Readers and Changes

Being a fairly boring person myself I have been thinking of changing the input information on this blog. I do not think we get many readers and I am am fairly certain that even within the people it was made for that it get very few reads. The Blog can't really focus on me and my life because that will be probably fairly repetitive.

1. Wake up between 4 am and 5:30 am (even on the weekends)
2. Go to work
3. Come home between 5:30 and 6 pm
4. Figure out something to do for dinner with Dee (she usually figures it out)
5. Play with the dogs so they don't get bored while dinner is finished
6. Eat
7. Watch whatever show taped the night before
8. Go to sleep between 8 pm and 9 pm
9. Rinse
10. Repeat

Most of the Davoust life changes have been taken care of by the eldest at joesandanliz and now that I have put together the johndeanna (yes that is stolen from the joesandanliz idea) everything can be reached in one spot on the left hand navigation.

So the question would be what do I put in the davoust.blogspot.com site (that would be this one here).

Perhaps a diary of sorts for myself? As mentioned in the bullet points I think it would be really boring.
My political thoughts (which I enjoy forming)? Probably not a good idea as my opinion differs so much from pretty much anyone that I know and I can only see that added to some major dislike and maybe even creating a little hatred?
Mom's diary? A great idea but I don't have the information that Jeanine has and that is probably something that she would be better suited to do.
The whippet Blog? I have information and substance for that but I can put that in the whippet section of johndeanna.com and kind of does not really keep in the theme of davoust.blogspot.

I did want to kind of keep everyone (if there is anyone that reads this) updated of Jocelle and her growth and life but I really don't hear from her and am rarely updated as to where she is and what she is doing. I did hear that this summer she was traveling the United States in a motor home with her grandparents, Gary and Joyce. No visit to Southern California that I am aware of.


So... that means that is my next goal, to figure out what to do with the Davoust blog... (oh and there is the small problem that I am not a very good writer). I use the spell checker for this and it always cracks me up that the suggested replacement for joesandanliz is "scandalize" :)

Tons of changes

Trying to update the primary site for Deanna and myself, changes have been made to the Jake page, a place holder has been put for the Jeanine page (it currently points to the My Space page but does not show if you are not in her network). Michaels my space page was added to his link on the Navigation bar to the left and temporarily Wade's link post to a Press Telegram article that has him quoted. A generic Google search was added to the main page...

You can see the changes here, if one of the links is your and you desire it to point to a different place just let me know, or I can remove any reference to you if you feel your privacy has somehow been jeopardized.

If you would like to have your own page to edit or want to redirect your navigation link to a different site just e-mail me and let me know.

www.johndeanna.com

Northern Family Visits

More at joesandanliz.com

Our Baby Whippets Babs (fawn) and Lucy (black)

Kind of old news now but here are some videos of the new puppies.



This was the day we got them, short but at the time this video was taken we had them about 10 minutes.



This is their first time in the yard.



More of the first day at home.



And this is the most recent, just after 4 months...



They have just had their "no puppy" surgery and the cones do not agree with them... I swear we had no idea how hard raising new little puppies was... Jeanine warned us, but we did not listen.

Comments and User Registration at joesandanliz.com

I figured out some stuff so you can comment on entries and register at joesandanliz.com now. Still working on decor and design.

I've decided to put new blog entries on my homepage

New posts will go on the JoeSanDanLiz website from now on. For a while I was the only one using this so I don't think it will mean all that much. I'm still learning how to use Wordpress, so for now I can't add users, allow comments, or even make the pages look as nice as this. Anyone who wants to help me, get in touch. Otherwise, I'll sneak whatever free time I have making it better. I think this is the best use for my homepage, since the static stuff I had before wasn't working. Also this will serve (I hope) to make it just a little harder to link my kids first and last names on the internet, a move which lots of experts say will keep them safer.

Pictures Have Moved

There are pictures associated with most of the posts before this date. They were hosted on photobucket.com. That website has since changed its terms of service, and I wouldn't agree with it, so I closed the account. All of the below posts, along with pictures are now on joesandanliz.com. Sorry for the inconvenience, but it had to be done. Unfortunately, I may have lost two Elizabeth videos that were only hosted on photobucket, but I still may be able to find them on a DVD or hard drive around the house somewhere.

Great Gifts!

Last night we got a couple of boxes from Aunt Deanna and Uncle John. First Elizabeth opened her box which had an enthralling second box inside. That box talked and she loved pushing the button and hearing Elmo's voice so much, we thought she would never let us open it. But eventually we did and she and Daniel loved the Tickle me Elmo inside.

Daniel was feeling a little left out so, even though its three weeks until his birthday, we let him open his box too. Inside was a great basketball game that he immediately started shooting baskets with. Of course Elizabeth started attacking him so he learned to keep it out of her way when he really wanted to get serious and shoot some hoops.

Happy Birthday Elizabeth

This week we celebrated Elizabeth's second birthday with a dinosaur (her new first love) themed party. It was an intimate affair with just a few close family members in attendance, namely Dad, Mom and Daniel. The living room was decorated with balloons tied to little dinosaurs and her cake had dinosaurs on it too.







