My First School Field Trip!

After record breaking wet weather and a small but devastating flood at my school that required the replacement of an entire wall of sheetrock, October 20th dawned with the promise to be a beautiful day, a day I'd been looking forward to. The day my class and I would get to go to the Pumpkin Patch.

Mom and Dad picked me up around 0930 and we caravaned to the pumpkin patch just outside the city of Clayton, California. I'd heard it was one of the best patches around, with lots of pumpkins, a walking trail, a hay maze, and lots of places to take pictures. So as we pulled into the parking lot, followed by all my classmates, their parents and my teachers, you can imagine how excited I was to get exploring.

Here's some of the pics we took while at the pumpkin patch:





Then there was the really cool, super big maze made out of hay bales! If Mom and Dad had ambushed me at one of the exits, I don't think I would have ever left this cool hiding place!




And of course, there were the pumpkins...




So that was my first school field trip. Pretty awesome, I think. We had a good time, oh, and after the pumpkin patch visit, we had lunch at a local park, which was a lot of fun as well. I'd just like to take a moment to thank my teachers, Michelle and Amanda, for making this trip possible; and Mom and Dad for coming along to help out. You all rock!

The Quest for 3000 Tickets!

It started oh so simply, a chance meeting at a favorite locale with the ambassador of fun, children's icon...


I have been a huge fan of Chuck E Cheese for so long, I couldn't tell you how it started, but i'd venture a guess by saying I must have seen a commercial on TV and thought it might be a place I'd enjoy. I've been a regular visitor to our local Chuck E Cheese for a little over a year, but it was at the end of August that I began my quest for the Ultimate Prize.

I needed 3000 tickets to get the object of my desire, an oversized electronic version of DJ from the movie Cars. If you don't remember who DJ is, I've provided a video sample compliments of YouTube's video library and DKOFS5 (video's creator). Have a look.



Pretty cool. So, I needed to get serious, play some SkiBall, Hoops, mix in a few games of chance and hope at some point all my efforts would add up to that magical number, 3000. It was a lofty goal, especially for a guy like me who has the attention span of a honeybee, literally moving from game to game to ride after one or two tokens. But it all paid off in the end about a week ago when my Dad and I took on the task of cashing in a freezer Ziplock bag of tickets we'd been collecting.


That was a total of 2518 tickets on 10-17-09. A week later we scored the necessary remaining tickets to take home this...


So, with DJ now safely at home where he belongs, I have set a new goal for my Chuck E Cheese adventures, 5000 tickets. We'll see how that goes. It could take a while, but I'm willing to put in the time and with a quick swipe of Dad's CD Federal VISA, we'll get the money too.

See ya at the games. Hunter

Matt and Angie

Please Get Well Very Soon.

Biggest October Storm Since 1962

It was everything a boy who loves water could want!

According to one of our local papers, The San Francisco Chronicle, it was an October storm unlike any the Bay Area (that's where we live) has seen in almost half a century, with record smashing rainfall totals, tens of thousands of people without power, and commutes lasting hours because of hundreds of auto collisions. October 13th will be a day not easily forgotten.

The torrential rainfall was fed by remnants of the typhoon originating off the coast of Japan last week (my Dad's very good friend Doctor Brad Brough lives in Japan right now with his family and was there when the typhoon got started). The experts say if a storm like this had hit us midwinter with the ground already saturated with the winter rain, we'd have seen a whole lot more chaos.

And that's saying something cause it was chaos anyway with trees down in the roadway, the lights flickering all morning, people spinning out of control on the freeway. It's was ugly, to say the least. But to see the storm from our front door, from my perspective, it was a pleasantly wet day for an adventure in my red rainboots, boots made, designed, and fashioned for just such a spectacular display of nature's wonderful power.



And when we got to school, things still hadn't gotten any better. In fact, the main hallway was shut down because so much water had come down by 9:00 AM, flooding the walkways and parking lot, that the entire entrance was flooded! Lucky me, I had my big red rainboots on.


So that's the storm of October 2009. After it was all said and done (that day at least) we'd accumulated nearly 3.5 inches of rain. Guess it was a Big One. I look forward to many more wet, rainy days this winter!

What I did today.

Dad woke me early, told me he had a surprise. So we ate breakfast, (strawberries and cream Cream of Wheat, applesauce, and vanilla yogurt), got dressed in our best Star Wars shirts, and hit the road. All he would tell me was we were going to Walnut Creek and to a store called Pottery Barn Kids.

