Visalia Rawhide

The Visalia Oaks are no more. This year, they are being called the Visalia Rawhide. Their new mascot is Tipper the Bull (see picture at right), which is a lot better mascot than the old Chatter the Squirrel/Rat that the Oaks had for years! Not quite sure where they came up with the name 'Rawhide', but it has since grown on the fans every since.

We also have a newly renovated ball park. For those of you who grew up in Visalia, you can remember what the old Recreation Ballpark looked like. There was no shade to sit in and the park was literally falling a part. In the last two years, they have added two pavilion areas and along the right field side have added at 'Hall of Fame Club' (see left), a merchandise store and some new (and desperately needed) bathrooms, which opened this season. The stadium looks completely different.

This year's team has been on a tear! Currently, they are in first place of their division in the California League standings with a record of 12-1. The last time a Visalia team started this hot was in 1978 and the team won the championship!

Go Rawhide!

Nap time!

This is what I cam home to when I got off work. This is only amazing because Penny does NOT like Kevin and normally will not go anywhere near him. Had to take a picture to cherish my three sleeping babies!

Visalia Rawhide Meet the Team Potluck

On Monday, April 6th, myself and the Ranch Hands Booster Club put on a nice potluck for the Visalia Rawhide baseball team to welcome the team to Visalia after their first first official practice at the newly renovated Recreation Park. Kevin and I got to meet several of the Arizona Diamondbacks' top prospects and got a bat signed by the entire team.

After wondering around the renovated stadium and watching the team take batting practice, Kevin and I went and helped set up for dinner. Our contribution to dinner was this lovely cake that was done by the wonderful cake decorators at Costco. I told them I wanted a baseball themed cake and this is what they came up with. We had a lot of complements on the cakes by both Booster members and team players.

Just one word to the wise...do not eat potato or macaroni salad at a potluck! Very bad things can happen later!

Playing hide-n-seek

Yesterday, I spent the day working on my baby blanket that is now almost complete. When Kevin woke up, I set it aside for a while and went and watched some TV with him in the back room. When I came out to make him some lunch...I found this......

I noticed that there was a rather large lump underneath the blanket and it began to move. So I ran to the back room and grabbed my camera to take a few pictures. It stopped moving as I got closer to it, so I lifted it up to see what or who was underneath.

It was Penny! Curled up in a ball in the spot that I had vacated!

I bought myself a new bible.....

Well, Kevin and I have made the biggest decision we will make together at husband and wife. We have decided to try to start a family together. Before we left on vacation, we jokingly told our families that we were hoping to bring home a little souvenir in about nine months. The funny part of the whole thing was when I told everyone that I was too sick to enjoy our last day in Florida, everyone asked me if I was morning sick. The answer to that is....no.

Well, yesterday, I was talking to a client who has two daughters who are 3 years old and 10 months old. We were talking about the fact the Kev and I are trying to have a baby. Well, she originally came in to talk about her case and we ended up talking for half an hour about what to do. She recommended that I go out and buy a book entitled 'What to Expect When You Are Expecting'. It is apparently supposed to be the pregnancy bible and my client told me that it helped her through both of her pregnancies. (She's not the first person to recommend this book to me, though.) Well, I did after work.

The funny part is the fact that Kev is reading it too. I had set in on the coffee table while I ate dinner last night and Kev started to read through it while I ate. When he was done, I started to read it, only to have him start laughing at me. Who knew that you had to have so many shots before you became pregnant....and I HATE needles!

Well, I guess now is the waiting game. We'll keep trying and we'll both keep reading the book hoping that sometime in the near future we will be pregnant. Wish us luck!

Can Anything Else Go Worng with the House?

So, Kevin and I got back from Florida late Sunday night. I was sick and all I wanted was to take a nice hot shower and crawl into my own bed to sleep. Little did we know that my wish would not come true right away!

When we walked into the house, Kevin tried to turn on the lights. I reminded him that we had unplugged most to the lights in the house when we left over two weeks ago and went into the kitchen to turn on the kitchen light. We then walked through the house trying to turn on the rest of the lights. When that didn't work, we realized that we had no power. I then went to the fridge to see exactly how long power had been out. What we found was a spoiled mess! Everything in both the fridge and freezer had to be thrown out!

