Thursday, December 28, 2006

White Christmas

Kenny was able to have a White Christmas even though we live in San Diego.

No snow... no problem... Colorado has snow this time of year... and lots of it! He hopped on a jet and headed for Denver (it helped that he was getting paid for the flight... the benefits of being a corporate pilot!!!)







Not only did he get snow for Christmas... he got lots of YUMMY food too! He ordered the "Mixed Grill" that included Wild Boar, Pork and Venison and topped it off with the "Chocolate Tower" for dessert! The Pilot he went with ordered a $250 bottle of wine on the company since it was Christmas... too bad Kenny doesn't enjoy wine :(



I am so jealous... I am thinking of becoming a pilot too :)

Monday, December 25, 2006

Merry Christmas!

Look what we got for Christmas...


Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

It's *Almost* Christmas!

Santa Claus, like all pilots, gets regular visits from the Federal Aviation Administration, and the FAA examiner arrived last week for the pre-Christmas flight check.

In preparation, Santa had the elves wash the sled and bathe all the reindeer. Santa got his logbook out and made sure all his paperwork was in order. He knew they would examine all his equipment and truly put his flying skills to the test.

The examiner walked slowly around the sled. He checked the reindeer harnesses, the landing gear, and Rudolf's nose. He painstakingly reviewed Santa's weight and balance calculations for sled's enormous payload.

Finally, they were ready for the check ride. Santa got in and fastened his seat belt and shoulder harness and checked the compass. Then the examiner hopped in carrying, to Santa's surprise, a shotgun. "What's that for?!?" asked Santa incredulously.

The examiner winked and said, "I'm not supposed to tell you this ahead of time," as he leaned over to whisper in Santa's ear, "but you're gonna lose an engine on takeoff."

:)

Friday, December 15, 2006

Happy Birthday Kenny

♥ Happy Birthday Kenny ♥

Thursday, December 14, 2006

Seasons Greetings


Every single card we have received at my office boasts "Seasons Greetings" on the front. No "Merry Christmas" or even "Happy Holidays." I'd even be happy with a "Happy Hanukah", "Kool Kwanza" or even a "Super Solstice" card. Anything to break up the monotony above my desk.

I ♥ Wireless Internet


I am back online! Yippee!!! I know you all missed me and are breathing a collective sigh of relief.

We have my next door office neighbors to thank for giving me their password for their wireless internet. I am sooooo happy and now can enjoy work again... or at least spend time on blogger when I can't stand working any longer :)

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Why we won't shop at K-Mart...

We have a cute little black dog as you all know. Between that cute little black dog, two busy people (me and Jen), our cheap tan carpet got pretty dirty over the past year. It needed to be cleaned.

Jen and I debated about hiring someone to come clean our carpets or just renting the machine and doing it ourselves. Cleaning the carpet ourselves seemed like a ton of work; we had to rent the machine and go pick it up, buy the chemicals and then pray we did not screw anything up while operating this fangled device. Ooooooooorrrrrrrrrr….. we could find a coupon in the paper that boasted a price less than we could rent the machine for, and they do all the work! A no brainer right?

A quick call to “--------” Carpet Cleaning and we were set. They were to arrive Tuesday between 10am and 1pm. A convenient three hour window where Kenny could stay home and get some homework done while the carpet genie swooped in and poof, clean carpets!

10 am - no carpet cleaner and no phone call, no problem.
11am - carpets still dirty, Kenny still doing homework in the peace and quiet.
Noon - Kenny hungry, Jen hungry, Pilot gets to go for a walk. Carpets all alone.
1pm – lunch is done, phone rings, carpet cleaner running 30 minutes late.
2pm – Kenny and Pilot on couch watching Judge Judy, TV volume set to normal.
2:45pm – phone rings again, carpet cleaner needs to confirm address, but claims to be on his way!
3pm – a ghetto van pulls up outside the house. It is mostly white, but the sliding door seems to be from another vehicle, one that used to be blue. There are no markings on the van, but Kenny has sneaking suspicion that this is the fabled carpet cleaner.

