Under contract!!

So here it is... our next home, possibly??!  We are currently under contract as of last week - 3 bedroom, 3 bathroom, and 3,295sq ft.  That's more than double the amount of space compared to what we currently have in this house!!  If this goes through, we can't complain about not having enough room for everyone anymore.  Ha ha!

The inspection report came back as well (this past week) as it could have been I suppose.  Almost all the major items like HVAC, water heater, and roof are over 15 years old but functional as of now.  Fingers crossed we won't have to fix any of those anytime soon once we move in.  The radon inspection is still yet to be performed so waiting to hear back on that.

In the meantime, we have started packing up this house a bit so we can stage for Open House by middle of next month.  That also means some touch-up or making the house look more pretty.  I decided to paint the front porch ceiling with what we have going on in the back porch:

Weirdly enough our old TV decided to call it quits.  It probably would have looked too big in the room anyway:

Thankfully we had a spare one in the garage.  It was probably happy to finally see daylight after being in a box for over 4 years!

Charlie is helping me pack a little bit - gathering all the photo frames to be put away.  It's amazing how any photos we have on the walls!

Soon enough, both boys will have to clear up their rooms too.  In the meantime, I definitely have my work cut out for me.  I'm trying to tackle one room at a time:

We have so many books too!  I'm going to give these book shelves away for free.  I'm surprised they lasted this long:

Also bought some new plants to add a little color to the place:

The boxes are slowly starting to pile up.  We'll have to find a storage unit soon!

Wish us luck!!!

More dental work for Charlie (Apr 11)

Charlie had to go back into the dentist for some additional work - 2 fillings and 1 root canal.  Ouch! But hopefully it didn't hurt as much with some of that "happy" gas.  Plus, they flavored it!!

Not the prettiest looking cap on Charlie's tooth.  He's like a pirate.  Rrrrrr....!

Almost 2 weeks later and Charlie says the tooth is now wiggly.  Hmmm, it would be rather funny if it fell off after all that work!  I'll probably have to call the dentist and see what the deal is.  This kid almost always had issues with his teeth.  

Both Graham and Charlie will be going in to see an orthodontist next week - just a free consultation.  I'm hoping no braces but as another mom says, it's almost like a rite of passage for kids these days.  Sheesh!  What happened to just pulling out some teeth to make more room in your mouth? That's what my dentist did to me.  That would seem a lot less painful than having to wear braces.  We'll see!

Cirque du Soleil - OVO

I love LOVE watching Cirque du Soleil productions.  They are amazing!!  This one that's currently running in LA is called OVO.  Definitely a treat for Graham and Charlie and also for Bobby and me :-D

The show is at the Microsoft Theatre in the city:

Ovo means egg by the way in French.  Can you see it in the middle of the stage?

When the show started, that egg actually disappeared!  Come to find out after some research online that's it's actually a blow-up egg.  Clever!

Pretty decent seats.  Charlie is just happy to be able to have his pop-corn:

I didn't take any photos during the show but the contortionist is almost always my favorite.  The athleticism and flexibility truly amazes me.  And of course, the costumes and set are always so colorful:

I love it when Graham and Charlie still get close together like this to take photos together:

As per usual, always a souvenir.  Yeah, we do spoil these boys.  Okay, I bought a scarf too.  He he!

We walk across the street to now the Crypto.com arena (previously Staples arena):

Obviously someone (Bobby) just likes to stand in the middle of the street - knowing of course that the street is closed off:

We're walking around the area - looking for a place to eat.  And we come across the Grammy Museum:

We didn't go into the museum but took the chance to take photos in front of this mural.  So cool!

After lunch, I managed to convince Bobby to drive us to Japan-town to get some dessert. A friend of mine that visited LA not too long ago posted on their social media about these Taiyaki or Japanese fish-shaped cake:

There were several fillings and we opted for Oreo, Nutella, and red bean.

The 10 minute wait was definitely worth it:

You could also just order one that's not stuff but hollow instead on the inside.  So that way you could just plop it on top of some ice-cream.  Even yummier!!

Mmmmmm.... the smell is in car is soooooo good:

Looks like we should have gotten 2 cups of those ice cream with the fish (cake) on top:

Sugar crash???

Even Graham was out!

We definitely keep everyone busy! :-)

Whale of a Day

The city was finally able to put on the Whale of the Day event again. It was canceled last year because of Covid.  It's crazy to think though how Graham and Charlie are actually out-growing some of these same activities that were held 2 years ago.  Noooo...!!  They are growing up too fast!  The boys didn't go into the Bouncy house, no hat-making activity, they didn't event want to see to the fire truck.  WHAT??!

Instead, Graham and Charlie found a random friendly lizard in the grass.  Graham is competing with it by doing push-ups.  Ha ha!

