This was just an excuse to drink a 12-pack midday...

Here are a few pics of the shelves we built out of $10 worth of cedar from Home Depot yesterday. It was a nice little afternoon project that Gramps and I did while Juli and Vaughn ran around the backyard. Not too shabby for a couple of idiots looking for an excuse to drink and cut things with power tools huh?

Today we get to go to a funeral - look really looking forward to that...

Naked fun in the backyard

So we've been doing a lot of fun stuff in the backyard these days... planting things like lemon trees & peppers, bbq's, Vaughn running in the sprinklers naked... with the dog licking his ass! pretty normal stuff actually. Today me and Grandpa Dougie built some nice shelves out of cedar against the fence so we could get the plants off the ground so both Jonesy and Vaughn will stop trying to rip them out of their pots. It was a good Friday on good Friday!!!

starting the day off with a smile

This is usually how Vaughn starts his day... wakes up and gets a big cup of milk in his Spongebob cup and spends a good 15 minutes chugging on it while watching cartoons on the couch. This morning I went and grabbed the camera and told him to smile... he slipped his prized cup under his arm and let out this big smile for the shot, then he started drinking again.

mommy vs daddy blog wars

After Juli totally made fun and me for making this blog (over two years ago) and then counterblogging with one of her own, we've now gotten down to almost full on blog war. Mommy vs Daddy. Basically I can't use any photos that she takes without her using them first... we have two digital cameras, so normally this would be easy to fix, but of course we both like to use the same one. So here's a couple of MY pics that Juli is not allowed to post on her Mommy Blog until after I do on mine. Basically, all we blog about is Vaughn anyway, so we really should just combine both the blogs into one... Anyway. More to come or click on over to Juli's to see the pics you're not allowed to see here yet.

trying to turn the brown thumbs to green...

This weekend in Costa Mesa has been one for the record books - early April, mid-80's temps, no wind, fridge full of beers, good moods all around= great weekend... throw in a baby shower, a few trips to both Lowes and Home Depot... we've really been getting in on the gardening/DYI lawn care... Last month I bought a lawn mover... yesterday I got a weed-wacker... In the last two days I've used them both and a hedger, trimer, chainsaw, fertilizer, multiple bags of miracle grow... we planted a bunch of flowers, a mexican lime tree... and about six different kinds of peppers: jalapeno, habanero, caribbean, serrano, cayenne and a couple others, along with rosemary, flowers, and some other crap... Fun stuff. We'll see how it all goes - Juli is the one that really inspired all of this, I think it's the whole "nesting" thing while pregnant... but whatever. I've been enjoying it cause Gramps is here he likes to help, but requires a 12-pack or two... so naturally I have to help him.

More of the same...

Vaughn is getting cuter by the day... here he is covered with cheese face from eating baby cheese poofs. He's pretty much the best kid ever...


Here's mommy and Vaughn hanging out in the backyard yesterday... I completely forgot all about blogging Juli's growing fetus. It's about the 4 1/2 month mark now, we find out the sex of the baby at the next ultrasound on April 13th! Juli is super excited and has been crossing her fingers and toes for a baby girl... me too actually. We've got about a 50/50 chance, right? So we'll see...

His future's so bright, he's gotta wear shades!

We've had these sunnies for Vaughn for a while now... I think someone gave them to us as a gag present or for an unbirthday gift bag or something. Anyway, Vaughn has never showed them any interest, if we tried to put them on him he takes them off immediately and throws them on the floor. But this morning he kept pointing at them on the dresser, so I put them on him and he was all about it. Kids are funny...

Another beautiful weekend in Mexico!

Last friday afternoon, after a hard day at work (seriously) I came home, cracked open a beer and ask the wife if she wanted to do anything special this weekend. Instead of the typical answer of chores and nothing, she said... "Let's go down to Mexico!" So that's what we did. We threw our gear together in under an hour (amazing!) and headed south to pick up my brother Robbie and his wife Marcella in Encinitas. They took us to their favorite restaurant on the way down in Rosarito, but I forget the name... the lamb tacos sure were good though. We made it to the house just before midnight and tucked into bed. Saturday the weather was absolutely gorgeous, the waves were pretty small, but clean - we spent the day sitting in the sun with a cooler full of beers and a bottle of Havana Club, thanks to Uncle Tom. We cooked up some carne asada, ate some wonderful tamales from a girl that knocked on the door selling them (for $10 pesos each... .75 cents!) and went to bed early. Sunday my brother went fishing so I surfed fun head high waves for a hour all by myself and then we hit the road for the ride home. Yo amo Mexico.