A man emerges from the van wearing blue Dickie’s pants and a matching blue Dickie’s shirt, neither of which are anywhere close to clean or presentable; they are maybe thread bare at best. He announces that he is indeed the carpet cleaner and asks what I want done. “Uh, I need my carpets cleaned…?” I answer.

I take him on a quick stroll through the house showing him the areas to be cleaned and then remind him that we have the “5 rooms for $29.95” coupon and yes, I understand there is a $5 travel charge.

Let’s paint the picture real quick. The man is older with thinning grey hair worn long to hide the thinning. The hair is greasy and sweaty from a day of lugging carpet cleaning supplies. He smells, well, he just plain ole smells bad! From like 5 feet away bad! Sweat, BO, and maybe a hint of poor hygiene for several decades. He also might be a little slow upstairs from sniffing carpet cleaning chemicals all day every day. When he was writing up the paper work, I saw him drool on himself (note – I almost vomited at that point).

So the man follows me through the house noting the rooms which needed to be cleaned and then he returns to the living room where he marches over to the couch and sits himself down right in the middle of it! I froze. No, he did not just sit on my couch, my couch… Yes, this dirty, smelly man is now taking the liberty of plopping his dirty butt on MY clean couch and acting like it is his right to be sitting there. No asking, no glance up at me, nothing. Just a plop and into his precious clip board paperwork.

After about three minutes he looks up at me. I am still standing there aghast, my jaw is somewhere around knees, and maybe a tear in my eye. He proceeds to tell me that the machine that the coupon is for does not do a very good job and that I really should use the truck mounted unit instead. Plus, he tells me I need to pre-treat the carpet and get some other blah blah blah.
“Uh, okay,” I say stunned, “how much more is that?”
“Two hundred fourteen dollars,” says he.
“I’ll stick with my coupon.”

He lumbers off to his truck to get the “low-end cleaning machine” and starts the process. He gets a five gallon bucket and walks into our guest bathroom to fill the bucket with some water from the bath and using that to fill the machine. He only slopped about half gallon on the carpet while filling it (please note the sarcasm of that sentence). Somewhere in there, I ask how long will this take? About 30 minutes, but I can get it done in 20. Great, that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

Finally, the machine is filled, the hoses run and it is making noise. The man starts in our master bedroom. He finishes the room in about 5 minutes and then approaches me again.

“I need to use your restroom” he informs me.
“Uhhhhhhh…..” gasp, gasp, gasp
“Thanks.”
Door shuts.

No, it cannot be. First the couch and now this? Maybe he just drank too much coffee….Nope, 5 minutes have gone by! Are those floaties? Vomit for the second time this afternoon.

It is now 4pm. Twenty minutes of actual cleaning, forty minutes of paperwork, prep work and potty work. He leaves.

I feel violated. This man came into my house. MY HOUSE. I feel dirty and ashamed. I feel cold and naked. I feel all alone in a dark world.

They give you a small three hour window. They charge less than you can rent it for. All you do is make a call and there they are. So easy, so nice. Lies! Deception!

The moral of this adventure: CLEAN YOUR OWN DARN CARPETS!

Remember this: Rent the machine, take the time some Saturday afternoon and clean your own carpet. You will not regret it. You will not save time, you will not save money, you will not be happy if the others do it!

Thursday, November 23, 2006

Happy Thanksgiving!

Kenny was supposed to fly the King Air today leaving Jen all alone for the holiday. Thankfully last night he got a call saying that he only had to fly one leg of the flight and not until 5:00pm! Yippee!!!


So, last night we ran to the store at 9:00 and bought a $5.00 turkey and a few other items.


Today, we had a great last minute feast with a yummy turkey, ham, Stovetop stuffing, instant potatoes and a pumpkin cobbler!


We tried to give Pilot the giblets, but he wouldn’t go near them. He did, however, really, really like the turkey!


Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!
We are thankful for each and every one of you!

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Disneyland!

