Guess who is back!

Week in Review

Hmmmm, where to start. Well let's start with what's on my mind a 6am on a Saturday morning. I'm really bummed right now because our gray cat Tosca is missing. She been gone for over 36 hours and I'm afraid something bad has happened to her. She has been known to disappear for days only to show up locked inside the neighbors house when we lived in San Francisco. That was nuts, she was missing for 2 days, I walk outside onto our back deck in the city, and see her in the window looking back at me. It's like 1 in the morning and i'm thinking "S#%&, what do I do." So I did what any parent would do, hang your body over the rail (don't worry it's only 20ft down), open the neighbors window, and extract the cat. The neighbors never knew she was in their house. Then again that neighbor also called me Tobi (the combo of Todd and Jodi), I guess she was trying to save disc space (that's a nerdy computer reference in case you missed it).

So here I am, waiting for the sun to come up on a Saturday morning so I can go walk the road and look for her. I don't think coyotes make their way down to our neighborhood but it could be a possibility. I researched if raccoons would take out a cat and it seems very unlikely. At this point I'm thinking a car or she's just pissed at us and on a serious walk about. This is the point where I have to bite my tongue a bit, and the reality is that there really is no one to blame but the stupid cat. That said this all started when our friends came over for dinner Thursday night and brought their large dogs. To be fair we didn't tell them not to bring the dogs.. Now I love dogs, but not large dogs that bring dirt into my house, piss and crap in my new back yard, grab Maddy's toys, and F with my cats. I think Tosca what pretty miffed and took off. To top the night off the dogs went flying out the front door as they were leaving to chase "something." Well that something happened to be the neighborhood skunk. Boom!

Ok, the sun is coming up now. I'm going to out on the bike to see what I can find. Later today we will walk over to Andy's Summer Fest and meet up with some Friends. Later tonight we'll watch Tommy Castro play at the event.

We're Back

It has been a very long time since I've felt like I had 30 minutes to sit down and pick up the blog again.  What I've realized is that more than facebook, or email, a blog is more like a diary or journal.  A journal that you can document whats happened in your life, embed photos and videos, and capture the times.  That said there is a lot to talk about. I've changed the look of the blog because the old background was a picture of our old house.  Let's start there.

• The Move: for those not part of our move i've heard "wow, that was quick" several times.  I however feel like the process of looking, selling, buying, moving, etc...has taken 1/4 of 2010.  All I can say is it is behind us and I feel like we won the lottery with our new house.  We went from a very charming 1912 , 2 bed, 1.5 bath house with 1,060 sq ft in San Mateo to a house built in 1974, 3 bed, 2bath, 2 car garage, 1/4 acre lot, 1,900 sq ft home in San Rafael.  We're a block from a private beach, a great market, and back up to some of the best mountain biking in Marin.  Map  I now take the Larkspur ferry to work and I love it.  30 minutes dock to dock and the sites i get to see on my way into work (when theres no fog) are unreal.  It's such a different lifestyle up in Marin and Jodi and I are loving it.  Since we've been here we've already had a huge Acacia tree removed from the front and I've hacked a lot of trees.  You can bet this blog will be full of new yard adventures in the future.  Speaking of which, I've already battled some aggressive raccoons that have been using the dog door to get into the house and take a chocolate bar out of Jodi's purse outside of Maddy's room.  I'll write more about this in the future.

• Madelyn: Maddy is growing up fast.  As I sit and type this she is starting to be able to pivot herself on her tummy and move around a bit.  It's only a matter of time before she's scooting around.  Her new thing this week is making a funny grunting type of fake laugh.  It sounds like "huh, huh, huh"   "huh, huh, huh" (but do it in your deepest voice.  It's hilarious.  She still has her bright blue eyes and we're thinking shes keeping them.  The hair is also starting to fill in.

• Bergie: As many know Grandma Bergie passed away on the morning of August 22nd.  She was in good health and living a complete life up to Friday August 20th.  My parents had had a great meeting with her and she was in great spirits on that Friday.  Things took a sudden turn for the worst later that night.  It's a very sad loss but I am very grateful that it was quick, and she was without pain in the end.   The service was the Saturday of Labor Day weekend and was a perfect tribute to a very honorable and classy woman.  We spent the weekend in Reedley and got some great family time in.
  

Catching up

Jodi and I have been on the go the last 3 weekends. I'm finally catching up on all the photos. Below are pics from our visit to Arnold 2 weeks ago. My parents place is getting close to finished and it looks amazing. I'm looking forward to spending some vacations up there.

