Beezleberry Tea Break

Changin Things Up

noreply@blogger.com (mrbrentoz) — Tue, 20 Aug 2013 06:28:00 +0000

So, since I've got some bad juju associated with this blog, I've moved everything over to a new blog. A fresh start as it were. Come check it our here! Or if that doesn't work, go to http://idcoastie.blogspot.com. This blog will be taken down after 01 October.

Brent

Get Yourself To The Butterfly Lounge

noreply@blogger.com (mrbrentoz) — Wed, 25 May 2011 04:00:00 +0000

As I sit here, listening to podcasts I just heard someone say that you don't need a pool to have a pool party. Interesting. On to business! Today class, we will be talking about the past month or so (pictures may not be included), plans for the future (like what's going down in August) and some other stuff. Let's do this!

Bad clichés aside, we've had a pretty busy month. Let's start with what's helped us get through a good portion of it. ---> That's right. We now subscribe to Netflix (for the third time). We watched all available seasons of Dexter (and ended up renting seasons 3 and 4 from Blockbuster), and now Cait has moved on to Dr. Who. It's also great because there are a ton of kid's shows on there. Savannah (and I) watched all of the Phineas and Ferb, Backyardigans and a slew of VeggieTales. The only downside is that it is interfering with my latest video game obsession.

Portal 2 (and the Orange Box for that matter). Thanks to the wonder of instant gratification (aka the Internet) I was able to download the demos to both Portal and Portal 2. Needless to say I was hooked. And so was Cait. So now we trade off on who gets to play (and when) or what we're going to watch. I do question Cait's logic though. Either that or her video game awesomeness leads her to go to places in video games that the user was not meant to go. The portal games are logic / thinking / puzzle games. It involves using your portal gun to allow objects / people to move in unique ways to solve a series of puzzles before progressing to the next level. It is highly addictive. If you're in the neighborhood and want a demonstration, feel free to stop by and either Cait or myself will be glad to show you the virtues of the games. :)

To kick off our summer work list, we decided to tackle a couple of big projects. First was to redo our front garden. Most of the plants were dead and it was overrun with weeds. So the picture is what it now looks like. Well. mostly. There are some plants that need to be replaced already and the black anti-weed matting that we put down isn't working as well as we hoped. So, we still need to weed, but not nearly as much as before. On the plus side, the bumblebees LOVE this garden. Everyday I usually see two or three bumblebees going about their business. We also replaced our dead magnolia tree with a 7 year old tree. Same species as before, although we paid considerably less for this one. It was purchased at a local nursery whereas the previous one was purchased at Lowes. We've been talking about what to do with the large patch of weeds in front of the rest of... the front... of the house. I think we're pretty much in agreement of what we want to do and continue with the theme and colors of what's pictured here. In addition to this, we're trying to figure out what we want to do for the patio that we're going to be putting in this summer. What we're looking for is a cement mold that is flat on top allowing us to place chairs and a table on top with out too much rocking or loss of footing. We did purchase an outdoor dining set and place settings as well. Our house is going to be the place to be by the end of summer. Of course that's around November out here.

If you happen to drive by our house now, you will notice something quite different. Our house is now green. I know what you're thinking, "A green house? Have you gone blind?" The answer is no. The photo to the left represents a couple of things. First is that we don't actually have a picture of the new house color. That will be corrected soon. Second is that we're not completely done. I need to replace a board on the back of the house and then paint. Plus I need to get all 12 shutters primed and painted. That will be done before this weekend. So, I'm not to concerned there. But once we've completed everything, I will share it on facebook, all 3 of my twitter accounts and here. No need to deprive you of the pictures. And my Picasa Web Albums too. Can't forget those.

Another change we've made is that we now use TruGreen for our lawn care (weed killer, fertilizer and lawn nuisance control). The results so far have been amazing. At the start of the year, most of the color in my front yard was from weeds. Needless to say, I wasn't a fan of that. Thankfully we found a coupon and got a discount on our first application. That was about 6 weeks ago (which means that it's time for our next application) and the results have been amazing. Almost all of the weeds in our yard are dead and my front lawn is pretty. Except for the dead spots that need to be reseeded. But that shouldn't be to hard to do. In addition to that, the lawn gets watered with well water which is full of good nutrients for the plants and yard. By the end of the summer, I'm looking to have a nice full lawn with little or no dead spots.

Let's talk about my current personal project. I am currently working my way through the bible a few chapters at a time. All of my notes, thought, questions and summaries are posted on one of my other blogs, On Fire For The Lord. This blog is a way for me to keep on track of my reading and to try and look deeper into the bible. So far, I've got a few posts up and will post as I read the sections I've got laid out. Please stop by and take a look.

My new audio interest is the podcast of my favorite baking blog! Joy the Baker teamed up with a group of her friends and made homefries.com. The podcast mentioned at the beginning of this post? Got it from homefries. It's pretty fun to listen to the various people talk about this and that and everything else in between. This picture is courtesy of Joy the Baker and homefries. You should head on over and take a look. You can subscribe to the podcasts (for free!) or share it with your friends!

And now onto future plans! And my apparent love of the exclamation mark! But this August, we will be going to Disney World!!! In case me in a Sorcerer's Apprentice Mickey hat didn't give that away. We've been planning this for a few months now and I got word a couple of days ago that my leave had been approved. Now, Disney does not have the same offer as a couple of years ago (Active Duty Military got a free 5 day pass with park hopper and water park access). But we are able to purchase tickets at ridiculously low prices through MWR. We anticipate visiting three of the four parks and one of the water parks. Or maybe both water parks. Who knows?!? Once we told Savannah where we were going, that's all she would talk about! Every day she asks when we're going to go see Mickey Mouse. If it was up to her, I'm not sure we would ever leave Disney. I know that this is going to be a much needed break and hopefully, the August time frame will allow us to beat the worst of the summer crowds. Hopefully. We did learn some things from our last visit concerning Savannah and hopefully the heat won't be too bad for her. We did get her a little personal mister from Target and she loves to play with that. All we need for her now is a battery operated clip on fan. Well, I know the Disney trip will warrant their own posts but we've still got some time left before I have to worry about those. I will also be tweeting from Disney, so be sure to follow any one of my 3 accounts. I'll provide them when the time draws nearer. That's concludes today's post. As promised, here is the Portal picture:

- Brent

Luke, I Am Your Father

noreply@blogger.com (mrbrentoz) — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 14:34:00 +0000

What a classic line. Along with "These aren't the droids you're looking for." But as you can see, I found the droid I was looking for! All of this was possible because of MegaCon! Cait and I spent a day at MegaCon 2011 this year and we had a blast! I do wish I had a costume that I could have worn though. But I am working on that. By next year's convention, I should have a costume ready! Man, I sure use lots exclamation points. I guess I'm just excited. We drove down to Orlando on the Friday that MegaCon kicked off and we arrived shortly after it started. I must say that I was pleasantly surprised on how big of a convention it was. Having judged it to be a fairly small convention based off last year's pictures, it turned out to be fairly large. Not nearly as large as Comic Con or Star Wars Celebration, but still good-sized. After we got our bearings and got into the convention, we were greeted with rows and rows of booths.

In addition to the many booths, there were tons of people in costume! As you can see, we have Master Chief from the Halo series. I didn't realize that he was that short... Of course, it could just be a regular Spartan too. But he was not the only Master Chief at the convention either. There were plenty of costumed folks dressed the same. Lots of characters from Naruto, Bleach, One Piece, Full Metal Alchemist and numerous others that I didn't recognize. Then there were the video game characters. The most recognizable for me were Fang and Vanille from Final Fantasy XIII. There were costumes all over the place! I was in nerd heaven. But it was a while before I found the main reason that I wanted to come to MegaCon.

Granted, I did see Obi Wan and Boba Fett wandering around. In fact, as you can see, it seems that everyone wanted to fight the Jedi. Even a Smurf. As Cait and I wandered up and down the rows of booths, we were amazed at how much stuff was for sale. There were weapons (swords and knives and such) vendors, people selling costumes, wigs, manga (drawn Japanese cartoons), anime (animated Japanese cartoons), we even found a booth selling authentic Japanese snacks. Things such a Hello Panda crackers, Pocky sticks, rice candy and so much more than I have ever seen. Now, you can find some of this in the ethnic section of most grocery stores, but the sizes that the vendor had were HUGE! Granted they were imported from Japan and didn't have any English written on them, but still. HUGE! In addition to those who I've already mentioned, you also had local and small manga and comic book artists, various arts schools plus a few miscellaneous booths that didn't really fit into any other category. You also had various groups displaying what they do best. For example, there was a group of Lego builders that built all sorts of displays. They built the Battle of Hoth and animated an AT-AT (All Terrain Armored Transport) along with a Snow Speeder circling around another AT-AT.