We went to Disneyland with the whole family last week to celebrate many things (Thanksgiving, Christmas, Birthdays), but mostly just to hang out and have a good time.

There were 10 of us there and we had a blast- Kenny & Jen, Doug & Terry (Kenny's parents), Jim & Jolene (Jen's parents), Eric & Sheree, and David & Jamie even though their soon-to-be little boy Jeffrey's birthday was only a few weeks away! Jamie did great at 33 weeks pregnant. She is my hero!

We had such a good time a the Happiest Place on Earth. Check out our pictures...

Monday, November 20, 2006

DVD Play

Our Vons has the coolest thing… DVD Play.  Eric and Sheree told us about it and we had to check it out for ourselves this weekend.  DVDs are only 99 cents to $1.39 and they have all new releases.  It is pretty cool.  If you have one nearby, check it out.  Your first DVD rental is FREE!  Yippee!

 

By the way, we rented Over the Hedge and The Lake House.  Both were surprisingly good... maybe because they were FREE :) 

 

http://www.dvdplay.com/

 

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Isn't he cute?

Just another picture of Pilot. Man, if we are this bad about forcing people to look at our puppy, just think how bad it will be if we have kids ;)

Pilot Loves Aflac

Last year Jen's parents gave Pilot an Aflac duck. It was sooo cute and fluffy! When you squeezed it it shouted "Aflac, Aflac, AFLAAAAAC!"

Pilot absolutely loves his Aflac. Even now as I am writing this I can hear the poor duck scream "AFLAAAAAC!" in the background as he plays with it.

Needless to say, Aflac has seen better days after a year of abuse... err.. love... from Pilot :)

Monday, November 06, 2006

600th Geocache

We went Geocaching this weekend and got our 600th find! Yeah for us!!!

We did 18 Geocaches on Sunday afternoon... easily surpassing Eric & Sheree. Ha Ha!

Here is Kenny at one of our favorite caches of the day. Nice Hippo, huh? ;)

The New Peter Pan

I got my haircut tonight. It is SHORT! Waaaaayyy shorter than what I asked the lady to do.
At least I will fit in at Disneyland :)

Peter Pan or Peter Pan

Friday, November 03, 2006

Flight Tracking

Kenny is flying the King Air again today!

They wheels up around 10:30 am.

You can watch the flight at www.flightaware.com

Tail Number: N800PK

Thursday, November 02, 2006

Kenny bought a Bowling Ball...

Here it is...


Let the mocking begin... :)

Halloween at The Office

Tuesday night didn't bring out the ghouls and ghosts, it brought out Pam and Angela! For those of you who don't know, Pam Beesly and Angela Martin are characters from one of our favorite shows... The Office.

Tonita and Jen decided to dress up as two of the Office girls since they had to work at their respective offices that day anyway. We really *are* dressed up!!!

That night, Tonita made an amazing assortment of food and we had a great time eating, watching a movie and eating some more!

Overall, a fun Halloween was had by all!

Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Kenny's New Job!

Hey look, Kenny has a "real job" now! He is flying for Schubach Aviation as a corporate/ charter pilot.

Yesterday, Kenny flew the King Air B200, a twin turbo prop that cruises about 300 mph! He will be flying their Learjet 35 soon!

Check out these pictures from his first flight with the company... mocking the epaulets is not allowed :)


Friday, October 27, 2006

Nightmare Before Christmas 3D

That's right- 3D!

Last night we went and saw Nightmare Before Christmas with Danny & Tonita and Eric & Sheree after work. The movie was only released in selected theaters and is only out for a few weeks, so go see it if you can.

The best part about the movie, besides the brilliance of Tim Burton and Danny Elfman, were the awesome 3-D glasses we got to wear! Aren't we cool???

After the movie we headed to Pick up Stix to get some food since we had rushed to the movie without grabbing dinner. We ordered and sat down. The little high school- maybe college kid who brought us our food was quite intrigued by the fact that some of us were related and was determined to guess who was related to whom. Apparently he thought Sheree looked like everyone at the table and had to be related to Kenny, Danny and even Tonita!

