Doll bed

Cecilia asked me to make a bed for her baby so over the long weekend she helped me draft it up. Then, after the boards were cut, she helped me sand a bit.

I wanted to get it done in one weekend so it's only got the first coat of polyurethane. In hindsight I kinda wish I'd painted it white or pink or something.

I think Laura is going to make a mattress or pillow or something.

Carving pumpkins

On October 30th, we decorated some pumpkins. Chad and I carved pumpkins. We didn't think the kids were quite old enough to carve, so they got to use some markers to decorate their pumpkins.

The "before" picture

So proud of her pumpkin!

Mommy's pumpkin

Daddy's (a "Drakey" slime from Dragon Quest) pumpkin

Grant and Mommy blow the train whistle

On October 28th, Mommy and Grant practiced blowing the train whistle.

Grant wears high heels

On October 27th, we had Shayla over for a playdate. While she was here, the girls were playing dress-up, including putting on shoes. Then Grant decided to put on some too!

Cecilia and Grant bounce on the seesaw at CCNS

On October 23rd, we were at CCNS for an event in the evening. While we were there, the kids bounced together on the seesaw.

Grant plays with the piggy at Alan and Gaoder's House

We have been having issues with our washing machine this fall. It started acting up and giving me an intermittent error in early September and we really struggled to figure out what the cause of the problem was (to the tune of 2 different repair companies coming and 6 or 7 visits!). So while we were dealing with all of this, Alan and Gaoder were nice enough to offer to let me do some loads of wash there when our washer was acting up.

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While we were there, the kids were always looking for new things to do. On October 22nd, they discovered a piggy that snorts and shakes, and then moves. Grant thought it was hilarious!

PlayStation Mod Chip!

Back in 2004 or so I figured it might be fun to mod my PlayStation.  Ever since then, I've been thinking about how much fun it would be to learn to solder.  The problem is, I kind of put it off and off and then the chips got pretty hard to find...  Recently I started searching again and found a PlayStation modding community that sells mod chips online.  They're pretty cheap and you can even pay with a credit card.  (There are some other sites that only take money order, which makes me a bit nervous.)

It took two weeks to ship from Bangkok, but eventually the mod chip arrived:

The chip was tiny!  It's about half the size of a fingernail.

After watching some YouTube videos on how to solder, I started practicing on some old broken electronics...

Then I disassembled the PlayStation.

Here's where the mod chip gets soldered on my particular model of motherboard:

Then I soldered the 30 AWG wire onto the legs of the mod chip:

You can see that pin 2 has no wire.  It doesn't need one for this install.

Soldering onto the board was SUPER tricky!  Soldering is definitely an art.  It's like driving a manual transmission - there's a particular motion you have to get used to.

The guide recommended I put some fresh solder onto the points on the board, so I did that...  then I trimmed the wires to the right length and attached to the points.  First half done:

Now onto the second half:

Then I applied hot glue to the solder points to prevent shorts and corrosion, hot glued the legs, and then taped the chip to the board.

Now I can play whatever game I want!

Squirrel

We have a crazy squirrel living in our backyard! It has learned how to climb up the stucco of our house, across the screen, and then flip itself upside down and grab the song bird feeder. Unfortunately, in doing that, it has caused the screen to be shredded! We have switched the song bird feeder and the hummingbird feeder, but it hasn't stopped the squirrel. It still climbs up onto the screen and then tries to jump over to the feeder. Hopefully we will either figure out how to stop it, or it will just give up sometime soon!

Here are some photos of the condition of the screen. It has actually gotten worse since then too...

Trip to Lemos Farm with the Marleys

On October 20th, we planned to take a trip to Lemos Farm in Half Moon Bay with the Marleys. Unfortunately, when we were about half way there, it started raining. We desperately NEED the rain, so it was hard to complain about it, but it would have been a little more pleasant if it hadn't been so wet. Thankfully, by the time we got to the pumpkin patch, it was only drizzling, not raining!

When we got there, we all bundled up the best we could and headed to the pumpkin patch. 

First we rode on a little mini-train. Thankfully, the train had a roof, so although we got wet from rain coming in the open sides, at least it wasn't coming down on top of us.

Next, while we were waiting for the hayride, the kids rode on a little covered wagon ride. They had a blast! 

Next up, it was a hay ride. Evelyn said that this was her first hay ride ever! 

What goofy faces!

Having a snack of popcorn, grapes, and pumpkin bread.

Later, the kids got balloons and their arms painted. Cecilia and Shayla both got snowflakes to match their Elsa balloons. Grant got a spider and spiderweb, which didn't really match his Olaf, but he enjoyed it!

Here are the girls pretending to be zombies while we waited for the balloons to be ready.

Silly girls!

Goofy boy!

And here are the Olaf and Elsa balloons. I was really impressed with how they both looked. The lady that made them was really talented (and probably gets a lot of practice)!