Sunday, May 25, 2008

Some Late Caleb Birthday Pics

Hello All,

Alright, these are a few weeks late. To coin my favorite Kim Hutchcroft phrase: I'm slow, but I do poor work! Here are my favorites.
What is classic about this photo is that I am pretty sure that my Dad (here on the right side of the picture) was trying to make a serious point. This can be established as the world famous Nieves family looks very serious, and they are some of the best "reactors" to humor in the world! They are not quite on the level of Reinhardt, who hands down, is the single greatest reactor to humor that I have ever met, but they come awfully close! So, my Dad is making this point with a kid's party hat on! Anyone else find that outrageously funny!? I'm busting a gut right now!


This is just a set up shot. Renae is going to take a practice swing at the tee. Now, let me say that this is the gift that has kept on giving. We have had some major bonding time over this one, and each of the kids do pretty well at making contact with the ball. Now, onto the fearful thing: She is wielding a metal bat!

Kids + Metal Bat + In Close proximity of one another = Bad! Ask my brother Rich about metal bats and tetherballs! If he says, "I don'tknow," that may explain everything!


Ok, please not the above equation. Kids + Metal Bat... = Bad! Lizzy + Metal Bat + In close proximity = Extinction Level Event! There are two people in the world that I don't want to see coming at me with a metal bat, and one of them is Lizzy! Of course, the Pinata, a staple at Sanchez kid birthday parties, was the recipient of most of Lizzy's swings, but I think a few might have taken out a kneecap or two! She is deadly!
By the way, the pinata is always a pretty classic venture. My Dad (in the first picture with the kid's hat...classic...I'm still rolling!) generally provides the pinata, procuring it somewhere from deep inside his mail route. Sometimes, these pinatas are made of indestructible space age material. Other times, they are made of simple paper mache, with newspaper coverings on the inside. One very memorable pinata was inlaid with some very inappropriate pictures! Thankfully, the kids were focused on their candy!

Speaking of candy, back in the early days, Lela and I were a little more strict about candy consumption. My Dad and Mom, being sensitive to this, pro
vided a pinata with some Frank and Lela (mostly Lela) approved snacks. So when the kids broke open the 14 foot tall Elmo pinata, bags of cheese cracker goldfish and mozzarella string cheese fell out on that hot summer day! That was a pretty hilarious moment!

Here is Caleb riding off into the sunset on one of his many gifts. Prior to his birthday, Caleb was a strict, scooter only guy. Now, he is branching out and is even standing up on his seat. We live a few doors down from an extreme sports agent. I hope that he doesn't get any funny ideas!

Blessings...To Our Friends,
Frank Sanchez

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Happy Birthday Bwudda!

Hello All,

Five years ago today, Lela and I welcomed Caleb into the world. He was born at Redlands Community, just like his sisters and it was a ridiculously hot day when he came into the world. As you might have read, we held Caleb's birthday party over Mother's day weekend. It was there that he enjoyed his first cup of soda and his first piece of gum. We started telling him that he was five then, but it felt pretty artificial. Today, we didn't even acknowledge his true birthday, but I will right here, right now.

Caleb is such a blessing from the Lord. He is easily our most joyful child, always looking for a gag, including the one in this picture. I just wanted to see if he would fit in the dryer when a gag entered his mind. "Daddy, close the door." (Don't worry: I didn't leave the dryer on THAT long!) Instinctively, I knew what he was going for. Lela was upstairs and I called her to come down and open the dryer door. Caleb did not know that I had let Lela in on the joke. When Lela opened the door, this look was on his face. It tells the whole story!

Happy Birthday Bwudda!

Blessings...To Our Friends,
Frank Sanchez

Saturday, May 17, 2008

Steak & Study,

Photos courtesy of Brian Graves

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Back Up And Running

Hello All,

Getting things back in order has proven to be a bit of a challenge, but our digital life has been restored to some semblance of normalcy. One word to my friends in the blogosphere: BACK EVERYTHING UP! A few weeks ago, I believed that I held a pretty strong position with a functioning internal hard drive, an external drive and an iPod classic. Then the internal went south, the external stopped showing up anywhere and my iPod inexplicably kicked the bucket after a short 7 month existence! Suddenly, all of it went up in smoke, or so I was led to believe. Thanks to the mercy of the Lord, through the good work of the Tech Room, all was recovered.

It's funny how dependent I have become on these little technologies that I knew nothing of just a few short years ago, and did not exist a few years prior to that! It was not all that long ago that I was repeatedly asking a very patient April Folkertsma how to turn on the application that let me write a letter! April and my other office mate, Attila virtually taught me every day in that little office at the top of the stairs in the Packinghouse! Seeing how tied I am to it now, I wonder if they did me a favor or a disservice!