He came back to our table a second time in order to play the guessing game some more and proceeded to place about 5 more orders of food on the table. Not knowing who ordered the plethora of food, we questioned him, but he was too into the guessing game to hear us. Well, the extra food was very good because it turned out to be free! Once he placed it on the table he couldn’t take it back, so we ate to our hearts content. Later he came back to the table to tell us that he made a mistake and he hopes we enjoyed the free food… the people who ordered the meal were quite upset. We were full and happy, so he got a good tip :)

Mommies should always wear crowns!

I have the coolest sister who just happens to be a soon-to-be-mommy!

For the baby shower I made her and her husband matching crowns that said "Mommy" and "Daddy." They only wore them for a bit at the shower because it was "too hot." Booo!

Yesterday, Jamie informed me that she is wearing the crown all the time per my request. Here is our conversation taken directly from IM and the proof of what a cool Mommy and sister she is...

Jamie says:
hey jen, I am wearing my crown right now for you


Jen says:
yeah! send me a picture

Jamie says:
no way!!! i am all gross from cleaning today


***She sends the picture to my phone anyway because she LOOOOVES me!***

Jen says:
I LOVE YOUR PICTURE JAMIE!!!

Jamie says:
i had to send you a picture so you would believe i was wearing it


Jen says:
you have angry eyes

Mom says:
I want to see it! Email it to me


Jen says:
i will send it to your phone right now and then email it later

Jamie says:
i couldn't get a good picture by myself. that is why i only have my eyes and the crown in the picture


Mom says:
OK


Jen says:
ANGRY EYES >-)

Mom says:
WAY TOO FUNNY!

Mom says:
YOU SHOULD POST IT ON THE BLOG


Jamie says:
don't you dare


Jen says:
i am going to!

Jamie says:
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO


Jen says:
that is what you get for giving me angry eyes and not wearing your crown at the shower

Jamie says:
but i am wearing it all the time now like you told me to


Jen says:
good! this is too funny... i am actaully laughing out loud at my desk

Mom says:
I love it when my girls get along!!!!


Jamie says:
i sleep in it, shower in it, eat in it...

Jen says:
i look like i am crazy

Jamie says:
i am glad that i can be entertaining


Jen says:
i am so saving this conversation and posting it!


Thursday, October 26, 2006

Boo... Content Filters!

So, my company just installed a firewall/ content filter a few days ago. This means no more myspace, games, you tube or anything fun at work! At least I still have blogger :)

For those of you who don't know, I am most definitely not a slacker at work. I get all my tasks done and then some. Just sometimes I need a break ;)

The firewall has actually provided some form of entertainment. I am having a great time typing in websites to see if they are blocked and what reason. I went to a site the other day about medicine and it was blocked. The reasoning... it was labeled as "The Occult"

Some of the sites that are blocked:

  • MySpace… well I guess it should be because Kenny thinks it is EVIL
  • You Tube… I can’t see the videos of Eli anymore :(
  • Yahoo Games… I guess I have to stick with solitaire
  • Sports Illustrated… I know they put out a swimsuit issue, but come on!
  • Air 1 Radio… Very good Christian radio station… so sad!
  • Photobucket... a great site to upload photos. I can’t view anything hosted on that site. Very sad because our friend Joy posted pictures of their new house and I can’t see them :(
  • Cheaper Than Dirt... a crazy site/ magazine that Kenny loves. They sell guns and stuff!
  • Yahoo Messenger... at least I still have Trillian!

It is a sad, sad day. So, keep the comments coming since it is now one of my only means of contact with the outside world and only form of entertainment!

-Jen

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Baby Jeffrey's Shower

This last weekend we went up to Leona Valley to celebrate with new Mommy & Daddy to be, Jamie & David. The baby shower was great and we all had lots of fun. We can't wait to meet Jeffrey in a few months!

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

Miramar 2006

We are all trying to recover from the Miramar Air Show this weekend. Overall the show went well, despite the rain.

