The Office

Ronnie has a connection to TV and to The Office specifically. He's friends with the photographer of a ton of TV shows and this guy also dates Kate Flannery - Meredith. About 10 days ago I got the thrill of a lifetime. It started off when we pulled up to the studio and it was - The Office! I mean it was the exterior of what you see on TV! Next, I was blown away as Kate Flannery - Meredith - greeted us for our private tour and lunch with the cast and crew. We also watched the cold opening being filmed before returning to reality.

Sorry, the photos are out of order and I don't feel like wrestling with blogger. And sorry if you've already seen all these on Facebook.

With Stanley. He was amazingly nice to us. We met him on our way to see Kate's trailer.

Creed. He really is that kooky in person. He told us two dirty jokes. The second one he even chased us down for as we were leaving. Ron has video!

Dwight. Rainn was definitely intense. He was good friends with Chris, Ron's friend, and so he couldn't say no to a photo with us!

Erin. Ellie is so sweet to meet. She even introduced us to her sister and waved when she saw us later on.

Kevin. It is a trip to hear Brian speak as himself, not Kevin. He sounds so different.

I was so excited to met Angela as I played her in a spoof video we did at work. She really is tiny!

Phyllis is awesome! She was more than happy to take a photo with us. Chris and Kate kept snagging everyone as they walked by and introduced us as their "friends." I'm friends with a TV star!

Ron channels his inner Michael.

I was so crazy excited at this point. I didn't know if I should pose or try to look natural. Don't you want to play with everything on that desk?

I LOVE this picture. Kate kept suggesting picture ideas to me. She had a couple bottles of alcohol in her desk and told me she is always finding new bottles in there.

Recap:

We met: Meredith, Stanley, Dwight, Phyllis, Kevin, Angela, Erin, and Creed

We saw: Jim and Pam (They got back late from an off-site shoot and so we didn't get a photo with them.) We also so Kelly and she looked at us like, Do I know you?

Not around that day: Michael, Darryl, Andy, Ryan, Toby or Gabe. Though we did meet Toby's (Paul's) brother who is a writer on the show.

I have more photos and stories but I don't want to bore y'all.

Summer

I have missed a few months due to... who knows. Here is a recap of the summer thus far.

Dad taught Jillian how to spit bath toys. Mom loves this.

A trip to the pool on one of the few hot days so far. She was in for a couple minutes and then over it. We were so hopeful after hearing from both grandmas how much she loved the pool.

After many tearful requests for "fing" (swing) I took a trip to Toys R Us and got one. We rigged it to our outdoor big swing frame. She likes it but hasn't become obsessed with it or anything. I felt so bad the day we bought it because she saw some swings at Del Dios (or some kids playing) and said, "FING!" I told her excitedly, "we're buying a swing." Evidently this information is not delightful to a toddler but incredibly frustrating. As soon as she saw the swing she wanted it set up so she could swing right then. In the car. However that would work.

Hanging out with cousin Adam at Marie's 30th birthday hoedown.

Her first trip to the zoo. At least with Mommy and Daddy. Which means this was her first trip to the zoo.

I found some Little People sets at a garage sale for a good price. She now has a ton of people and animals. She is especially fond of the animals. She shows her love here.

Learned a new skill: climbing through the coffee table.

Revised the pool situation to a blow-up crab. She enjoyed it but didn't want to sit in it for an extended period of time.

Showing me her smile.

And finally we cheered on Daddy at the America's Finest City Half Marathon last Sunday 8/15. He did awesome!

Cookie Monster Eyes

Aren't we cute? Jillian has a Sesame Street play mat that has removable faces.

We Got A Climber!

Unfortunately we don't have a playground within walking distance and Jillian, like any toddler I'm sure, has become enamored with the slide. She loves going on the slide at Grandma's house for some time and after seeing her use a climber at her cousin Ethan's 2nd birthday I became determined to get her something for home.

I became quite the Craigslist stalker. I searched "climber", "slide", "gym", you name it. And I searched every day. Sometimes twice. I had a couple heartbreaks, you know, the usual Craigslist song and dance. And so, when I saw this baby today, I jumped on it!

Or should I say I made Jason jump on it. I didn't want to lose out on it so I sent Jason over right away while I stayed home with a napping Jillian. Thankfully it was only over in Poway so he didn't have far to go.

And it was worth it. Jason and Uncle Taylor set it up in a matter of minutes and she was zipping down the slide. She can't climb the ladder by herself and wants to hurl face first down the slide but thankfully she has a lot of supervision and we'll be working with her in the days to come. So all of you with the itty bitty kiddos, come on over and play!