So, a few thoughts to close this first blog out:

• Hosting an Inductive Bible Study, trying to do a family photo shoot and prepare a birthday/Mother's day celebration on the same day is not advised. "I know that now!"

• Caleb loved his birthday party. I probably won't tell him that he's not truly five years old yet, nor will I take the soda and gum that he has learned to enjoy as a right of passage.

• Gum and soda: Rewards for turning 5. What will we do at 10? 15? I don't see that going well!

• CALLING ALL MEN: STEAK AND STUDY IS THIS THURSDAY! All men are welcome; Women dressed as men will be escorted off of the premises! Men dressed as women though...yeah, don't think about it!

• 5AM thinking: "Man, I wonder if that corvette knows that a 97 Corolla is keeping up with him...Wait, I'm keeping up with a CORVETTE!...How fast AM I going!?...WHOA..."

• Anyone watch American Gladiators? I used to go to church with one of last night's contestants! She pretty much looks like she would be able to destroy me now, so in that way, nothing has changed!

• I sure miss Jerez De La Frontera. Someday...

Blessings...To Our Friends,
Frank Sanchez

Friday, May 09, 2008

Goodbye Old Hard Drive!

Hello All,

Just a quick update to say that our computer's hard drive has finally been retired. I won't say that it died permanently, as it probably could have been resusitated, but the fact is that it's near death experiences kept coming at a very rapid rate. It was time to say "goodbyte"...sorry for the computer pun!
Now, for you Mac v. PC adversarial types: This is not a "chalk one up for our side!" As I understand it, Mac v. PC refers to operating systems or platforms, the OS versus Vista. I am a Mac loyalist to death. What happened in my Apple Computer casing was a hard drive failure, which was a TOSHIBA hard drive. So, if anything, the TOSHIBA failed, not the Mac! Just wanted to be clear before the vitriol began.

Of course, that being said, that Toshiba was a WORK HORSE! It has lived for 5 years, 3 of which were brutal conditions, traversing the globe several times over. You probably do not know the story, but my brother Rich gave us this computer three years ago at Christmas time. He had two purposes: He was being forced to work on P.C.'s at his church and they had just given him one. Second, we were going overseas and he wanted us to be able to keep in touch! We were not going to take our computer because it was a large desktop that was not going to fit in anyone's carry on luggage, and Lela was not into leaving one kid so that the computer equipment could get a seat! So, that Christmas, he surprised us and the journey began.

And what a journey! Going back and forth between the states and Spain, between 220 voltage and 110. In Spain, it was left on almost 24 hours a day, collecting podcasts and music downloads. This is not really advisable, I found out later, but the performance was stellar! Of course, it finally gave in to it's computer mortality.

Tuesday, I took the computer into the Tech Room on my lunch hour. They took my new hard drive, my computer shell and my external hard drive, which has also been acting poorly for the last several weeks. I should get it back sometime this weekend, running the beautiful Tiger OS!

When we get back up, there should be some pictures of Caleb's 5th birthday party, which happens Saturday night.

Blessings...To Our Friends,
Frank Sanchez

Thursday, May 08, 2008

Home vs. Private vs. Public School

Hello All,

Our computer is in the shop for repairs...I'll blog about that later...but I thought I might post this, as this topic (Home School v. Private School v. Public School) has come up so many times. Josh Harris, author of "I Kissed Dating Goodbye," now Senior Pastor, addresses this lovingly and with refreshing balance. I pray that we all might benefit from it.

Blessings...To Our Friends,
Frank Sanchez

Thursday, May 01, 2008

I Love Taking Pictures

Hello All,

I love taking a camera along on a walk with our kids and taking pictures. I really want to be better at it. I have a Canon Elph, so it's not the greatest camera, in that it's not really expensive. Is the key to taking great pictures in the camera that you have or Is a great picture about the moment that you are capturing or the way the light looks in the background? Anyone have any suggestions? Please feel free to comment.

Here are some that I liked from the other day.


Of course, the best thing about pictures is the reminder of how much fun that evening was, just to walk and watch the kids laugh and joke. They virtually laughed the entire way up to that secluded spot near our house. A good part of the way, the kids were singing "Bare Necessities" and falling all over themselves. The last part of the trip was filled with the fascinating subject of snails and "rollie-pollies" for the girls! Caleb was much more interested in some ants.

It was a great night and I'm glad that I'll have these pictures to remember it!

Blessings...To Our Friends,
Frank Sanchez