The ride didn't take long and before I knew it we pulled into a small, mostly hidden parking garage and parked. We elevatored down to the ground floor and strolled out onto the streets of downtown Walnut Creek, a good sized metropolis of mostly upper class, environmentally friendly peeps who were running to and from the Starbucks on the corner like ants to a dead insect. Have you ever noticed how ants do that? And not just to insects...

Any way, up the street a little ways and suddenly we were in line, waiting outside this furniture store squashed between a Barnes and Noble Bookstore and Apple. I wanted to go into the Apple store, but when Dad told me it wasn't the kind of toys I'd be interested in a my particular age, I decided to stick around and see what Pops knew that I didn't.

Within a pair of ten minutes, we were inside and I found myself totally surrounded by the coolest people ever. It was literally like something right out of Star Wars! But here, let me show you what I'm talking about:



I was literally in awe, not that I should have been with how much Dad has indoctrinated me with the mythos that is Star Wars. I still hope to meet Artooie (that's what Ahsoka calls R2) some day. And Yoda, I can't even begin to tell you how monumentally cool that would be.

After that, the day just seemed to fly by, everything going right for once in all the usual haunts, Chuck E Cheese, the local park, Target, and on the toilet (where I laid some pipe for the first time ever! NO pictures, that's just gross!). So, in the words of one of my Dad's favorite t-shirts, "Star Wars is the solution to everything."

C-Ya. Hunter.

Catchin' Up With the Roberts...

Remember all those things I was telling you about in my last post, way back in July? Well, this is what I call a photo novelization of my Summer of 2009. Check it.

So, we kicked the summer off with our annual family vacation to DISNEYLAND!






And the fun just kept going and going and going.





And even MORE fun at DISNEYLAND! Coolest place on Earth. Well, maybe not the coolest, but certainly in my Top Five!





And our trip to Disneyland came to an end on the openning night of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Everyone had dinner at The Rainforest Cafe. Well, not everyone, I actually stayed back at our Suite with Grandma. I had fun, they had fun, we all had loads of FUN! Can't wait for next summer!


So, after the Disneyland phase of our vacation, we moved to the Beach Phase which always includes staying with my super cool Aunt Jami, Uncle Rob, Taylor, Spencer, and Gwen. We crash at their house and go to the mall, the park, eat out, play games, it's a riotous four nights of good family fun. And of course there's Malibu and Zuma Beach. I love the beach...

But, our time at Aunt Jami's house started with this:


It's a caterpillar cocoon me and my brothers found hanging from the brick wall outside my Aunt Jami's house. It didn't change much while we were there, although the shell seemed to get more rigid/firm each day. I later learned it can take up to two weeks for the caterpillar to emerge from the crystallis, either as a butterfly or a moth.

After that, we hit the beach.





We eventually went home, where we continued our summer of fun with a birthday party for Ethan and Caleb, who turned NINE YEARS OLD this year. How cool is that?



With everyone here for the summer, it seems there are always tons of dishes that need to get done...


Caleb and I got a short run in after the dishes.


Toward the end of the summer, we got a visit from Grandpa and Grandma Roberts. It's been a while since they were here last and we had a lot of fun with them. I thought I had pictures of our Nerf War at the park but I can't seem to find them, so maybe next time. But here's some pictures from their last day with us.





After the grandparents left, my brothers and Dad went over to The Lake for a little fishing. I heard they had a pretty good time. Didn't catch any fish, though, but it wasn't really my Dad's kind of water. He's more of a stream and small river kind of fisherman, or so he says. Maybe he just doesn't know how to catch a fish...Naw, I've seen the pictures. He's legit.



And while they were fishing they saw a huge Hawk! How radical is that? A real life bird of prey up close and personal! Talk about Close Encounters! My Dad always says, when you go fishing, you have to be prepared to meet the wildlife face to face in their own habitat. I'm not exactly sure what that means but it seems to have happened once again on a fishing trip involving my Dad.




And how did the Summer of 2009 come to an end? Well, how else? With a super cool, giant sleepover at our house with the Jacobs. Food, fun, movies, and games. It was the perfect end to an awesome summer.


That was the Summer of 2009. You can see, we stayed pretty busy. And it hasn't stopped, but that's for another day. Choa for now.

Hunter