Riding the Train at Balboa Park

Jillian and Daddy.

A couple weekends ago we went to a birthday party for Jillian's friend Allison at Balboa Park.

We were right next to the zoo. I love the peacocks that just roam around the grounds. This one wanted to check out the party. Jillian got excited to see the bird and kept saying "tweet, tweet."

Sadly Jillian got a little frightened by the train's horn. She began to shake her head and say, "no, no." We felt terrible but we had already started moving. She liked the rest of the ride ok. I think our hopes were higher than her actual enjoyment. Still, it was such a fun event and a beautiful day.

Jillian's New Table and High Chair

Jillian drawing with her Magna Doodle.

I asked Jillian to smile for me.

Jillian has been rejecting her high chair as of late. When it is meal time we ask her to go get in her high chair. She would run over to her purple arm chair and repeatedly say "high chair." We tried to explain that her high chair was in fact the tall one with the frogs on it. No luck. High chair meant her purple chair.

So we changed our tactics and told her she needed to get into her "frog chair." Every time we told her to do this she would again say "high chair" and run to her purple chair. She loves that darn chair.

So my latest idea was to get her a table and chair that she could eat and play at. We took a sojourn to IKEA and I convinced Jason that the $8 end table works just as good as the $25 children's table (I'm a bit thrifty). We set it up and she has taken to it. She calls her new red chair "high chair." Oh well. As long as she eats her food at the table, she can call it whatever she wants.

Easter at the Canfields

Jillian begins her hunt. She was semi-pro as she had already practiced that morning at our house.

She loved to open the eggs to see what was inside though once open she lost interest.

Ethan was a machine. This kid can hunt eggs so quickly!

Aunt Melissa tried to teach Jillian to shake the eggs before opening.

Later Ethan and Jillian spent some quality time coloring together.

Olive Garden of Evil Update

So about 5 weeks ago we had a less than wonderful Olive Garden experience. The OG corporation got back to us right away to apologize. And give us what we probably deserved during our original dinner - a meal on them. We got a $50 giftcard which we immediately decided we will spend on their To Go service or their sister restaurant Red Lobster.

The OG made it right. Kohls did not. Do I have a "I like crappy customer service" sign taped to me? I won't go into the whole story but basically I was treated very poorly at Kohls after some confusion about using a coupon and the discount you get from opening a charge card. I wrote in to Kohls to make them aware of their crummy customer service and the letter I received back was less than apologetic. It did tell me how wonderful a Kohls charge account is though. Bleh. If they didn't have such great deals (occasionally) I would boycott them as well.

Easter At The Lewkos... Yes, It Has Been Awhile!

Get your game face on. Its time for Easter at the Lewko's.

We weren't sure how Jillian would react to Easter and the Egg Hunt. We were surprised that she LOVED IT! She totally got what she was supposed to do. It was so fun to watch her go from egg to egg and see what was inside. I didn't do any candy; only toys. I still am not comfortable giving her sweets unless it is a birthday.

I found this fire truck light thingy at Party City for a couple bucks. Jillian had one from Grandma that was similar and when she was about 6 or so months she loved it. This one makes a fire truck sound. Crazy am I?

Ahhh, Beep Beep

Based upon recommendations from friends (thanks Gabby!) I searched for a car for Jillian on Craigslist. I found a well loved convertible (hear that Mima, Jillian has a convertible too). It has a handle so we can push her around until she is big enough to Fred Flintstone it. She loves it! We were having difficulties with the stroller and so far this has been a great substitute. In truth she really wants to walk everywhere but Mom and Dad need a little less stress on their outings sometimes.

Crackering

Jillian has discovered a new love - coloring - or as she calls it "crackering". Kim gave her some coloring books and I had some scratch paper for her to go at it. We let her color on the lids of rubbermaid bins to protect the table or the floor. She is pretty good at staying on the paper but she definitely tries to test us. She'll hold the crayon over the table or a toy and then look up at us as if to say, "do you dare me to?"

Socks

*I have so many photos to catch up on. Hopefully this will be one of several posts I do this week.*

Jillian loves socks. It was one of her earlier words and she has been trying to put on her own socks (and shoes) for a really long time. (She is wholly unsuccessful, by the way.) One day we were in my closet (hanging up laundry, I think) and she saw a sock on the ground. So she started trying to put it on. I thought this was hilarious. So I put it on her. "More," she said. So I put another. "More." Another. This was the result.