I wonder if this lizard was someone's pet?  It doesn't seem to be too afraid of human contact:

Well, another kid did managed to pick it up and actually brought it to one of the tables that was displaying some local animals.  So that worked out!

A quick pose in front of an inflatable whale.  I can see how Pinocchio was eaten up.  Ha! ;-P

And another photo with the Point Vicente Lighthouse in the backdrop. You can barely see it... to the right side of Graham:

After being dropped of at the parking lot by City Hall, we decided to hike down a trail.  I was told once by a friend that there's an old WWII bunker around here.  Or some sort of Nike Missile site.  Well, we went looking for it:

Unfortunately, we didn't really know where we were going so we turned around to go back to the car. But before that, check out how tall these mustard plants are!!

Well perhaps next time we'll find it. Supposedly it's located by the maintenance yard of City Hall.  I'll have to just show up on a regular business day to ask around :-)

Another Production

Graham and Charlie has been busy being on another production set these past 2 weeks (one work day per week).  As per usual, I think this testing part is the most pain in the butt!  Thankfully we were able to stretch our legs a bit after the hour drive to the test site:

OMG, I see Emmitt from the Lego Movie on the balcony!

It takes us another hour to get home and somehow the boys have managed to snag my phone.  More silly photos on my phone!

I laughed out loud when I saw these.  LOL!!!

How funny!!!

Pigeon on your head... seriously??!

This photo is actually pretty cute - so I have this one below on my phone:

We are at Fox Studios this time, in Hollywood. This place is impressive!

The boys also had a fitting session on top of the testing.  It took us FOREVER to get home after the fitting session:

I finally decided to just use the Express lane.  We received the bill for that recently.  Thankfully it wasn't so bad and for my sanity, it was totally worth it!!!  And thankfully the boys get paid for getting tested too, so that's a plus to compensate for our time and gas.

On the day of work, we park in a garage and wait for our van:

Once we get to wardrobe, Graham and Charlie were among quite a few other kids that have to get makeup and hair done.  And then, this time is their first time to actually wear a specific outfit too - so that was really fun for the boys.  I can't wait to watch them on this new TV series once it comes out.  Hopefully by the end of this year.  Will keep you all posted!

Oh, during the recall on that 2nd week, it was a really late Call Time of 12:30pm.  And everyone stayed on set until 9:30pm.  So by the time we got home, it was 10:30pm!!!  Boys were totally exhausted by then:

Graham was first to brush his teeth and he barely got his clothes off before he plopped himself into bed.  Charlie was his grumpy self but thankfully he brushed his teeth and was fast asleep pretty quickly too.  As for me, I was still going to wind down by actually eating my really late dinner provided by Production.  Ha ha!

Bobby mentioned that perhaps Graham and Charlie would skip school the next day (which would be a Friday) but by the time morning came, the boys were up at their usual time. Actually Graham was snuggling in Charlie's bed - I thought that was so cute!  And when they asked if they had to go to school, I guess the only answer at that time would be "Yes!".  So obviously there were some grumbling and mumbling but off they went.  If they stayed home, they would have just played computer games all day anyway!

I guess this will give the boys a taste of what real work is all about.  Although, I think at this point they are still having too much fun.  Plus, they just received their first paycheck!  Graham is already planning on spending all of it.  He is my big spender where as Charlie is planning on saving most of it.  How these boys differ!

Fixing umbrella

Yet another project! This time it's our outdoor umbrella.  The rope on the inside had snapped and so we couldn't open it up properly.  We thought about buying a new outdoor umbrella but geez, it was a lot more than I had expected!  The fabric on the inside of the umbrella looked kinda icky too.  Urgh, but after watching a few more videos online, I can do this! :-)

First off, we need to take off the fabric.  I think that was the easy part:

And then it's taking care of that broken rope on the inside:

It was a bit tricky trying to get that new rope threaded through the inside of the umbrella, but with Graham's help - we did it!!  A couple of old wire hangers came in handy for sure.  Yay!!

The top part of the umbrella looks like it's getting a rather thin and fray:

Sooooo... time to improvise.  I knew I saved these old swim trunks for a reason.  I just couldn't get myself to throw these away.  I really like the fabric/bright flower patterns:

Here goes!

Ta da!!!  It's not the best but hope this umbrella will at least last one more summer:

Time to finally test it out again.  Hopefully we fixed that rope properly and it doesn't come snapping back down on Charlie's head.  We'll never hear the end of that one.  Ha!

Well, I'm happy to report that the umbrella is working great.  And the new rope only cost about $10 compared to a new umbrella that would have been about $70!  

The wind did knock the umbrella over last week and it put a hole in that gutter that you see in the photo above.  Sheesh!  Thankfully it was towards the top of the gutter and not the bottom. Yet one more thing to fix with this house!!