Philip, Jen and Peyton’s Pages

The leaves are turning outside and fall has officially arrived - colder temperatures and all.  The time change has thrown the family for a loop…  Peyton’s schedule hasn’t adjusted.  So I guess, we’re adjusting to her.  Though, she has gotten better as the week has progressed.

We’ve had a busy month in October…  The last weekend of the month, we went to Cheraw for a BBQ at my parent’s church on Saturday.  Everything was delicious.  The following day, my mom threw Peyton a birthday party with the family.  We had a great time.

We’ve had a lot of visitors over the last few weeks, too.  Marolyn and Harry came into town for a week while Jen was in Columbia, SC, for work.  Peyton and I were able to go to dinner with them, although, I dont’ think I was good company - I was too busy keeping up with Peyton.  We know next time to block Peyton into a booth - works out much better…  The same week, one of my friends Leigh Ann came in from Chesterfield too.  I was able to have dinner with her and, let me tell you, booth is the way to go.

Jen’s parents came in this past weekend for Peyton’s Conway party.  They were able to stay with us for several days and spend time with Peyton.  She’s grown a lot since they got to see her last time. We ate out at Outback with Brett and Trina (Peyton’s Godparents) as well as Janet and Jim on Thursday for Peyton’s birthday.  Friday night, we went to Brett and Trina’s for trick or treating in their neighborhood.  Sharon and William and Brianna (B&T’s Godchild from Cheraw) came in town and they all got to go around the entire neighborhood.  Everyone had a really great time.

Janet and Jim went back on Monday…  Janet will be very busy now through Inauguration.  She’s going to be swamped with paperwork for the transition at the federal DOT.  Jim is keeping busy  working some and with his model airplanes.  Both of them are doing really good.

Jean and Emily Crawford came into town, also, last weekend for Peyton’s party and for a visit.  They were able to see where Jen works and Jen gave them the grand tour.  They also got to spend time with Peyton.  I visited our PF Chang’s for the first time with Emily and Jean on Monday night.  They stayed at our local bed and breakfast, The Cypress Inn, and loved it.  I think Jen and I will need to reserve a room sometime for an anniversary or something.

I start a new work schedule on Monday.  I’ll be working 7am to 4pm.  I have traded schedules with one of my co-workers who was previously working this schedule.  It didn’t work out for him because he was working too many evening hours in addition to his normal business hours.  So, hopefully it will work out for me.  I volunteered for the schedule change.  I’m hoping it gives me some more time in the evenings to do some things that need doing around the house or around town.  By the time 5pm rolls around now, its dark and I can’t accomplish anything.  Wish me luck!

I wouldn’t normally even blog about this topic.  I think its a very personal one for me…  But, over the past year and a half, we have made numerous changes to how we handle our money.  Almost two years ago, my close friend Kevin gave me a series of CD’s from a guy named Dave Ramsey.  I have to admit, those collected dust in my house for almost a year.  But, I did finally listened to a couple of them.  As I had started them, one of my co-workers and friends (my next-cube neighbor at work) began taking the entire Financial Peace University series with others of my friends through their church.  Frankly, I liked what I was hearing from them when they were talking about it at work, so it peaked my interest.  So, I worked my way through the series with Jen.  And it has made a huge impact in our personal finances.

The first thing that Dave advocates is getting rid of your debt.  I’m glad to say, we’re very close to our goal of having only two debt payments per month - our mortgage and my student loan payment.  By next May, our car will be paid in full and we’ll have met our goal.  That’s a huge personal accomplishment for us!

The second is one we are tackling tonight…  Getting rid of credit cards.  Tonight I had a monumental realization.  We HAVE over $50,000 in available debt credit on 6 credit cards!  $50,000 dollars…  It blows me away.  So, we’re canceling those — tonight!  After tonight, we’ll have only one major credit card, and a Victoria’s Secret card my wife won’t part with… because of the “free panties” - so we’re keeping that one.  We also have a couple no-interest accounts that aren’t paid up yet, but those will be closed in just a couple months, once they are paid in full.   Once those are paid, I’ll finally OWN this desk I’m using to write this post…  Anyways, I digress.

I may not ever post about this again, but finding out how much available credit we had just sitting around unused was a big impact to me - and that juxtaposed against our accomplishments over the past year was something to mention.  I may post more later, or maybe not…  It is a rather personal topic for me…

Peyton turned two on the 30th and she’s changed a lot in just a year.  She is walking and talking now.  She’s actually more at a run speed than walk these days.  She’s into everything. The talking is a great thing, so far.  She’s able to tell us what she wants most times and she’s able to finally let us know what she’s thinking.  Its really cool!

She is doing amazing at her day care.  She’s learning so much every day - from the teachers and other children.  She’s doing pretty well with colors.  She knows her numbers up to 10.  She’s got her ABC’s down too (well, except that LMNO letter…).

Our little girl is a singer, too.  They’ve taught her “the Wheels on the Bus” and “Tinkle Tinkle Little Star”.  She’s also learned the ‘Barney’ song.  So, I’m hoping she’ll keep those musical genes that she got honest.  Granted, they passed over me once puberty hit, but I’m hoping she’ll take after both sides of my family and their musical abilities.  No one in my generation seems to be using that talent - so maybe we’ll have a little superstar come out of Peyton’s generation…

She’s inquizative, too.  She loves to learn about every little thing.  Forunately, its not “Why” followed by “Why” with a little “Why” on the side…  But she will ask you questions trying to learn about the world around her.  “Where’s the air-pane going, daddy?”  - “Look, mommy - a toot-toot” (a train…).