Ah, at last! I have found what I've been looking for! The Florida Garrison of the 501st Legion! The fine gentleman pictured on the right is a Scout Trooper. You might remember them as the Stormtroopers on the speed bikes in Return of the Jedi. I was hoping for more than just 1 legion member, but I was still happy to get this picture all the same. And if you look behind the scout trooper, you can see more costumes. Those were just costumes with no one in them. I did take a bunch more pictures and they can be found in my Picasa Web Album here. I was in absolute nerd heaven! All in all it was a great time. I do wish that we could have spent more time there, but there is always next year. And next year, I will be in costume (I can see Cait rolling her eyes now)! If you are curious as to the costume I will be wearing I'll give you a hint: Google Lt. Galle. That's it for this post about our adventures at MegaCon!

- Brent

Homemade Heaven

noreply@blogger.com (mrbrentoz) — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 20:57:00 +0000

Courtesy of Joy the Baker

Have you ever tasted Heaven? Even just a little slice? Each one of the slices of bread in this picture is a little slice of heaven. All of this is courtesy of Joy the Baker. With our her, this post would not exist. If you love baking (as I do), and you have an RSS or Feed reader (i.e. Google Reader) you need to follow her blog. Conveniently, I have included the link to follow her. It is...HERE! It is definitely worth it. Now, on to my adventures in making slices of heaven in my kitchen.

Although I don't have that many pictures of my process (something I need to work on), I'll show you what I've got. Let me put this out there first. There is a total of about 2 - 2 1/2 hours of down time when making this between risings and cooling down. The wait is so worth it though.

Nothing say good like butter!

I would also recommend that you pre-stage all of your ingredients first. To bring your eggs to room temperature, set them out 30 minutes prior to starting. Or if you forgot to take them out, you can put them in a bowl of warm (not hot!) water for 5 - 10 minutes. More information can be found here. Below is the recipe I used. As I mentioned before, this is courtesy of Joy the Baker. The actual page that I pulled this from can be found by clicking on the title of the recipe.

Cinnamon Sugar Pull-Apart Bread

Makes: one 9×5x3-inch loaf

For the Dough:

2 3/4 cups plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1/4 cup granulated sugar

2 1/4 teaspoons (1 envelope) active dry yeast

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 ounces unsalted butter

1/3 cup whole milk

1/4 cup water

2 large eggs, at room temperature

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

For the Filling:

1 cup granulated sugar

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon fresh ground nutmeg

2 ounces unsalted butter, melted until browned

In a large mixing bowl whisk together 2 cups flour, sugar, yeast, and salt. Set aside.

Whisk together eggs and set aside.

In a small saucepan, melt together milk and butter until butter has just melted. Remove from the heat and add water and vanilla extract. Let mixture stand for a minute or two, or until the mixture registers 115 to 125 degrees F.

Pour the milk mixture into the dry ingredients and mix with a spatula. Add the eggs and stir the mixture until the eggs are incorporated into the batter. The eggs will feel soupy and it’ll seem like the dough and the eggs are never going to come together. Keep stirring.

Add the remaining 3/4 cup of flour and stir with the spatula for about 2 minutes. The mixture will be sticky. That’s just right.

Dough is ready to rise!

Place the dough is a large, greased bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and a clean kitchen towel. Place in a warm space and allow to rest until doubled in size, about 1 hour. *The dough can be risen until doubled in size, then refrigerated overnight for use in the morning. If you’re using this method, just let the dough rest on the counter for 30 minutes before following the roll-out directions below.*

While the dough rises, whisk together the sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg for the filling. Set aside. Melt 2 ounces of butter until browned. Set aside. Grease and flour a 9×5x3-inch loaf pan. Set that aside too.

Deflate the risen dough and knead about 2 tablespoons of flour into the dough. Cover with a clean kitchen towel and let rest for 5 minutes.

On a lightly floured work surface, use a rolling pin to roll the dough out. The dough should be 12-inches tall and about 20-inches long. If you can’t get the dough to 20-inches long… that’s okay. Just roll it as large as the dough will go. Use a pastry brush to spread melted butter across all of the dough. Sprinkle with all of the sugar and cinnamon mixture. It might seem like a lot of sugar.

Lots of sugar and a bit of cinnamon.

Seriously? Just go for it.

Slice the dough vertically, into six equal-sized strips. Stack the strips on top of one another and slice the stack into six equal slices once again. You’ll have six stacks of six squares. Layer the dough squares in the loaf pan like a flip-book. Place a kitchen towel over the loaf pan and allow in a warm place for 30 to 45 minutes or until almost doubled in size.

Place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 350 degrees F. Place loaf in the oven and bake for 30 to 35 minutes, until the top is very golden brown. The top may be lightly browned, but the center may still be raw. A nice, dark, golden brown will ensure that the center is cooked as well.

Remove from the oven and allow to rest for 20 to 30 minutes (I did not do this. Cait and I devoured about 1/2 fresh from the oven). Run a butter knife around the edges of the pan to loosen the bread and invert onto a clean board. Place a cake stand or cake plate on top of the upside down loaf, and carefully invert so it’s right side up. Serve warm with coffee or tea.

The deliciousness!

I think this bread is best served the day it’s made, but it can also we wrapped and kept at room temperature for up to 2 days (if it lasts that long...)

As I have mentioned, this bread is phenomenal! Some of you might think that this a monkey bread. And by definition it is. But I'm a fan of the term Pull-Apart Bread personally. Now go forth and bake!
While I want to leave you with a video, I didn't feel the one I wanted was appropriate for this post. So, you can watch the video here. But for my parting remark: Let's learn the alphabet with Star Wars!

- Brent

Thank you to Joy the Baker for the use of her recipe. I would also like to thank Bowling for Soup for their album "Sorry for Partyin'" as it was the official music of this baking experience.

The Biscuit of Zazzamarandabo

noreply@blogger.com (mrbrentoz) — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 20:06:00 +0000

I recently made some Challah bread (which you would know if you follow my twitter @ForceBaker.) and felt that I needed to post about the experience. First off, this recipe comes from Baking Bites and the specific recipe I used can be found here. I use a 3 rope braid for all of my Challah (for now). You can use however many strands you want for your braid. You can even make it look like a continual braided circle. Here's a page on different types of braids. On to the how-to. Let's talk ingredients.

1 tsp sugar
1/2 cup warm (110F) water
1 tbsp active dry yeast
1/2 cup oil
1/2 cup warm water
1/4 cup sugar
2 tsp salt
2 eggs
3 3/4 cups flour (and up to 1/4 cup extra for kneading)

1 egg yolk, beaten with 1 tsp water
2 tsp cinnamon (optional)

Now that we have that out of the way, onto the making of the bread.

Dissolve sugar and yeast in 1/2 cup warm water in a large mixing bowl. Let stand 10 minutes.

Add oil, water sugar, salt , eggs and 2 cups of flour to the yeast mixture.

Mix until smooth, then gradually add remaining flour until dough comes together into a ball and no longer sticks to the sides of the bowl.

Let dough rest for 10 minutes.

Sprinkle reserved flour onto a smooth surface and knead for 8-10 minutes, incorporating any of the reserved flour as needed.
Place dough into a lightly oiled bowl, cover it with plastic wrap and let rise until doubled, 1-1 1/2 hours.

Oil a baking sheet and sprinkle with cinnamon, if desired. (I strongly recommend this. Not only does the bread have a slight cinnamon taste, your house will smell delicious!)

When doubled, flour your hands and gently remove dough from bowl onto a lightly floured countertop.

Cut dough into three even sections and gently stretch them out.

Starting in the middle, braid them together.

Tuck the ends underneath the dough.

Set loaf on baking sheet.

Brush very lightly with egg wash, you won’t need all of it.

Preheat oven to 400F and let dough rise, covered loosely, for an additional hour, until almost doubled.
Bake at 400F for 30 minutes, until deep golden brown.

I like to transfer it to the wire cooling rack. It tastes best fresh from the over with some butter and jam or butter an honey. I'm working on a cinnamon sugar version (because I'm a sucker for cinnamon sugar) and will post the recipe here if I ever get it made. There is a lot of rest time in this recipe, but it is worth it. Some things I've learned are that you shouldn't make the braids too tight. If you do, it no longer pulls apart quite as nicely or easily. The biggest tip I can give you is to try to make sure your yeast is fresh. Plus if your water is too hot, it will kill the yeast. Too cold and the yeast won't activate. I know it's a pain to get the water just right, but if you can, it is so worth it.