Tonight We Paid to Have Someone Spill Beer on Our Daughter

Tonight Jason, Jillian and I had dinner at the Olive Garden. We had received gift cards over a year ago and had never gotten around to going. I have never really been a fan but hadn't been in years and thought it would be fun to try out again. I would like to say it was lovely (like Will Ferrell did in Old School) but it was not.

We were seated and helped by someone who promptly announced she was not our server. We hadn't had a chance to look at any menus so no, we didn't yet know what drinks or appetizers we wanted. Just water to start. She brought that and the fun began.

Our "real" server came, we put in our drink order, told our waiter no, we still don't know what we want to eat and tried to entertain our antsy daughter. He brought over our beers (Killian's Irish Red for me in honor of St. Patty's) and promptly spilled Jason's beer all over the table and Jillian.

What would you do if you spilled a beer on a baby? Run and get a towel? Apologize?

Ummm, not quite. There was beer. On our baby. And he just stood there. Finally as we knocked aside our chairs to get up and rescue our daughter as she burst into tears, there was some mumbling about making sure she was okay.

Jason and I tend to be really patient with service industry folks. We don't get too riled but it was pretty ridiculous to have almost zero reaction. Other waitstaff came over to mop up and then everyone left us to put back together our table. Alone.

A few minutes later Jason's replacement beer came. Were we ready to order food? Ummm, still no. We were cleaning a highchair, calming a crying child and trying to figure out what the heck happened. Give us another minute. Our waiter told us the manager would be coming over.

The manager. Wow. I thought you became a restaurant manager if you were really good with the customers. Not so much, I guess. He walks up to us and says, "Did you guys need help finding something on the menu?" Huh?! That's a weird way to open an apology for one of your waiters spilling beer on a small child.

We stammered that no, we were fine, just that there was a lot to look at. He then went on to pointedly ask if I needed help finding anything (was this code for something???) and recommended the short ribs to Jason, saying, "Put down your fork. Put down your knife. Use your spoon. That's how tender they are." And then he left. WTF! No apology. No attempt to recognize.... anything. Jason and I were so taken aback by how weird he was we didn't know how to react.

We look at the menu for the first real time tonight. Ok, now we're ready to order. Would we like some breadsticks? Sure. Some dipping sauce with the breadsticks? Ok sure. Jillian starts to fidget and whine. We debate getting this to go as we have already had a winner of an evening. Just then the breadsticks come. Awesome, that was fast. Our waiter explains that the marinara dipping sauce is very hot and the baby shouldn't touch it. Then he puts it down right in front of the baby.

We get our main dishes (we split appetizers - pretty yummy actually) and try to keep Jillian fed and entertained. She is eager to get out of the highchair but we get her to last long enough for us to eat. During this time our waiter keeps his distance. He stops by once to ask how everything tastes and see if we need our waters refilled (they're full, but thanks. We're too busy trying to drink this beer before you spill it on our kid again. Ok that's mean and I didn't say that.) Jason asks for the check.

The moment of truth. In my mind, if some egregious mistake happens in a restaurant there are generally two ways to fix it: an apology and some sort of discount. We didn't really get the apology (maybe we would have if we had ordered the ribs the manager suggested) and so I was assuming Jason's beer or something would be on the house.

I scanned the receipt. Awesome! They removed the charge for Jason's beer. Wait - then they added it right back on. That's right the receipt looked something like this:

Jason's Beer $6.00

Jason's Beer -$6.00

Jason's Beer $6.00

Are you kidding me? Ok, this was free money (gift cards). I'll suck it up. But then I saw what really ticked me off. They charged us almost $4 for that freaking breadstick dipping sauce. A small cup of marinara for $3 and change. So no apology. No discounts. And almost $4 for mashed up tomatoes that I thought came free with the breadsticks.

Ugh. Never again. Sorry for any of you folks that want to meet for dinner at the Olive Garden of Evil. We already have other plans that day.

Rolling Around on the Ground

After falling and flipping a few times, Jillian has learned to roll again. It is so darn cute. We got so excited when she first learned to roll from her belly to back and vice versa but we haven't seen much rollin' in these here parts. She will trip and fall and then start rolling around. Jason and I sing (a la Young Frankenstein) "Roll, roll. Roll in zee hay."

She will sometimes just stay face down for a few seconds. Then she looks up to see if anyone is watching her. Jillian is definitely discovering she has an audience.