Gangsta's Paradise

I went to dentist (again) today to have a crown put on, and I decided to move into bling and I went for a gold crown. The visit was excellent and unlike any dentist I have ever been to in the NHS, I was given not one, not 2 but 3 injections (they are very big on pain management here) and then once completely numb they put goggles on to protect my eyes and then let me listen to music through headphones while they did their stuff. In fact the only pain I felt throughout the entire process was on my ear as the headphones were a little tight. I made sure to complain.

I have to go back in 2 weeks to get the gold crown fitted and then I will be hanging in the ‘hood with me homeys. Like a fat Cornish Ali G. My one worry is that I need more crowns and if I go for all of them being gold then I may look like Goldie, or worse Jaws from the Bond movies.

Blue Monday

It dawned on me yesterday that Jen has been pregnant since we got married. We conceived around 6th -9th of April and got married on 21st April.

Anyway on with what I have been up to. Jen & I went shopping on Black Friday. What you mean you have never heard of Black Friday? Neither had I until last Friday. You see as I mentioned below all holidays in the US are basically just an excuse for shops to put on sales, but the biggest one is the day after Thanksgiving, as this heralds the start of Christmas here. And the shops get so busy and crazy that the stores have to hire extra security to make sure that the lines don’t disintegrate into a free for all. Shops can turn their whole year’s performance around by an excellent return on Black Friday. And now the Monday after Thanksgiving is slowing turning into the biggest on-line shopping day.

Jen & I braved the chaos but not until we had slept in until 8am (long gone are the days of staying in bed until 2pm) and by the time we had got are arse’s in gear it was 11am and most of the hardcore shoppers had gone home for a sandwich. Not us we had presents to buy on behalf of Santa (he often asks parents to help him out to get the special gifts). And Jen & I also bought our presents for each other. Yes I know it is anticlimactic knowing what you are going to have for Christmas but this year we had to buy them early and receive them early because one was a digital camera and the other was a camcorder and we wanted both these things in time for the bump’s arrival. So this weekend I have filmed our cat, tried to film Jen in the shower (they need to invent an anti-fogging device on those lenses) and when Emma returned I filmed her hiding from me. Hardly Oscar footage, but I have noticed that all the famous stars have video footage from when they were a kid, and I really do believe that is why neither my brother or I became rich and famous, because we have no footage of us running around in the garden, or playing in the snow, and I do want the best for my kids so I have splashed out on a camera. For Jen obviously as she bought me the digital camera.

So we are set for the bumps arrival, her nursery is ready. We have chosen her name. We have only 2 parenting classes to go, we have a tour of the hospital facilities coming up next Monday, I think so I know where to get a snack between contractions, and I have my form to fill out for paternity leave. Jen has had some Branston Hicks contractions (false contractions – yep I think it’s an excuse for wind too) so we look good to go. This will be the last chance for entries for the sweep stake for the date of the baby coming, so if you haven’t submitted a guess please do so now.

Tenacious Day.

The basketball game went well from the stand point that I didn't embarrass myself by not knowing the rules. The Kings lost but it was a fantastic experience and one I would happily repeat. So I am thankful for that. There was the obligatory national anthem before the game along with the crowd whooping the high notes, but I am getting used to the wholly uneccesary national pride and patrionism of my American hosts.

On to yesterday which was Thanksgiving. Jen & I decided not to cook at home and to go out with our friends Jason & Amy. We were limited in which restaurants we could choose as most of them were shut. We decided to go to the movies first and chose Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny. Now the plot (or what there is of it) was flimsy, but the music is great and as long as you don't mind needless swearing you will enjoy this film, but don't expect too much, and there aren't many belly laughs. I fully expected the cinema to be packed as not only has Tenacious D just been released but also some dancing penguin movie is out as well the new Bond. But the cinema complex was eerily quiet and our actual theatre empty apart from the 4 of us.

Dinner was fine and I was the only one who odidn't opt for the Turkey Thanksgiving dinner. Turkey is really not my favourite meat, so I went for the steak sandwich pleading Britishness to the waitress. So Thanksgiving was fine and not the grub fest it is for most American families. However, what it is, like all American holidays, is an excuse for shops to have MASSIVE or MEGA sales. Every holiday here is a consumers wet dream, we have Christmas sales, the New Year sales, the Martin Luther King Jr Day sales, veterans Day sales, Labor (Sic) Day sale, Presidents Day sales and of course Halloween and Thanksgiving sales. I am not one to fight it as I need to finish my christmas shopping..........

