Who's the Master?

Cy is and has always been an ASE Master Technician since the day I met him. Every five years, he has to get recertified. Well, at the end of this month - his title would expire, unless he took the certification tests again. He signed up to take all eight tests and of course it lands on the day of Evan's birthday. Womp-womp-womp -- BUMMER!

The end result - he passed with flying colors! Also "Acing" three of of the eight! Yes, my hubby is smart as a whip! To celebrate, I had a customized surprise cake made for him. And since we were all going to a small group BBQ dinner, what better way to have others enjoy in the celebration! When I announced to everyone that I had an announcement -- I think the room got hyped up asking if we were expecting again. FAT CHANCE! Hah! Cy was shocked about me saying I wanted to announce something too! ! No, no, no -- I just wanted to say how proud I was of Cy and wanted everyone to help celebrate by having some onolicious (that's good in Hawaiian) cake! Hands down, everyone helped themselves and I busted out some ice cream too! Cake taste better with ice cream. :)

Because the ASE company is highly known and its logo is copyrighted, I had to get permission from them in order for the bakery to produce the customized cake I wanted. No problem. The VP was super nice and faxed over the copyrights to the bakery per my request. AND - he also requested a picture of Cy w/his cake. I emailed the following pictures to the ASE company:

Here are some sample ASE test questions. I have no idea what the answer is - you'll have to ask my ASE Master Tech - he will definitely know the answer. :)

Technician A says that although all cylinders were in balance during a cylinder power test, there still may be a problem with the ignition or fuel systems.
Technician B says that good cylinder power balance test results indicate that compression is good in all cylinders. Who is right?
A. A only

B. B only

C. Both A and B

D. Neither A nor B

When conducting a pressure test on an A/C system, the ambient temperature is 85 degrees F., the low-side gauge reads very low (10 psi) and the high-side gauge also reads low (90 psi), which of the following could cause these readings?
A. Low Refrigerant Level.
B. Normal Operation.
C. Bad Compressor.
D. A high-side restriction.

If I had more time...

• If I had more time, I'd spend more of it with God.
• If I had more time, I'd plant a garden in my backyard.
• If I had more time, I'd read a lot more.
• If I had more time, I'd go to the gym and work out, so that I could feel like I've shed a few pounds.
• If I had more time, I'd cook a really nice breakfast, lunch or dinner for my family.
• If I had more time, I'd sit, pet and play with my cat Pickles because he makes me happy.
• If I had more time, I'd snoozed for 10 extra minutes before its time to wake up to start the day.
• If I had more time, I'd go to the beach with my family.
• If I had more time, I'd finish scrapbooking some of my many unfinished projects.

I have more - my list goes on and on. But I figured I'm thinking about if I did have more time, might as well type it out while its fresh on my mind.

If you had more time - what would you do?

What's Missing?

College friends from my past - but I found them! I'm excited about connecting with two college friends through facebook! Gosh, its been ages since I've seen or connected with them. My college days with them and other college friends bring back fond memories. Yeah for facebook!

What else is missing? Evan's tooth! Yep - his first tooth ever has finally come out (with a little help from some uh, string and a door). He was so excited about a loose tooth, but when it started hanging on for dear life, he was hurting. So, we gave the tooth a little "tug". All better!

The tooth fairy is suppose to come tonight. I wonder what the going rates are now. Anyone know?

One last thing -- I had to put this cute picture of Jacob lounging in his baby pool inflatable. He was lovin' the water.

Just some random current pictures of the ones I love! And I also posted a little video of Jacob saying hello (give it a sec to load up)!

Evan and Jacob - Riverbanks Zoo

Daddy and Jacob - Riverbanks Zoo

Pickles - he thinks he's going to school

(sitting on Evan's carseat with his lunchbox next to him)

Jacob (3-months)

Special Flowers just for ME!

I had an interesting conversation with a few girlfriends of mine while I was scrapping last month. We were talking about how I received a wonderful mother’s day gift with the help of a wonderful, wonderful friend. She hinted to Cy about getting me to attend National Scrapbooking Day. And guess what – it worked! As a gift, I got to go and scrap and start on Jacob’s baby book. I was #1 - so SHOCKED because, ah, my hubby is one to “forget” to get things such as this and #2 – my wonderful, wonderful friend put it all together and suggested it to Cy and #3 – I enjoyed every bit of it! So, while I was at this crop, in conversation – we talked about husband’s buying flowers for one another. Blah, blah, blah, yadda, yadda, yadda. Well, one of my friend’s had said she complained to her hubby that flowers die, blah, blah, blah and then also she hadn’t received any flowers in a while. The next time he gave her flowers – they were fake. Well, to make it sound nice and pretty, he gave her silk flowers. I was like, wow – really? Well, it’s the thought that counts and he was very thoughtful in giving her flowers (be it real or fake).

Gardenia's from our yard - dead after four days.

That evening, I shared this story with Cy. Why? I guess to hint to him that I haven’t received flowers in a really long time. Although, the justification of not receiving flowers is because flowers do die and having flowers around our house causes more chaos for our cats, because they too like flowers (munch, munch, yum, yum, belch, gag, dirty pile of cat-flowered barf on the carpet). Weeks later, a big surprise to me – I got home and Cy had something special for me. My very own flowers! One’s that don’t die! He made them – yes! MADE THEM! He welded auto parts and created a beautiful bouquet of flowers for me. He also painted them too! I guess I’m not the only crafty one in the house.

Let me explain. The flowers and stems are individual valves. He bent them any-which-way and welded them together. Then welded them to bearing racings – five of them. My flowers rotate too! You can see the ball bearings at the end of the “stems”. Then the very last thing on the bottom to keep it stable is a volvo flange. Go figure! The quality and hours of working in this makes me appreciate how much of a great husband I have. Hands down, this is one of the most creative gifts I’ve received from anyone. My sweet husband is the best!