One thing that Kev has learned over the years is that I tend to be a real bitch when I am sick, so, he made me call and deal with PG&E. After being on hold for over 45 minutes, we finally got someone to pick up the line and deal with our issue. It turned out that PG&E came out on Wednesday or Thursday to replace our old meter with a new smart meter. When they did this, the worker failed to check to see if power came back on or even leave a note on the door saying that they had replaced the meter and to contact them if we had problems. I screamed at the poor lady on the other end that I was tired and a little hungry but couldn't eat anything because we have to throw it all out because it was spoiled.

In the end, I talked PG&E into reimbursing us for the money we had to spend on buying groceries to replace what had been spoiled because of their stupidity and to also credit us four days on our next bill. All we have to do in return is send them our grocery receipts and copies of our hotel bills proving that we were in fact out of town for that long. Problem one was taken care of just after midnight and Kev and I were able to go to bed around 3 a.m. after having to clean the fridge and kitchen floors.

Problem number two had to arise last night. I went to take a what I was hoping was a nice hot shower. After just a few minutes in the shower, the water turned luke warm and wouldn't get any hotter. I yelled at Kev and I thought the pilot light in the water heater had gone out again (this had happened right before we left on vacation and Kev re-lite it). I had to get out of the shower and dry off after not get to take the shower I needed to clean up. Well, Kevin spent about 15 minutes trying to get the darn thing to light and it never did. He eventually gave up and got dressed and left for work. When he got home this morning, he tried lighting the pilot light again, and it still would not light.

By this time, it was time for me to get up and take a shower and get dress so that I could go to work. Well, my shower consisted of taking a hand towel, wetting it and putting it in the microwave for a few seconds so that I could at least wash my face. I had to call our apartment manager at 6:50 a.m. to have some one come out a look at it and hopefully fix it before I get home from work so that I can finally take that nice hot shower I so desperately need!

Orlando, Florida

Well, it has been a week since we left on our vacation. We've had a lot of fun so far. On our first day, Kev and I went to the Kennedy Space Center where we took a tour of the compound. The next space shuttle launch is currently scheduled for this coming Sunday, so the space shuttle Discovery was already on the launch pad waiting to be shot into space. We saw the original Saturn V rocket, and even toured the International Space Station Processing Center.

On Saturday and Sunday, we went to Daytona Beach, Florida and spent the days wondering around the Daytona International Speedway. We did the Daytona 500 Experience where we got to see the winning car of last year's Daytona 500 race and got to ride in a NASCAR simulator (where some lady hit me in the nose with the lap bar). After the Experience, we walked through the Midway where we got to walk through the sponsor and driver trailers. Kevin bought a few Jeff Gordon things and I bought some Mark Martin stuff for my step-dad. We also both each of our fathers a Daytona 500 shirt. After lunch, we ended up getting $130 tickets to the Nationwide Daytona 300 race for $20 a piece and went to that race. Watching my first NASCAR race was quite an experience. You never realize just how fast those cars go by until you are standing in the front row as the drive by. On Sunday, we watched the superbowl of NASCAR races, the Daytona 500. Kevin and I arrive really early. We bought fan zone passes and were able to go down to the in field and watch the pre-race car inspections. We also got to watch Keith Urban preform a pre-race concert. We even got to sign the checkered finish-line! Unfortunately, the race was cut short by 46 laps by rain and NASCAR officials decided to end the race.

On Monday, we took Kevin's Aunt Becky's advice and took the day off to scout out the various theme parks we were going to. On Tuesday, we spent the day at the Magic Kingdom. It is just like Disneyland, but in minature. On Wednesday, we went to the Aminal Kingdom where we went on an African safari and rode the Mt. Everest Expedition. We saw alot of animals we would not see any where else. Yesterday, we spent the day at Epcot. We rode the Test Track, Mission Space (which really messed us up), Soarin' and the Nemo ride. When we got out of the Nemo ride, it was pouring rain. We decided to run back to our locker and get our rain pounchos. (Bad idea, we were soaked by the time we got to the locker.) After it finished raining, we decided we needed to go back to the hotel and change out of our wet clothes. After we took a short nap and changed, we went back to the park.

Today, we are taking another day off. We are both exhausted. We are going to relax and go to the Wide World of Sports to watch the Altanta Braves practice for spring training and hopefully find some mexican food for dinner.

We still have one more Disney park to go to and the Universal Studios and Sea World. And we have a little more than a week to go before we head home. I'll keep posting as the time goes by.