At least we planned on rain. We plan on rain every time we have a booth at an air show simply because we seem to be bad luck. What are the odds of it raining at the air show for the last 4 years when before that it hadn't even thought about being cloudy for over 10 years?!? Oh well.

The show was good as always and the night show was especially fun this year with amazing fireworks and the wall of fire! We managed take a break from the booth to snap a few pictures of the fireworks. That is our booth in the corner.

Although it was fun, we are tired and don't want to look at another t-shirt for a while. We are trying to clear our minds of the auto-response greeting of "Shirts are on sale... one for $15, two for $20..."

Most of our customers were awesome with many return customers and lots of great compliments. However, some customers were... interesting..


---

Lady who clearly can't fit into an extra-small: "Do you have this in an extra small?"

Kenny: "No, I am sorry, but that is the only size we have left"

Lady looking at Kenny and sticking out her bottom lip in a pout for about 2 minutes: "Do you have this in an extra small?

---

Lady with a HUGE, partially rusted Jesus head necklace around her neck and a dragon ring on every finger speaking in a hillbilly accent: "Look at these them thar Italian charms."

Tonita: "Can I help you find any charms?"

Lady: "Oooh, I like the 'I love traveling' charm."

Tonita: "Here you go, this is a great charm."

Lady: "Oooh, I like traveling and this here charm says I like traveling. It is true. I like traveling. I do like to travel. It is so true. THE CHARM IS SO TRUE!"

Tonita rushing to put the charm on the lady's filthy dirty bracelet: "That is nice."

---

Guy running up to the booth during the night show: "I need a medium sweatshirt"

Us: "We only have large and extra large, but Jen and Tonita both wear the large."

Guy: "My girl only wears medium. She has me trained to only buy medium."

Tonita: "Well, if she is cold, I am sure she would much rather be warm wearing a large than cold wearing nothing."

Guy: "True. After the show she can give it to her mom. Her mom is about my size."

Us: "Maybe you should try it on."

Guy grabbing the sweatshirt that says BLUE YONDER GIRL: "Oh man, don't let anyone see me trying on a girls sweatshirt. I'll never live this down..."

Guy holding out his arms and twirling around: "How do I look?"

Tonita: "You look hot."

This guy had us laughing so hard. He was actually great and lots of fun!

---

Asian Lady: "You have in medium?"

Tonita: "Sorry, we only have large and extra large sweatshirts left."

Asian Lady: "You have medium?"

Tonita: "No, only large and extra large."

Asian Lady turns to husband and says something...

Asian Husband to Tonita: "You have medium?"

Tonita: "Only large and extra large."

Asian Husband: "MEDIUM?!?"

Tonita: "Only large and extra large, sorry."

Asian Lady and Husband walk to other side of the booth...

Asian Lady to Danny: "You have medium?"

Danny: "NO"

Asian Lady buys the large sweatshirt.

---

Overall, we had a ton of fun and are looking forward to next year :)




Captain Aceves

Congratulations Dad on officially becoming Captain!
We love you!

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Shameless plug...

Come see us at the Miramar Air Show. If you can't make it please pray for good weather and NO RAIN! Although we typically love rainy weather, we are a bit tired of us being rained out of every air show. Stop by our booth and say hi... we promise no to put you to work :)



Friday, October 06, 2006

If we were animated...

We should have a cartoon made about us!

Featuring:

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

Monday, October 02, 2006

Welcome Baby Joseph!


We have a new baby in our lives! Last Tuesday night we received a call from Carl and Rebecca asking us to come over and watch their little 2 year old, Hannah. Why? Because Baby Joseph was on his way! Joseph Anthoney was born the next morning at 6:42AM.

Back at Carl & Rebecca's house, we were both already awake with Hannah... she isn't too into sleeping in. She woke up at 6:00AM ready to play... oh the joys of a 2 year old. Being "Mommy" until about 10:00AM... ONLY 4 hours of awake time... really showed me how amazing Rebecca is. I was beat! So, hats off to all you Mommies out there.