More Maddy Pics

a Friends Wedding

Viviana, a good friend of mine who I met at Accenture, and later convinced me to join Salesforce got married a few weeks ago. She posted a video of the pictures this morning on Facebook and I thought it was just amazing. For those that attended our wedding she may look familiar. Here she is with Fernando and Ollie. Fernando and I also met at Accenture, the same day we met Viv, the day after September 11th, 2001. It was a crazy day to start a career. I remember the day like it was yesterday. We stood stood there, fresh out of college wondering what the heck we were doing 42 floors up in downtown San Francisco starting a job the day after a national tragedy.


I don't see Fernando all that often, and Viv and I run into each other occasionally at work. Still I feel a close bond with these two and when I saw this video this morning it made me think back to crazier times.

Madelyn Pictures, Day 22-35

Madelyn Pictures, Day 13-21

Everyone is sleeping like a baby

I've been up for a few hours watching Madelyn and everyone is sleeping
like a baby. We're off to Santa Rosa today to stay overnight at
Jodi's parents. On the way we will stop by the Tates to wish Greg a
happy birthday. I hope to catch some of the Masters this weekend.
Actually I lied, I know I will because I have live streaming on my
iPhone. I love technology.

Madelyn and the Hiccups

Madelyn Pictures, Day 6-12

Madelyn's 2nd week

Well, the Janzen family is just getting into the swing of things. We managed to make it thru the 2nd week of Madelyn's life, unscathed. Todd went back to work this week. So thank goodness that Grandma Carolyn was here helping us out for the week. It was absolutely wonderful to have her help and her company. Carolyn and I took Madelyn on her first shopping trip to Target. Of course, she didn't catch any of the good deals as she slept the whole way through!

I am happy now that Madelyn is feeding well and the cheeks are filling in. I'm loving this precious time bonding with her. Except of course, for the 3am feeding and then its more like a zombie feed session, skip the burping, and back to the bassinet sort of thing. My favorite thing this week is the little cooing sounds coming from the bassinet thru the night. ahhhh. If we could only bottle that preciousness so it could last forever!

Photo of the week

The first 3 days

So far I have no complaints about fatherhood. I know it's only the first 3 days and things are about to get a lot tougher but I'm still in a little bit of disbelief. During the day when she's sleeping I almost forget, I mean I've been so busy cleaning the house, getting the yard in shape, and running errands that it can slip your mind. When it's real is around midnight, 4 am, and 6:30 am. For some reason that seems to be her awake times.

Going to bed at midnight, and waking up at 4 am reminds me of the day ski trips my dad and I used to take to Sierra Summit, Bear Valley, or Boreal...minus the fun day of skiing on the other end. Waking up at 4am almost has a pain to it. My problem is that once I'm up, I'm up. My dads side of the family has this crazy ability to function off 5-6 hours of sleep. I think I got that gene, and I hope it comes in handy.

What I'm loving is the nursery. Last night I had her from 11-midnight trying to get her to fall asleep. What I realized is that the nursery is just as important to the parent as it is the child. Jodi bought this chandelier thats all girly and bright. I put a dimmer switch on it not knowing the value it would add later. She also bought this glider, with rocking automan. At 11 last night I dimmed the light to it's lowest setting, sat in that glider, turned on the ipod stereo and rocked her to sleep within 10 minutes. This morning I was up as 6:00am to do the same thing, only this morning I found this stuffed lamb that generates 4 types of white noise, Ocean, Stream, Rain, and whale. I swear, 2 minutes of stream and she fell asleep. Another thing I'm going to take advantage of is Pandora radio. I can run it on my Iphone through the wi-fi in the house. Hook that baby up to the stereo and it's endless mixes of music. Don't be surprised if this kid brings back the musical talent in the family...it's skipped the last 2 generations for some reason :)

Madelyn's Arrival

Baby nursery

The baby nursery is finally done! I am so happy and Todd is even happier so he doesn't have to hear about it anymore. I am really happy with the way it turned out. Now,,,, if I could only move one of the walls to create a little more space for all the stuff!

For the changing table, I had one of parents' old dressers refinished and we put on new hardware. Todd did an excellent job building a changing tray to hold and secure the changing pad on top of the dresser. Voila!

Baby shower, Feb. 6

Here are a few photos from one of the wonderful baby showers thrown in Santa Rosa the past few weeks. Baby Janzen and I were blessed with SO many great gifts. It was also great to see so many good friends all in one place. Marisa & Becca very thoughtfully incorporated the bird theme throughout the shower, even on the cupcakes! And a sign that read "welcome baby birdie" which I want to hang in the nursery the first few months.

I've organized the nursery and luckily found a spot for most everything now. This girl is totally geared up, with many dresses and a full shoe collection that should keep her going through the first year. (photos of a small sample below)



Carolyn & John, Star and Hank came to visit Santa Rosa for one of the showers on Feb. 6. It was great to spend time with them at my parents' house where we enjoyed many roaring fires and got to be woken up each morning by Lola (the boxer). Great Grandma Bergie gave us a wonderful gift: Uncle Bob's old satin baby blanket. It is the most beautiful and precious baby blanket; blue one side and pink the other (as they didn't know boy/girl) and about 60 years old. Thank you to all for the wonderful gifts!!

