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Wow: a post that will not include Keegan at all. I guess we are still people too, besides being parents: what a concept!

Since it has been a pretty busy, stressful year, and both of us had a BIG birthday celebration in the past few months, we decided to try to do some fun things together. I have recently became “addicted” to the daily-deals coupons sites such as groupon.com, circlebuzz.com, or the San Diego UT daily deal sites. These are great resources to find fun, discounted activities and services. We use these site to book for a great nighttime kayak trip to see the Seaworld Fireworks, and to purchase massages and playground access. This time we decided to book a biplane ride!

Actually when I first saw the ad, I thought that Matt would not go for it since he does not like heights quite as much, but he thought it would be a fun thing to do. We have been watching these planes fly over our house for the past 7 years, so it was about time we tried ourselves.What made it even better was that he got to take a extra long lunch break on a weekday: so no babysitter required.

We met at Montgomery Field in a beautiful, if quite windy, sunny day. The temperature was a balmy 75, so the light jacket we brought was barely necessary. The company we used, Barnstorming Adventures offer different kinds of flights, including the 30 minutes biplane ride we chose. This is the description from their website:

“In helmet and headset, one or two passengers sit in the front cockpit of a meticulously restored 1920’s airplane. Your pilot flies from the back cockpit. It’s aviation like it used to be.”

We signed our life away, as always in these cases, and we went outside in the airfield. The biplane was waiting for us.

This is our plane

almost ready to go…I guess

We put on our headgear, and fit snug inside.

charming headgear

It is amazing to think that people actually were fighting wars in this thing. It is so small, and it barely fits two people. The pilot was in the back, and it was kind of funny to see that the most prominent sign we could see was the No Spitting sign. Uh???

We were quickly in the air. We headed to downtown first, where we could see the disabled cruiseship, the Midway Museum and all the other downtown landmarks.

The wind was really strong and it was bouncing us all around. I usually like this kind of thrill rides, but between the smell of the gas, and all the twist and turns, I really started feeling nauseous…good thing I did not ask for a particularly exciting ride! I guess I would have not made as a pilot during WWI. Fortunately as we headed up the coast to pass Pacific Beach and La Jolla, the wind changed direction and we enjoyed a wonderful ride. We passed Mission Bay, Calumet park (where we got married), the beach we usually go to, and the luxurious la Jolla mansions.

Calumet park (green area next to the cables)

PB and the Crystal Pier

We finished our tour flying over Clairemont. Thanks to my poor sense of orientation, I was not able to recognize our exact street, but Matt got to see it. We think our house is on the bottom left side, overlooking the green canyon.

We happily landed without a glitch. I was somewhat queasy for the rest of the afternoon, especially when driving, but it was well worth it!

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So, comes late October, construction really shifted in high gear. We are really trying to get everything done by December. Of course this means we will still have plenty to do in January, as far as little touch up are concerned, but we are almost there.

For the past couple of weeks we really had a flurry of activity happening at the house. 2 or 3 trades working at the same time…and this is really what we want to see: painters, carpenters, plumbers, general workers, stucco guys, all working feverishly, even on Saturdays, towards the finish line.

The stucco have been laid down. It is almost weird to see the house all white again.

The living room/kitchen rooms upstairs have been painted: green for the guest room (future Keegan’s room), beige for Keegan’s play room, blue/gray for Matt’s office, blue/green for the bathroom. The closet doors have been installed (even if not painted yet).

The bathroom has a toilet and a bidet and a sink.

And the stairs are being completed. We decided to upgrade to hardwood stairs: yes, it was more expensive, but they are looking beautiful. Plus, I really don’t want to vacuum carpeted stairs. Now, if we only could leave them without a railing it would be great. Alas, is not possible, nor desirable with a little one. Plus, the city of San Diego would not give us its final approval.

So we at least tried to mix it up a little with a 3-2-3-pattern. The pickets will be painted white and the handrail will match the steps.

Now is probably the messiest time of the whole construction as we have workers everywhere, and the kitchen and living room are not spared anymore. But we all gladly put up with it: we are so ready to be done.

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Halloween weekend also brought us a fun photo session. The pool where Keegan takes swim lessons offers the chance of a underwater photo session about twice a year with a professional photographer, Shelly VanBrabant; this winter they held one on the Friday before Halloween. So, even if it was a mad rush going to school for the Halloween parade in the morning, and back for the Carnival in the afternoon, and then quickly drive to the pool, we signed up.

We got there a few minutes early, and the pool was eerily quiet: just us and the photographer, and we were the last ones for the day. Matt was able to meet us at the Halloween Carnival and accompanied us for the photo shoot, doing some documenting of his own.

we are ready for our close up

I was in the water as well, helping out and also trying to get some shots with Keegan. He quickly warmed up and he was happy splashing and playing in the water. Then it was time for his close ups. There was an assistant helping him to get underwater, and I was swimming towards him, as the photographer shot pictures.

Behind the scene of a photo shoot

In between shots she would show us the shots on her digital camera: the miracle of technology…too bad that without glass there was not much I could see. (-:

Modeling underwater is definitively much harder than I thought, especially if you have to dive down, stay below the surface, old a squirmy 3 year old, smile, look at the camera, and slowly swim forward…all at the same time. It was especially difficult not to pop out of the water. I guess I float really well. (-: Needless to say, we did not get many beautiful shots of me, but we had a lot of fun.

