Wind, Hair and 7-Up

Not much to report today. It's been really windy in Southern California the past couple of days. At least enough to give local news stations something to report about. That always kills me...we get a hint of rain and immediately...Storm Track 2006! Certainly, rain storms are few and far between. But it's always humorous how local news will grab onto something regardless of how useless "team coverage" is for a little rain. Of course, today it was "team coverage" on the wind *sigh*. Then again, here I am reporting on the wind on my blog. Like I said, not much to report today.

I did get my hair cut...and colored...today. Yes, I color my hair. At 37, I'm not too interested in having snow white hair. I wasn't too keen on the idea of "coloring my hair" a few years back. But that was probably because I didn't have as much gray hair and so it still gave a more "sophisticated" look. Now I just look old. Of course, with my receding hairline, there will come a day when my hair will hardly be long enough to worry whether it's white or gray...another big *sigh*.

Before signing off for today and before this gets posted to the picture site, here's a picture Danielle took of the kids "drinking" 7-up. This was NOT a set-up. Abigail went over and pulled down the box of 7-up cans and pulled one out. Joshua, always interested in what his sister is doing, went over and imitated her. Danielle simply got the camera and snapped a picture. I love my kids!

It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas

Well...at least Southern California style...after having so many weeks of heat, we're finally having days where the highs are in the mid-60's and the lows in the 40's. Not only that, but we've had some rain in the past couple of days.

Tonight, we went out a got a Christmas wreath to put on our door. We decided against a tree mostly due to the baby factor and that Abigail is crawling, pulling herself up on things and overall very curious. Not a good combination for a tree with a base of water. Joshua is whole other story. But at least he's teachable right now.

We tried putting lights up last weekend, but found that half of the strings of lights we had didn't work. I think most of these were lights Danielle had in college and used to put up in her dorm room. Yeah...I think it's time to get some new lights. They're bought...just need to find the time to put them up.

Beyond that, Danielle put up a lot of our Christmas decorations last weekend. So, we're doing pretty good with getting into the Christmas spirit. Often times, it's a week before Christmas before we get around to doing these sorts of things. We've even got a jump on our Christmas shopping, which you sort of have to do with family all over the world.

Finally, tonight, ABC aired the Charlie Brown Christmas special. We let Joshua stay up to watch this. One interesting observation that I was made aware of by World Magazine's Blog site is how when Linus begins reciting the biblical account of the Christmas story, he drops his security blanket, recognizing the significance of the story. The blogger states he got the info from Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Charlie_Brown_Christmas). Either way, cool observation!

Yup...Christmas 2006 is definitely here!

My "Grass"

One of the things I've gotten done in the past couple months is get some new "grass" put in. This time, unlike all the other times, it's still there. Here's a picture of it. Looks good, huh? I love having "grass" there and having a place Goldie can do her thing as well as a place Joshua can play on...and eventually Abigail. Not only that, but this is drought-resistant "grass". Doesn't require much water, if any. And the only other thing I need to do with it is rake it to get all the tree trimmings off of it.

Yes, all this is true. The only difference is that it's not real grass. If it were real, it'd already be dead. Goldie can do her thing and all I need to do is rinse it off. Water just soaks through it into the ground. No trimming or mowing necessary. It's a wonderful thing. And it really wasn't that expensive when you think of all the time and energy you have to put into not only preparing and planting real grass, but also maintaining it and keeping it looking decent.

I'm pleased.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving day, we spent the morning walking to the park (Tri-City Park), playing there for a short while and walking back home. I was tired, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Enough so that I didn't even take a nap while everyone else did. Instead, I got caught up with our finances and getting some other things taken care of. Must be the Juice Plus ;-).

After naps, we drove over to Danielle's aunt's house in Lakewood to have a Thanksgiving dinner and some family time with her extended family. Here is a picture of all of us at the table. We started off going around and saying one thing (or more if you'd like) that you're thankful for. That was pretty cool. Even Abigail made a couple cute sounds at about the right time. But when it came to Joshua, he surprised everyone...especially his Mom and Dad. He said something like "dankful fo you and you and you..." as he pointed towards each person around the table. It was the cutest thing I've ever seen and I don't necessarily say that because he's my son. I would have thought the same thing had it been someone else's 2 year old. But I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a proud father at that moment.

So, I hope everyone had a happy Thanksgiving and could reflect again on the things that we can be thankful for, no matter how big or small they may be. It's good to have a thankful heart. Keeps you humble.

I'm Back!!

After a 4 month hiatus, I'm back and ready to blog. Well...it's not as though I was taking the time to refresh and renew. Completely the opposite I'm afraid. But...I've had too many people ask me "when are you going to blog again?!" that it's about time.

Besides, I've been making some other changes in the web-o-sphere. Specifically, we now have our own website!

http://www.bdcannon.com

Of course, it's not much...it's really just a portal right now linking someone to this blog as well as to our new picture site. That's the other thing I've been working on. This allowed me to narrow down our set of pictures a bit and also organize the photos better in general. So, check out our new photo site either by 1) going to our home page and clicking the Pictures link, 2) clicking the BDCannon Family Photos link in the upper left corner of this blog or 3) using the link below:

http://bdcannon.myphotoalbum.com

Finally...if you do go to our home page, you'll notice a link called Juice Plus+®. This is Danielle's new venture that she's REALLY excited about. And frankly, it's a pretty cool deal. You have all heard the 5 A Day campaign by the FDA or whoever it is saying that we should be getting 5 fruits and vegetables a day. Well...apparently, there's a whole lot more truth to it in that getting your fill of whole fruits and vegetables really provides you the nutrients and minerals that our body truly needs. Juice Plus+ is essentially a way to get 17 fruits and vegetables all in four capsules a day...and it only costs a little over a buck a day to get that.

I think one thing that really sold me on it was a month or so ago when Joshua, Abigail and myself were all sick for, literally, 3-4 weeks. Cough, congestion, runny nose, aches, and even completing the ordeal with the stomach flu of some sort. During that entire time, Danielle did not get sick. Now, I'm not trying to say that taking Juice Plus+ will prevent you from getting sick. But I am saying that it will certainly boost your immune system and likely will prevent you from getting sick as often. There's also a TON of research that has been done by major universities backing up this product. It's actually quite impressive.

At any rate...at the risk of staying on my soap box too much and taking away too much from what Danielle could share, just click the link and check it out. Oh...one more thing...they even have Juice Plus+ gummies that you can take for your kids or if taking capsules is hard for you. We're giving them to our son and he loves them.

Okay, enough of my soapbox...there's a whole lot more I could share. But I'll save that for the next post. It's about time for the kid's bath.