Zavoral Villa!

Problem: Dishes. They are the menace to every household in America, especially if you don't have a dishwasher and you have baby bottles to clean. For almost two years, we've been eating off of paper plates and plastic silverware to help keep the dish load down. I know, I know. Our carbon footprint is shameful. Problem: Food. It can get expensive. Last week, we were eating some Thai food that I made at home. We're chomping away quietly when Jeremy suddenly blurted out, "This meal cost us over $20!" Sure enough! The pre-made curry sauce ($6), the eggplant ($2), mushrooms ($1.5), onion ($.30), spinach ($1), green pepper ($1), jasmine rice (about $2 for a cup), the labor of cooking and cleaning (I'd say my work was worth $5), and of course the paper goods (let's say $3) all added up to about $20.80 for a meal for two--and a crappy meal at that. We could have eaten like kings at a real Thai restaurant! Solution: Eat out from now on. Well, at least a for a few...

To start off, last week Tanner finally learned how to clap!! When we had his 9 month check-up in March, we realized that he hadn't clapped yet. I wasn't surprised, though, because we never clapped around him, so why should he? Well, after the check-up we started clapping tons, and he looked at us with his furrowed brow, totally confused why we all of a sudden we decided this was a cool thing to do. After a few days, he would join in the cheering part, and seemed to think that he was clapping with us. Finally, about 1.5 months later, he did it!! Click the video below. Monday- We went to TK Burger! We love eating at this place. It's right across the street from the beach and they have great buns on their burgers.  During our walk around the beach, we saw tons of stage lights and a large area gated off from the public. We soon found out that one of Jeremy's favorite bands, The Offspring, was going to be doing a filming for a new music video. So we hung around to see it. Th...

Jeremy's mom, aka Mom Z, aka Gramz, came to visit and help us during the last week of April (Tues-Sat). It was perfect timing because I had a school performance to direct that week, and Tanner got his DOC Band, so we needed a lot of help. On Tuesday night, we took Mom to the farmer's market on Main Street in Huntington Beach. It's one of our favorite things to do! On Weds, Tanner got his DOC band. So now a little about the band, aka baby helmet... Tanner was born with a moderate to severe case of plagiocephaly, which means asymmetrical head. The entire back-right side of his head was really flat, caused by limited space in the womb; his head was pressed up against my pelvic bone for about 2 months in utero. This is not uncommon. Babies can also get plagiocephaly after birth by sleeping too much on one side of their head. Anyway, we waited to see how much his head would round out on its own. Things improved a little, but after 6 months, I still felt like there were major iss...