Keegan, on the other hand, was a great model: he smiled, kept his eyes open and generally followed all the directions. He was having a ball. And since it was Halloween weekend, he got to pose with a pirate costume. AARRR!

He looked great in most if the pictures, so, even if the sitting fee was really cheap, we will end up spending lots of money in prints…Oh well. So here are some of our favorites:

and our all time favorite

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This year Halloween was really fun. Keegan is at the perfect age for it, so he was looking forward to “trick or treating” for a while. I guess this is also probably the last year I get to choose his costume, since he did not expressed any preference. So, he got to be a dragon, a really cute one, if I can say so myself. I bought the costume a few weeks ago, so he go to play in it multiple times. He especially liked the wings and the long nails, and pretending to be fierce. Little hard to believe with that smile.

This year, we also went to a Pumpkin Patch (twice): it is funny how nowadays, the pumpkins on display are kind of a side show to all the rides that are there. In fact, one night, while we were reading a Halloween story and the book showed a real Pumpkin Patch, Keegan asked me:” Where are the bouncies?”.

The weather has been horrible, so we took advantage of the first nice day and headed over to Mission Valley to Pumpkin Station. Ok, so it was not the most spectacular view (the I-8 freeway on one side and the Bed Bath and Beyond parking lot on the other) but it had bouncies, and that was all that mattered. Of course he rushed to the giant slide, his favorite. But he found time to sample all the other rides as well: the train ride, the smaller bouncies, the petting zoo, the rotating chairs, the boats.

what a panoramic view of the parking lot

WOW, there are actual pumpkins here

Matt reached us after work, so we all chose a nice pumpkin together and had a fun dinner at Bennigan’s. Keegan was in a great mood and we actually had a whole day without any whining. Incredible!

The weekend’s weather was again not the best, so we spent some time decorating and carving our pumpkin. We totally chose an easy way out, and got a pre-made template, but it turned out great. By we of course I mean I chose the template and Matt actually carved it. Keegan was excited at the idea, but got bored pretty soon.

Unfortunately, our pumpkin did not quite made it to the big day, due to one super hot day, but it did not matter. We got to enjoy it for a few days.

The following week we made another trip to the Pumpkin Patch: I have bought a lot of rides tickets and, since they were not cheap by any stretch of imagination, I did not want to waste them. Again, we spent most of our time on the giant slide. Keegan was the entertainment for all the spectators, since he was the littlest one and he was literally flying off that thing. We even got a free ticket from a family that was leaving and noticed how much he was having fun. Despite his generally cautious ways, he is NOT afraid of the giant slides.

Look at him, flying down

On Friday, we had all the school festivities. We started off with a Halloween parade in the morning: it was of course very hot, and the poor kids were melting in their heavy costumes but they had a blast  parading around and going to the nearby establishments to get some candies.

Look how good I am at holding on to the ring

After it was all over, a good 5 minutes later, it was time to enjoy some of the loot.

In the afternoon it was time for the carnival: parents came in and kids played and participated in many different games, culminating with the pinata bashing.

On the actual Halloween day, we got ready as soon as the sky got dark. Keegan was so excited! We met with Jada first, and headed out together.

I am ready…let’s go! Enough pictures!

with Jada and Sharon

We then caught up with other neighborhood kids, so we were a nice big group.

Keegan, this year, loved knocking on doors and ringing doorbells, and knew exactly what to say.We hit many more houses than last year, and I have to say that our neighbors are very generous and had lots of really good candy. We did not have any cheap goodies!

trick or treat!

After a full hour, the kids were tired and Keegan could not wait anymore to sample his loot. We went back home and survey all the candies.

Keegan got to pick his favorite 5 plus a bag of Cheetos, and despite the sugar high, he actually went to bed pretty easily.

dancing around on a sugar high!

He even saved a few for the next day. We had a talk about how too much candies gets you sick, but I think what resonated the most with him is a book we saw that shows kids getting all green and sick after eating too much junk food. Well, whatever works, right? Hopefully it will stick, since we made all the rest of the candies disappear.

So, I have to say it was a very successful Halloween, and probably the one I enjoyed the most so far. It was really wonderful to see all these little guys scurrying around, playing and collecting goodies. And I obviously did not mind making all the good candies disappear…in my own private stash.

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So, despite the uncooperative weather, and the other snags, construction continues. We are still hoping to be basically done by the end of the year, but let’s see. I am sure that, no matter what, there will still be lots of little details to be finished up in the new year.

At this point we have the security screen door installed, interior doors, shelves and rods inside closets, framing and baseboard basically finished, and the upstairs niche built up.

Looking at the screen door from the inside of the house

Keegan of course enjoys seeing all the changes and almost every day comes with me to inspect the work.

can I play with these cool power tools?

let me document the progress

this is so much fun!

But my favorite part at this point are the wall tile in the bathroom. I really love how they turned out, and I already know that that bathroom will become MY bathroom.

bathroom tiles in progress

Wall tiles finished

Detail

This week we will hopefully have the bathroom  floor installed, and then it will be time for the paint color selection, the stairs railing, the lighting and all the other details. Details that include, securing a permanent mortgage and dealing with two different banks. Blah.

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