Utah Saints

Tonight we are off to a basketball game. This will be my 1st one ever so I am excited, but nervous as I don't really have a complete understanding of the rules, I mean I understand the basics, but the intricate details escape me.

Tonight's game is the Sacramento Kings V's the Utah Jazz. Personally I think the Utah Saints is a better name but then again I think most of the names of American sporting teams are pretty silly. You see The Kings used to come from Kansas, and so in an alliteration sense , er made sense. But the Sacramento Kings has no historical or literacy basis.

Take the LA Lakers they came from somewhere North where they actually have Lakes, there are no lakes anywhere near LA. It is such an alien concept to anyone in the UK, that when Wimbledon moved to Milton Keynes and called themselves the MK Dons they lost both fans and the sympathies of other fans.

I shall let you know my experiences of basketball tonight. Oh and by the way this is one of my wife's favourite pictures as she is a massive Kings fan, and despises the Lakers with a passion that few know.

Nasty Pasty

There has been a comment posted on the site about Devon’s claims that they invented the pasty as a receipe was found in Plymouth decades before one in Cornwall. My reaction is of disbelief.

The Cornish like many other Celtic tribes did not have a society based around writing, but rather the oral tradition. Stories, songs and folklore have always been passed down by word of mouth and so there is no reason why the same could not have happened with receipes. The 1st mention in any literature of pasty's states that they were Cornish and this was in a letter by some French bloke 500 years before this receipe was written.

I would also like to point out that every few years there is an attempt by the English to undermine Cornwall’s historical differences; I seem to recall a few years ago that Devon started to claim that it was also Celtic. Whilst the Celtic tribe of Cornwall did extend to Exeter at one point there is no strong evidence to suggest that Devon as we know it is Celtic as by the year 1100 all Cornishmen had been driven from Exeter’s walls..

Does finding a receipe mean that the pasty was made in Devon before it was made in Cornwall – no. I had a friend who learnt to swim when he was 20. The year was 1995. He got a certificate to prove that he could do the front crawl. I learnt to swim when I was 5, but I don’t have a certificate to prove that in 1980 I could swim because my Dad taught me. Yet my friend wouldn’t claim to have learnt to swim before me just because he provide evidence to swim and I can’t.

Did Devon invent the pasty? No. Could the Cornish write? Probably not. Have I wasted your time and mine with this rant? Most definitely.

Flirting with Disaster

I went to the bank on Friday to transfer money from here to the UK. Whilst doing it the girl behind the counter started telling me how nice my accent was and whether I would like to stand next to her all day and just talk. I told her it would get pretty boring after a while but she just shook her head and with a dreamy look in her eye sighed "No”.

This isn’t the first time that a person of the opposite sex has told me how great my accent is. Obviously since I have been with Jen the encounters have been ego boosting but I would never do anything about them, but when I was single and it happened you would have thought I would take advantage of standing out from the crowd and at least flirt back with the ladies. You would think that.

Unfortunately I was the world’s worst person at picking up signals, or being able to act upon them. The best example I can give of this was when I was in San Jose exploring a secondment opportunity with PwC. I had spent 8 hours in the San Jose office and hadn’t stopped for lunch or a break, and so when I finally decided to return to my hotel I decided that I really needed to eat. I changed out of my business clothes and went out into downtown San Jose and found a Johnny Rockets. Johnny Rockets is an old fashioned American Diner type that specialises in burgers.

I went in sat down and a rather cute waitress came over to me and gave me the menu. I was very very very very thirsty and so without really looking at her I asked for a coke. She went away and came back with my drink. I ordered my food and as it was quiet she decided to talk to me. She asked me where I was from, what I was doing in town, how much she liked my accent, whether I was here with my wife or girlfriend. Now all this time I am answering the questions, and I am just thinking that she is being polite. But once she finds out that I am single and staying in San Jose that night alone, she asked me what I was doing that evening. Ok – looking back that is an obvious opportunity for me to say something smooth like “I have no plans, why don’t you show me around?” instead I start telling her what I am doing the next day! Other customers came in and so she went and did her job. Meanwhile it slowly sinks in the opportunity I have missed, you see her name tag tells me her name is Devon, I was born in Plymouth, Devon what a way in. I am so busy thinking of how to say this to her, that when she comes over to my table with a smile and says “is there anything else I can get you?” instead of being all flirty back, I stammer and say “just the check please”. IDIOT.