Once again, I would like to thank Baking Bites for this delicious Challah recipe. And now, I leave you with the video for which this post is named after.

- Brent

There's a Party in My Bedroom!

noreply@blogger.com (mrbrentoz) — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 05:01:00 +0000

That's right! Nothing say's a good time like a party in the bedroom. Or...redecorating the bathroom. Which is what this blog is about. I mean, nothing says "sad" like this bathroom from the 80s. If you could see the light fixture, I'm pretty sure the tears would be flowin'. But rest assured! The Wonder Woman who is Cait has saved us from outdated this outdated bathroom! In order for such a transformation to be completed, 1 vital thing had to occur. I had to get underway. I know! It was difficult, but I was able to do it. When I left, the bathroom looked like this. And when I got back...

The bathroom looked like this ---> Cait is a miracle worker. All I had to do was take care of electrical. Easier said than done. Not to long ago, I replaced the dimmer switch with a new fancy $23 one from Lowes. Works great. Except with CFL bulbs. Of course. However, that wasn't the biggest problem. The major electrical problem that I had was the fact that the wonderfully intelligent builders of my house put a stud right behind the middle of the sink. Exactly where the new electrical box was supposed to go. Imagine my surprise when I saw that.

Time to MacGyver it! I took a fairly thick piece of trim and matched up where the screws were on the mount for the light. After drilling out all of the holes, I screwed the trim onto the 2X6 with 2 long wood screws. That thing isn't going anywhere for a while. After that, It was fairly straight forward. Connect Hot to Hot, Neutral to Neutral and Ground to Ground (which then attached to the bracket). After all of the wiring was done just simply attach the light fixture to the bracket, turn power back on and voilà! Easy as pie. But a fairly easy update. Just add new curtains, paint, shelving and light fixture and you have a whole new bathroom. That's it for this update. And now I leave you with the song that's been running through my head this entire post:

- Brent

Bubble, Bubble, Toil and Trouble

noreply@blogger.com (mrbrentoz) — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 05:01:00 +0000

Well, as mentioned in my post here, we re-decorated our kitchen. In this post, we will discuss what was done. Mainly, I will discuss and you will listen. Of course, if you leave a comment, then you will be part of the discussion...but I digress. On to...Green! Or...Cavern Moss in Semi-Gloss from Olympic. We went from white / wall paper to green. I think it turned out pretty well. Green walls were only a small part of the overall plan. As you can also see, all of our cabinet doors (and the drawers that you can't see) were removed.

And here is Savannah helping Grandma paint the cabinet doors. It took a lot of white paint to cover those doors and drawers. But in the end, they look great. Especially when we added the brushed nickle fixtures. I'm glad that Cait is able to see all of this in her head prior to the start of these projects. There is no way that I could have done this the way she did. But let's move onto the part that I'm most excited about. Tile.

First, I would like to give my dad a huge "Thank You" for all of the work that he did in helping me with the tile. He presented some ideas that worked out for the best. However, none of us took into consideration the fact that when we offset the smaller tiles into the medallion, it wouldn't be center when we put the stove back. Oh well, I like it. But due to this experience, I feel confident enough to do more tile work around the house. Mainly in the bathroom. But after all was said and done, the kitchen looked like a brand new kitchen! We're looking to possibly paint the counter tops to look like granite. Of course, it won't be real granite, but it will look like it. Well, that's it for this post. And now, I leave you with this, How to brush your teeth like a Spartan!

- Brent

The Force is strong with this one...

noreply@blogger.com (mrbrentoz) — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 05:01:00 +0000

First and foremost, I wanted the the banner of the Florida Garrison of the 501st Legion on the top of this blog. Alas, I believe that my lack of timing led to no response from the 501st. But, you can find out more about them at their webpage: http://www.fl501st.com/.

On to business then. The reason that I wanted to have this banner at the top of this post is because the 501st is making an appearance at MegaCon! That is pretty exciting for me because, Cait and I are looking to attend this year! I can already see Cait rolling her eyes. For those who are wondering, MegaCon is going to be held between March 24 - 27 at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, FL. While being primarily sponsored for comics (artists, enthusiasts, etc.) it caters to all of us who enjoy Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Horror, Anime and more! It's like a geek's heaven!

I'm even more excited to attend now! Of course, with my recent obsession with Star Wars, I'm always looking for others who share that obsession. And what better place than a convention? Of course, I really want to attend Star Wars Celebration (held in the same location), but that's later in the year. So, for now, MegaCon will have to do. Although, if I do attend Star Wars Celebration, I will make a costume and go all geek. Once again, I can see Cait rolling her eyes at me. It should be fun though. I'll be blogging from MegaCon this year. Please bear in mind that I might not be attending for all of the days. It should be a blast though. I know that this isn't one of my longest blogs and the next few will be longer. And with that, I leave you with this:

Burning The Ground, I Break From The Crowd

noreply@blogger.com (mrbrentoz) — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 05:01:00 +0000

I'm a nerd and a geek. I'll be the first to admit that. And as you can see, I'm getting Savannah started early! Either that or I'm setting her up for an awesome career in music... If you haven't noticed, almost all of blog titles are pulled from songs. Go ahead. I'll be here as you go back and check.

Welcome back. You were missed. I promise. On to business then. What business is that you ask? Why the business of....business... Yeah. Now that the awkwardness is over let's talk about all things geek!

First, get a Nook. Seriously it's great! Each one can hold something like 3500 book. Plus there is a slot for a 2GB MicroSD Card capable of holding an addition 3500 books. Cait got me one for Christmas and I love it! I've got 9 pages of books that were given to me, and that's not even all of them! When I'm done, I'll have 13 pages! I'm thinking that 13 pages is a bit insane and I'm know Cait thinks so as well. If the nook is not your flavor, I have also heard really good things about the Amazon Kindle. But moving on. On to video games! Let's look at my current favorite games.

Some of you might recognize this gentleman. Some of you wont. It's okay of you don't, I'll still like you. I promise. But, if you haven't already, you need to pick up a copy of Assassin's Creed Brotherhood. It is an amazing game, and features a very unique multiplayer mode. In this mode, you are given a target to assassinate, while you yourself are a target for another assassin. It can get pretty nerve racking, especially when you don't know who is hunting you or where they are. The solo campaign is amazing as well. Ubisoft added an amazing level of detail and gameplay into this installment of the Assassin's Creed line. And for those of you who don't know, the gentle man pictures is Ezio Auditore da Firenze.

Let's move onto Cait's latest obsession. For those of you who don't know what the logo on the right is, it is the logo for a website called StumbleUpon. Based on the preferences that you set, it will show you unique and random we sites across the Internet. It's pretty good. Both Cait and I have signed up. She has a lot more liked pages than I do. You can follow her here: Cait's StumbleUpon and you can follow me here: Brent's StumbleUpon. I'll work on my stumbles. By following StumbleUpon, Cait discovered another amazing site.
Instructables. This is an amazing site for DIY projects, How-to instructions and all sorts of things. I'm pretty sure Cait spends an equal amount of time between StumbleUpon and Instructables. I know that there are a lot of different and unique projects on there. How would you like to learn how to make a Keyboard Circuit Sheet Lampshade? Or how about a Voice Controlled Robot? Those are only a couple of examples. You really need to check this site out. For my final portion of this blog, I am proud to report that since the beginning of 2010, this blog has been viewed in 13 countries around the world and in 25 states in the US. Thank you for your support as I work through this blog! And with that, I leave you with this:

- Brent

Ho Hum

noreply@blogger.com (mrbrentoz) — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 07:05:00 +0000

Wow. That's all I'm going to say about my time away from here. Things have been pretty busy lately. Let's do a quick rush through the past 6 months (in no particular order).
- Savannah turned 2.
- Cait had emergency surgery that resulted in altered Thanksgiving plans.
- I discovered that I am capable of cooking a Thanksgiving meal.
- We celebrated Christmas twice (with both of our parents).
- We re-decorated the kitchen.
- I learned how to put up a tile backsplash.
- That makes me want to tackle re-tiling the bath in our bathroom.
- Cait painted our bathroom.
- I put up the light.
- I discovered that the people who built our house were idiots.
- I also replaced all of the electrical outlets and light switches in the house (excluding the garage).
- Learned how to replace the S-Drive belt in my car.
- Discovered I have 2 alter egos (on Twitter).
And yesterday, my dad helped me replace some (more) siding on the house in preparation of pressure washing. Following the pressure washing will be painting the house O_O. Can't say that I'm looking forward to that.