Vaughn falls down, goes boom!

Vaughn was playing in the backyard on the lil playground my parents got him for his birthday this morning and took a digger off the top. He's at that age where he climbs to the top of everything: chairs, sofas, dressers, stairs... then he likes to jump off and laugh at himself. Well I guess he can't tell the difference between grass and concrete yet cause he did a face plant that caused a nice big goose egg and some immediate bruising on his noggin. Poor guy. This is him sleeping it off... Mommy put a band-aid on the scratches and smothered him with kisses until it was all better!

Life imitates art, or something like that...

So last weekend, Juli, her pops Doug, Vaughn and I went up to Long Beach to have breakfast at Doug's best friends restaurant, "Schooner or Later". It's probably one of the best breakfast spots around and is definitely the most crowded... The good thing is, Denny (the owner) is always there, and we don't have to wait for a table, and he usually picks up the tab. Nice huh? So we get there and the wait is like an hour for a table, but we get one outside in the sun in about 5 minutes after chatting up the staff and finding Denny. The first thing he says to us is this joke: "What do you do when you're riding on the back of a horse and you look over and there's a giraffe running along side you, and there's a big ass tiger chasing you both down? Get the your drunk ass off the carousel ride!"

Later that afternoon it was almost 80 degrees and Juli wanted to go to Victoria's Secret to get some new girly stuff, so we went to Fashion Island and the babes took a ride around the carousel. Anyway, it was extra funny to me, 'cause I keep yelling at her to get her drunk ass off the carousel every time her and Vaughn went by me and I think all the snooty bitches at Fashion Island were looking at me like I was nuts. Which is not too far off...

Vaughn surfs the backyard

How cute are kids? It's because of moments like these that we decided to have another one...

Weekend in Palm Springs...

Last weekend, Juli's Aunt and Uncle were out in Palm Springs, so we went to see them and their family. There were two Vaughns, (Colorado V and California V) The weather was great and we all went swimming, played with toys, learned some baby sign language, played piano, ate dinner, relaxed and then drove home. Nice, quick weekend get away!

Now this is really lazy!

So... i'm way to lazy, busy, tired to post about the rest of the trip - but I was up late last night and wrote an email to my parents and so now I just copied and pasted it here:

"Vaughn slept really well on the plane, we left Sydney for LAX at 3:30 pm and he ran around for a couple of hours, which was good cause they had us in the very back row, but we had the whole row to ourselves which was nice. Then he went to sleep and didn't get up until we woke him after every else got off the plane... it was nice. But here's how the rest of our trip went:

So... we when got to Sydney on Monday we spent the day and night in the city, it wasn't cold but the weather was crappy, rainy and yucky. Sydney was like NYC compared to Cairns, especially where we were in the super snooty district that the Westin is in. Kinda culture shocked. We spent the day walking around the city and had dinner with our friend Blackie in Bondi, which was nice, and the sun did pop out a little so we got to see the beach and the town. The next day we went to Volcom and said hi to them and then went to Manly. It was really nice, we walked all around the town, lots of people, really touristy, like Newport down by the pier in the summer, tons of shops, restaurants, bars, people, nice beaches, really cool... We went by Cowboy’s restaurant then drove up and saw Ozzie and his wife and 10 month old Rocky River up in Narrabeen and I almost got to go surf with him there, but Juli was tired and wanted to nap… we went back to Manly and the babies snoozed.

That night we stayed in Manly, found a really nice 1 bedroom apartment through the front desk person at a hostel, that was right in downtown Manly, one block from the beach. We woke up the next day (wed) and it was still overcast and rainy - the surf looked really good, but we booked it up to Newcastle instead - oh yeah, you know how I didn't change my car reservation in Cairns? Well when we got to the airport in Sydney this super flaming gay dude at the Avis took a liking to me and gave us a Holden Statesmen for the same price I had rented, so $200/week for their best car. It nice, but it took a little getting used to driving on the small streets, it was similar to a new Cadillac. Juli and I could easily fit in the trunk... and thank god we got a GPS, man that made our trip waaaay easier, even though I ended up getting lost a few times, even with it.

