As you might have read in my Tweet Stream from Saturday, we got a welcome respite from parenting duties for a good portion of the day. You can read all about it, as well as view some pictures here.

We told the twinkles that if, by the time they were 3 years of age and potty trained that we would give them some bicycles. The third birthday has passed, and while we're still in the throes of potty training with one or more of the kids on various occasions, we capitulated and snagged a few bicycles.


Maya requested a pink bicycle, and being somewhat girlie had to have the matching helmet and joint pads.


Devin, being a boy and not caring about such things, was just happy to have a bicycle regardless of make, model, color or otherwise and...

as you can tell, he was quite enthused,


as was Maya.

I'll sum this up by saying that the cycle training has been less than successful and usually leads to one or more individuals being pissed off and unhappy. We're coming along, however. We also happened to snag a few l'il three wheel scooters similar to the Razor fad from 5 or 10 years ago, and that seems to be a happy medium. The neighborhood kids seem to rotate between both modes of transport, and being smaller and susceptible to Big Kid Wanna Be-ism, Devin and Maya are comfortable on the scooters. I'll get pictures of those soon.

You really need only watch the video. Stephanie is more than excited about getting back on skis. Thanks to the The Trotters for yet another fun trip on the lake!

I recently switched from AT&T (nee Bellsouth) DSL to Comcast Cable.  Thus far, I'm happy with the switch.  In doing so, I'm effectively losing my Bellsouth.net email address.  In my mind I did not consider this to be any sort of show stopper, or even a hiccup, or even the tiniest monkey wrench in the work: I rarely, if ever, used that email account for anything.  Except my Apple ID.

"Hey, that's no problem, right?  I'll just log in to the Apple website and change my account information, easy peasy, nice and easy, "  I thought.  Don't ask why I used a mangled catch-phrase from a 1970s British commercial for lemony dish soap.  So that's what I did: I logged into Apple's website, changed my account ID, and *poof* it was done.  A simple sign-out/sign-in from iTunes Store via the iTunes application and I'm all done.

Except...

Well, once you do that, things get a little wonky.  Not wonky in the way that, say, a link doesn't work unless you click it twice.  Not wonky in the way that that one cute girl's eyes seem to be looking ever so slightly at two different points.  No, I'm talking about wonky in the way that if you attempt to login to iTunes via your iPhone and attempt to download an application -- even a free one -- you get the "You cannot buy a download at this time.  Your account is disabled."  It's even wonkier, but more helpful, in the iTunes app on your PC.  You are at least directed to contact iTunes support, which is the rest of the error message that is unhelpfully missing from the iPhone error display.

After a trip to the Apple.com Support site, I got a case number, located the phone number (the scheduled "call me back" bit didn't appear to work), and dialed up some genius at Apple.  Imagine my surprise when I was greeted by a guy who sounded like he was in college in southern California.  Wait, that can't be right, it's 7am out on the west coast... Maybe it was a guy in college in Illinois.  Anyway, that's not important.  It's just a guy, and he wasn't Indian.  Or if he was, he certainly did well in his ESL or American Dialects course.  Not that I have a problem with that, in fact, during my quest to shed my life of AT&T DSL, which is part of a greater scheme to divest myself of anything to do with the former Bellsouth, I have spent a few moments on the phone with Vonage and their number transfer department, which seems to be situated in Mumbai or Chennai.  I'm not sure.  And by the way, on that front, the number transfer is in process, and as soon as it's complete, my phone number formerly held by Bellsouth will be hosted by Vonage.  Thank you, technology!  Perhaps once Apple decides to get out of bed with AT&T I can move my iPhone somewhere's else too, but I'm not holding my breath for that.

So after about 10 minutes of chatting and intermittent holds while my guy talked to iTunes support, he said, "Why don't you go ahead and give it a try."  And... Success!  I inquired as to the source of the problem, expecting to get some trite explanation watered down for the masses, but instead was treated to an explanation of the root error, an "S error during authentication, so I routed it to Tier 2 iTunes support and they are frantically working to resolve this as it seems to be popping up quite a bit, so you'll likely see a new version of iTunes out very shortly."

Color me impressed, at least with Apple Support.  Not so much with iTunes and iPhone, at the moment, but at least I was finally able to download that fart generator.

Yesterday we celebrated three birthdays: the twinkles (7/28), and my dad (8/1).  It was a very special occasion, and I was happy that we got to do all three at the same time.  I think my dad was especially happy that we got a bouncy castle for him.  We started the day when the kids got up at the now-normal time of 7am.  About this, I am not happy, since I was accustomed to the more reasonable 8am.  I suppose I am now aging like my father and will eventually be rising at 4am to start my day.  I'll probably have to start taking Metamucil and One A Day Senior at that time too.  Anyway, I digress.

My folks arrived about 10am after a minor problem with the Post Oak Tritt detour signage (which, by the way, should be gone in a day or two as the roads are now paved and completed) and after the requisite screaming hellos and violent hugs, I took my parents and my offspring down to the Johnson Ferry access point to the Chattahoochee National Park.  Stephanie stayed home to clean the house and get the party set up.

We had a nice walk for about 3 miles, and stopped to allow the ducks to gorge on hot dog buns while we lost a few pounds in the 88F heat and 50% humidity.  The walk was good, and there was a decent breeze, so it wasn't too unbearable.  We discovered that Maya will probably be some sort of cross-country or track & field athlete, as she decided to follow suit among the other joggers and ran for probably a mile total without stopping.  She is definitely a force to be reckoned with.

After the soggy jogging, I packed the family into the van and we headed back to Firehouse for some subs and a quick pit stop at Publix to grab a 1/4 sheet cake.  I got the kids back for naps by 2:30pm which was a bit late, but they were pretty tired (especially Maya).  Devin, on the other hand, was excited about the impending party, and chose not to nap at all.  Karyn had made her appearance and was helping Steph fill water balloons and get the house set up for the party.

Folks started arriving about 4:30pm-ish, and by 5pm things were underway: slip 'n slide, kiddie pool, water balloons, bouncy castle, sidewalk chalk, swings, bubbles and party favors!  I immediately hit the grill after the kids consumed an entire bag of cheesy poofs.  Silly me, I thought they'd be content with just the one bag... little did I know the appetite of the 3-year-old-to-7-year-old-set.  I'm sure some adults had a few too -- you know who you are!  I whipped up a batch of hot dogs (Hebrew National, natch) and my own special brand of chicken drumsticks, and contrary to my usual m.o., I allowed Mom to help me in the kitchen by basting the meat.  I also prepared some homemade burgers and zucchini spears, although I think a very pregnant Kim and I were the only people eating the veg at this party.

The food consumed, we engaged the fanfare and brought out the custom-decorated (meaning, Steph wrote on the cake because the Publix folk were too busy to decorate the cake in time) Publix Cake, complete with Lightnin' McQueen and Ariel candles.  Shortly after, the sugar buzz ensued, followed by the inevitable sugar crash, followed by the impending departure of our guests.  Clean up was relatively easy with so many hands (thanks, y'all) and the kids went to bed without a fuss.

We wound up the night watching, of all things, the Mecum Auto Auction from Des Moines, in spectacular HD television!  I suppose it didn't matter too much, because we were all just waiting until an appropriate time for bed - me especially, not wanting to go too early, and end up rising at the same time as that guy who has to go make donuts.  Strangely, it all seemed to go by so fast, as good times usually do.  But I'm not lamenting the fact that we can wait another year until we do it again.

3rd Birthday