My parents are in town for the next couple of weeks. They ventured our way to look for a new trailer, which they found. It's looking like they will pick it up on Wednesday. I'm looking forward to seeing it. You can follow their escapades here: The Idaho Nomads. Their blog is updated more frequently than mine. After here, they're looking to start their journey to the west.

Work continues on the house. As I mentioned, I've replaced all of the outlets and switches in the house. During this "adventure in home ownership," I have discovered that who ever did the wiring when the house was built, didn't have a clue as to what they were doing. For example, the outlets in the dining room and hallway are on the circuit labeled "kitchen light." Really? I thought they would have been on the circuit labeled "living room, dining room, hallway." I guess not. Next step is re-labeling the breaker box. That should be fun. Cait also painted the bathroom a nice blue and replace the shelving along with hanging a picture that matches. I got to replace the light fixture. A normally simple process, but not with my house. Let's just leave it at I'm getting more creative in how I go about mounting lights. I"ll post pictures later. Needless to say, the bathroom looks phenomenal.

We also painted the kitchen green! I know what you're thinking..."Green? Really?: Yes really. I thought that it wouldn't work, but it does. Add to that the slate tile backsplash that my dad and I hung up behind the stove and the repainted cabinetry and you have an amazing looking kitchen. I think I need to post a blog showing just updates completed in the past 6 months.

I think this will be it for my late night / early morning ramblings. Until next time!

- Brent

A Man And His Dinosaur

noreply@blogger.com (mrbrentoz) — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 01:35:00 +0000

I've got a new favorite game! For now. That is subject to change upon my acquisition of StarCraft II. But for now, I've been playing around in the Halo universe with both Halo 3 and Halo 3: ODST. If you don't have it, Borrow it or buy it. It is worth it. The only thing that could make it better would be if you could get it for free. Which I did. The local video game store, Game Over, had a used copy for $29.95. But they were offering 20% off due to the fact that the original game box was missing. On top of that, I received an additional 15% off because I'm a member. That brought the total down to around $20. Now, you might be wondering how I got . this for free. Well, it helps if you have over $30 in store credit. On to the next game.

Mini Ninjas! Cait used her Game Stop gift card to get this and she loves it! She runs around as, well.. a mini ninja. The ninja fights mini samurai and saves all of the forest creatures from enslavement from the evil warlord. Besides being adorable (her words!) she says that its a great way to unwind and kind of veg out. No real thinking involved. Besides the main quest, on each level, you can find plans, shrines, statues, animals and other things that almost amount to a side quest. And since we got it for the XBOX 360, it should be some fairly easy achievement point. I think at some point I'll run through it and grab the achievment.

For our third game of the evening, Alden (Cait's brother) got her Super Mario Galaxy 2 for the Wii. While we haven't played this yet, I know Cait is really excited to get started on it. I am too. It means that I can have the XBOX back to play ODST! Of course it won't be in full HD glory, but oh well. That just means that we need a new TV for the bedroom (hint hint). But as for now, there isn't much I can really say about this game. I'll write something after we've played it. And now, I leave you with this:

99 Luftballons

noreply@blogger.com (mrbrentoz) — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 01:09:00 +0000

On July 29, Cait celebrated her birthday (as some of you know). For her birthday, Savannah got her a nice ring and I planed out and entire day away from the baby. A couple of things to note. First, I spent a good two weeks planning the whole thing. It's hard and pretty stressful to organize a day of events and a party without Cait finding out. There were so many things that could have gone wrong. Second, for her day away, I put a group of items that represented different activities to do through out the day. With that in mind, let's get this day started! We started the day with some breakfast. That's usually a good thing to start the day with. After breakfast, I went and got the babysitter (which was also important to have). Once I got home and made sure that everything was ready for our departure, I collected the birthday girl and we set off. First stop, the jewelry store to pick up Cait's gift. Can you guess what I got her? Here's a hint: it's in the picture above this writing... on the right...did you figure it out? No...it's not a new ear...but rather the ear rings! Yay for me! It's even better because they have become her go-to ear rings.

After the jewelery, she wanted to go to the beach. You can see how well that worked out... On the recommendation of a friend, we went to Historic America Beach on Amelia Island. What I forget, was that she told us to go to the parking lot down the street. The road itself literally stopped at the beach. And as you can see, the HHR isn't for driving on the sandy beach. After I pushed while Cait backed it out back on to the pavement, we found the parking lot and walkway down to the water.

And this is what we were rewarded with. Sadly, this did not set it self up. That would have been nice. But it was worth it. Unlike Fernandina Beach, America Beach has facilities for changing and showers so that you can rinse off. It was nice being able to rinse off the sandy feet before getting into the car. During the time at the beach, we walked along the surf, sat and soaked up some humidity, and passed around the bottle of sparkling lemonade. All-in-all a good time.

The next stop that Cait selected from the bag of stops was Doing Dishes. It's a paint you own pottery studio. I've been wanting to take Cait to one for some time now and it seemed like this was a good time to do it. Only a couple of problems with this. First, this place is in the ghetto. I mean it. There was a shoot out across the street from them a couple of months ago. So, yeah. Ghetto. The second problem was that there was too much pottery to choose from. I think we spent a good 20 minuted just trying to figure out what we wanted to paint. I settled on a pen/pencil holder and a spoon rest. Cait went with a plate to hang on the wall. Once we decided what to paint, now we had to figure out what paint to use and how to paint our pieces. It was a pretty fun time. I'll post completed pics later. After all was said and done, the day was starting to wind down. Time to catch a movie and relax (as if we weren't relaxed to start with...). We headed over to an AMC theater and saw the Sorcerers Apprentice. It was OK. If you haven't see it, wait until its out on HBO or Redbox. I don't think it was worth the $20 that we spent on it. But once that was done, time to head home. Now, I'm not too good at keeping secrets, so it was almost impossible to keep my mouth shut and my excitement in check as we headed to Cait's surprise party.

I'm still not too sure how I pulled this off. With as many people as I told, Cait didn't even know what was going to happen when we got home. All she wanted to do was relax and play the Sims 3. Not today. There were a few friends waiting for us and a cake large enough to feed 40 people. Needless to say, we had plenty of leftovers. And although I didn't mention anything about gifts (I think I even said to not worry about it), she got a gift certificate to Game Stop, Michaels, and a smell good box from Bath & Body Works. She definitely had a good time. Well, that's it for this post. I leave you with this: Old Spice Guy being remixed!!!!

Liberty, Liberty, Liberty! Liberty is Hear By Granted For All Hands!

noreply@blogger.com (mrbrentoz) — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 03:02:00 +0000

And on our left is the rare Georgia Door Handle Frog! This here is my bakin' post. Mainly this will be about the Bake Off / Cook Off that my unit had. And that I baked 3 desserts for. The picture on your left is the recipe I used for cookies. I also baked some lemon bars and Kathy's Trifle. In addition to all of the desserts, I also made some Cuban Pulled Pork... mmmm... pulled pork.Well, The night before the cook off was pretty busy. I needed to make 2 deserts, finish the Trifle and start the pork. We actually started the Trifle on Wednesday. Unfortunately, he Trifle calls for a Blamage, which Kathy buys from a British store. And to have ordered the Blamage packet, the cook off would have been over by the time it arrived. That and shipping was going to cost more than the actual Blamage.

What you see on the right is what I used for the desserts. One thing to help the time go by...music. You can check out what I was listening to here. But moving on. I was able to successfully bake all 3 desserts in a row with out going crazy. Which I think was a first. It took two days to complete all of the dishes (well, technically 3 because of the pork).

The first thing to be finished was the trifle. During that time, I need to read through a recipe a few times before actually starting it. Good thing Cait showed up to help otherwise the shipped cream wouldn't have gotten added. Speaking of whipped cream, when topping the trifle, you should always use the tubs of whipped cream instead of the cans This is because the stuff from the tubs holds up a lot better then the canned version. Moving on. Up next, the cookies! They are small chocolate cookies rolled in powdered sugar. They are delicious! And while the dough was firming up in the fridge, time to start on the lemon bars. For that, you start with the crust.

You can see the flour mixture as its falling from the sifter! As you can see, there was a lot of sifting going on. That bowl in the picture actually contained a lot more flour and other ingredients still waiting to be sifted. Which leads me to my next point. I need a bigger sifter. If you want to buy one for me, I won't complain. The scent that the dough gave off... a little bit of heaven. Once the dough was formed and placed into the containers, time to bake the crust. While this was baking, I filled a bowl with some powdered sugar and grabbed the nice and firm cookie dough from the fridge. You roll the dough into little balls, cover in the sugar and place on a baking sheet. I was able to fit 18 on to each baking sheet.