She celebrated her birthday with two parties.  We had one with all of my family in Cheraw and a second with family and friends here in Conway.  Some photos from the parties are posted below… Hope you enjoy.  Videos to come!!

I have been putting off writing this entry for a while.  I started it last Sunday and never completed it and then everything turned upside down again on Tuesday.

Its been a long two weeks in my family.  We’ve lost two amazing family members in the past two weeks.  Needless to say, its been a tough couple of weeks while trying to continue some normalcy at work while coping with our losses.  Both of these individuals were amazing Christian role models in my life and simply amazing, giving people.  The world is certainly worse off without them. Continue reading »

So, maybe I watch too much TV.  But, I’ve made the decision to remove our online photo gallery from this site and instead share our photos using PicasaWeb and the MobileMe Web Galleries.  These both have features for us to protect and share our photos with family and friends, while maintaining some privacy.  I want to ensure that Peyton is protected and photos of her aren’t just floating online for anyone to see.  I hope everyone understands.  If you’d like to get access to the Picasa gallery and you know me, just email me and I can share it to you…

Well, Jen and I just returned from Las Vegas.  We had a week long trip for me to attend the VMworld conference and for Jen to have a little vacation.  Jen was able to join some of the other wives and do things around town while all of their husbands were busy with the conference.  It worked out really well.

Jen and I were able to fit in a little time to relax at the pool on Monday and then we were able to see Blue Man Group at the Ventitian on Tuesday evening.  Jen also got to tour the Hoover Dam and go out to see the Grand Canyon and lots of Vegas sites.  Jen has started a gallery with photos online.

Peyton stayed with Papa and Gaga Sellers while we were in Las Vegas.  She got a little sick during the week and ended up having to go to the ER in Cheraw.  She had a spot of congestion on her lung and a really bad sore throat.  Antibiotics prescribed cleared everything up.  I’m taking her back to the doctor tomorrow morning just to make sure that everything looks good.  She is acting like she feels much better than she was feeling middle of last week.

Peyton has begun potty training too.  She recently moved into the 2 year old classroom at daycare and they’ve begun working with her to potty train.  We’re trying to continue that at home.  She has gone pee-pee in the potty a couple times now.  So, our world is becoming pull ups and pee-pee for the next little while…

Work is going great for both me and Jen.  Jen is settling back in after a week away.  She missed her annual teacher’s dinner last Tuesday evening.  Everything went well.  I am trying to decompress and process everything I learned at the conference last week.  There was so much, its hard to get everything together.  I’ll be briefing my co-workers sometime this week about everything that I learned…

I also started a second blog - one where I can post about my job, technology, and things in that arena that interest me.  I posted heavily about things from the conference and surprisingly, I’m seeing a lot of traffic to my blog because of that.  When you Google some of the topics I blogged about, my site is showing surprisingly high in the searches.  That translates to traffic and readers - which is very exciting for me.  I didn’t expect that - this was just something I wanted to do for myself.  You can check it out at http://tech.philipsellers.com, if you’re interested.  Its still a work in progress, but I’m working on it as I have time.  One of my post even got picked up by the vendor’s blog and they linked to my post - pretty cool in my eyes…  It was a nice birthday present - oh yeah - I turned 28 on Saturday.   My best birthday present so far was Peyton singing Happy Birthday for me…

I’ve added a new gallery of Peyton photos into our online gallery.  You can see her personality so well in these photos… she’s a big goof - she loves to make us laugh and she’s such a happy baby…  We love her more and more every day! Hope you enjoy these…

Just wanted to post another quick update - actually from last weekend.  We went up and visited my dad on Friday and Saturday and he is doing fantastic.  He is up and moving around - doing almost anything that he wants.  All the problems that prompted the discovery of his herniated disc have disappeared and he’s almost fully recovered from the surgery.  He still gets a little tired at the end of the days and he has some discomfort in the muscles at the back of his neck where they worked on his spinal column.  But, the best news is that the tingling and numbness in his arms is no longer there.  Any nerve damage will take some time to heal, but the fact that those symptoms have disappeared is really awesome!

I have several posts out here that I have started and never posted - so I’m taking the time to post them this morning.

In other news, it looks like Tropical Storm Hanna is heading for our warm sandy beaches.  The last forecast I saw shows it coming ashore just north of the Grand Strand.  Yesterday, it looked to be trackingbetween Georgetown and Myrtle Beach, but its been adjusted north.  Past history kind of tells me that it will hit Wilmington or the Outer Banks of NC, but you can never be too comfortable.  Work the past two days has been hectic, making contegency plans for our datacenters and trying to be as prepared for the worst as possible.

Today we’re visiting Hard Rock Park again.  Brett and Trina are going with us.  It’ll be their first time in the park. Today is the last day of their extended hours and they’ll be shortening their weeks to 3 days and hours to 11am to 7pm after this weekend through end of the year.  We’re excited to get to ride the coasters again and see the shows.  Peyton really loves watching the people go by on the Eagles coaster.  And she loves to people watch.  

Update: We had a blast today.  Unfortuantely, the Maximum RPM coaster was down again, along with the Slipper when Wet water-coaster.  So, we still haven’t gotten to ride Slippery.  But we did get to plan in the nerf ball place and Peyton really enjoyed that.  We didn’t stay for fireworks, but we did see the last Ice Show of the season tonight… it was by far the best we’d seen, though still not my cup of tea…