Tag Archives: Peyton

New job, new hobby

March 21, 2011 Philip Sellers Leave a comment

Its been a while since we have updated the blog. Jen, Peyton and I are still settling into the new house. As spring has come around, we did something we’ve never done before. We turned off the heat and air conditioning. The house, because of how its built, is near steady temperature during this time of year and so we occasionally open a window to cool things down, but for the most part, the house is feeling great. We are also spending a lot of time on our screened back porch and talking. We have cut off the TV and we’re spending time in conversation and I am really enjoying that.

A little over a month ago, Jen began a new job at Coastal Carolina University (our alma mater) as their Sustainability Coordinator. She’s settling into her new opportunity and its going great. She has a lot of supportive students and staff and that’s making the work enjoyable. It is keeping her busy and there is a lot to do around campus building upon the success of her predecessor.

And last week, Peyton began gymnastics classes on Wednesday evenings. She’s so super excited about it and wants to show us both all that she has learned after class. Jen took her last week and she’s asked me to come this week so that we can both watch. She really really enjoys it and it was her choice of what to do. We will try to post some photos and video of her in coming weeks.

But things are doing pretty well in the Sellers house. More to come soon.

House completed, and we’ve moved

November 15, 2010 Philip Sellers Leave a comment

What a busy month it has been. Our house was completed on October 30 and we received our certificate of occupancy. The next day, we celebrated Peyton’s birthday and we were able to show the house off to Jen’s parents who came into town for the birthday celebration.

After receiving the certificate of occupancy, we still had a few minor things to be completed in the house – trim paining and the such – but all the major construction was completed.

We moved in the following week and although we planned to move furniture and rent a truck on Saturday, with the help of some of our fantastic friends, we were able to move in the last furniture late on Friday night. My cousin Brett, his wife Trina, and our friends Annie, Madelyn and Russell all were huge helps in moving us in so quickly, as well as unboxing when we got to the new house. My mom and dad came in on Friday during the day and helped unbox and move some of the bigger furniture, too.

Saturday night, we enjoyed a fantastic dinner welcoming us to the neighborhood. Our neighbor and friend Kendall fixed prime rib on the grill. Tammy and Kendall hosted all of us so that we could meet our neighbors and celebrate our new house. Tammy also prayed for and asked for blessing over our new home. Afterwards, we gave a tour to my cousin Amanda and her boyfriend Justin – and they helped us unpack some more afterwards.

Peyton is really enjoying her new room. She loves sleeping in there — and a bad habit she developed in the rental house has disappeared. A lot of nights in the rental, she would come into our room during the night – around 3am – but that hasn’t happened once in the new house. She loves her room and is really comfortable in it.

I’ll be posting some new photos soon of the completed house.

Green Home, Home, Home Building

Brief update on the house

September 10, 2010 Philip Sellers Leave a comment

A lot of progress on the house – will just be a brief post (see why here) – but siding is done; insulation was installed; drywall is installed and has been finished – ceiling were sprayed and finished; the screen porch was installed; doors are all in, except for the front door.

Milestones, Special Days

Peyton’s singing debut

April 11, 2010 Philip Sellers Leave a comment

Last month, Peyton made her singing debut. She had her first performance at my parents church, Brock’s Mill Baptist, on Sunday, March 14. She has enjoyed singing for a while, learning songs at daycare, from Hannah Montana and from music that we listen to. She had been telling us and my mom and she wanted to sing at Brock’s Mill. A couple weeks earlier, she had come home from staying with them telling her mom and I that she didn’t get to sing because her Gaga didn’t call on her to sing. So, the weekend of the 14th, she had told her Gaga several times on Saturday that she wanted to sing and when Sunday came around, my mom asked her again and she said yes. So after the choir sang during service, Peyton was sitting my dad’s lap and my mom asked her if she was ready and she hopped down from my dad’s lap, walked down the isle and took the microphone that my mom had for her. You’ll hear the rest on the recording below. Enjoy! Needless to say, we were extremely proud of our big girl.

Family, Special Days

Easter update

April 8, 2010 Philip Sellers Leave a comment

We celebrated Easter at the beach last weekend and Peyton enjoyed breakfast with the Easter bunny at Market Common. We ate at Travinia’s for breakfast and Peyton got to meet and have her picture made with the Easter bunny. After lunch, we all gathered in Valor Park for an Easter egg hunt. It was funny, because, the eggs were certainly not hidden. There were thousands of eggs spread all over the lawn and in bushes. The kids had a great time collecting eggs. On Sunday, we went to church and then drove to my Grandma Hancock’s house to have lunch with family. The kids got to hunt eggs again and Peyton had a blast playing with all her cousins.

http://picasaweb.google.com/s/c/bin/slideshow.swf

Family, Friends, Traveling

VMworld 2009 and San Francisco family trip

September 11, 2009 Philip Sellers Leave a comment

I was fortunate to get the opportunity to travel to San Francisco for work to attend VMworld. It was my first trip to the West coast and we had a great time. Jen has family living just north of San Francisco and visiting the area has been a trip we’ve been talking about since we got married. So, we decided to join the two events.

My conference ran from Monday, Aug 31 until Thursday, Sept 3. Jen, Peyton and I flew in a couple days early and we were able to meet a college friend, Tammy, and enjoy the San Francisco Zoo. We were also able to spend an afternoon playing in the park at Moscone Center and getting ourselves familiar with the section of the city we were staying in — Union Square area. I was impressed with the area.