By the time that I had finished laying all the the dough out, my crust for the lemon bars was done. Time to swap. Crust comes out and cookies go in. Now lets make some curd! You can't have lemon bars with out the lemon, and I used the juice from 3 lemons to give these a nice lemony flavor. Everything about them turned out good, except for the color. And I think was due to the fact that I left out the lemon zest. Oh well.

After I made the curd... you know, curd sounds kinda gross. From now on, it shall be called the "lemon mixture." Now, as I was saying, after I made the lemon mixture (and the crusts had cooled down a bit), I poured the mixture over the crusts and did another swap. This time cookies put and lemon bars in. You can see the cookies above and the lemon bars on the right. See how the lemon bars aren't that yellow? I'm pretty sure that's due to no lemon zest. I might be wrong. If you know, please let me know. Once all of the baking was done, time to clean up catch some sleep. The next day (Friday), I was able to come home after muster and finish getting everything ready. We let the pork slow cook over night. That was a wonderful smell to wake up to.

We loaded up the car with everything and headed off to the base. In this picture, you can see me leaning over the trifle. It was pretty delicious. There were not enough actual slow cooker dishes that wasn't pulled pork to actually have its own category. So they combined the slow cooker and meat categories together. The cook off was a big hit though. We raised over $200 for the morale fund! I'm expecting some very nice Christmas prize at the Christmas party this year. Time to declare the winners. I actually won! In the meat category of all things.And what did I win you ask? I won a day of special liberty! That's pretty exciting. Our deserts didn't get any votes except from Cait and I. Oh well. I had fun cooking. And that's what matters. And now I leave you with what I looked like when I was dancing while baking. Enjoy!

- Brent

Big Wheel Keeps on Turning

noreply@blogger.com (mrbrentoz) — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 08:11:00 +0000

This has been a busy weekend. We finally hung up this awesome mirror that we found down in St. Pete. This was probably the easiest time we've had hanging this mirror. The frame is nice, thick, solid wood. After having been underway for a good chunk of last week, I was really looking forward to this past weekend. We had a Bar-B-Que with one of my coworkers. We were also going to have one of my buddies from my last unit (who was transferred up to Sector Jacksonville). However, his wife went into labor late last week. Their son, was born over the weekend. Congrats to him and his wife! We still need to get together for the BBQ and so our wives can have their play dates. Of course, when ever we have an event planned at the house, there is a certain amount of preparation that goes into getting everything ready. Mainly cleaning up the house. That's really the big one. And for the most part, I'll try to ensure that the lawn has a fresh cut. Well, we took care of all of that and we went looking for some shelving for the garage. Our intention was to get the garage cleaned up this weekend as well. It seems that when ever we go look for one thing, we find something else entirely. Saturday was no exception.

As I said, we went to find some shelves for the garage, and wound up finding an accent chair. As you can see, the chair wasn't in the greatest of condition. However, Cait saw the potential in the chair and we just couldn't turn it down. We paid less that $10 for it at Habitat for Humanity. That was a great deal. So, after some maneuvering, I got it home (strapped to the roof like almost every other piece of furniture we've purchased). Time to go find a slip cover. But before that we checked out a new fabric store in town (Beyond Fabric) and Cait found a fabric that she absolutely loved. However, our original plan was to purchase a slip cover for the chair. We searched both Walmart and Target (which was a bit of a drive) with no luck. So, back to the fabric store. We purchased 7 yards of the fabric. This was also a very good time due in part to the fact that the shop owner said that we might be able to sell some of Cait's bows in her store!

Well, if you've never reupholstered a chair before, it's probably not a good idea to start the night before your BBQ. You can see how things were looking around 0100 on Sunday morning. Not nearly done and that took us a few hours to complete. There was a lot of frustration and a bit of aggravation that went into this chair. That and some E-6000. Well, a lot of E-6000 and staples. But still, we got it done. Of course the sewing machine breaking didn't help either. However, I can add "Sewing Machine Repairman Extraordinaire" to the list of titles I've got. The next morning started at 0630 for me so that I could re-clean the parts of the house that got messy due to the chair. That and to finish mowing the lawn. While I was mowing the lawn, Cait was busy with the chair. And so was Savannah. She was all over the chair and the cushion that Cait was working on. Needless to say, that wasn't to helpful for Cait.
Well, we were able to finish most of the chair right as our guests arrived. The picture on the right is the final product (except for the back). I'm pretty sure that Cait won't be doing upholstery work again. Or if she does, it won't be a rush job. I like how the chair turned out though. Of course if you're her friend on Facebook, you have probably already seen these pictures. On a completely different note, I would like to thank Zack Martin for the good time Friday with Sea Stories of the Submariner world. That and the Walama and Zombo.com. And now, I leave you with this::

-Brent

Strangeness, Silliness, and Pictures

noreply@blogger.com (mrbrentoz) — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 15:37:00 +0000

Well all, I think this post is along the lines of needing to get in the habit of posting more often. As you can see, Savannah has her own ballerina outfit. We even found a princess wand to go with it. She loves it. She had a lot of fun the other day running around the house in it. The wand though, is sometimes used as a weapon. It seems that anything we hand her will be considered a weapon that can and will be used against us. Its okay though, she seems to understand more and more that things we hand her are not weapons. On that, it seems that most things we hand her also end up in her mouth. But she's starting to get over that. She's done pretty well on stoping bad habits on her own (for the most part).

On another front, my unit has formally announced the Cook Off / Bake Off. There are 4 categories. Meat, Casserol, Slow Cooker, and Dessert. I've got things for all but the slow cooker category. Although if you do cook a meat dish in a slow cooker (i.e. pulled pork) it will be entered in the meat category. I've got about 10 ideas for the dessert category (but are we suprised?). I've got to narrow that down to about 3. Hopefully, I'll be able to at least take the dessert category. And what are the prizes you ask? Well, the cook of the best dish in each category wins a day of special liberty (that's a day off when I choose for those who don't know) and the overall winner (the best from the final 4) gets to park in the XO's parking spot for 3 days. As you can see from the picture, Savannah is trying to select a baking pan for me to use. She's always trying to help out. As i've said before, I'll keep you posted on the contest. Recipes will be posted after everything is said and done.

Another thing we did was to install a swing on the front porch for Savannah. It was a bit tricky to figure out how we were going to do it, but Cait same up with a pretty good idea. I drilled a hole in 2 rafters and screwed a big eyelet screw into the holes, strung a chain between them and hooked the swing up to the chain. Pretty ingenious. Although I have figured out a way to help make the swing a bit more...stable. But I'm not to worried about it. Savannah loves it and it remains pretty cool through out the day. Everytime Savannah sees the swing she wants to..well...swing. Of course with the weather we've been having, whenever she goes outside the first two words out of her mouth are "hot" and "icky." Shortly after that, she's saying "inside" bringing swing-time to a close. Of course almost a soon as sh'e inside, she wants to go out back into the pool.

Here's another thing that we got for the little one. She now has more vehicles than Cait and I combined. It's kinda sad. We even re-arranged the living room so that her "new" car would have room to manevure. She loves her car. She'll put her sippy cup and a couple of possesions in the tray in back, climb in the car, wave good by and back up into some furnature. It's pretty funny. I suppose she thinks she's running away, but can't seem to get very far. She has fun though. It's just another tool for Hurricane Toddler to use while working on destroying the house. One more thing, I've made the 4th of July album available on Picasa. You can find that here. I've also created a Google profile found here. Well, I think that's it for this post. I leave you with this video from Improv Everywhere.

- Brent

Video Games, Dead Magnolias and Fire!

noreply@blogger.com (mrbrentoz) — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 22:25:00 +0000

Wow. That's a lot of Sims2 games. All of that got me $24 for trade in. That might be able to buy me one of these games new, but oh well. I just added it to the store credit I already had. This has been an eventful few days recently. First, I discovered that there might be a baking/cooking competition at my unit. That sent me diving into my baking books to see what I could make to win. I have a few ideas, but I'm not allowed to share (yet). I'll keep you posted on how that goes. But I'm pretty excited about it. Apparently, the person who brought the contest to my attention has decided to have a throw down with me on who will do better. Another thing is that our Magnolia tree might not be doing to well. We think it is suffering from heat stress. It looks pretty dead to me though. Actually, most of our flowers aren't doing too well. Anyway, I had Friday off and that was spent working around the house. I was finally able to put my "new" lawn mower to good use and it works wonderfully! That night though, I refilled the little gas cans and placed them in our garage for the night. Well, I forgot to move them to the shed after I was done mowing the rest of the Saturday morning (it's a big lawn. It takes me about 5-6 hours with my push mower to cut all of the grass). We went out for the day and came back to a house smelling like gas. After airing the house out, I moved all of the gas and equipment out to the shed. We went out later to try and find some shorts for Savannah (all she seems to have is skirts) and upon returning to our house, it still smelled of gas. Once again, we opened the windows to air the house out. Well, Cait jumped on the Internet (which reminds me, I need to stop her from looking at it when things aren't right. It just freaks her out even more) and found that one possible cause would be a build up of sewage gasses that could cause our house to explode. Well, that's not too good. I contacted Station 3 of the Camden County Fire & Rescue and ended up speaking with the station Chief. I presented my problem and requested that if possible could they send someone to check it out. All I was told was that someone would be there soon. 20 minutes (give or take) after that, Cait and I hear the low rumbles of diesel engines coming down the street.