The next day we headed down to the Monterey Aquarium. She loves going there since watching fish is a favorite pasttime. Her favorite sea turtle was missing, but she did get to see closeups of the sunfish and great white shark.

Too Many Toys

Daniel and Elizabeth woke to a morning living room filled with toys from Santa and a horde of presents under the tree.

Santa brought them both what they asked him for (a ball that turns into a rubber spikey hat for Dan, and a car for Elizabeth), but he also brought them way too much other stuff.

Later that day Uncle Wade, Auntie Jeanine, Michael and Tura came up to share Christmas ham and other goodies made by Jeanine and Sandy.

Joe somehow got the day off and it turned out to be a wonderful holiday.

Halloween

This year for Halloween, Dan was a One-Eyed, One-Horned, Flying Purple People Eater, though he didn't really eat any people. And Elizabeth was a puffy purple fish.


Sandy went crazy making the costumes from scratch after saying that she was done doing that. Her costumes come out looking so great.


Its almost Christmas and Dan still has lots of candy in his Trick or Treat bag.

Vengance is Upon Us?

Maybe in response to Thanksgiving dinners taking place all over Dublin, Ca:

A determined flock of turkeys marched into town to protest.



Daniel and Joe ran across this bunch of wild turkeys on a Dublin city street on the way home from school, ironically, just a few days after Thanksgiving.

Happy Holidays!!!!

Congrats Jeanine and Wade (updated with wedding pix)

We just got back from our trip to Palm Springs and San Diego. Congratulations to Jeanine and Wade and Michael too. The wedding was lots of fun but the motel was kinda of very expensive and kind of extremely un-kid friendly, but we got by.

The Ceremony was beautiful, and the kids had a great time at the reception. Elizabeth was a bit cranky.

We finished up in very much more kid-friendly San Diego where we went to some museums, the Zoo, and the Scripps Aquarium.

Elizabeth was so sick on the way down we thought we would need to turn around, but a breathing treatment at Kaiser, along with some drugs and we were able to continue.

P.S. Jeanine sent me a link to more pics so i put some of them on there too.

A's win, A's win, A's win

Joe and Dan went to the A's game today, great field level seats given to us by my friend John at work. The A's beat the Indians seven to four. Got to see Frank Thomas hit a home run. Dan thought it was kind of neat that there was actually some baseball being shown in between snacks.

Disneyland Vacation

We got a three night stay in Newport Beach for free almost free, just to go see a timeshare presentation and ended up spending tons of money that we wouldn't normally have to go to Disneyland.
That being said, it was a ton of fun and we got to visit with the whole family.
Daniel wanted to ride all the big rides, but after harrowing experiences on the Tower of Terrrrrrrror and Space Mountain, he has elected to try again when he's eight.

Sandy hosts a bunco night. Joe takes kids and flees town.

When Sandy's turn came to host her bunco group, Joe said lets go. So to get the kids out of the way, Joe, Dan and Elizabeth headed for a weekend at Monterey Bay.
We stayed at the Chaminade Hotel in the Santa Cruz woods. A quiet getaway for couples mostly, many who didn't want to share the hotel with kids running down the halls and waking up crying at 3 a.m. (We did get some complaints, but we only stayed one night, and probably weren't thinking of going back ever, anyway.)

We spent day one at the Santa Cruz boardwalk and pier and day two at the Monterey Aquarium. Lots of fun, mostly because Daniel and Elizabeth knew dad was way more feeble at taking care of them than mom, and so they both helped out a lot.

Elizabeth Celebrates Girls Day

March 3 is Girl's Day in Japan, so we celebrated by doing something Elizabeth loves. We went to the Aquarium of the Bay at Pier 39 in San Francisco. It's neat because you ride a conveyor belt through the aquarium.

Afterwards we went to Japan Town for lunch.

Dan's Fourth

Daniel invited lots of his little friends over for his birthday this week. It was a Buzz Lightyear-themed event, with lots of balloons, and little buzzes everywhere.
Elizabeth had much more fun following the boys around the house than she had celebrating her own party a few weeks earlier.

Elizabeth's Big Birthday Trip

Since Daniel got to go to Hawaii for his first birthday, we thought Elizabeth should have the same. But she really didn't want anything to do with it. She was okay on the plane to and from there, but she ended up getting sick, and didn't like the heat and humidity. She also wasn't too fond of meeting a whole bunch of new people, though she did have fun with Grandma and Grandpa.

What ended up happening is that for most of the vacation, Daniel and Dad went sightseeing and playing, while Mom was stuck at home taking care of a very needy birthday girl.

Porche Play

After several days of rain, Daniel finally got a dry spell to try out his new car that Uncle John and Aunt Deanna gave him. But the wind was blowing so hard, some rather large branches from the trees kept falling on his head, so he didn't get to play very long. And now its raining again so it will be a while before he can play again.