evanskey.com

The past four months have been pretty busy for all of us here at the Evanskey household. In late February/early March we rescued not one but two dogs, a white wire terrier mix who we named Sugar had her picture posted here at Evanskey headquarters and then Karen found this wonderful Black/Brown Sheltie mix who we named Xander. He’s a great dog and has been a wonderful companion to Sugar and has really helped her along in coming out of her very traumatized shell. They play and lounge together quite often and when taking them on walks, bring them to a neighboring school and let them go crazy chasing each other at top dog running speeds. Sugar is definitely the faster one but Xander is no slouch and loves chasing Sugar around the field. I’ll most likely post a ton of pics for your perusal soon. Until then, here are the two wonder mutts hammin’ it up.

In March, Karen and I headed to Catalina for our 5^th Anniversary for two days while my mom watched Jaden over the weekend. We enjoyed a quiet time to ourselves while walking around the island and just taking it easy this time. My dad stopped by a few times also and we all took Jaden to a nearby park to run and play. Jaden got to practice playing baseball with grandpa while Karen’s brother Greg, Karen, and me ran the dogs. I also brought Jaden to Heritage Park in my old stomping grounds of Cerritos, where there is a full island in the middle of the park with replicas of New England buildings (converted into fun things for the kiddies) and Paul Revere memorial/monument. It was a place I used to like as a kid and it’s a blast watching Jaden enjoyed it so much.

April buzzed in fast with a quick trip to Palm Springs for the big 3-5 birthday and was treated to the “Taking of the Waters” treatment at the Spa Casino. The place we stayed at was an OG hotel in Palm Springs with many Rat Pack memories strewn about. In fact, the room we stayed in was the Ocean’s 11 suite… super cool, baby! The pool was converted to an awesome salt water pool and the place had such a mellow-hip vibe that I can’t wait to go back. April was a pretty fun month for Jaden too. I took him to his first “salon” haircut (Karen’s been doing all this time… and greatly I might add) but we felt it was time for him to try something new. He didn’t mind it that much but did pull a couple funny faces while strapped to the chair.

Karen and I also took him bowling for the first time and he did pretty darn good using only the side/guide rails and no “kids ramp” needed (See the picture at left). We ended the month with a trip to the L.A. Times book fair at the UCLA campus with our friends Kim, Tracy and their son Amos and had a blast checking out all those new fangled reading things called books. Julie Andrews made an appearance but wouldn’t sing any of her songs due to the medical issue she had a few years back. Oh well I’ll just rent the DVDs I guess.

May kicks off the summer movie events for us and the first on our list was Spiderman 3 at the Cinerama dome. The movie was fun way to kick it all off. Despite mixed reviews it had some very entertaining moments and for me, seeing Venom onscreen was a thrill since I actually read those comics back when that character was being introduced and the concept of the black suit came about. Afterwards, Karen, Cris, Andy, and I headed over to a hotel in Santa Monica and had a wonderful dinner at the restaurant on top and watched the sunset. A good movie, a great meal equaled a really fun time. Most of the weekends we tried to take the boat out as much as possible (four times this month) and had a few friends come along. A quick side was a brief bee attack on Jaden at school where he was stung three times on the head which caused seriously crazy swelling on his ear and forehead. The swelling came down within 48 hours of receiving some antibiotics and was back to full speed shortly after that. That kid is like a brick wall!

Jaden and I made our first pilgrimage to the Star Wars Celebration IV event at the L.A. Convention center and man was that a crazy fun. Jaden went nuts for the thousands of people dressed up as almost every character you can imagine. However, the life-size Jabba the Hutt (that actually spoke) kinda scared Jaden a bit until I conviced him that it wasn’t real and then he was way cool with taking a picture with him. There were tons of celebrities from all six movies and so many cool exhibits that we actually only got to see about 1/4 to 1/2 of the entire event. One of the Darth Mauls was very convincing and French Stormtroopers were pretty funny too. I’ve posted about a hundred photos from that here. Anyway, May ended with a group of us going to see Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End at the El Capitan Theater in Hollywood opening weekend and tons of people dressed in character showed up and made it a Hearty Good Time Mates!

Finally June, Movie-wise we saw knocked-up and I have to say this is an extraordinarily funny movie with a sprinkle of heart in it. Those 40-Year Old Virgin makers really know how to make an adult themed comedy and just don’t pull punches. Also this month, we attended my Cousin Blake’s graduation from high school party and my other Cousin Katie’s graduation from junior high. I’m hoping to catch “Live Free and Die Hard” and Michael Moore’s Sicko before July creeps up on me.

Whew! I gotta stretch the old hands and fingers after writing all this. The end is near dear readers. School is going fantabulous and I’m doing excellent in my programming class (at least until I take the final next week… hehe). Development on my game seems to be going fairly well but I am still in the early stages so as more comes about on this I will keep you posted. Karen’s recovery is still ongoing and we are trying to work in a exercise schedule for her knee now that Physical Therapy has stopped. Hopefully that thing will be like new before the end of the year. I’m done. Stick a fork in me. And kick out the jams, brothers and sisters! Later.