Looking out the windows showed the ambulance and fire truck that you see in the picture. All we were looking for was someone in a county truck to come out. Definitely not emergency vehicles. Oh well, that's what you get for talking to the actual firehouse Chief. After a review of our air system and a tour of the house, the fire fighters stated that they believed it was the fumes from the 2 gas cans. However, they also believe that the fumes had become attached to the filters in our returns and that we should buy new filters. Following their advice, the next day there was no smell of gas in the house. Of course there was the obligatory FaceBook post (from Cait) stating that the magnolia tree was dead and the Fire Department had just left. Shortly after that post came the worried calls, texts, and responses from friends and family. Maybe we should have posted about the tree earlier...That's been the most exciting thing that happened recently. Mostly.

On another front, Cait is looking at starting her own bow making company. After spending too much money on some bows for Savannah, Cait found a simple way to make bows. Sunday afternoon was spent at Jo-Ann's obtaining all of the ribbon and stuff to make said bows. Although there is quite a bit of ribbon in the cart, the final total of items was a bit more (for the clips to keep the bows in the hair). I'll be creating a section on this blog dedicated to the bows that Cait has crafted. By the time I left for work this morning, she had crafted 3 bows and was planning on making more while I am at work. I can't wait to see what she has made. I've been told that her day has been filled with taking care of Savannah and making bows. Her page should be up in about a week or so. And with that, I leave you with a picture of Moog yelling.

- Brent

Halo Me This

noreply@blogger.com (mrbrentoz) — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 18:36:00 +0000

Happy Video Game Day! That's right folks, today is Video Game Day. Not to be confused with National Video Game Day which is on September 12th. I would like to thank Shawn for the title of this post by the way. I felt that he needed to be acknowledged for his contribution for this post. I know I intend to celebrate tonight with what will hopefully be the final battle in Dragon Age. And although the consoles (like the big 3 you see above) are what people primarily refer to, we can't forget about those that helped pave the way. Ones such as the Atari (any will do), Nintendo (once again, pick any), Sega (I mainly remember Mortal Combat at my friend's house. That and Crazy Taxi on the Dreamcast.), and who can forget the arcades? I've read that in Japan, Sega has developed an arcade that updates your Twitter as you play.

And while all of those mentioned (and I'm sure there's some that I've forgotten), We can't discount the computer. I know Cait will be celebrating as well by playing the Sims 3 Ambitions. From what I've heard, that game is pretty fun. But in all seriousness, we can't continue to let these little known holidays continue to slip by unnoticed. I say we stand up and let the world know about these! Or I could just be rambling and looking for an excuse to play video games. Who knows? I wish you all the best as you celebrate this holiday!

- Brent

And After the Show, It's The After Party

noreply@blogger.com (mrbrentoz) — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 17:55:00 +0000

With the 4th of July come and gone, its time to recap! Our celebration was really on the 3rd of July with the parade in St. Marys followed up with the night time fireworks display. That was pretty fun. I didn't quite realize that there were going to be booths and vendors. It had a carnival like atmosphere. The parade was sponsored by the Kiwanas and seemed to contain more politicians than any thing. I must give credit to the gentleman in the picture though. I think that was one of the most creative campaigning get-ups that I've seen. Granted, I haven't seen many. Mostly just from the parade... Moving on. It was a pretty good parade. They were tossing out candy and beads and passing out leaflets and there was lots of waving. The parade featured a display of tractors and cars and motorcycles. Of course, interspersed in all of those were the politicians. But enough about politics. The carnivalness featured a lot of vendors selling hand made goodies. Cait wasn't able to find any bows for Savannah with a monogrammed "S" on it :(. I did give blood though. Got a free t-shirt that Cait promptly stole. Oh...and a carnival isn't complete without overpriced funnel cake and even more over priced lemonade. The lemonade wasn't the greatest, although it did make me want some Pronto Pup lemonade....mmmmmmm...Pronto Pup.

For the 4th, we went to the Jacksonville Zoo! That was a good time. We had a coupon for 1 free admission if you're in the military. So, we paid all of $13 for 3 people to get in. I'd call that a good deal. That took a good 5 hours that day. We visited all of the animals, petted the sting rays, rode the train, visited the minuscule 4th of July celebration area, and ate some overpriced food. All-in-all a good day. Savannah really had a good time and was excited to see all of the animals. It makes me want to add to the zoo we have at home. Mostly with the addition of some tropical birds and a leopard or two...

Because the 4th was on a Sunday, the government gave its employees the 5 off as a national holiday. That was a nice relaxing day. Except for the part of me mowing the lawn in the blistering heat. My lawn mower literally exploded the other day, and we were blessed to have meet some friends from church who were looking to get rid of their old mower. For $20 I got a Craftsman mower with a 4.5HP Briggs & Stratton engine. At first I was a little leery of buying a used mower (the exploded one was purchased for $40 at a flea market...) again, but it actually cuts better than the exploded one did. But after the lawn was done, time for a dip in the pool. And it felt wonderful. Savannah joined me pretty much right after I got in. She loves the pool.

The pile of ingredients you see above eventually turned into the picture on your right. Those are red white and blue mini cheesecakes. They were fun to make. The red and blue is velvet cake and the white is cheesecake. I know that Shawn enjoyed them at work the next day. So did some others. I made about 5 dozen cupcakes and took 3 to work. Of course I do love red velvet and cheesecake. And now that they've been combined together...mmmmm...delicious! I've been told that whenever the MOMs Club of Kingsland is doing a bake sale, I need to bake more delicious treats to sell. How many actually make it to the bake sale...we'll see how that work when the time comes. To wrap up, the 4th of July is not only a day to celebrate our freedom as a country but to remember the sacrifices given by those who have helped ensure that we remain free. A final picture:

- Brent

I Haven't Been There For The Longest Time

noreply@blogger.com (mrbrentoz) — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 19:27:00 +0000

Wow. Almost two months (give or take) since I've posted on here. Of course there were the postings on our travel blog here. That took up a week. But, I'm starting to get the blogging bug again and am going to start working on this blog again. So here it goes. As I sit here listening to a random mix on my iPod, I'm trying to look back on the past couple of months. A lot of things have happened. The major events are...is mainly our vacation to Idaho. Like the picture? I took that in Idaho. It's a wonderful state. We met family, took in the sights, relaxed, and Savannah got to meet her Great Grandparents. That was really the main reason for the trip. I'll post the link to my Picasa album with those pictures. They will only be available for a short time though. I need to add pictures to facebook. This trip made me realize the true need for a DSLR camera. I mean our camera is nice, but the pictures could be so much better! But I digress... We spent a week up in Idaho just having fun.

As I mentioned before, one of the highlights was Savannah meeting her Great Grandparents. I know my Grandfather was rally excited to meet her. Family members have been saying that every time someone comes over, he's showing them the book of pictures we sent. I know too that he has also wanted to have a girl. But they really enjoyed seeing her. Kyle also rode up from Salt Lake City to see her for the first time. Too bad that His motorcycle tire wasn't doing too well. He ended up spending the night in Filer, ID and taking a U-Haul back down the next day. But it all worked out in the end. Although Savannah still doesn't seem to trust him... Oh well. Hopefully she'll get to know him better over Christmas. Continuing on with our story.

The next big thing that happened is...we got a pool (as you can see)! Granted it's not an in-ground pool (those cost way too much), but we're pretty happy with it. It's 16' x 3'6" and holds about 4,000 gallons of water. It took a day to fill it up. The only down side to the inflatable pool that we have is that the ground needs to be perfectly level. No joke. If there is any tilt at all, the whole pool has the chance of...not working out... Plus, check the ground for rocks. It really stinks when the pool is full an you discover that there are a couple of rocks underneath. That and expect any grass under the pool to be dead. But for the most part, it's pretty fun! We've already had a party and Savannah loves it. I promise that although the picture is of the pool being filled, it is much bigger. Sadly we don't have any other pictures of the pool. But still, if you're in the neighborhood, stop on by and take a dunk!

