a UV light on it. He let me look at it and I saw the scratched membrane on the inside part of the white of the eyeball called the sclera (I just looked that up, so don’t think I knew it already). He then used some magnifying contraption that Melanie rested her chin on to look even closer (he didn’t let me look into that one).

No cornea damage… thankfully. A follow up visit to her normal doctor the next day went well. He was confident that the ER doctor was very comprehensive in his exam the previous day. Melanie’s vision is unharmed and the swelling has gone down a lot since Sunday.

Our unlucky weekend did not stop there… but, I’ll fill you in on my next post about the smashed fender and door on my car.

Sunday Evening [bigger view here]

Monday Evening [bigger view here]

They taped an hour long show for next Friday night 5/5 (airs 1:35AM the next day). BHIC is musical guest for four straight shows.

They played 3 songs:
Get It Like You Like It
Please Don’t Talk About Murder While I’m Eating
Sweet Nothing Serenade

Bonus: Marc Ford (Black Crowes) played with the house band through the commercial breaks. Jason Yates jammed with the house band for their warm-up song.
And… Ben was the second guest on the show, after Tom Green. Ben jammed a little on the slide that he gave to Carson.

Ben hung around a few minutes on stage after they were done playing, meeting and greeting. we got to say hello… I told him that we were there for “The Sunday El Rey Show” (2/19) and thanked him for such an amazing performance that night. others were waiting to meet him, so we moved along. I wanted to ask if that El Rey show was being released any time soon… but forgot. does anyone know for sure yet?

The line was around the corner by the time we got in it. One good reason for getting actual tickets mailed to you (not printed from your computer) is that small venues like the El Rey apparently take longer to verify all the self-printed tickets. So, since we had actual tickets, we were sent to the front of the line and got in within 10 minutes of the doors opening. We got a few drinks and settled on a good spot on a step beside the the dance floor about 20 feet away from the stage. The crowd had a mellow vibe as everyone seemed to be anxious for the show to start. With no opening act, we waited over an hour for the show to start.

The guitar tech plugged in Ben’s lap slide guitar, strummed a few strings and walked off… this created a buzz, bouncing and floating around the room. Everyone knew it was set to go and began cheering. The band took the stage and Ben ran out and they broke into a few new songs from the upcoming new album. Overall, they played a great mix of old as well as new songs. I can’t wait to pick up the new CD next month to hear the new material again.

The audience was great and Ben and the band appeared to truly soak it in. At one point, Ben told the crowd that they were the best fans in the world. He made it a point to thank the crowd many times, and the crowd returned the love even more.

A decent opening set that included a reggae version of “Steal My Kisses” that smoothly segued into the Toots classic “Pressure Drop”. The first encore was Ben with an acoustic guitar. The place came to a hush and the crowd could be heard singing along on “Roses From My Friends”. I was thinking it was a short encore, but the audience was not about to let them go just yet. The entire band returned and played a second encore that could have been a live set on it’s own. A few songs in, Ben welcomed a friend to the stage… Marc Ford from The Black Crowes jammed with them for the remainder of the show. He played amazingly and made the night that much better.

The vibe was pure electricity for the whole show, but even more so for the last 6 or 7 songs. The band lined up to take their bows… but the crowd did not let up… they all went back to their instruments and played “With My Own Two Hands/War”. The crowd was in a frenzy at this point… the song even whipped Ben into frenzy and had him dancing his butt off … so much that he even fell on it.

Melanie and I both left the show feeling great and knowing that we had just experienced something awesome, and grateful that we got to see the show together. We’ve always like Ben’s music, but we are now forever in debt to him for giving us the best show ever. This was both of our first Ben Harper shows… and this will be the live show that all future live shows will be compared to for me… even future Ben Harper shows. I heard they were filming and recording audio for the show, so hopefully there will be some sort of live DVD in the works!

I took my Canon S70 point-n-shoot since there were no “professional” cameras allowed at the venue. I would’ve loved to have had my D70s and tele-zoom with me. Here are my choicest shots of the night…

Here’s a set list (which I found on the benharper.net forums)

Set I:
• Better Way
• Both Sides Of The Gun
• Engraved Invitation
• Homeless Child
• Forgiven
• Please Bleed
• Morning Yearning
• Waiting For You
• Happy Everafter In Your Eyes
• Reason To Mourn
• Black Rain
• Get It Like You Like It
• Steal My Kisses/Pressure Drop
• Serve Your Soul

Encore I:
• Another Lonely Day
• Roses From My Friends

Encore II:
• Gather ‘Round The Stone
• The Way You Found Me
• Wicked Man
• Dressed In Black
• Diamonds On The Inside
• Amen Omen
• Burn One Down
• Where Could I Go
• With My Own Two Hands/War

The celebration peaked on Saturday night with a Mexican theme party at Stacy and Greg’s place. We had everything… sombreros, chicklets, refried beans, tamales, chicharonnes, carne asada, churros, flan (which I made)… oh yeah, and a midget, err, little-person. Good friends, good food, good drinks… and, like I say: Good Times!

Check out the slideshow on flickr….
[image above hosted on flickr.com]