Also shown are a few pictures from Todd and I's Valentine's day adventure to Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. We had a really good time despite his aching foot and my pulled groin muscle. We hobbled along together and managed to see it all. The rainforest and the Planetarium were the highlights of the day.

1,700 Sales People in Las Vegas

I was in Las Vegas this week for our annual sales kickoff. Basically the company flew 1,700 of our sales people from around the world to Vegas, put us up in the Wynn, and showed us one heck of a good time. I think I slept 10 hours last night after getting back, I never sleep 10 hours. My entire team was allowed to go and they had a blast. They got some good recognition and I hope they are inspired this year.

I arrived a day early to hang out with the other Sales Engineer managers and do some bonding. We went go kart racing and it was a blast. In case you were thinking it was all fun and games there was a lot of work being done. Wednesday was a half day, we met as a group from 1-6PM. Thursday was a full day, 8AM - 6PM, and Friday was another half day. You lock sales people in a room for that long there is bound to be an explosion of fun at some point in the night. Wednesday happened to be my big night, not all drinking, but just hanging out with fiends and being entertained by obsessive gambling (I don't gamble). I finally turned in at 5:30AM, which made getting up at 7:30 really fun.

The highlight of the week was having Tony Robbins speak to us for 4 hours. 99% of the sales people we expecting this to be some cheesy motivational talk. When he was done those 99% stood completely corrected. Tony Robbins is 6'5" of genuine human being. I know it's a bit long but I think his TED talk below really sums up his message. Hang with the whole thing if you can.

34 Weeks 3D Ultrasound

Don't mean to bore you, but for those who like the alien-like 3D photos (Grandma Nonni), here's a few more. It looks like she is really putting on some weight in those cheeks this week!

From top left: umbilicol cord in hand; sleeping soundly; a smile!!!; pouty little lips.



This weekend is the baby shower for baby Janzen in Santa Rosa, given by dear friends Marisa and Becca. I am really looking forward to seeing everyone! Marisa flies in from Seattle and her mother is kindly hosting the shower at their house. I also look forward to all the ooohs and aaahs of the cutest little baby girl things!!

33 weeks 3D Ultrasound

This week for the 3D ultrasound session we got a good clip of baby Janzen sipping amniotic fluid. tasty!!


Here's a couple new photos too of the little punkin' face.

Cruiser Porn

I finally finished refinishing the driver seat in the FJ. I put new foam in the seat bottom, new cover, stripped rust and sanded the seat rails and body mounts, and painted the center console. It took way to long but then again paint hates cold weather and I hate rust. Here are a few pictures using the new camera. Next project is the passenger seat, at least I can drive it while I work on that.

Bow, Chika Wow Wah

Center Console repainted, rust and seat cover on the passenger side is next

ready for another 30+ years

I love the way water beads on the hood

Baby Janzen in 3D

Yesterday I went to the Siemens campus in Mountain View for a 3D/4D Ultrasound of baby Janzen. I was referred to a woman at Siemans who needs models to test new software for the Siemans ultrasound system. It was really cool to see all of her facial features and at one point a live image of her moving around real time. So fun to be able to see this! It was like a sneak preview of what we are so desperately waiting to see in two months when she's born.

She was sleeping very soundly so it was hard to get her to move her hands from her face. Here's a few of the highlights 1) Sleeping soundly 2) 'Poop' face (she must get that from yours truly) and 3) her reaction when we tapped on my belly.

Father in Training

This weekend was not all that eventful but the highlight was going to the Hiller Aviation Air Museum in Belmont with my buddy Mike and his family. It was open cockpit day so we were able to sit in the driver seat of jets and airplanes. I sat in cockpits of Migs and a 747 and just looking at all the gauges made me terrified, how does anyone fly these things? For example the cockpit of the original 747 has every square inch packed with gauges and fuses....yes fuses for every system and gauge. For the 5 people in the cockpit gauge watching must have been a full time job.

After the museum I went back to Mike's house and his son Robbie showed off his momo skills. later we walked down to Matt and Nikki's house (Mikes brother and Sister in-law) to see their kids Charlie, JT, and Tynan. Mike figured out how to give one of their old Power Wheels some super speed by adding some Lithium drill batteries. Let's just say thats the car they all want to drive. Never mind the new cars they got for Christmas, they want speed. The pictures below where from an action packed day.

31 weeks!

Getting bigger by the moment! It feels lately like the little girl is fighting her way out of potato sack. Loving the kicks though, and it also provides some good entertainment for TJ and I at night after work.

Pictures from the Holidays