Special flowers Cy made for me!

Above picture: Valve & bearing races in their original state

Facelift for my Blog

As you can see, my blog got a face lift. Woo hoo!:)

I had to make a few changes to my blog since blogger was doing away with uploading blogs through my ftp site. So complicated, but now its up and running. Some of the other blogs I read have cool backgrounds and widgets and I always wanted to do that with my blog. However, since my original blog site was uploaded through my personal website (mrearly.com) I had difficulty doing it.

Anyhoo, I managed to change my background - still needs some tweaking, but I don't have time to mess around with it. So, I'm stuck with this one instead. It's cool enough for me!

On to life...

Had a great Memorial Day weekend with the family. Didn't clean the house like I had planned too! Instead, we put up our new pool. I say "we" - but actually Cy did. He did a wonderful job setting it up. On the pool box it was labeled, "THREE EASY STEPS". I chuckled after reading that. Cy did too! Our backyard isn't so leveled, so Cy had to find a spot that was semi-leveled and work from there. He spent most of Saturday morning leveling it - digging, filling dirt, trenching, etc., etc. and then finally at 9 pm - the pool was up! We didn't add water to it until the next day after we got back from church. Thankfully, Evan was occupied with is friend Greer and also had his 2nd sleepover! His first was at Miss Lynn's house with some other friends, but this one was just with Greer. Bless her momma's heart... she managed two five-year olds, plus her one-year old and her hubby who had a major backache and wasn't feeling too good. SHE IS SUPER WOMAN! I'll be happy for her when school is out - she's a teacher and I'm sure like all other teachers, are ready for the school year to end. BIG SHOUT OUT TO ALL TEACHERS!

The summer has officially started. Evan is back in his summer program at Harmony. The boy did not sleep well Monday night (the day before summer program starts). Matter of fact, he went to bed around 10:30 pm. He woke up in a pretty good mood though. Weird. I figured he'll be okay later on during the day, since he'll be able to take a nap to catch up on his sleep that he had missed. WRONG! When we got there with his napping stuff in hand, I was told he's five now - no more naps. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? LOL...poor Evan. I knew he would be tired, but he managed, and when I picked him up that afternoon, he was like the energizer bunny. He kept going, and going, and going. When we got home - sure nuf' he pulled his shirt and shorts off, kept his underwear on and jumped into his pool. Awee...so cool and refreshing. Cy joined him when he got home. Yep, it started to rain again, but who cares....the water was 82 degrees and they were loving the water. I on the other hand, watched them from the inside, while nursing Jacob.

It's mighty nice to have a pool. It's life to be the only feeding supply to my three-month old.

My Five Year Old Big Boy

Yeah! Yeah! It’s been what – three months since I last posted a blog? I’ve been quite busy these past three months. I mean, SUPER BUSY! It’s not like I could just have a baby and then boom – back to normal/same-ol-usual self again. Yeah, right – in any case – if you’re reading this and you did have a baby and then “went back to normal” – you’re NOT NORMAL! :)

As the title of this blog states “My five-yr. old Big Boy” – Cy and I are now parenting to a five year old! Wow – where has the time gone? Evan turned the BIG 5 on Thursday, May 13th. We started the day opening two of his gifts when he woke up. He has been “dying” to get a zhu zhu pet, which is what he got. And then three months prior to his birthday, he saw in CVS Pharmacy VW Bug cars. He was “dying” to have one too! But, of course, I being the parent put my foot down and said, “ah, no to the bug” – I did however, make a mental note about and got it for his birthday! He opened it first and instantly said, “Punch buggy, don’t punch back” – I know you all know the game…J and then came the 2nd gift – the zhu zhu pet (Num nums). Boy, was he happy! He didn’t know what to think. Well, I take that back, he did know what to think – he was thinking…my zhu zhu pet needs a house! Clever, clever is my five-year old! I told him, well, maybe he’ll get one later. For now, we need to get ready for school. Off we went to school.

At Harmony, they have a birthday celebration for the birthday kid. Evan couldn’t wait for his special day. Cy and I joined their circle time for his celebration of life event. We were super happy to be sharing this special day with Evan and all of his Harmony friends! At the end of circle time, Evan shared his birthday poster to the whole class. Afterwards, they posted it on the classroom door so everyone else can see it too!

Circle Time @ Harmony School

Poster of Pictures

That evening Grandma and Papas bought some “property” for Evan’s zhu zhu pet, Num nums, and Jacob gave him another zhu zhu pet (Jilly) so Num nums wouldn’t be alone. Boy, was he ever so happy!

I’m going to make this short - we had a birthday party for Evan on Saturday at Saluda Shoals Park. This was his third time having his party here and frankly, he enjoyed it and so did we! This year was different since we couldn’t invite everyone and their mama to his party. We kept it low-key and invited a few friends from school, plus his Royal Ranger friends. I'm sorry for those we didn't invite, but again - we kept it VERY LOW-KEY! We could NOT-NOT invite his “twin” Greer! She’s four hours older than Evan. The funny thing about their parties – Evan’s party was around lunch time and Greer’s party was in the late afternoon – same location, but different shelters. How funny is that? Great minds think alike, right April? Even though we were exhausted from our little party, Evan took a quick cat nap at home, and then headed back to Saluda Shoals for Greer’s party. He had a blast and enjoyed Greer’s party favor – a TIE-DYE shirt!! So unique, so cool, so Evan (he loves tie-dye stuff).

Sophia, Evan & Greer - ALL SMILES!

Celebrating Evan’s fifth birthday was a blast. I’m so glad it’s over!

Yo Gabba Gabba! Party favors - bubbles, ring & personalized tags!