On Sunday, we saw little Joseph for the first time. Funny thing is that I don't remember Hannah being so small (although I was reminded that she was even smaller!) He is the cutest thing and even looks like boy! I was expecting him to look like Hannah, but nope... he looks like Joseph! He is such a good baby and hardly fusses at all. Hopefully he will be mellower than his older sister, who was having a grand old time running around the house trying to entertain us and take our attention away from her new brother. Hannah actually is doing great with Joseph and loves to shower him with hugs and kisses… awww!

Anyway, congratulations to Carl & Rebecca and big sister Hannah!

Love,

Uncle Kenny & Auntie Jen

Thursday, September 28, 2006

Mammoth Fly Fishing

We had a great time fishing this weekend in Mammoth. Early Thursday morning we piled into the Archer and headed up to Mammoth for a long weekend.

After only a few hours of flying, we arrived in Mammoth safe and sound. We decided to hit Hot Creek to do a little bit of fishing as a sort of warm up for the weekend events. Unfortunately, Kenny's line broke off after only about 10 minutes of fishing so we didn’t catch anything, but we were able to go check out the thermal areas and new geyser at the creek. Having better luck, John and Chuck both caught a few rainbow and brown trout that afternoon.

The next morning we met up with Steve, our guide and headed up to the Upper Owen’s River. Kenny had an awesome day of fishing and caught 15+ trout that day. Jen, not as great, but ended up with around 10 and had perhaps the largest fish of the day! The next day, we hit the Owen’s again and had another great day. This time it was Jen’s turn to shine. She caught a 16 inch rainbow as well as many other trout, both rainbows and brown. She also hooked what was probably the smallest fish of the trip… a 3 inch brown trout!

One of Jen’s fish decided that it wanted to come home with us, and couldn’t understand why we threw it back (we did all catch and release). After Jen put it back in the water, the fish swam over and hung out by her foot for about five minutes! Not sure if you can see him in the picture, but here it is. I also took some video that I will try to upload later.

Overall, we had a great time, but are exhausted! Check out our pictures below…


Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Gone Fishing!


We're going fly fishing in Mammoth this weekend!

We'll post pictures once we get back... pretty sure they will be of Jen outfishing Kenny again :)

Monday, September 18, 2006

Sailing Pictures



Sailing pictures from a few months ago. Sorry it took so long :)

Friday, September 15, 2006

Thursday, September 14, 2006

Congratulations Danny!

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting


Danny is officially an A&P Mechanic!

Congratulations!!!

Buca di Beppo & Family

Jen's parents came down this last weekend to visit now that Jim is home from the fire in Washington. Matt, Kelly & Eli also happened to be in town, so we all decided to go to Buca di Beppo on Thursday night. We made the reservation for the nine of us (Danny & Tonita too!) for 6:30pm that night downtown.

We all showed up in separate cars coming from different areas, but all managed to meet at the exact same time at the parking garage in Horton Plaza... all of us 30 minutes late! Jen’s parents had a good excuse for being late… they drove in from LA at hit traffic. Matt & Kelly hit construction and road closures… good excuse. Danny and Tonita road with us… they had no control over the time. Again, good excuse. Us? Well, we were just late. Hey, it's okay to be late if everyone is late right?!?

Well, our reservation was cancelled, but they managed to get us in right away. We had a great time eating and talking and eating some more. We discovered that Eli loves lemons. Kelly had to pry them away from him to keep him from eating the whole thing. He is also a ham in front of the camera. He showed off his cheesy smiles and photogenic personality the entire time… this kid really should be in commercials.

The rest of the weekend was spent making Jen’s parents help around the house… we always seem to put them to work when they come. We organized the shed and the Ebay room. Yes, we have an Ebay room.

We also spent time getting things ready for the Miramar Air Show which is in a month. Oct. 13-15 if any of you want to come and hang out or help us at our booth for Blue Yonder Girl or buy some stuff (shameless plug, yes I know).



PS. Sorry the photos aren't that great. It was dark in the restaurant.