Tieche Update for Oct. and Nov.

Sorry for the length of this post. It's been a while since I updated everyone on life in the Tiecheworld, so I figured I'd double up.

OCTOBER


Shown here, Justus and his baby sister (who is looking rather concerned). I think she is concerned because she fears her brother may be developing juvenile diabetes from all the SweetTarts.

Well, Halloween has come and gone, but the lingering effects of giving my toddler roughly nine pounds of sugar in two hours is still lingering. Giving Justus, who already is a pretty active boy, sugar and caffeine is the equivalent of giving a squirrel speed.

This year, baby Jaelle went as a pumpkin, and had an adorable outfit given to her by her grandparents. She was the cutest pumpkin the Bay Area has ever seen since Halloween 2005, when Justus was a pumpkin.

Speaking of, this year, Justus decided to go as his favorite character Elmo. Unfortunately, his costume was designed in such a way that the hole for Justus’ head was in Elmo’s mouth, so it appeared as though my son had been eaten by a giant muppet. Either that, or Justus had slain Elmo and was wearing the pelt as a ceremonial rite of manhood or something. But he was cute.

Puerto Vallarta - I'll be back

Shown here, the governor of California and the man who not only signed my teaching credential, but saved the world from a bloodthirsty, homicidal alien.

This past month, in October, we decided to take a family vacation. If you’ll recall, earlier this year, Nicole earned a free trip to Los Cabos, Mexico through PartyLite. During that trip, our plane from Alaskan Airlines had to make an emergency landing because the auxiliary power unit went out so because we were stuck in a tiny Mexican airport with a pregnant wife for six hours, Alaskan gave us some free tickets for almost killing us. So, I figured, “The last time we flew on this airline we almost died. Why not fly with them again!”

So we used the tickets to go back down to Mexico to Puerto Vallarta, where we traded to get a timeshare. So the trip, though it sounds exotic and expensive, was quite inexpensive. We flew with two kids and three seats for the four hour flight, and it wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be. Puerto Vallarta is quite tropical and stunning. It reminded me of Hawaii a lot in terms of landscape and vegetation. We took a tour of the site where they filmed the movie "Predator" which is one of the best movies of all time ever, if you are a guy. Who knew that iconic movie would eventually produce two governors of major US states? Arnold and Jesse the Body. How many other movies can say that? Let's hope not many others. The last thing I want is New York and Pennsylania's legislature led by Mary Kate and Ashley Olson.

Anyway, I didn’t know what to expect since this was our first family vacation. Normally, on vacations, I like to read and sleep, but with two kids, I figured that was out of the question. So I set my sights pretty low. I said, “as long as we come home with both kids still alive, then the vacation will be a success.”

So the vacation was a rousing success.

But in all seriousness, it was actually, really fun. We took Justus in the ocean, which he didn’t like because he said it tasted “icky.” He loved the pool, though, and played for hours in the kid’s pool, throwing the ball to me, riding on my back around the pool, or just, in general, playing splashy splashy.


Mexican Zoo

Shown here, my son and I, mere feet away from a real, live crocodile. The mesh on the cage was such that Justus could easily slide his whole arm into the cage. That's safety first, people!

We also went to a Mexican Zoo, which was interesting because the security and safety standards in other countries are not quite what they are here. In the US, zoo animals are not only behind 19 inches of shatter-proof, bullet-proof glass, but there is often a metal railing and for the larger animals, a large fortified moat. Zoos in the US look as though we’re trying to protect the animals from a Viking siege. But in Mexico, not so much. For example, I could easily stick my entire hand into the crocodile cage. The bars on the ostrich cage allowed the giant 6-foot birds to stick their heads and necks several feet outside their cages, which was unnerving. And the monkey cage might as well have been called “come closer and get bit and get a strange African monkey disease” cage. But Justus loved watching the animals. They had a panther which roared while we were there, some funny flamingos that stood on one leg, a crocodile who opened and shut its eyes, some ostriches that were taller than Daddy, monkeys who climbed up and up and up, and the best part – tigers and some baby tigers. Justus really liked that part.

So it was quite a blast, being on our first ever Tieche Family Vacation. We will probably do it again. Hopefully, our flight home this Christmas will almost crash and we can score some more free tickets.

In other news, Nicole is kicking butt with her business. I take Justus to a friend’s house every Tuesday morning, so that she has a solid half-day to just work on her business. Justus is also, thankfully, taking long three-hour naps every afternoon, so she can work then, as well. To give you a barometer on how awesome she is doing, while we were on vacation, the passive income from her team of salespeople basically paid for all our vacation expenses. Keep in mind this was while she wasn’t working. She rocks.


My son loves this guy. And who can blame him? He rocks, and his lyrics make no sense so they're not corrupting anyone, unlike Chamillionaire.

Justus is in the other room right now with his purple play guitar, jumping up and down and singing, at the top of his voice, “Don’t drink the water! There’s blood in the water!” It’s a Dave Matthews Band song. I am not sure what the song is talking about, mainly because even though I majored in English at a good college, I can’t understand what ANY Dave Matthews song is about.

Justus watches concert DVDs pretty regularly. Most kids like Thomas the Train, but Justus wants to watch musicians. He is quite the showman. What’s cool is that as a pastor, anytime I go to work I am surrounded by really, really excellent musicians who love music and love my son, so he is constantly getting attention and encouragement from my friends in the various church bands. One of our drummers Brendan, who is from South Africa, came over for lunch one day and brought Pho, a traditional Vietnamese noodle soup. He turned the soup bowls upside down and gave Justus chopsticks to use as drum sticks. He said Justus had really good rhythm. And he also liked eating Pho with my African drummer friend. I love California.

So that’s life here in San Jose.