So, we got to Newcastle before noon, by that time the rain had stopped, the sun was out and it was 90 degrees again. Our friends Brooke and Tabitha had just bought a house, about a mile from the beach and they have a 4-month old boy, Ace. It was nice staying with them, Brooke and I went surfing a couple different spots in Newcastle, some really fun waves, the water was a tit chilly, but I was fine in trunks the whole time. We had a good time there, Newcastle is a giant port, lots of big boats, tankers and container ships coming in and out all day long and lining up on the horizon.... dad would like it. So we stayed there for two nights, they showed us all around town, had some nice dinners while the babies slept in the prams, and then we headed back down to Manly for our last night.

We left Newcastle and got into back into Manly early on Friday, met Cowboy again at his spot for lunch and were going to stay with them, but then Juli scoped out their house and we booked it to the closest hotel on the beach. The weather was still great and we walked around headland to to the wharf for a swim, water was nice, really clear and calm. Juli was really impressed with Manly and would consider living there, but I don't think its gonna happen seriously. I went for a surf with some friends that afternoon, the surf was good, but man it was crowded.

That night Juli's friend Elsja from high school that is living in Sydney met us for dinner, with a few of my friends. It was fun, Vaughn slept the whole time and then Juli and him went back to bed and I went out with them for a night on the town... When we woke up, we booked it back through the city and to Bondi to meet up with our friends Killer and Ang who were out of town earlier in the week, we met them at their house and went to breakfast, then they showed us all the cool spots in Bondi and we did some last minute shopping and gift getting before getting to the airport and getting on the flight.... It seemed like that last week was a blur, we sure packed a lot into the trip..."

Vacation update!

So yeah we are in Australia. Juli and Vaughn are taking their daily siesta and I can't seem to take a proper nap, so I'm updating this crap. Today we are in Sydney after spending an amazing week up in Cairns with my parents. Holy crap, it was awesome having my parents around, they are the best babysitters ever, and we took full advantage of that. Dinners, movies, you name it... Vaughn even slept in their room at night so we could get a little peace and quiet, and... - it was nice. The weather was great, but HOT and we had a blast checking everything out: zoo's, beaches, rainforest, waterfalls, kangaroos, koalas, we did it all. We'll be in Sydney for 6 more days, the weather is a lot cooler here, cold almost... well 70, but that's cold compared to the mid-90's we just endured for a week. We're spending time catching up with friends here and will take lots of pics.

Ok here we go... Good things happening.

Yeah, well the last time I wrote on here I said there was plenty of good things happening. Here's one: Juli is pregnant again! I thought it was funny that on her blog a few months back when we pulled the goalie (or I should say, started aiming for the goal) she put up a poll about whether or not we were crazy to have more kids now. Of course, everyone said we were, but then again we know we are. We have decided that two will be enough, so I guess we're not that crazy.


Another big thing is that we are finally going to Australia! Not moving... my parents are there for a few months and we're going to visit them and relax in the sun. The are up north in Cairns, where it is super hot, so that will be a nice change. Juli and I will definitely take advantage of the free babysitting and then we're flying down to Sydney to hang with our friends there for 5 days. It'll be a much needed vacation and I'm super excited to show Juli around all the places I know and love in Sydney.

Other than that, it's tradeshow time for me. I got to skip Florida, ASR was good but long, and Vegas in creeping up on me now... All I have to do is make it through one more week and all my worries will be behind us. Juli took care of Vaughn all by herself while I was away last week and she is one tough mama. But I already knew that...

The most awesome thing I've seen in a while...

Last night, Juli, Vaughn and I drove up to LA to check out an art show in Chinatown that our friend Derek Albeck was having. Apparently we were one of his subjects, so we kinda felt compelled to go, even though it was a much needed break from our daily routine. We pulled up into a pay lot in Chinatown and there was the huge mural that must've been done by a bunch of elementary school kids or something... The theme was "what Chinatown means to me" and there was about 100 different blocks all painted something different, most of them had some sort of graffiti on them that wasn't there originally. This was the one we parked in front of and it made me laugh all night long: "Chinatown means to me getting: Fuct Up with Asian Bitches". So good.