I leave the restaurant and decide to take a stroll around downtown San Jose. It was a pleasant evening not too warm. After about 20 minutes I decide to head back to my hotel. As I make my way back I see a young girl walking towards me smiling. As she gets closer it dawns on me that a) she is smiling at me, and b) she is Devon. She stops me and says Hi. She asked me what I am doing and so I mumble something about walking around, and then I realise I should ask her a question, so I ask her if she has finished work. Even as it came out of my mouth I realised what a dumb question that was – of course she has finished work she is standing on the street talking to you. She says “yeah” in a way that makes it clear that she thinks I am slow. I brush this aside and go for the kill. All my years of flirting come to the fore when I ask her “So what are you doing now?” She replies that she is going to drink some cocktails with a friend as its Happy Hour. She nods her head at me obviously expecting me to go for the next line and ask if I can join them. Instead I reply “That’ll be nice, well I am off to my hotel, enjoy your evening” and with that I head off down the road. She just stands there and even as I am walking away I am thinking, you moron, you moron, you moron. Unfortunately I must have being saying it out loud because I look back to see Devon running down the street properly thinking that she got a lucky escape that time.

2 days later Jen & I got together so Jen likes to think I was really saving myself for her.

One last post before I go.

This is where I will be this weekend. Or at least near it.

Bee Dogs

The Dog of the week competition put me in mind of one of the funniest websites ever. Dogs dressed up as Bees. It is truly a work of art, and if you want to spend 5 minutes laughing at stupid pictures then please visit

www.beedogs.com

Alternatively www.thedailygeek.blogspot.com is well worth checking out.

Have a good weekend everyone, I am off to the in laws for an early Thanksgiving so I will be fulled to the brim with Turlkey and mashed spuds (and my brims are pretty wide).

On that note our work gave us a Thanksgiving Dinner today so I am already turkeyed up. One of the Turkeys was a wild turkey apparently, but not the whisky, just a very angry bird - well you'd be wild if you had been killed and stuffed.

Black Dog

Whilst surfing the internet I stumbled upon Atlantic FM which is a radio station in Cornwall. I took a quick look at their website and was intrigued by the sentence in bold type at the bottom of their homepage which bears the legend "If you would like information about this weeks Dog of the Week click here".

A Dog of the Week competition, how dare people say that Cornwall is backward.

I am the music man..

“The power of music is a curious thing, make one man weep, another man sing”. As Huey could have sung it. Ah music, don’t ya just love it? Music has helped me form some of my closest friendships. I am constantly amazed at how music can bring people of different ages and different nationalities together.

I bring this up because I was chatting to a co-worker and we stumbled onto music and before we knew it an hour had gone by and we realised that we had seen bands on the same tour just in different countries. We bonded and our working relationship has improved and all because of music. I have even leant him a cd (Smashing Pumpkins Unpluuged) and he has returned the favour just now. So whilst I am typing up my banal thoughts I am listening to The Red Hot Chili Peppers latest offering, Stadium Arcadium.

Jen was the first girlfriend that I had that owned more than 10 cds when I met them. Maybe this is why we got married, although if I am honest I think it is because she likes Pop Will Eat Itself. Oh and I think she’s hot. We share a lot of musical taste which I think seriously helps our relationship. On one of the few times that Jen could come to London we went to see Nick Cave at Brixton Academy and had a great time.

Friendships at Uni were formed around music tastes and even though that was now 10 years ago the group of friends still likes to trade cds and music to get the tracks heard. Even back at school I made friends with people due in part to their music tastes.

Now I am not suggesting that music is the be all and end all of a relationship and you don’t need to like all the same things and hate all the same things. For example I am yet to come across the person who despises the Beatles quite as much as I do (don’t get me started), and also only a handful of my friends have every appreciated the musical genius of The Sultans of Ping FC or Mindless Drug Hoover, and no one seems to love Bowie quite like I do (it is NOT an unnatural love) well maybe Iman does.

“Music, ladies and gentlemen, is a gift from god.” Whatever you listen to please make sure it moves you in some way, be it physical (S Club still the best for that) or emotionally. Make sure your music means something to you and although there is a time for mindless singing along (back to S Club) I would recommend music that makes you think. This is why I truly hate the evil that Pop Idol brings into this world, with its soulless, heartless rubbish. The people who can’t sing but try have more soul than the eventual winners.

Wow – not sure where that all came from.

By the Way the RHCP album is not up there with their best and did it really need to be a double album? Has there ever been double album that was good?

