Marshmallow Experiment

I gave each of my children and myself a marshmallow with the instruction that if we did not eat the one marshmallow for 15 minutes I would give everyone two. My 2 year old twins ate theirs right away and wanted more-I don't think they understood the condition or perhaps 2 year old children are just not patient. My 6 year old put hers on the counter and walked away to watch cartoons while she waited. She was very excited when the timer went off. My 4 year old earned a second marshmallow but I don't know if she could have done it on her own. She too went to watch cartoons but she took her marshmallow with her. She was distracted by the tv but at the same time very aware of her marshmallow. At one point when she had about 2 minutes left she started licking her marshmallow and asked me if she could eat it. I told her if she waited she could have 2. She was able to wait-good girl!

Waiting....

15 minutes of waiting finally up!Yummy marshmallow!

Grandma Judy and Auntie Piper visit!

We just spent a very enjoyable week with Grandma Judy and Auntie Piper. We started the week with a swim at the lake and ended it with a trip to Silverwood Theme Park. Unfortunately we didn't take pictures at the lake but I did get some from our visit to the amusement park.

Carol Lin and Matthew getting ready to ride the helicopter. Matthew was a bit nervous on all the rides.

Amanda and Emma enjoying a helicopter ride together.

Chris and Matthew enjoying a bumpy ride on what Amanda calls the el-pa-pents.

Matthew being a passenger in Carol Lin's car.

Amanda and Carol Lin getting ready to ride the merry go round with Aunty Piper.

Amanda riding the train.
We ended our day on a good note. The twins were happy to share a big bag of kettle corn while we headed out of the amusement park.

Emma is now 4!

Emma our Birthday girl!

Emma turned 4 and we decided to celebrate under the sea! We spent a lot of time this summer making decorations together.

Emma's Birthday cake.

The kids all enjoyed playing in the water and it was a nice hot day for it!

Aunt Michelle flew in to surprise Emma for her birthday. We had a great time visiting with her.

Fun on the 4th!

We spent the 4th of July at home this year together.

Trip to California

I can't believe Carol Lin starts school in just a few short weeks! Summer has gone by so fast! Here is how we started it off...


In June Chris and I attended my cousin Suzanne's wedding. I am really glad that we were able to be there. We now have an idea of how long it will take to drive out to visit my family in California about 17 hours!

During that trip we went to Santa Cruz a couple of times. I was very excited to get this picture!

fun things

Some of the funny things the twins say:
blip blop= flip flop
follow the pocket= follow the Prophet

Emails from ssa.gov

So yesterday I got an email from dcps@ssa.gov. At first glance I thought it was spam and ignored it. When I got another one today I decided to look into it further. Here is the text of the email:

The Social Security Administration requests electronic evidence of type Xrays needed to process the disability claim of Amanda Velez. lh

Please use this link to upload the evidence file: http://replace.me.com/with.something.configured

Thank you for your cooperation.

Social Security Administration
(Standard Message)

I thought it was spam or a phishing scheme until I realized it really was coming from ssa.gov. The message headers trace the email back to 105776718.1272541919516.JavaMail.647443@mailrelay.ssa.gov

Furthermore a web search on the terms in the email brought up no information about hoaxes or scams. I pinged replace.me.com to see if it exists and sure enough it doesn't. me.com has nothing to do with social security. The dcps stands for Disability Case Processing System.

I contacted the SSA to investigate. The best they could suggest was that I go to their website and unsubscribe from email updates. I ask you though does this look like the kind of thing they would send out to a subscriber? They also suggested I call their "fraud hotline" and talk to someone there about it.

After sitting on hold for a while there the fraud hotline wasn't much help. All they did was take down the information about the emails and my contact info and tell me they would pass the information on for investigation. I don't think I should expect a phone call any time soon.

My primary hypothesis is that someone at the social security administration is testing one of their automated email systems and decided to use my email address in the to field.

Any one else out there have any ideas on where these emails are coming from?

Happy Birthday Dad

This is a little late, but it was my dad's birthday on Monday. Now that I have small children of my own I thought back to when I was a child. My brothers and I used to have so much fun dancing like crazy as my Dad would play the chorus to "Green, Green". I don't know how to play the guitar, but it is fun to watch my kids dance like crazy to the theme music to Vegie Tales.

Thanks for playing with us dad!