Derek's show was cool, but Vaughn was hungry so we didn't stay too long... Since we were in Chinatown and Juli was freaking out about it (Rush Hour is her favorite movie?!) we had to eat at Foo Chow's. The food was actually really good and we all loved it. I was most impressed with the $2 bottles of domestic and $2.50 imported beers. Rush Hour is a whole 'nother story though. Here's one of the paintings from Derek's show that we were in... Juli and I are on the very bottom.There's plenty of more good stuff going on, but I'll save that for other posts...

So I changed the name of my blog...

I actually meant to do this a really long time ago... I just forgot. Or got lazy. Or both. I was asked to change the name of my blog first by my mother, so she could forward it to her mother, who of course has never heard any bad words before in her life. So I finally did. Anyway... here's some stuff from Christmas day, we had a nice crowd of people over at our house and it was really fun. Juli slaved away in the kitchen and cooked up another fabulous meal. Robbie and I cooked a turkey in peanut oil in the backyard in between rail squalls. It seriously started pouring rain about 30 seconds after we pulled the turkey out of the fryer and brought it inside. It was a Christmas miracle!

Mmmmm... deep-fried turkey!

Vaughn and our mini-tree!

Grandma got Vaughn a rocking chair - he loves it!

OH YEAH... today is Vaughn's birthday!

I can't believe I forgot to say that it was Vaughn's first birthday this morning... Anyway, this was us exactly one year ago. Literally, exactly. Vaughn was born at 2:08 pm on Dec. 5th, 2007 and it is now 2:35 pm on Dec. 5th, 2008. This pic was taken about half an hour after he was born while we were still in the delivery room. Crazy. It's been a good year!

My Version of Mexico...

Ok, so I'm going to start this thing off by saying that about a year and a half ago I started this blaaaaahg much to the dismay of my wonderful but very opinionated wife. We were newly married, she was pregnant, and I wanted to document it. Years of working as an editor for the now disemboweled action sport gossip magazine (Happy) left me with plenty of crap to spew to the world, so I thought I could kill two birds with one stone here. As I look back at my very first entries, she literally told me I was "gay" for doing this. I got plenty of shit in the coming weeks, but she always seemed to be up on what I was writing and posting to whoever out there actually reads this thing. My point is, month's later, she started her own. The tides have turned. The roles have reversed. Basically, she's kicking my ass now, as far as keeping up to date on our day in the life crap. I'm proud of her, but at the same time, I don't always completely agree with her opinions on some things...

That being said, here's my take on Mexico last week. The weather was blah for a few days, then wonderful. I got a little too drunk... maybe everyday. But all in all it was what it was. Thanksgiving dinner was great and we spent a week with family and friends, and to me that is the most important thing of all. Juli posted her own pics on her blog yomomsterraps.com but I felt like these needed to be shared as well...

I believe him and all his friends got me in trouble
Watch out Britney, here we come
Afternoon siesta's rule
Even though she's glaring, that is a bloody mary, so you know it's all ok
I dunno why, but I always take photos of my bare feet... when I'm drunk
My boys...
Sisters dancing anyway in the afternoon... it was a good time.

Nothing to report...

Work is taking over my life completely... Thanksgiving in Mexico was fun for everyone except Juli. Vaughn will be one year old tomorrow. I've been fighting off a cold for a week... My head hurts. Going to work, yipee for 8:00 am conference calls!

Hooray for Grandparents!!

I’ve been absent from here in the last week or more. I have a good excuse, my mom is here visiting for two weeks! That means we have a full time live in babysitter, maid and cook. Juli and I have been going out every night and getting shit faced, haven’t changed a diaper in over a week and haven’t even seen Vaughn is the last few days.

Just kidding, we are so lame that we only have gone out once. But it is nice having some help around the house with Vaughn. I know Juli is enjoying Lala being here. And it sure is nice getting home cooked meals everyday! Not that Juli and I don’t cook, we do all the time and do a damn fine job, but let’s just say that my mom has quite a bit more of a range in dishes than we usually make. Pops is flying in tonight, so we’ll have double the parental duties for a week before they head off to Florida for Thanksgiving with their parents. Looks like we are passing on the east coast and heading down to Juli’s dad’s place in Mexico for the week of Thanksgiving... gobble gobble.