You'll having a class

Another Thursday and another class. Last week only 2 other couples turned up so there wasn't quite as much talking as previous weeks. We learnt yet more relaxation techniques for when Jen goes into labour, but my question about how I would be relaxed was met with little enthusiasm and wasn't even addressed.

I am sure we will have another video, and I just pray there is limited input that I have to do (much like the conception).

On Saturday we go back to the same place that we have our class tonight so that Emma can take a sibling class. I don't remember having this done for me when my brother was born, but that might also explain why I broke his leg. If the class can stop Emma giving the bump the same tratment that I gave my brother that is a good thing.

Picture for Pictures sake

A picture of me and the missus, just because I can. More later, but need to crack on with some work for a change.

Getting ready for giving thanks

Yes Thanksgiving is just around the corner, and we are having ours early as Emma goes off with her Dad for Thanksgiving. So this weekend we go up to my in laws and have a double celebration, one for Emma's cousin Violet's birthday and the 2nd one for Thanksgiving.

The office is closed for 2 and a half days for Thanksgiving (compared to just the one for Christmas), and it is considered a much bigger event. No presents are given but the same copious amounts of food and drink are consumed.

We have prepared - as the picture shows, this is just the red wine we have brought in to celebrate the colonials getting loads of food from the natives before butchering them.

Walk this Way

Since the beginning of October my department at work has had a walking challenge. We all had to set goals to walk a certain number of steps each day. My goal was to walk 500,000 steps from October 1st until the end of the year.

Well we are halfway through the challenge and I have walked a whopping 343,197. The US health department recommends that you walk 10,000 steps a day which feels like a long way but I have done it a few times and it really isn't that far. To measure our steps we were each provided with a pedometer, but no one warned me that it was a speaking pedometer. It tells you when you have walked a 1,000 steps and unless you switch it off it will keep talking to you, which certainly scared me and the bloke next to me in the toilets!

I am not really getting any fitter, but at least I am no longer putting on weight, and I have had to have my wedding ring resized, as it kept falling off. Being the sad man that I am I keep a spreadsheet of everyone's progress and then I run reports, and draw up graphs showing how everyone is doing.

Drink to rival Red Bull

A new drink has hit the US market to rival Red Bull. It is a high energy drink that is aiming to challenge Red Bull's market share. Many other companies have tired to compete with Red Bull's mass appear other here, Coca Cola and Pepsi have their own high energy, high caffeine drinks (other than their regular products), and there are numerous others, my favourite being Rock Star which has all sorts of vitamins and herbs in it as well as caffeine so that you can "party" like a rock star. Personally I just drink it to get through the day.

I digress. The new drink has hit the headlines because of it's name. It is called Cocaine. Seriously.

So you can now buy Cocaine legally, well at least for the time being, there have been protests about the name and the fact that it is aimed at kids. I wonder what's next - a chocolate bar named Heroin (I bet it would be moorish).

Daily Geek

Another shameless plug. Check out the Daily Geek blogspot. Written by a good friend of mine, it is very interesting and dare I say it, funny. Damn him.

www.thedailygeek.blogspot.com

Be Dental With Me

Realised it has been a while since I updated, the reason is that I have been a bit busy. Nothing exciting to report so won't go into details. The oral surgery went well. They knocked me out and when I came to an hour later 3 teeth were missing and my clothes were on backwards. Almost like a night out in Morecombe. They reassured me that my trousers being on the wrong way was just a side effect of being put under.

And here is the Ghost Pumpkin

So come on Cudders - show us your pumpkins.

The Pumpkin Challenge

I mentioned a while back in this blog that Jen & I went with Emma to pick pumpkins and then carved them. Since then a challenge has been laid down by Jon. He claims that his pumpkin carving was better than mine, and yet when challenged to furnish me with the evidence he has gone silent. It is a deathly silence, a silence of fear. I on the other hand am not ashamed of my handiwork, and so I present to you for your viewing pleasure, my pumpkins. Be impressed, be wowed, wonder why I bothered in the first place..

Here is the traditional pumpkin.

Ian - Good Luck

No not a picture of Ian and I with booze for his wedding, this was just a few drinks for the two of us at Guilfest.

Hope your day is great tomorrow and I am sure you and Jayne will be very happy together. Have a few of these for me, I will be drinking soup through a straw in your honour after my oral surgery.

Rachel's Birthday

Hapy Birthday Rachel - enjoy a few more beers (like I seem to have in this picture).