Lets see, what else has happened? Oh, Cait and I built this headboard that you see on the right. It was pretty easy. Just a piece of fiberboard, some 2" foam, batting, fabric and decorative buttons hiding the nail holes. Not to shabby if I do say so myself. We're going for a luxury hotel feel (that is subject to change depending on what Cait says after reading this...) and I think we're getting there.

We also updated the lamps to some fancier ones that don't look like the Eiffel Tower and we found some nice tall (and blue!) candlestick holders. Of course we found the required tall candles to go with them. They look and smell pretty good. We're slowly transforming the bedroom into the relaxing retreat that we need. I'm looking forward for when its done. There's still quite a bit needed though. I know Cait still wants curtains, a sconce, and more art. We'll keep you informed of updates and such. But lets keep moving. We've still got some more stuff to cover!

Keeping with the whole "decorating" theme... On a recent trip to Jo-Ann Fabric to pick up the table for Savannah, we managed to find ourselves in a clearance section. Of course we had to stop and peruse. And we found some vinyl wall decals. Cait's creative brain went into overdrive and soon we had some decals to apply to the wall of Savannah's new craft area. I picked out the little purple guy. I'm proud of that. The stickers went up really quick and look really good. The table and chair were originally plain wood (unpainted) with some missing part. Thankfully I had some extra screws lying around and we were able to get it put together. Surprisingly, it took 6 cans of white matte spray paint to cover everything. While it took a little bit, we were able to get everything set up the day we bought it. Savannah was really surprised the next morning. Cait said that she wanted to eat breakfast at her new table and wouldn't sit in her high chair. Only a couple more things to go, I promise.

Bring on Uncle Kyle! Kyle was kind enough to buy Savannah a Dora tricycle. We've been wanting to get her a tricycle for some time, but one without lights and noise makers. Kyle managed to get her a tricycle...with all of the lights and sounds... I'm pretty sure that he is still laughing about it. Sadly, thought it's still too big for Savannah to reach the pedals even with the seat up as high as it will go. After lowering the seat, she can now "walk" her way around the house on her trike. She's still not to good with the steering part though. Kyle came down for a visit a couple weeks ago and (I would like to think) had a lot of fun. There was spending time with the family, playing video games, going to the beach, playing video games, and just having fun. I know Cait and I enjoyed having him visit and look forward to seeing him at Christmas (hint hint).

One thing that I do miss about Idaho, thought is Moxie Java. They need to become the next Starbucks. They make coffee, but it's wwwwaaaayyyyyy better than Starbucks. Each cup is lovingly made by people who care about you. I think. Either that or they care about your money... But that's just business. But, still, they need to expand beyond the Treasure Valley. And with that, this blog is complete. For our final image, I leave you with this.

-Brent

Good Tidings I Bring To You!

noreply@blogger.com (mrbrentoz) — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 04:26:00 +0000

If you're viewing this online (and not in your e-mail), you'll notice some changes. First is the most obvious. The font color is now red! And the font has been changed to Veranda! Exciting times here. The bloggin' bug has struck again and this time I'm going to be posting about the usual and now hopefully I will be adding some stuff that I'm looking to bake.Well, new post to follow later today (if you live on the East coast).

-Brent

Time is...no longer...of the essence

noreply@blogger.com (mrbrentoz) — Fri, 21 May 2010 15:43:00 +0000

Wow. It has been a while since I've posted. For that, I'm sorry. I'm not doing to well on my promise to post at least once a week. I don know that for the next little bit, I will be posting on a daily basis. On to what we've accomplished these past couple of weeks. As you can see from the picture to the left, Savannah likes her new room. The primary wall color is... I'll get back to you on what colors we used. But needless to say, that Savannah's room loos good. And she loves it! She likes to walk around and point out the flowers and the butterflies. We picked up a butterfly night light and this Umbra Papillon Butterfly Wall Art Set at Target. And...Savannah loves them. The butterfly night light gives the whole room a nice purplish glow and has a 15 minute timer.

Another thing that was accomplished was the removal of the wood trim around the cabinets in the kitchen along with their hardware. Then they were sanded down. Or, I guess it would be more accurate to say that the grease was sanded off... Cait says that it was pretty nasty. While continuing in the kitchen, my dad and I removed the old non-working microwave. It was a little tricky, but after much grunting, huffing, and finagling we were able to take the microwave and its holder out. Of course nothing can be quite that easy. After we got the microwave out, we found that there was a fairly large hole in the wall. Good thing we're no planning to attach anything to that wall... I was able to repair it with a neat little patch from Lowes and some mud. Not like dirt and sand mud...

Other repairs that were completed are the attachment of down spout extensions for our gutters. These allow water to flow AWAY from the cement pad that our house sits on and into the grass. No more lakes next to the house! Yay! Thank you dad for that. My dad also got up on the roof and plugged a hole that was created by one of the roofing nails no longer being where it should be. He also sealed the edges around the chimney. Hopefully this will help keep water out until we can get everything replaced. *Fingers crossed.* Once my parents left for the north, Cait and I worked on getting the house cleaned up for our trip. We're going to Idaho to visit my Grandparents so that they can see their Great Granddaughter. And Kyle. Savannah will finally be able to meet her other Uncle. Well, that's it for now. I'll be posting on our travel blog for the next little bit. You can follow it here: The Occasional World Travel.

Mmmm...turtle soup.

noreply@blogger.com (mrbrentoz) — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 03:53:00 +0000

Imagine coming home to help your wife out because she's not feeling well and almost hitting this. This snapping turtle was making his way down our driveway from the forest going to who knows where. That was pretty neat. Another thing that is neat is when your wife says "Honey, the paint is peeling off" while looking at our newly painted front door. That's a lot of fun. There are going to be a lot of pictures in this post. Most of the work...okay...ALL of the work we did was painting. And in order to appreciate the work, we need pictures!

On to the work done around the house. As I mentioned before, we painted the front door red. As you can see from the picture, there is a devilish handsome man in the process of transforming a plain, dull, ordinarily boring black door to a brilliant, beautiful, lustrous cranberry. Of course, the handsome man did have help from a wonderful lady who wasn't feeling to well. I should mention that the paint is an oil based paint made for front doors. That was some really sticky paint. It was nothing like painting with a latex based paint. Just some food for thought if anyone is planning on painting their front door or using an oil based paint. And the smell was really, really strong. Good thing it was the outside of the front door and we were able to close it once the edges had dried some. But in the end, the door looks great! Next slide.

The big project of the past week has been Savannah's room. For those of you who don't know what her room looked like, it was a fugly mintish color with PEPTO ® Pink accents peeking through. And let's not forget the fact that the previous owners let their kid(s) do the painting. I'm fine with kids helping painting, but the parents need to tape off the areas that shouldn't be painted. Things such as...electrical outlets, light switches, TV jacks...things like those. Grrrr... I really don't like the previous owners. Oh... I almost forgot to mention that there was also TV stand mounted to the wall. That was a pain to remove as well. I should mention that we're watching recorded "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" and we just saw Xzibit start to pimp out a tractor. We'll have to see how that goes. As you can see from the picture above, Savannah's room has come a long way. But in order to get this nice blue color, we had to prime the whole room. That was a lot of white paint, and it was really hard to tell a difference after the primer had dried. I need to thank my mom for helping us with priming the room. Because of her, the room was completed a lot faster that Cait and I would have. Although you can't see it, the trim around the doors, the crown molding and the baseboards were all repainted with a nice semi-gloss white. It really stands out against the blue. Cait has done so much for Savannah's room. Although fairly indecisive about the colors to use (I think I helped to finalize those..) Cait came up with the concept of the room, she drew out the designs, brought them to life on the walls, and I am now in the process of helping add color to those designs (well, not right NOW. I'm typing up this blog...). I've been working on the vines while she paints the flowers and fuses the colors together to create a nice blend.

I need to stop watching this show while typing. I know have the urge to shop at CVS. They payed off a family's medical bills, provided a state of the art air filtration system, and started a fund for a heart transplant. Way to go them. And now X to the Z is driving a renovated tractor that looks brand new. I wish I had an unlimited budget to work on the house...

