The Logan Family

Month: October 2022

  • Piles of leaves, publicly embarrassed, and (Luke’s) picks

    Since the weekends tend to be so busy with things like picking up sticks, we went and celebrated my mother-in-law’s birthday on Wednesday this week- she is doing pretty good to turn something something years old!

    Zippy blowing out her candles
    Zippy with her grandkids
    Photos of the photographer
    WIth Baby Sadie

    We did dinner at Cugino Forno, and it was awesome.

    More leaves, and more to come.

    My leaf helper

    We worked together (without disagreeing on how to do it) and tackled the 2nd round of cleanup after Hurricane Ian from last week.

    19 more bags

    This brings our 2 week total up to 32 bags.

    Public Embarrassment

    Ok those pictures turned out pretty good- but it was the hours leading up to these pictures that are the real meat-and-potatoes of this story.

    What is your most embarrassing/disgusting story of being a parent? Ours may have been yesterday afternoon.

    We went to a little shop to get some items to make our star-wars costumes. It was a cool place with a bunch of crafty, goodwill type of vibe, perfect for what we were looking for. Rosie was excited, and Mercy was…clingy. It isn’t very often that she just wants to be held, but she did.

    Mercy is getting heavy, so I took a turn holding her. Then Rosie needed help, so it was back to Taylor. And it was pretty cute- she was nuzzled up with her head on Taylor’s shoulder- looking tired and sweet. But it wasn’t. She threw up.

    With her head placement, luckily Taylor’s shirt absorbed 90% of it. The rest went INSIDE OF HER SHIRT . She raced outside, and I was left cleaning the very small section on the carpet of the store. The store service was terrible in that moment of need.

    After several minutes, I made it back to the car, and it was…disgusting. Sorry, no pictures for this story.

    At home, mom jumped in the shower, and we threw the kid in the bath. It was gross. It was pretty bad, and if you ask Taylor about it, you may hear more details that you dont want to hear.

    Luke’s picks

    Ok, Holidays are coming up. So I wanted to take a second and just highlight some random things that I enjoy. And if you have any items to add or anything you enjoy, add a comment.

    This week: Memory. No, I forget things all the time- I am referring to computer memory.

    WD My Cloud Home

    We take a lot of pictures in our house. And, we are starting to record more videos. And all of this media is getting larger and larger in file size.

    If you are like us, you may be using a cloud-based backup. Icloud has some options, and so does Google and so does Amazon. We have been using the Amazon photo storage for years, and are pretty happy with it. But for videos, it can get priced out pretty easy.

    AmazonApple
    1TB: $6.99/mo50Gb: $0.99/mo
    2TB: $11.99/mo200GB: $2.99/mo
    3TB: $14.91/mo2TB: $9.99/mo

    Another option is to upgrade the memory on your phone to hold more memory. On iPhones, this also adds up quickly:

    We will use the iPhone 14: base is $799, and to upgrade memory from 128GB to 512GB, you will spend $300.

    What about storing it directly on your computer? This too will add up:

    A base Macbook Pro, 14″:

    $2000/512 GB of storage.

    Upgrade storage to the max option:

    spend an extra $2200 for 8TB.

    So if you dont want to spend a ton of money on extra storage, and you want to be free from a monthly cloud storage bill, this could make sense for you.

    What does it do?

    It is essentially a cloud…for your home. We have it set up so Taylor and I’s photos back up automatically to the device. And since most of my videos are being shot in 4k these days- storage space is being used a bit.

    They have a nice app that does all the work in the background- you dont even know when your phone is being backed up.

    The files are available when you leave the house as well. Whats also nice is that since the files are not stored somewhere far away, the speed to download/upload can be much, much quicker.

    Plus it is just a 1-time expense, which pays for itself in a few short months.

    Here is a link, if you want to know more:

    https://www.westerndigital.com/brand/wd/my-cloud-home

  • Hurricanes, house renos, and how much!?!

    Hurricanes, house renos, and how much!?!

    Ian roared through last weekend. Fort Myers was obliterated, but that doesnt mean that storm ran out of energy by the time it got to our part of the state.

    Our back yard caught some trimmings

    The weather report made it seem like it could have beena pretty bad situation- Rosie’s school was cancelled, and Mercy’s daycare was closed early at 12 as a precaution. The storm didnt gain strength until that later part of Friday, and through the hours before midnight. I’ll be honest- I’ve never heard winds like that in the three years we have been this house, and those 4 big oaks and a cypress in our front yard looked like they could become a liability.

    So what did we do?

    We invited our good friends the Peascoes over to watch Hocus Pocus! We had pizza (take and bake), I made my amazing popcorn, and the kids loved watching the new Disney release. Only the oldest kid (8 years old) seemed to be slightly concerned about the wind outside- and I admit, I was too.

    The trees held up fine. The next day, there were hardly any trees down: and it looks like the street in front of us, and the street behind us lost their light, but we were ok.

    There was a lot to clean up, and we aren’t done cleaning yet. I got 13 bags of leaves, and still haven’t touched the back yard yet (I’ll get that soon, I promise!)

    13 bags from the front yard and driveway.

    Renos and sweet debuts

    Have you ever lived through a big remodel? It seems tough- and add in some smaller kids, and a busy life, and then add in that the renovation is the most important room in the house (the kitchen), AND it is during the current supply chain crises- and this 7 month renovation is very close to being tied up in a bow and complete. To clarify, this isnt our house- but our good friends Chad and Rachel Lynam. It started with a few leaks from the bathroom AND the dishwasher, and after insurance, this beautiful kitchen got its debut. We were honored to be one of their first guests.

    Chad shaking it

    Though I didn’t get many good pics of the new kitchen, it was top-notch. The kids had a blast, the charcuterie was on-point, and this video captured the live-action entertainment pretty well.

    Top-notch
    Rosie and Wills having a big time

    And How Much?

    Online grocery store is amazing. Rosie has long-since known which sweet brands to ask for when we go to the grocery store (Oreos, Lucky Charms, Skittles, etc). Mercy is getting there. And one of the things I hate the most about being a parent is saying “no”- so if we can just avoid situations where I have to say “no” a whole lot, I win, right?

    The problem with buying things online is that it abstracts away the true cost of groceries.

    After going in to the store, I did notice something. Look at that image above. Though the ice cream was amazing, the price?

    $6.99

    (It was buy-one get-one free). I think I remember Breyers being $3.80 or something?

    AND, if that wasnt bad enough: look at the bottom left corner of that image. It is only 1.5 quarts: a half gallon of ice cream is no longer a half gallon of ice cream. It’s like someone took two scoops of my ice cream before I even got back to the house.

    I didn’t say anything when inflation came for my cat food, because I dont have a cat. I didn’t say anything inflation came for new house prices, because I’m not buying a new house. But now inflation is coming for my ice cream, and that just makes me sad.