Warning

It's Thursday which means parenting class tonight - which dear readers means more whinging from me tomorrow. Also I have oral surgery tomorrow and I have to be put under sedation for it, so expect some drugged out weirdness from me. More than normal I mean.

What's in a label?

I have a terrible sore throat. So I have been trying to dose myself up in order to make myself feel better. This has led me to realise the massive difference between products here and those in the UK. You see food and product labels here are massive. There is every type of information that you could ever need on food and medicine here, and I guess one reason is that the US has a massive litigation culture and as such producers want to warn users of every possible consequence of using their stuff.

For example I have taken some flu tablets. Similar to Lemsip flu tablets, and these ones are called Theraflu. The warning on the back of the box lists all the side effects, which are as follows:

Nervousness, dizziness, or sleeplessness
Marked drowsiness (how it can do this and the above I am not sure)
Excitability may occur, especially in children
Overdose may result in serious liver damage

All products as I say have these warnings and information as to what is in them, so coffee cups have the warning that the contents may be hot. Food lists all the calories, fat, cholesterol, sodium, protein and total carbohydrates. This is even if the food doesn’t have any of them. So the bottled water I am currently drinking has the amounts listed in the categories above, even thought it is 0 in all of them:

Calories 0
Total Fat 0g
Saturated Fat 0g
Cholesterol 0mg
Sodium 0g
Protein 0g
Total Carbohydrate 0g

I think the labels are useful in most cases, but why put them on something like bottled water which has a zero balance for all of the chosen categories?
Also I will keep you informed if I display nervousness, dizziness, sleeplessness, drowsiness, excitability or liver damage. In

Pre Bump Picture

Just wanted to share this picture with you all of Jen pre bump. Unfortunately I still have a bump in this picture - I can't seem to shift it. This was taken at Lake Tahoe, and yes that is snow on the mountains behind us.

Dr & The Medics

Off early tonight as we have another Doctors appointment for the baby. We now have to go every 2 weeks to make sure that the little angel is ok. We have been preparing her room ready for her arrival (we finally got rid of the smell from when Rachel stayed in there) and it is amazing how many things a small baby needs. I tried to insist that the baby needed a 40 inch flat screen tv and a digital camera, but I was pooh pooed.

Talking of pooh we have been buying loads of Winnie the Pooh stuff for the baby as both Jen & I enjoyed the books as children, although mine where the AA Milne versions and Jen read the Disney ones. Anyone who wants to send the baby anything is more than welcome to, (look at me on the scrounge) and we are registered at Babies R Us (babiesrus.com) once you enter the site you go to babies register and look up under Burr in Sacramento we should be the only one.

On the subject of poo we have bought some new born nappies for the baby, and they are so small it is adorable. Worryingly we have bought 90 and Jenhas advised me that we will go through those in about 2 weeks! That my friends is a lot of poo.

I wanna be elected

The mid term elections are over here, and it would appear that the Democrats have wrestled control away from the Republicans of both the House of Representatives (think the Commons) and potentially the Senate (think an elected House of Lords). This years campaigning was apparently the most negative and dirtiest campaign ever but my memory seems to tell me that they say that every election year.

If the adverts were to be believed if the Democrats won control then everything would go to hell in a hand basket. In reality I woke up this morning and came to work and nothing had changed. It was similar to the 1997 General Election in the UK when Labour won for the 1st time in 18 years, if you had believed the press then the day after the election I was going to wake up to find that Labour had destroyed the very fibre of British life and changed the country beyond recognition. In reality this didn’t happen and ultimately it is not going to happen here.

Arnie (I am not even going to attempt to spell his surname) was re-elected governor by a landslide so another 4 years of the Governator, which means that Downtown Sacramento will still be able to sell their T-Shirts with that legend on it.

All of this news overnight and what did the TV station lead with? RAIN!!! Yes we have had a bit of rain and that was the headline news.

Worst picture of all

Well worse was to come today but due to the nature of the picture I can not upload it. The picture is of Marsh Boy pulling a mooney with his best man Chris at the Guildford festival. The reason I can't show it is that Chris bends over a little too far and well, its not just cheeks that you can see.

CENSORED

So the picture has been censored. Good luck Ian & Jayne I hope it goes well. I will now leave you alone and stop posting pictures up here of you Ian, I promise.

By the way this is my 100th post - whoohooo!

I mean, c'mon...

Ladies, how could you resist?? Jayne you better take good care of him because there are a few ladies in the office here who are looking for a Cornishman.......