Back on track. This is the room after the primer. You can still see the mintish color through the thick white primer. *shudders* I wasn't too keen on the colors. Well, our show's over, Cait is falling asleep on me and I need to work in the morning. I'm off to bed y'all. Plans for the week include the removing of trees from our yard with power tools, some gardening and more work. See you next time!
- Brent

Attack of the Ducks!

noreply@blogger.com (mrbrentoz) — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 05:07:00 +0000

Attack of the ducks! Story a 11:00pm. It has been brought to my attention that there are some out there that would like to read more in each post. So, with that in mind, I will try to add more to each post. Keep in mind though, most everything I post is something I've experienced. I would also like to point out that this blog is best viewed in its original form. I'm not to sure how it looks in the e-mail, but all of the references to picture locations are how things look online. Now, let's take a look at the past week. For the first half of the week, my parents were in Idaho, so not a whole lot got done. The big push was getting the house ready for the party last Sunday and once that was done, everything kind of died (as far as enthusiasm goes...). Cait and I spent the time relaxing for the most part.

We saw some good movies this past week. 2012, Planet 51, Avatar, Sherlock Holmes. I enjoyed all of them, although 2012 was a lot longer than I was expecting. 2 1/2 - 3 hours long. It would help if I read the time on the back of the box to see how long the movie was going to be. During the movie, I kept expecting water to come flooding in at any moment. I just wish I had hooked up the surround sound for the movie... Planet 51 offered some humor and was all around enjoyable. I'm pretty sure I laughed through a lot of the movie. My memory isn't doing to well at the moment. It's pretty late Saturday night (almost Sunday) and I need to get this out. Back to the movies. Avatar was awesome. I kind of wish that we had a 3D TV to watch it on (and Blu Ray wouldn't hurt...hint hint) along with the surround sound. It's a movie that I know I want to own. For those of you who haven't seen it, rent it, but it, borrow it, just watch it. I'm telling you it's well worth it. With the first 1/2 of the week gone to movies, its time to get back to work now that my parents are back.

Some of the projects that we're going to tackle now that the parents are back are working on this blank dirt canvas that you see on your left. Cait has come up with a really good idea that is going to reduce the amount of dirt and weeding...but increase the amount of grass I have to mow. I'm fine with it though. I'm still not sure what exactly she wants to plant there, but as you can see, there is a bush in the corner already. That bush is lucky to be there. We were talking about getting rid of it. But my parents moved it for us. They really helped us out today. After Savannah's lunch, they came over and watched her for a few hours while momma and I did some shopping. It was nice being able to get through more than 2 stores in 3 hours. We went to Goodwill, Salvation Army, some consignment shops, and a book store. I got a lot of books. A couple of Robert Ludlum books and some Star Wars books. The nerd in me has emerged! Again! I might have a small obsession with most things Star Wars. Only just a small obsession. Ask Cait... We also found some art for the office and a sprinkler for the yard. I'm sure the yard will appreciate being watered. On a side note, it is now Sunday morning and neither of us are asleep at this point. Cait is working on some drawings of what we want to do to Savannah's room and I'm typing and watching an Extreme Makeover: Home Edition marathon. I'm not sure if I'm inspired to make our house look that good or if I'm just jealous the while the family is off at Disney World, a team of people are building them a new house. Probably jealous. Back to the house...for now.

While Cait and I were off spending money, my parents leveled out the large patch of dirt and moved the bush. I know I was pleasantly surprised when we got home. I can't wait to see what Cait comes up with for that area. With that done, the folks went next door to the trailer and started dinner for us. Tonight we enjoyed a Low Country Boil. It was delicous! I think you can throw almost anything into one of those. My parents used a large turkey fryer to boil water then added shrimp, potatos, corn on the cob, lemon, onions, secret spices (I call it this) and sausage. It was delicious! I think I mentioned that before... Afterward we kind of relaxed and tried to get Savannah use to Grandpa. I think its the facial hair that scares her. I could be wrong though. If you were wondering about the ducks at the beginning of the blog, here is the story behind those. The spot at the trailer park my parents are staying at was vacated the day before by a lady who lived there for about 2 years. When she left, some things stayed behind. These plastic ducks (that's right..plastic) are on little stakes and just stuck in the ground. There are 2 groups, one on either side of the ditch. Savannah loved them! For almost the entire time we were there, all she wanted to do was go play with the ducks. Toward the end of the night, she spent some more time with Grandpa. Of course, offering to put her shoes on her helps... But there were some tender times in there as well.

Like this one. I just wish that the bugs weren't as bad as they are. Otherwise we would be able to spend more time outside. I suppose that I could remedy that. There is a nice pile of wood sitting behind the shed that could stand to be burned. Maybe a bonfire is in order before my parents leave. I wish I had brought over the ingredients necessary to make desert. I was going to make the Almost-Famous Orange Milkshake from the Food Network Magazine. It is pretty tasty. As I'm looking at it online it is just making me hungry. Mmmm...funnel cake.... Moving on from food and back to work. There are a couple other projects we're looking to tackle. My dad found an old school door at the Habitat for Humanity's ReStore. $5 for the "Study Lounge" door to go on the shed. We just need to trim it down and put the hinges on and we're in business. He and I are going to be doing some minor repairs to the shed.

The drawings Cait is doing right now is another project that we want to tackle this week. She's drawing a new design for Savannah's room and more specifically, she's drawing out the artwork she wants to put on the walls. It's going to be really nice when its done and I'm pretty excited to see it go up. Well, that's it for now. I'm exhausted, Cait is getting sleepy (finally) and its 1:00 in the morning. Good night for now and I leave you with this. The picture above is the color of a budding flower on our Magnolia bush. They were white when we got them. See if you can figure that one out. Good night y'all.
- Brent

Swimming in the Sanctuary

noreply@blogger.com (mrbrentoz) — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 02:26:00 +0000

Hello internet readers! It's been a busy couple of days. Yesterday was all about getting everything ready for the party. I mowed most of the lawn, trimmed around the basketball hoop, edged the driveway and walkway, removed some grass that was trying to claim part of the driveway and swept it all up. The end result as really nice, but it took most of the day. I was out until the sun was almost gone. Cait finished painting the dining room and knocked out the hallway as well. Now, most of the house is "Timeless Taupe." At least the ugly wallpaper is covered. Cait's parents and brother drove up last night as well for the events of today.

Today was pretty eventful. This morning started off with my baptism! I think that the most nervous part for me was how cold the water was going to be. Thankfully the water was nice and warm. Almost like a heated swimming pool. Of course, everything became cold when I stepped out of the water and had all of the cold, wet clothes clinging to me. But I had a change of clothes and a dry towel near by. After the service, Cait and Savannah went to go pick up the food we ordered for the party and I went home with the in-laws. By the time that I arrived at the house, there were already two families waiting. We got the party started fairly quickly. Within about 30 minutes, most everyone was here.

We quickly got the food out and it was a big hit. We ordered a platter of wraps from Publix, served buffalo popcorn chicken, boneless honey-BBQ wings, chips, dips, a myriad of beverages, and a desert tray that we made ourselves. I wish we had remembered to take a picture or two of all of the food. You can view the pictures of the baptism and party here. After the party was over, there was no food left over. The party itself lasted about 2 1/2 - 3 hours. It was wrapped up with a few of us playing Rock Band. I know I had a blast, and I know Cait did too. I would like to thank Cait's family for coming up here for this event and also everyone who came to the party. It was worth all of the effort that we put into it. One of my co-workers was also kind enough to a) bring some family friendly video games, and b) letting us borrow Super Mario Bros Wii. Cait is loving that game. I on the other hand am getting frustrated with that game. Why are the mushrooms dumb enough to get captured? Grrr... Oh well, it's just a game. That's it for today. More to follow within the next couple of days.
- Brent

All work and No Play

noreply@blogger.com (mrbrentoz) — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 16:51:00 +0000

More work to get done. I was able to leave earlier than normal yesterday (liberty is normally granted at noon on Fridays). It was actually more like I was ordered to go home around 1000ish. I'm not going to fight that order... Once I got home, I helped Cait tape off the hall and I primed the wallpaper with some lovely white primer. Now all that need to be done is to put some color on the walls.

While I was doing this, Cait had managed to paint the dining area. The top color is "Timeless Taupe" and the bottom is "Almond Fudge." You can find both at Lowes.With the amount that we shop there and as much as I mention them, I should get them to sponsor this blog... We both agree that the colors look really good. We're going to be putting the Timeless Taupe in the hall as well. I started to do some yard work, but was interrupted by one of our neighbors who took most of the river rock that was left. He should be coming back today to collect the rest of it. We also rearranged some of the pictures in the house and now have an American Flag that flew over Pearl Harbor hanging on the wall behind the TV. It looks really good. Good call Cait. After I put Savannah down, we settled down to watch "Secrets of the Mountain." For as much as Wal-Mart was hyping that up, it was pretty disappointing. I thin Wal-Mart needs to not be involved in any part of the movie making process. After that, it was off to bed. That's it for this post!
- Brent