Look what I found...

Last summer in Colorado. Me, EA, Billy at Ween. Oh so hot, but what a night. Front of the stage, stealing their beers. Sweating to the oldies for hours. Glen (the keyboardist) snapped our photo. Excellent.

Alcoholism starts early...

Vaughn the beer drinker. This was from our friends wedding we went to back in June, I think, maybe July. Vaughn was seriously into my bottle of beer. That's my boy!

WWJD - What Would Juli Do?

This is too funny... I love the attitude the guitar player is throwing out there.



Jesus is a friend of mine??? I guess now he is, since I've watched this 10 times in the last hour. Jesus likes youtube? Who doesn't.

I'm kinda digging the whole, Jesus/Ska thing going on. Especially since Juli used to be a big ska fan in high school, and maybe I kinda was a closet one at 14. I did own a Reel Big Fish album at one point in my life, but I never painted ska checkers on my car like Celia did (or so Juli says).

Happy Birthday to Yo Momster!

Last night Juli puked on poor Jonesy!

Yes, you read the title correctly, she puked on the dog. And not just a little bit that splashed on his paw... She puked on the dog! Jonesy had a puke mohawk running down his head, neck and back. It was so awesome. It was also so disgusting.

Last night was pretty much the first time that we've gone out since having Vaughn - 10 months! We've had a dinner here or there, and seen a movie once or twice, but it then hurried home right away... It's kinda hard when family isn't close by or all your friends are complete retards... so last night our friend Veronica, (who is not retarded) offered to babysit while we went out and whopped it up.

Wade (Fake Wade loser!) was Djing at some lame bar, but it was super fun, we got wasted and danced and Juli was super stoked that a bunch of dudes kept hitting on her every time I went to the bar or the bathroom. She was mixing beers and vodka and after about her 6th one I knew she was gonna be hurting bad. When we got home, she didn't want to wake up Vaughn so we were hanging out in the backyard (Ali was there too) and she decided that instead of puking in the bathroom and waking up Vaughn, she would just spew in the lawn in the back. As she was puking, Jonesy was getting all up in her shit like always... The next thing I know is I'm inside and Jonesy comes walking in wearing a vomit blanket on his back. Kinda like a little puke-poncho. Ewwwwww.

Juli just laughed and got into bed. I cleaned up the dog and then we laughed for 20 minutes. She was mumbling and slurring, saying, "I told you I was going to do it!" I said, "you told me you were going to puke, but not on the dog!" and she's all, "same thing". Apparently so. I think she's going to be pissed at me for writing this, but it was so fucking funny i just couldn't resist. I'm kicking myself that I didn't take a photo.

So next time someone says they are going to puke - it really means they are going to puke on your dog. Awesome.

Off to the wiener dog races

Yesterday, as part of our "Semana de Juli" we attended the Old World Octoberfest in Huntington Beach. The "Semana de Juli" is Juli's weekly festival that either starts or ends on her birthday. This year we are starting a week early and we'll end on her birthday, October 4th. Yesterday I made breakfast, complete with mimosas and after drinking a bottle of champagne at 8 am, Juli got to take a nice long nap before we headed over to Old World to listen to some live German music, drink a few Spaten, eat some sauerkraut and mashed taters, and of course, watch the wiener dog races. People were seriously getting all riled up about the races. It was pretty funny watching the weirdos get all huffy and puffy about a freaking dog running 100 feet surrounded by a crowd of drunken idiots screaming their names. One of the dogs was named "Harry Wiener" - he was a favorite to win, but got sidetracked by some bitch in the semifinals and lost.

Today we are continuing the celebrations by taking a cruise through the harbor in a Duffy boat, Tuesday is dinner in Los Feliz with Ali, Wade and Tarik, Wednesday is "The Dark Knight" at the IMAX theater, Thursday we go bowling (fuck yeah), Friday, the Black Lips and Japanese Motors are playing at Detroit, and Saturday we are just going out to get "really drunk" as Juli puts it. Good week.

I survived another September...