Jayne, are you sure?

I mean really Jayne - is he the man of your dreams? More to come tomorrow!

Good luck

My mate Ian is getting married. To show all the ladies what they are missing I will be posting a series of pictures featuring him at his best. If you want to try and catch this, um, catch then you'd better hurry he is wed this Saturday in Newquay.

Pizza Cake

For Halloween our team at work dressed up as Telecommuters. The idea was to wear what you would wear if you were working from home, so we all wore PJ’s and dressing gown and slippers. Unfortunately, or luckily, I don’t have any photos of the event,

There was a competition for best costume for an individual, and a team award, and blow me if we didn’t win the team award which is to go out for a pizza lunch together, I can’t wait.

Honesty makes me have to point out that we were the only team to enter the competition, but that isn’t our fault, you can only beat who is in front of you. This is the 2nd time that I have won something due to the fact that no one else entered. The other occasion was the “Fittest Men on Campus” Competition that was held at Lancaster University. The competition was part of Men’s Health week and was supposed to be the finale of a week long of events promoting healthy lifestyles for men. Now, I don’t remember how, but my college Cartmel thought it would be hilarious to enter a team of men so unfit that they would be in danger of dying if they had to do any sort of sporting events. Our team of 4, plus one reserve, consisted of the un-fittest men we had. 4 of the team smoked, all of us drank too much alcohol, before heading down to the square where the event was to take place we all ate a healthy lunch of pie and chips and had a couple of pints. There were to be relays, cycling, weight lifting and a whole host of other events, all of which we had agreed we would do with a can of beer in hand whilst smoking (apart from me as I don’t smoke – it was agreed I could have 2 cans of beer instead). We entered Alexandra Square where this sports feast was to take place only to find that none of the other 8 colleges had entered a team.

We were crowned champions and paraded our trophy back to our bar where an enthusiastic crowd of one cheered us on. That one person was Cal the bar manager who was glad we were back to spend our hard earned loans in her bar as it had been quiet since we had left 15 minutes before. We celebrated into the night as we only knew how – women, wine and song (and at closing time fish n chips).

Video Nasty

Last night was our Birthing Class part 2. This week the same couples as last week kept talking, and if I wasn’t so damn British I think I would say something to them. They soon shut up when the video was put on. And for good reason. Whilst it wasn’t the most graphic film I have ever seen (that would be some Swedish “ART” I saw whilst at school) the shot of the babies head breaching was pretty wince inspiring, and I am not even going to have to push. The intake of breath that went around the room almost sucked all the oxygen out of the room.

Jen of course has been through all of this before so when the tutor was telling the other mum’s to be that it could take anywhere between 12-24 hours of labour to get the little bundle of joy out Jen would nod sagely and the tutor would then tell Jen that she would probably have a much quicker birth as she has done it before.

Before we went to our class we had our scan, and whilst this was supposed to put our minds at ease, it has actually made Jen worry even more. You see we were there to check on the heart. Our technician wasn’t really much of a talker and so his silence whilst viewing the images of our little girl (and yes he confirmed it was a little girl) made us feel uncomfortable. At the end of the exam he went of to consult with a colleague before saying that we were free to go, but he didn’t tell us why he had consulted with a colleague. The results are being faxed to our doctors today so I am sure Jen will be calling them every hour she can.

Jelly Belly

With the elections taking place here next week I thought I would show you all another picture provided by Rachel (it only took her 4 months to get them to me). This one was taken at the Jelly Belly factory and the picture of Arnie (odds on to win re-election as California's Governor or as his supporters call him The Governator) is made entirely of Jelly Belly Beans. What a waste of sweets.

Boo in the Zoo

Well it has been a while since I have updated this website due to various reasons. I had my birthday on Halloween and celebrated in style at the Sacramento Zoo’s “Boo in the Zoo” (can you see what they’ve done there?), and next year I really should take Emma and the bump with me.

On a more serious note, Jen & I have to have another scan as our doctor couldn’t get a good picture of the heart so we have to go to an hour long session where they will go more in depth. Our doctor is really nice and friendly and seems good at the medical side, but sometimes she doesn’t seem to realise the effect she can have on us when she announces things like “I don’t seem to be able to get a good view of the heart, I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about”.
We also went away last weekend to Jen’s parents to go pumpkin picking in order to have a pumpkin to carve for Halloween. Jen’s parents live near Yosemite which gives me perfect excuse to show this picture which was taken by Rachel when she came to visit us.