Our hotel was on Powell Street, one of the cable car lines in the city — which runs all the way to Fisherman’s Wharf. On the same street as the cable car turn-around, we had the electric street cars and BART available for transit. I think we used all of the above at some point during our trip. We used the BART to get to our hotel from the SFO airport. It was no DC Metro, but it got the job done — cheaply.

Jen’s parents joined us for their first trip to the West coast in nearly 30 years. They flew in on Tuesday and stayed at a hotel in Fisherman’s Wharf. Jen and Peyton could take the street cars or cable cars there during the day and they had a lot of fun site seeing and touring the area. Jen’s aunt — Jim’s sister — Jeanette picked up her parents from the airport and took all of us on a tour of the city. The whole family, minus me, spent one day visiting UC Berkley and that area across the bay. Jim graduated from UC Berkley with an engineering degree, so it was good for him to see his alma mater and for Jen to get to visit it, too.

My conference wrapped on Thursday afternoon (coverage on the conference and my experiences are over on my tech blog). We took a tour of the city a bit, were able to take some photos and then we headed to family dinner in Tiburon — at Jeanette’s house.

We took a boat tour from Fisherman’s Wharf one evening. The trip took us from the wharf out the bay to the Golden Gate Bridge, under it briefly and then back to Alcatrez and back. The bridge and the ‘rock’ were very cool to see – up close and personal from the water.

We moved hotels from the city to Tiburon, too, that day. We stayed in the The Lodge at Tiburon, where Janet and Jim stayed after their wedding 34 years earlier. It is at the foot of the mountain where St. Hilary’s Church, where they were married, and Jeanette and Bill’s house is located next to the church on the hillside. The Inn was a nice place with a pool, fireplaces and a great restaurant.

Tiburon was fantastic. I think we all enjoyed our time there. It was relaxing and beautiful. We were lucky to be in town for the annual Labor Day parade and music in the park. We enjoyed a beautiful Saturday afternoon with music and the local parade.

We had a great dinner one evening at a restaurant on the bay with Jeanette, Bill and cousin Merrill. Merrill also treated us to a home-cooked dinner at her and Tinman’s beautiful townhouse.

As for sites, we visited Muir Woods one day. It is a redwood forest just north of San Francisco. It was really cool to see these huge towering trees. It was peaceful and serene. The trees were amazing.

Of course, we visited and took photos with the Golden Gate from the Marin Headlands and the visitor’s center just on the Sausalito side of the bay. I noticed on a couple trips back and forth across the bridge that they were painting the bridge. I’m told that once they finish, they have to start again painting the bridge – its a constant process.

We attended the Sausalito Art Festival on Monday with Merrill and got to see some of that area too. There were lots of great artists and the festival was great – more music and food. We also got a chance to see the San Francisco Bay model – a several acre model of the tidal basins and San Francisco bay. It was used by the US Army Corps of Engineers to simulate changes in the bay and ecological impact of changes to the bay.

Jen planned a special trip for me one day and we traveled south of San Francisco to Cupertino – home of Apple, Inc. We were able to visit the company store and drive around the campus and see the buildings where all these wonderful Apple products I enjoy were designed and created. We also drove through Mountain View – home of Google – on our way down. It was my first visit to Silicon Valley and was pretty cool to see headquarters for many of the major tech companies that we use at work and home.

All in all, it was a great trip. We enjoyed getting to see family, friends, the sites and enjoy life. It was an excellent break from things and maybe it was the thousands of miles in between, but we really got away from everything…

http://picasaweb.google.com/s/c/bin/slideshow.swf

Family, Friends, Traveling

Washington DC trip to see the grands

May 14, 2009 Philip Sellers Leave a comment

Sorry for my updates being few and far between. Life with a two year old is pretty hectic, but I’m just making excuses. We spent the end of last week in Washington, DC, visiting Jen’s parents. Peyton had a great time and Grandma and Papa Coffin’s house. On Friday, we visited the National Zoo and Saturday we visited Gravelly Point Park and National Harbor in Maryland. We had a great time seeing the grands and spending some time with friends in the area.

I’ve edited together a couple videos from our trip – one from the National Zoo and one from Gravelly Point Park. I’ve posted them both on YouTube and on our MobileMe gallery (links at the top of the page). Photos from the zoo are here…

http://picasaweb.google.com/s/c/bin/slideshow.swf

Peyton is doing really well. She’s expanding her vocabulary every day – sometimes to her mother’s and my dislike. She’s learning a lot and she continues to be very social at daycare. We have had a couple incidents where she has bitten another child at daycare, but hopefully that won’t be happening again. She was disciplined both a school and at home and we believe she learned her lesson. Even when playing now, if Jen or I even seem like we’re biting, she’ll stop us and say “no bite.”

Our baby girl has also developed a big love for animals. Elephants are her favorite. She saw her first elephants several months ago at the circus. We visited the circus again the following month after she begged to see the elephants, again. So, the visit to the zoo was nice for her to see the elephants. She also liked the tigers and panda bears.

She’s also mothering her dolls now. She likes to put them to sleep (under every kitchen towel, sheet, or blankey she owns). She’s also been heard disciplining them. I came into the living room one day to find Tigger, her doll, the elephant and a bunny all in “time-out”. I asked what they had done and they’d bitten (ding, ding – I think she got it!).

There should be more things posted soon. Jen and I celebrate our 7th wedding anniversary on June 1. We don’t have any special plans, as of yet. No special trip or anything planned, though we’ve got our fingers crossed for maybe making a trip to California in the fall…