Well, it's not over yet... But the month of September is always a crazy one and I feel like it's never going to end. Tradeshows are fun, but they take an incredible toll on me, both physically and mentally. It's so hard being away from Juli and Vaughn for so long, and it's hard for her to rationalize that in between all the drinking and dinners and late night shenanigans that we're actually getting a lot of work done... Then after almost two full weeks of that it's my birthday, which this year we spent in Los Gatos at a wedding. Not my idea of the perfect bday, but the wedding was amazing and in the end it was peachy - the Stratton's are good people and we were stoked to be a part of it. At some point I'll post a photo of the winery/house where they were married.... Totally awesome to say the least.

The night before we went up there, Juli and I had planned to go out to dinner with a couple of our friends, Skye, Brooke and Tabitha (who is currently in the running for the 2nd place prize of cutest pregnant girl ever - Juli of course is the champ). BUT, as I got home from another stressful day at work, I got a huge "Surprise" when I walked in the door and a dozen of our closest friends were at our house waiting for me to come home. I knew she was up to something... But I was very surprised. We had a few drinks, ate a delicious dinner prepared by Ali and Wade (he eats!) and then had the best birthday cake I've ever had... Handmade by the best wife/mommy in the world. It was red velvet cake with vanilla frosting, yummy! Thinking back now, I realize that I have such a rad group of friends, and the best family a guy could ask for...

7 years ago... tomorrow.

Tomorrow is the 7th year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on NYC. Tomorrow is also a day where I'm driving to LAX and getting on a cross country flight to Orlando at 8:45 am. It's kinda got me thinking a little bit about it, but you really can't live that way, and if some asshole is going to do something that like that there's not really anything you or anyone else can do about it. I can't believe that people actually can rationally think that killing a bunch of people and yourself in a mass murder/suicide attack is going to help you get to a better place in your version of the "afterlife". What if this is it and those people are just dust? Do you even know it then? I guess not. Anyway, I didn't mean to get into religion here, just thinking about it and hoping that no one tries anything stupid.

I really like to pull my pork!

One of the only things that I really miss about Florida is the BBQ. Charlie and Jake's, Mmmmmmmmmm. Memaw's, Mmmmmmmm. Hushpuppies, Mmmmmmm. So the other day I was thinking about eating some good pulled pork and decided that if some redneck in Florida can make it, then I can too. I knew you could make it in a Crock Pot, and since Juli and I got one as a wedding gift and only used it once or twice in the last year and a half, I had to give it a shot.

I googled "pulled pork - crock pot" and tried the first recipe that came up - of course I improvised. The recipe called for a 2-4 pound piece of pork butt or shoulder, 2 onions, salt and pepper, a jar of BBQ sauce and a can of ginger ale. I got all of these, but substituted a Newcastle for the ginger ale.

I sliced the onions into hockey pucks and laid them in the Crock, then laid the pork butt on top (mine was 3.25 lbs.) after generously salt and peppering the bitch. I had a few more onion slices so I through those babies on top and then drenched her with that bottle of Newcastle. Then I drank the other 5 that came in the six pack while the pork was sitting in the pot. It cooked on low for 12 hours - I started at 6:30 and the buzzer woke me up and 6:30 am, even though the awesome smell of pork and onions had Juli and I waking up all night sniffing the air.

I turned off the Crock and took the top off, the piggie steam was everywhere and the meat was perfect! Then I took Joneser for a walk and let it cool down, after an hour I pulled it out in pieces, cause it was so tender that chunks were coming off every time I picked it up. I threw out the pieces of fat that were left, dumped out the beer and onions, and threw the meat back in the Crock. Then I dumped a whole jar (18 oz.) of Stubb's Hickory Smoked BBQ sauce in there with about a half a minced onion leftover from the slices the day before. Back on low for 3 more hours, and WHAM! The best damn pulled pork I've ever eaten.

We had so much pulled pork that we took some to a BBQ the next day, and everyone loved it there too. We even got a pizza dough and made pulled pork BBQ pizza. Damn it was good. I am the redneck top chef/kithen master/Crock Pot king. And I rule.

Next up, Carnitas. Same recipe, just less liquid and some hot spicy things! I'm going to steal some Daddle Peppers from Robbie and make that shit buuuuurn.

9 Months - Holy SHIT!

Tomorrow Vaughn will be exactly 9 months old... Damn that went fast! He is the best baby in the world though, and it gets better everyday!!!!

Joey giving me some more shit like always

Vaughn's got some big feet!